The Cosmic Alarm Clock with Yanik Silver: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Imperfect Action. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down the cosmic alarm clock. To drop these value bombs, I brought Yannick Silver into EO Fire Studios. Yannick has been called a cosmic catalyst, a maverick mischief maker in a galactic goofball. He redefines how business is played at the intersection of more profits, fun, and impact. In today's foundation, we'll talk about how the intention is more important than the goal sending, about how it's not a one-way fits all for everyone.

0:41You have to create a path by walking your path, and your vision will carry you forward, and it will energize you to achieve your goal, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Yannick and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by my friend Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content.

1:17Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Yannick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Yeah. Hey, Fire Nation. So what I believe is that intention is even more important than goal setting.

1:57It's actually really interesting, like maybe when I was 17 or 18, I went to a Jim Rohn seminar and learned about that. And I love it. And then I started learning about goal setting where you could add, OK, or better or faster or, you know, or whatever. And it allows more more ways that the essentially the universe has to to conspire with you. So, you know, I want to become a millionaire by age 30 or sooner, et cetera. And then what really struck me was intention is even more important. And like, you know, why did I want to become that millionaire? It's for freedom. It's for, you know, working on projects that I want to work on with people that I work on and doing things that I love to help change the world.

2:38And that is the bigger intention. And so then whatever I can slot into that, that to me is even more important than goal setting. That's one thing I've kind of admired about your journey as a human being and as an entrepreneur, you know, watching it from afar. And at times in person, we've got to hang out. We've got to hang out a few times, specifically in Puerto Rico and the island of enchantment, as we call it. But you are that cosmic catalyst. You are that maverick mischief maker, that galactic goofball that we talked about during the introduction. And I love that. I love that it's not just like, okay, how can I just lock myself in my office and find out how to make the most money in the world?

3:17That's not your goal in life. That's some people's goal in life. And hey, if that really makes them happy, like good, go in off and do that. But I'm also in the same situation where I'm like, how can I enjoy life in the way that I want to enjoy it in the present moments? How can I get to a point where I feel like, okay, maybe I've done enough, enough in these areas where I've had to really grind it out to get my business to a certain level. But now I can say, now I want to focus more on health, on wellness, on relationships, on travel, on experiences, on philanthropy, or whatever that might look like.

3:52And again, Fire Nation, that comes from you just saying, you know what? I've gone to this point now where I'm at enough with X, Y, or Z, and now I want to shift some of my focus and take some things off of my plates to focus on some other things. But at the same time, we're going to be talking about some interesting topics today where maybe you can have a few more of these things in your life, even if you think you can't with what you've already built. But before we get into all that jazz, we're talking today, Yannick, about the cosmic alarm clock. So what the heck is the comic alarm clock? Yeah, the cosmic alarm clock is something that I think we all experience, sometimes multiple times in our lives.

4:34And it's like this little voice that gets bigger and bigger and bigger until we either answer it or hit snooze. And for a lot of people that might look like a business that they, you know, have, have sort of fallen out of love with or a job that they go to that they really hate or something that they're doing that kind of, you know, every way, every day that they're doing it, it kind of sucks a little bit of their soul out of them. And then this cosmic alarm clock is this opportunity to be like, okay, well, there's something bigger, there's something more. So the entrepreneurs I typically work with are the ones asking now what, like they've already been successful, whatever we define as success, and they're asking now what?

5:10And it also requires to kind of give up something. Typically, it's some part of our identity. It's usually a big leap into connecting your head, which is your business side, with your heart, which is the impact you want to make in the world, and then your higher purpose. Like, why are you here? And whatever got you here is not going to be the same thing that gets you over that leap. Whatever got you here, Fire Nation, is not going to get you over that final leap. Like, I love that phrase. And I love, you know, asking yourself that question. Have you ever asked yourself, now what? Like you've gotten to a certain point and you're just like, now what?

5:45And so many entrepreneurs, Yannick, let's just be honest. They feel like they can't add anything onto their plates without sacrificing everything they've already built. They kind of feel like, well, maybe this is like a house of cars that'll all collapse. You, however, have a way that entrepreneurs can lean into that quote unquote, what's next, the quote unquote, now what, and not sacrifice everything. Can you share that process? It's not one way fits all for everyone. It's like, you know, I have kind of some of the, maybe a little bit of the map, but you have to create your own. It's almost like by walking the path, you create your own, your own path, right?

6:22So for each person, it's different, but you all, everyone gets to the same spot, which is that connection that, that head, heart, higher purpose. And for me, it was my cosmic alarm clock was asking, am I happy? would I be happy doing what I'm doing 10 years from now? And, and it really kind of came on as like, I don't know, a bit of like malaise, somewhat depression, somewhat like just frustration of, of, and it was really fascinating because I was doing, I was doing a lot of good, right? Like there's no event or anywhere I'd go where somebody wouldn't come up to me. A lot of times someone I didn't know would be like, dude, you changed my life.

6:55You don't even know it because I was helping people take their information and content and sell it online. But I just knew there was something more. And then that started this whole journey of what would that look like? And it was the first time ever, uh, that, that things didn't quite work out. And it was, it was fascinating because it became like, um, you know, when I talk about giving up something like, so for me, that identity of being quote unquote, a successful entrepreneur was something I had to look at. Like, is your net worth connected to your, your, uh, your, your self-worth in some way?

7:25Like, how are you, what do you have to give up here? And, and so you don't have to, you know, sacrifice everything that you built. If you're able to truly just step into it and say, okay, I am, I am going to surrender to the, to the bigger, I don't know, bigger universe, bigger, something that's showing up for me. And then I'm going to follow the guidance because following your heart is frequently scary, but but never wrong and and so that's a whole process of like deep questions too so you know that what would i do if i you know this 10-year question but also like one of my favorite questions especially as things were going sideways john was what would my 111 year old self tell me and and that was a really really big one so you start getting guidance from a lot of different ways you start seeing maybe synchronicities open up signs signals like just things that that you start paying attention to and not in the same way that probably of how you built your original thing fire nation a lot of this is are you being self-reflective are you actually giving yourself time space energy on a consistent basis to sit down to maybe journal to maybe meditate to self-reflect actually just think and think about the things that yannick was just talking about?

8:40Am I happy? Will I be happy 10 years from now? What would my 111 year old self tell me? That very wise person, what would that individual tell me? Being like, hey, this was important in life. You screwed the pooch because guess what? You were focused on the wrong things. Think of yourself as that 111 year old person, you know, hypothetically about to be checking out because, you know, it's probably about the extent of your life in a lot of ways, at least with today's current technology. And I do love a Steve Jobs quote that was kind of coming up for me when you were talking Yannick, which is when you look in the mirror every day, ask yourself, do I love what I'm doing?

9:27And if you start finding yourself saying no more times than not over the course of a few weeks, then it's time to reflect and change course. And that's not an exact quote, but that's essentially what he was saying was look at the mirror every day and just be honest and say, do I love what I'm doing? And you're not going to say yes every single day. Don't expect to be a hundred out of a hundred. That's not the point. The point is if you start being like one out of seven or like two out of 10, where you're saying yes, then it's time to start saying, okay, like I know I'm going to have some bad days, but now I'm having like 70, 80, 90 % of my days.

10:02I'm honestly saying to myself, no, I do not love what I'm doing, then it's time to maybe look at ways to adjust the pivot. And sometimes, by the way, it's not going to be these huge adjustments, these huge pivots. Sometimes it might just be a little tweak, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Like for some people I know, they said, hey, I fell out of love with my business, but then I hired the perfect hire, the integrator or the social media market or whatever it was for that. And that changed everything for their life. And I had asked myself that question years ago, And something that I know that you know that I've done now for 91 months in a row is I've published our monthly income reports.

10:37Well, guess what? My business has been doing fantastic for 91 months. We've never had a month under$100 ,000 of net revenue. And many months we're at three, four, sometimes even$600 ,000 of net revenue. But guess what? My business has not grown revenue wise. Because I asked myself years ago, would I be happier working five times harder to make 2x, 3x, even 5x more revenue? And the answer was absolutely not. So I work five days a month right now. And those days are hard, by the way. I work really hard five days a month. But the other days, I'm doing other things. Like I'm traveling. I'm enjoying life.

11:18if I'm working on health and wellness and my garden and my dog and all the things that I would rather be doing than working five times harder in my office just to make more revenue because I've gone to a place where right now, and this could always change because I'm self-reflective, but right now I'm truly at enough. And Fire Nation, you've heard Yannick say a couple times, head, heart, higher purpose. We're gonna talk about that and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. You know your customers want fast, personalized support, but how do you find a customer service solution that actually delivers?

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13:05Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs.

13:44That's thought-leader.com slash fire. Yannick, we're back, and I want to move and shift into talking about higher purpose. You've mentioned it a couple times very briefly in passing, but how do you truly, and I mean truly connect your head, your heart, and higher purpose? Definitely not one of those one-size-fits-all kind of things, and it's not a five-minute exercise. It's a deep reflection like you were talking about. on before, like, you know, sometimes it's a meditation. It's, it's, it's really going deeper. It could be journaling. Um, but it's that self-reflection. I believe in, in this vivid vision, vivid vision that my friend Cameron Harrell created.

14:21And then also another guy named Ari Weinsweg, who's a co-founder of Zingerman's, which is a really interesting group of companies. And they had never met until I put them together and they're both very deep in this vision. And so like when you were talking about just before, like, you know, your vision was, was this thing. And then, you know, you didn't want to work five times harder. So you had a very distinct vision for what you wanted to do. And that vision really carries us forward. Like what energizes us so much that just jazzes you up that like literally you couldn't stop yourself from doing even if nobody paid you kind of thing.

14:52Like it just is so exciting. And, and for me, it's like creating ideas with with other people and creating these overlays of how it's going to create impact around the world and these multiple facets and how it's good for everyone. and and then you know I asked my 111 year old self when things were kind of going sideways with with Maverick uh and the answer was light a thousand suns who can each light another thousand suns and that was the answer I got but using my non-dominant hand and that's a real interesting way of also getting some deeper wisdom and connecting to your full brain and and so that you know that really shifted so many things it shifted my vision it shifted like what we were doing within our group of who I was serving.

15:34And so when you get that kind of epiphany, then that starts driving your higher vision of really truly like, why are you here? That kind of thing. That level of kind of work. This is really fascinating stuff, Fire Nation. This is the kind of deep reflective thought that it's really important to go through sooner than later because you don't want to be 111 years old and having these thoughts for the very first time. You want to be the age you are right in this moment and be having these thoughts. So you can be setting the path now to spend the next 20, 60, however many years left you have to be living in this higher purpose, to be connecting your head, your heart with this higher purpose.

16:16Now you have a journal, Yannick, it's called The Cosmic Journal. How can we, Fire Nation, get the most out of your journal? Yeah, so I've been journaling for many years. I think journaling is probably one of the best success principles, foundational success principles you can apply because it gets all the things that we've got as entrepreneurs kind of bubbling around inside our head and swirling around. And they're out on paper and it creates a beginning, middle and end on that page of paper. And it's been scientifically proven to make us happier. And so there's literally any if you like give yourself.

16:49I love experiments to John says, like if you can give yourself a 21 day or 33 day experiment and say, OK, I'm going to take 15 minutes per day or 10 minutes per day and just journal. You'll get you'll get something out of it or anything you want to add or subtract. Right. Like I've done it with no alcohol or no sugar or I've done it with like meditation or different things. And then you see, does this improve my life or not? And the best part about an experiment is that there's an end to it. and you can decide, you know, is this useful to me or not? And how do I want to add it or not add it? And so this journaling process is really, really powerful because the Cosmic Journal came out of me doing another experiment, which was a hundred day art challenge that I saw.

17:29But to me, 108 days has more meaning, especially in the wisdom tradition. So I committed and it was a very hard commitment. And I do think the commitments we keep to ourselves are really, really powerful. It builds that muscle. And so 108 days of literally every single day, I was going to illustrate a page in a journal, in my journal. And so I would doodle, illustrate something. And then a lot of times it'd be like whatever came through me, I meditate and whatever came through me or be like taking old journals and writing what I wanted to recapture. and I was doing it just for myself. And when I hand it to people, I call it the galactic instruction manual you were missing when you were born to re-remember your destiny here.

18:10And then it started, like after about day 60 or 70, it started working like an oracle. I would just flip it open. I'd be like, okay, what do I need to know? And it was just so powerful. And then one of my friends saw it. He's like, I see how you light up about this. I'm going to pay to actually create this, you know, limited edition version for you. And I'm like, that's amazing. And then it turned into like me getting a meeting with Reed Tracy from Hay House. And he's like, I've never seen anything like this. And, you know, he was best friends with Wayne Dyer. They're one of the biggest transformational book publishers out there.

18:37And and so that turned into a journal and then a set of Oracle cards. Like so it's the most inflow project I've ever, ever done. And literally every single night when I got that checkbox, I call it a cosmic checkbox. I'm just doing something that you love and that you feel so fully utilized. Like it was truly. and this is one of the ways of really doing what is your greatest work is, is from the Bhagavad Gita, it talks about like, you're only entitled to your labor, right? So putting your full heart and soul into something, but not the fruits of your labor. And, and so when you do that, and that's what this was, it's been the most magical project I've ever put out.

19:14This is fantastic stuff, Fire Nation. And I love how Yannick was talking about experiments. is this useful to me or not? And then you add or you don't add it to your life. And I've been doing this now for years with my morning routine. I've always been like listening to health coaches or I've been consuming great content and saying, how can I like continue to try to update and improve and tweak and adjust and just maximize my morning routine? Like the 90 minutes that I spend every morning doing stuff. And sometimes I add things and they stay there for a couple of weeks and then I find they really don't serve me.

19:48and I then take them out of my morning routine because I can't do everything. So I've got to find the things that really do work for me and it all comes through experimentation. So now every morning, you know, it's a walk with my dog outside, getting in the fresh air and the sun and the breeze and all that jazz. And then it's working out with weights and then it's doing a stretching exercise that I have for 12 minutes. Then it's jumping in my infrared sauna for 30 minutes and I had just got installed a cold plunge, which is very much serving me. So now I'm doing a three minute cold plunge after my sauna.

20:18And then I'm moving over and then I'm kind of like, you know, starting my day, so to speak. And like, this is how my morning routine has evolved over the years. There's been different things, but I've always been experimenting to see what works and what serves me. So Yannick, we've talked about a lot of interesting, a lot of self-reflective, a lot of higher purpose individual, as well as, you know, focus points today. What is one thing you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about? And then, of course, share how we can learn more about this cosmic journal and things that you have going on.

20:52And then we'll say goodbye. All right. So here's what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to actually, I can pick a card or I'm going to have you pick a card. Okay, I'll pick it. That's going to tell us what we're going to be as our last bit. So pick a number between 1 and 44. 14. You know, in the show notes, I'm sure you can include the image too. Sure. Because the image will be good. This is funny. All right. So it's find your star family in this cosmic game of hide and seek. So part of your mission here on Earth is to put the gang back together. It's time to assemble your star family whose members were dispersed like seeds to the solar wind.

21:29There's a cosmic hide and seek we all play until we meet again in the most serendipitous and magical ways. Then something clicks. A deep knowing of sharing something more than just this moment together across multiple lifetimes. once the gang is back together and the circles have been formed there's another level assemblage needed to bring these lights together and even greater circles for an even greater purpose so and then i'm going to give you the um give fire nation the cosmic catalyst which is the prompt for today so the journal prompt which is who do i have a special connection with how are we connected in the galactic game and then your cosmic check box which is an action item within 24 hours is come up with names for your own circle.

22:11What is this gathering's greater purpose? So in a way, this is kind of like a mastermind. Yeah, maybe even not quite, but it could be. But so the prompt again is the cosmic catalyst is who do I have a special connection with? How are we connected in the galactic game? And then come up with names for your own circle. And what is this gathering's greater purpose? So it's amazing. Like, so, you know, I've been studying Jim Henson a lot recently and one of his quotes and I'll probably mess it up, but it's something like there's no name for this idea that when we meet somebody for the first time that they feel like old friends.

22:45And, and I love that, that concept of like, and that's what this feels like, right? Like it's, it's like when you connect with somebody and you're like, Oh, you know, they, they, you know, we share something deep together and, and let's, let's form this, this bond, this alliance, get the gang back together. And what does that even look like? Get the gang back together, Fire Nation. Hello. And what I love is like, this is just going to be kind of like your little random cosmic guide as you're going forward and learning and experimenting and trying. And again, you want to go back to that word experiment because I think that's so key and so important.

23:20So where, Yannick, can we find out more about you and about the Cosmic Journal? And then we'll say goodbye. Check out cosmicjournal.com or you can obviously pick it up on hayhouse.com or Amazon. Uh, so the cards are the cosmic journey, Oracle deck or the cosmic journal itself. Have some fun with this fire nation. Have some fun. Cosmicjournal.com or again on Hay House, Amazon, you name it. And you know, this fire nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with Yannick and JLD today. So please keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com type Yannick, Y-A-N-I-K in the search bar.

23:59His show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about, the image. So definitely email that over to me, Yannick, so we can get that on the show notes page. Timestamps, links to everything, you name it. And of course, I've done other interviews over the years with Yannick, and that will pop up as well in the search bar. So listen to those, because obviously you can tell this guy is a different kind of thinker, which is really important. And Yannick, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother, and we will catch you on the flip side.

24:30It's been a pleasure. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Yannick. And Fire Nation, I've created a treasure trove of free courses for you. I teach you how to podcast, run a mastermind, create funnels that convert, and so much more. All you need to do is visit eofire.com slash resources to start learning for free today. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. Success Story, hosted by my friend, Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.