If You're a Student of Life… Then You Are in the Right Place - Iyanla Vanzant

Welcome to The Ultimate Coach Podcast conversations from being inspired by the book The Ultimate coach written by Amy Hardison, and Alan Thompson. Join us each week with the intention of expanding your state of being, and your experience will be remarkable. Remember, this is a podcast about be. It is a podcast about you. To explore more deeply visit the ultimate Coach book.com. Now, enjoy today's conversation from being

Iyanla Vanzant Welcome to the show. Welcome to the ultimate coach podcast. The Anna lovely to have you in the studio with us today. And I wanted to start off with a real challenging question. Okay. Are you a good person? Yes, I am. And I was hoping you'd say that.

Well, I could say no, I'm ragged creature. Say that because, you know, having grown up in the United States indoctrinated with a very heavy religious concept of being born wretched and drag it and needing to be saved, that governed the very first portion of my life. And I had to unlearn that and you know, sometimes unlearning is more difficult than learning. You know, when you learn something, particularly if you're interested, you dive in and you get in it. But when you got to unlearn something, oh, my God. So yeah, I am a good person and I was born that way is nothing I had to do, or or acquire. And so many people don't know that, that they are good.

Well, I can always trust and you answer that so beautifully. And you're probably wondering why he asked me that question. The reason I wanted to ask you this, I want to know how much of more of a better person you've become since you've had Steve Hardison in your life. Ah,

let me see how much more you know, here's my concept. This is just life according to a younger pay me no mind. It's not that I became better. Because you're born good. You're born holy, you're born divine noble, you don't get more of that what you get is a greater awareness of it. And Steve has such a way of affirming and acknowledging who you are at the core of your being, that he brings you to a greater awareness of what is there and I think that is what makes him the ultimate coach.

Your name is synonymous with the ultimate coach book, which came out late last year, and it's impacted the lives of many, many people, myself included. But no one the people that don't know about you don't know about you know, I wonder if you might share a 62nd synopsis of who Jana Van Zandt is when she's at home.

When I'm at home? Yeah, well, I'm a dog owner

of Pomeranians, causing havoc in the background by the sounds

Pomeranians. One nine peace, one main freedom, because that's what I'm affirming in my life. And so when I call them, I'm reminding myself of what life is about peace and freedom. And when I'm at home, I, you know, at my age, I don't remember a lot. So I tried to be consistent. So I don't have to remember what to do and not do what to say and what to not say, at home. I'm a great grandma, on my grandma. I'm a mom. I'm a cook. I'm a quilter. I'm a reader, and I'm a student of life, so that I can be a great teacher.

Thinking of student, that's how you and Steve met.

Yeah, we were students at the University of Santa Monica, studying for a master's degree. And this was this great big, tall, beautiful white guy. And, and I was one of the few little brown spots in the environment. And as always, I'm going for, you know, the most the least likely. And so Steve will strike up a conversation with cheese on a cracker. He will talk to anybody in any bag. And so we just kind of gravitated toward each other from across the room across the class. And we started talking, and then we were paired up in one of the exercises that we had to do and I think because he was so large, and so beautiful. People may have been a little intimidated by him. But I'm from Brooklyn. The only thing that intimidates me is I don't even know what it is, you know? So, you know, we kind of tangled it up there together, but it was good.

Thanks your lucky day? Yeah, not because I can do a couple of impressions. And one of them is from I'm gonna get you to guess who are gonna me?

That's who he is.

Do you remember your first ever conversation with Steve and it was the long shot.

I think my first conversation with him we were outside doing door during lunch. And the students kind of gathered around outside. And if I'm not mistaken, he said something to me, like, tell me who you are. Or you just walk up to stain somebody and tell him tell me who you are. And I told him, I am Yama. No, and he stood there. And I said, what else do you want to know? You know, I didn't say my name is Yama. I said, I am a Yama. And the younger means great mother. So I explained that to him. And I don't know what the rest of the conversation was about. I think the next day we went to lunch together and there was a there was a bunch of us there at lunch together. But we've talked about so many things. So the funny thing for me is I remember I was talking to him about a dear friend of mine, Tavis Smiley. And Steve had no idea who Tavis Smiley was. And Tavis Smiley is one of the premier African American male journalists in the country. But in typical Steve fashion, he went off and studied about Tavis Smiley and came back and tell me everything except what color shoes he had on that day. You know, and so he acknowledged to me, he said, You know, I don't know a lot about the African American community, you know, and so he would ask me questions. And then whenever his community was doing something, in support of the African American community in his church, because you know, he's very active in his spiritual community, he would send me articles, I have two boxes, huge boxes of articles that Steve has sent me over the years, and he hasn't sent me one in a while, you know, I have to find out why he would send me articles about what his spiritual community was doing and how it was impacting and affecting the African American or the African community. And I was very, very, very encouraged by that. But the one thing I love about Steve is if he doesn't know something, or if he wants to know something, he will ask you straight up no chaser, he doesn't mince mince around. And he's willing to acknowledge what he doesn't know aware. He needs more information. I love that about him.

Now, what's really interesting, Jana Well, it's interesting to me at least is that I am not religious, I don't identify with any particular religion, but I become superduper spiritual over the last few years, and, and remaining open to what that might look like in the future. And I seem to be attracting a lot of Christian and Seventh Day Adventist people into my life. And it's really fascinating, and I have no idea what religious affinity that you have currently. But why do you think that is?

Well, two reasons. I think that they see the light, you know, and particularly if they really do have a deep spiritual practice, they see the light. And my experience has been over the past couple of years, Christians Seventh Day Adventists, and Catholics are really questioning. They're really questioning their walk their path their way, not turning away, but questioning. It's like they know there's more. And then that really clear or sure about what that is. And also when you embrace a specific religious doctrine, not spiritual but religious doctrine. It can be frightening, to kind of walk away from or look beyond what you've been taught and given. So they look for a gentleness and they look for an openness, where they can inquire, to receive whatever it is that they may be looking for in a moment.

Yeah, thank you for enlightening me with that as well. One of the main experiences when I had Mr. Wintley Phipps, come on the podcast. I'm guessing you know him, and hopefully you've heard him sing and he sang. He sang Amazing Grace acapella on the show. One of the most memorable moments of my life.

Being he can sing a dog on

anything with what's happening in the in the universe right now? Yeah. What advice would you give to people that are on the brink of breakdown?

Go in, you know, you're on a break of breakdown on the brink of breakdown, because you're focusing without, and what you need to know is within. And we've been so programmed, conditioned, educated, that it's about our physical senses, what we can see what we can hear what we can taste, what's going on out here. And I think one of the powerful lessons of the pandemic was Go in, go home, and home is the heart, you know, get still, let me stop moving around. And, you know, be careful or pay attention or take time to to really assess what's going on. But we were looking at the news and assessing it and about the pandemic, when the broader lesson was, it's for you, boo, go in, and go home, be still sit down, start the movement, stop the external quest, and make it an inside quest. So for me, the pandemic was really an opportune moment in time for people to re assess and rebuild and refresh and reprogram themselves. And unfortunately, many people didn't do a good job. And so much resistance to the stillness and the home life. And but many people woke up many, many people woke up. Yeah,

people that that haven't come across your work, you kind of gently glossed over it. And I'm so I'm going to say it for you. If you don't know about a Anna's work, you really must check out what she's done, because she's been involved with at least 15 books that are an RVer. And one of the most prolific speakers on the globe and doing some amazing work in the spirituality, space and countless other endeavors I'm sure that I haven't even heard about. And I'm curious to know, at what age did you figure out that you were doing your purpose, your divine? Oh,

at what age? Well, let me just say some days I still question I probably was, when I got this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Because by training, I'm a criminal defense attorney, a lawyer, and I practice criminal law. And I was 30. I didn't go to law school till I was 30. And I left practicing law when I was 35. You know, so of all the people out there who think it's too late, forget that. And I was about 3536, when I realized I didn't go to law school to learn about man's law. I went to law school to learn a how to think because I had never been trained how to think and be to study the to learn about laws of life, and God's law laws of the universe, because that's what I teach now. And so yeah, I was but but it didn't really land firmly in my belly until I was about 45. And it was like, Oh, damn, okay, this is what I'm doing.

I I'm so blessed Jana, to figure that out when I was 39. And the world's best coverage coach, which I can thank Mr. Steve harness and Mr. Chris Dora. So I know, you know, for that revelation that has transformed my life and that, not from an ego statement. It's a commitment that I make to myself every day, that that is mind bogglingly good and my life has transformed as a result. And I'm curious to know, how did your life transform when you walked into there?

I realized that a couple of things. Number one is that my life is not my own. It belongs to a higher, more divine source than me that is within me. But if I commit my every breath, every thought, every word, every action, to that source, my life will provide for me, everything that I desire. When you're living just for you, when you think your life is about your business, you live very small, lives small. And so when I realized okay, this is for this purpose I was born to teach the foundation of spiritual Universal Law and spiritual principles as practical tools for living your life. And to use the gift of speech because that's my gift, My gift is in my voice, it's in my speaking, to use that not for me not to make money and not to be famous and not to, but to anchor the will of the Creator on the planet. Everything about me transformed who I am, how I do, what I do, why I do it, who I do it with, what to expect, what to stop expecting, it's like a level of surrender, that I'm still learning. Because the good thing about being in your purpose is that you have to constantly learn how to surrender your will to Divine Will, how to be in the flow, how to trust where you are, and what you're doing is serving something greater than you even when it makes absolutely no sense. None. And that's why as Steve coaches, his clients, to be in your excellence, to be in your greatest expression to be greater and grander than you ever imagined possible because you are

Stevie have a throw you in the pool?

No, are no black people in the pool? Ah, many of us grew up on the projects and we see no pool. No, no, you don't throw black people in pool.

Why I see why I realize the AMA, I know a number of people listening that are in this coaching community at various levels. Yeah, myself included. And there's a lot of people that are in this community that have gone through huge adversity major traumas in their life. And you touched on something before he even have moments in your own existence, where you might doubt what you are doing, whether it's the right part, how do you identify that, that you're having that? And then how do you move forward?

Well, I can tell you where I am right now, at the ripe old age of 70.

Oh, you look good.

Well, you can't take too much. Because you forget everything and people's bones might be creaking. It's the mastering the art of surrender. You know, the thing that I've learned through the many adversities and challenges of my own life, is, you know, really what I learn in from scripture, which is of myself, I can do nothing. So I have to turn it over to a power greater than me, it's like the first step in AAA, I admit that my life has become unbearable, and there's a power greater than myself that can bring me back to balance. So it's the constant mastering of surrender, turning everything over to a higher purpose. Now that has some prerequisites, it means you have to know that there is a higher power, that there is source God Creator, whatever you call it, that it's on your side. You know, those two bigs, some people will say, it's there, but then they think it's out to get that, you know, that there is a higher power that is on your side, that despite all of your degrees and your experience and what you think it knows better than you. And that if you turn everything over to it, you will be given the way now that also requires that you have a daily practice that keeps you in touch with. I don't care if it's journaling, if it's meditation, if it's prayer, if it's yoga, but something that keeps you in touch with that which is greater than you on your side, and really wants the best for you. So when you're going through an adversity, you've got to have an escape route. You know, and for me, the escape route is go in, look to something bigger than me and my little, you know, dramatic hysteria and know that what comes forward is exactly what I need in the moment. That's how I deal with adversity. And, and the thing I was reading something this morning, and this is what trips people up. Most of the adversity that we face so much of the adversity we face in life comes from those who are closest to us, family. And so you can be on purpose, you can be doing great in the world successful everywhere. And then when the family disrupts, it can make you feel not only off balance, it can make you feel fraudulent, like, how am I doing this in the world, and my family has a bunch of, you know, nut balls that need to be locked up in the zoo, and I can't manage them. I can't manage that. And what I had to learn was, I don't know what's on their docket. I don't know what they're learning. But I've invited them into my experience to teach me something. So instead of focusing on what they're learning, let me focus on what I need to learn. You know, in this moment, and again, going within getting still leaning into whatever that internal source of strength and power is. You know, one of the things that I when I'm coaching somebody, although I don't do private coaching anymore. I say when your back is up against the wall, what do you lean on? What do you lean on when your back is up against the wall? You know, Oh, yeah. The wall is the wall. No, well, what is your wall made out of?

I can find better walls.

Because some people's wall are made up of their pain, their struggle, their suffering, some people's walls are made up of their fear, their anger, their aggression, some people's walls are made up of all the you know, false ideas about who they are what you all made out of. And when you lean on it, does it lift you up? Or does it just give you a place to stay? That's called stuck so much wall made out of you know,

that so much, Jana I my adversity stemmed from nothing more innocuous than being a child of divorce and having a mum and a dad who were ill equipped to esteem themselves fully, let alone their children and they did the best they could with the tools that are available and and you know, I had to D Learn or unlearn like you said earlier, really everything and then to relearn, it's been a really challenging period. I wouldn't change it for the world, mind you. But I know people will be thinking, oh, you know, but like, it sounds like you had a pretty good upbringing. What was your upbringing? Like,

what, wait a minute, you cannot be a black woman in the United States in the late in the early 1950s. And have a good upbringing. Shut my mouth. That is just loving possible. I am a African American. I am an African Native American and Latin descent. So I'm black, brown and red. So from the ghettos of the urban environment, to the the plains of the reservation, to the barrio, el barrio in New York, you know, we're, we're Latin people were just benignly, neglected. So I grew up in poverty. I grew up in violence I grew up in, you know, like you said, adults who were totally ill equipped, and not only ill equipped within themselves in their home, to raise children, but they were demeaned, demoralized, and diminished and the world, read people, black people, brown people. And so I grew up with inherited limitations and restrictions and fears and angers and you know, false beliefs that I had to unlearn. So, but the thing can I tell you a quick story, please. Yeah. So here's how I teach it. Every Sunday, let's say every Sunday morning, in a place the Beyond The Beyond that some people call heaven, the Creator God source, whatever it is for you has a Sunday jazz brunch. And at this brunch, there's a incredibly beautiful array of all kinds of, you know, foods in big shrimp and chicken and salad and anything whether you're vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian or just, you know, downhome meat eater you to eat there, and there's a beautiful jazz band playing in the background. And all the souls who are ready to become human are invited to this lunch, and they all mingle and spin around and they talking with each other and then eventually God Source Creator comes and sits down to give out life assignments, and those souls that are really well developed that may have lots of experience, they get to sit in the front row. And the younger selves they're sitting behind. And they're so excited to see God's Source Creator. And the food is so good. Nobody goes to sleep while the teaching is going on. And God Source Creator will tell you about all of the life assignments that are being given out that night for all of the people who are going to make love and conceive life. And they'll tell you, this is going to be this is Bertha and Edward, and with drinks a little bit, and Bertha has lost her voice. But the child that's born to them is going to have to learn this, this this. And this is Festus and Lulu bow and fist. This is a fireman, and Lulu Belle wants to be a dancer, but she got pregnant early in her life. So her and Festus had to get married because that was the rule. And he tells you all of the life assignments that are available, where you going, who you're being born to, and what you're going to have to learn. And then he waits for the souls who are becoming human to raise their hand and accept an assignment. And they do particularly the wise one sitting in the front row because creator will look at him and kind of wink, letting them know I really want you to take this okay, and you raise your hand. And then Bertha and Edward or festen, Lulu Belle or James and Pearl will make love that night and you'll be conceived. And you'll just state and then you'll be born and you come into the world and they pat you on your behind and you forget everything God said. And then you go through your life trying to figure out why am I here. Point being you choose where you're born and who you're born to. That is your docket. That is your life assignment. And everything that you've experienced everything that I've experienced everything that you experience, it was what was on the docket, to remember what God Source Creator told you at that jazz brunch. Because if he wasn't not the brunch, you wouldn't have gotten the life assigned. So that's how I think about it.

Every year that was on my docket, it was my contract that I made to come here to learn this to be with these people. So my soul chose to be black, red and brown. My soul chose a mother who was an alcoholic and would die when I was too much soul chose a father who was a womanizer and a gambler who was emotionally unavailable. My soul chose a grandmother who would be physically and emotionally violent towards me, my soul chose it. So I can't complain about the way my lessons have unfolded.

You and Dr. Brian Weiss would write a really great book together.

I love Brian I love him.

It. Ya know, what I'm most proud of in my own healing journey is I really truly feel like I've broken that intergenerational trauma in my family. And I'm curious to know whether you think that's something you've been able to achieve as well?

Absolutely not. Because as a brown and black person, it's in our DNA. So I'm watching my grandchildren and my great grandchildren walk through what my what I walked through what my mother and father walked through, because it's so reinforced in society is so reinforced in society. It's challenging to teach my grandson's how to be in the world when they have to look at a George Floyd. What do I tell them about that? Or when you have to look at, you know, the many things that go on, I'm not claiming right and wrong, good, bad. I'm just saying so part of the generational curse for black and brown people is how we are received in the world. So I approach it very differently with them than I did when I was 16 and a black panther. I approach it very differently. But until the world itself shifts, it's rather hard to eliminate some of the generational patterns that I experience as a person of color. But many of the things the poverty Yes, that's gone. The violence in the home. Yes, that's gone. And then every one born in my family, you know, from my father's side, my mother's side, my children, they have their own curriculum, they have their own docket. So how they clear it and when they clear it, it's a choice. The good news is I know what I'm looking at now. I know what I'm looking at so I can approach it and teach it differently and offer a different perspective. But it definitely has not ended for us. But I know how to heal it.

Maybe, maybe I need to rethink whether what I think I've achieved versus reality might be a different thing I'd certainly improved exponentially. And it sounds like, that's exactly what you've done as well.

Yeah, I have proved exponentially I, you know, as a Red Woman, we're red people have a very, you know, minimal voice in the society and are taught that who they are, and their ways of being are not acceptable, I find that I can teach the way of the red people and how to walk the land, and how to honor the philosophy, the spiritual philosophy of red people, as a brown person or Latin person, who's who have just been diminished and, and dismissed in many ways still going on. If you look at the image, the whole status of immigrants, I see it very differently. And I know how to speak to it without the anger or the upset or the rage, but just to bring people to a new level of awareness. And as a African American, to be able to speak to the level of you know, it's, it's up right now, you know, the racism, the diminishing and demoralizing of people of color. What we just saw that people were killed in the supermarket simply because of the color of their skin. We need to talk about that, you know, and understand that that's not for African Americans to heal. That's not for us to heal. And that in many ways we can't. It's going to take people like you like Steve like the common everyday housewife to come together because it's happening over and over and over. And so yeah, we've we've got a lot of healing to do.

On my, my other podcast, yeah. And I interviewed a guy Scott Shepard, who's friends with Darrell Davis, who's known as Scott Shepard the reformed racist. He was a former Grand Dragon and the Ku Klux Klan. And I came to know about a muse on Tony Robbins, his podcast, and I was fascinated to speak to this guy. And we had a conversation about what his childhood was like. He, he had a horribly abusive alcoholic father who murdered murdered puppies against the wall, threw them against the wall, and one of the one of the many horrendous things and I'm sorry to trigger anyone if that's if that's the case. But when he when he wanted to join the clan before he joined the clan, he tried to join the mob. He tried to join a number of other organizations. He was seeking, just connection connection and the other members of the clan. I said, Well, what were their childhoods, like? They're all the same. So for me, the way to solve this problem across all race increase is to address this dysfunction that happens as a child. That's something that I'm super passionate about, right? We're gonna get, you know, and I remember when you're talking to Chris stars, about what wasn't taught school, it's what's taught at home, and the importance of that. And it's just one of those things that as we progress through this healing journey that you and I are on, like, it's just gonna get better and better and better.

Yeah, you know, the thing that we have to heal globally, are the broken hearts of children. Because while you grew, I grew, people grow. Unless that heartbreak is healed, we just get broken adults. You know, I was a broken adult, because my heart was broken. When I was two and a half, my mother died, and nobody told me, so I didn't have the cognitive development to say, Where's mommy or where's my mother? So I grew up until I was 30. Believing one woman was my mother and she wasn't. That's a level of emotional break and emotional deceit and deception and pain that impacted every area of my life. So whether it's your daddy throwing puppies against the wall, or nobody affirming you, or whatever it is, all of us have some level of childhood heartbreak that festers and infects who we become as adults. And if we don't deal with that, because the problem racism isn't a problem politics or sociology, it's a problem of the heart. There's something that we heard or learned or what taught or saw as children, that makes us think that it's okay for me. Need to be better than or that person would be less than me simply because of the color of their skin. So and so and that heart condition is passed on from generation to generation. Now you have done work and or Steve, or the millions and millions of people of white descent who have done the work. But if you don't get down into the cell level, if you don't get down into that heartbreak, whether it's about racism, or poverty, or gender, or whatever it is, it's still going to bleed through, it is still going to bleed through. And so that's the level of work that we have to do. We have to expand our emotional library, and our cognitive emotional ability to really understand what's going on in here. So that we can just be what you say, good people,

I'm doing the best I can to be a good person as often as I can, but even human like the rest of us, but I gotta say, since I quit drinking Jana, I do way less stupid things, right, six years, six years stone cold site sober in August. And best thing I ever did for myself. And if you saw what I used to look like, as a big fatty to

the brilliant is that the mind will give us whatever we need to move through the pain until we're ready to release it. So for some, it's drinking for some, it's, you know, drugs for some it's sex, shopping, eating whatever it is. That's brilliant to me. And the grace is the day that you wake up and say, I'm done with this. I'm done for some people is lying. You know, for some people, it's, you know, just angry violence. But grace is always there. And the minute you say, I'm done, everything was turn.

Want to go in another direction real quick. And I wonder if I might be able to share something really personal with you? If that's okay. I lost your thought. Well, it involves and involves my beautiful new wife, Anna and I just got married about five weeks ago. She's the woman she is she's the woman that I knew I wanted to meet my whole life, but was beginning to think I wouldn't. And Anna and I have experienced the loss of 16 consecutive miscarriages, right? Two of those have been at topics one of which nearly claimed her life in 2019. A year into our relationship. She now she's from Russia, she's three quarter Russian one quarter Japanese stunning, stunning girl. And a year into our relationship she shared with me what happened to her as a 15 year old until she was 21. her stepfather systematically was abusing her resulting in two pregnancies, and two forced illegal abortions, one of which damaged the uterine wall. So we've and I don't share this for sympathy. I share this because I had a question for you. What advice would you give us to help bring this baby into the world?

Well, the first thing I would advise her I don't I don't know if you know if I should? Well, she has to release the trauma from all of her reproductive organs, or reproductive organs are traumatized. You know, and that could be as simple as a series of whether she does crystal healing, Color Healing, you know, I'd have to look more specifically at her to see what it is. But her reproductive system is not welcoming of life right now. The fact that the ectopic pregnancy didn't destroy her ability to reproduce is grace. Because, you know, sometimes when an ectopic pregnancy, you lose everything. But the mere fact that it didn't says okay, there's some grace here, we got one tube left. Yeah, the one two, that's all you need. There's only one that's going to be involved. The problem is not the tube is not the ovaries, it's not the eggs, it's the entire system is still traumatized, and probably had needs to release the energy to so that life can be welcomed there. Because at 15 for that level, that is one of the most insidious forms of sexual abuse, when it's someone that you know, and that you have to continue to be with. It teaches you to be loyal to people that hurt and harm you and to be silent about your pain. That's the trauma that's in there. So I would say that that's number one. The other thing I would say is together to call in the soul that needs to or is willing to or ready to learn what you two together will teach it. That's really go to the brunch. Go to the brunt. And as then call it because it is a soul that's willing to do that. But I would say first, she has to clear out that trauma is actually in the cells in the tissues of the reproductive system. And anything that I can do to help her, you know, if you send me an email, I can make some recommendations. And really hone in on her I need her name, so I can hone in and see, okay, what's going on here? I had a woman who had similar trauma, and wanted to have a child. And had she only had two miscarriages. And I sent her to do something and now she's got two babies there, my god children.

Well, well, well, I'm, I was hesitant to ask you this because of the nature of the podcast, but I'm really glad. Thank you so much coaching that's coaching. Steve couldn't help you with it. I mean, it's really brought me to tears almost. Because Anna has done some amazing healing. She's gone through Psych and hypnotherapy. And she's got her own podcast now called the world's best Trauma Recovery podcast. And she is not a victim. She's forgiven the perpetrator. She's forgiven her mother. You know, she flew back to Russia last year to testify against the sky. And because of the statute of limitations, it was unable to go to jail. But people know about it now. And she's creating this amazing movement. Because in Russia, they didn't have the resources. There is no phone number. There's no helpline to ring. wish she was. So she's doing amazing things. But thank you so much for sharing that. Jana. How do people

find you? In their dreams? No. travel at night? No. yama.com It's really simple. I you know, I'm not hard to find eola.com. And this is the time I'm so excited about this podcast about you about Steve, because people are really looking right now for how to navigate, not even manage what we're going through, but how to navigate it in a way that is more honoring and loving and supportive of them and everyone else around them. Because I don't know if you notice, but we are in a lot of trouble. We're going straight to hell in a handbasket. But it's good, it's good. It's very good. And I find it. So interesting. You said your wife is from Russia. And going through a major cleansing and healing right now. So it's really good.

A reality you have any concluding thoughts for our dialing audience today.

You were born. For such a time it's this with all the people who've recently left the planet, fulfill their assignments and transition to another place. If we are those of us who are still here. And those of us who are looking and seeking those of us who are healing and growing those of us who are doing the work to bring others along. You were born for such a time as this. And all of us won't write a book and all of us won't have a podcast and all of us won't meet Steve Hardison or Yama Van Sant. But if we can learn how much we matter, just where we are in your family, in your community in your neighborhood, at your place of work, we matter. And the stronger you make your light as an individual, the stronger we will become the world will be lit. You know I have this exercise that I do with a little candle just like this. And in the room, I turn off all the lights, it's pitch black, dark, and then one person at a time. We light the candle. So I take my candle and I light someone else's and they take this and light someone else's and then they take this and we all go around lighting each other's candle from one candle. And when you see how each individual light brings illumination to the entire spot, it gives them a deeper deeper sense of how important you are for who you are and the gift that you can be in the world. So my final word would be you matter you matter.

Ladies and gentlemen Iyanla Vanzant