52: The Man Making the World Happy (w/ Gary King)

Cool, Gary, we’re rolling. So, well, I love it, Josh. I love what I do and I love being here, so it’s great. It’s great to have you. So, hey, everybody, welcome to The Name and Creative Show.

We’ve got Gary King on. I hope, first off, wherever you’re listening from, whenever you’re listening, that you’re happy. But today we’re going to reflect on what makes you happy, right? What is happiness? Have you ever thought about it as deeply as you’re about to?

I doubt it. Like, really deep. So my guest today, Gary King, has probably thought about it more than anybody on planet Earth. I’d bet that. And he’s actually doing something about it, which is equally as fascinating.

I met Gary King. You came to Sun Leaders, my leadership development organization. I don’t even know. It was like maybe a couple years ago. Yeah, it’s been, it’s been a bit.

And you just plugged right in. You fit right in. And it makes a lot of sense. And so I just appreciate you being a part of our community. Here and then in general for what you do.

But I soon learned that your, your life story and what you’re doing is so much more remarkable than what these signs do. And, you know, and this is a big, big deal. You’ve been a Navy veteran, an entrepreneur, a world record powerboat racer. And correct me if I’m wrong, if any of these are not- that’s so far so accurate- an international artist, an event producer, a speaker, a consultant to people that you haven’t even been able to talk to me about on some. I try, I’ve tried.

You’ve survived, uh, 36 major life traumas, life-threatening traumas that are beyond horrific. So we might dive into that. Yeah. Um, and you’ve spent decades asking a very profound, one simple question, but profound. What actually makes people happy.

And, oh yeah. And people ask me all the time, why do you call it The Happiness Experiment? I go, because there’s 9 billion people on planet Earth and they’re all unconsciously experimenting with happiness using the external world for the most part, because that’s the way they grew up. That’s their way their life started. So you must like be able to read my mind cuz I, I, one of the very first questions I wanted to get out is why call it an experiment?

And, It makes so much sense. I mean, everything in a way is- it’s the human experiment on what’s happening, right? They called it the American experiment or something like that when America started. Yeah, it’s an experiment. It all is.

If you’ve been to St. Petersburg and driven around anywhere, you’ve likely, whether you’ve been driving or stopped, seen a sign that just catches your eye. It’s red and white with red lettering, yellow and yellow outline. And it just says happiness. And I remember moving here and I, I saw that sign and this was well before I knew you. And, and my wife and I are in the car.

I go, how cool is that? Because we saw it multiple places. We go, someone’s just making a sign that says happiness and hanging them up. And I used to just think, What a- whoever that is is probably super cool and so nice and doing something that’s so interesting because it’s like, here I am reading that. I’m like, yeah, happiness.

It was- and that’s before I knew you. And I know since knowing you that you touch people’s lives in that way. But you have also literally, because of Just the Signs, let alone other work that you’ve done, have saved lives. That is- that is correct. There’s currently As of today, 804 happiness signs in St. Petersburg and Gulfport.

And then there’s another somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 that are all over the earth. They’re in Singapore, they’re in Malaysia, they’re in the UK, they’re in Canada. These are signs that have been purchased. They’re made out of aluminum and fiberglass so they don’t deteriorate. You can put them outside and they’re indefinite.

So, and there’s 40 years of research behind doing it. And for some odd reason, I’m the only person on the earth doing it, which to me is very strange why I’m the only person posting the word happiness because it’s, it, it is based- what’s interesting, and I communicate with a lot of people. I mean, I’ve been an international speaker and author since 1992. And I tell people, I go, look, this is based on subliminal influence, autosuggestion, and quantum physics. And people go, how can the word happiness have anything to do with quantum physics?

I go, because everything has to do with quantum physics, because everything in the universe that we live in vibrates at a frequency. Humans have a frequency, plants, animals, everything has a frequency. Well, the word happiness has a frequency. It’s 432 hertz. 432 hertz.

And that’s the frequency of healing. That’s a natural healing frequency. Like the Schumann frequency is what the Earth vibrates at. And it’s changing now because guess what? People’s energy, their internal energy changes frequencies around them.

So just consider what one emotional pattern is called anger and what anger does to the frequency of people, plants, and animals and the earth that we live on because it affects it. Absolutely. Yeah. And the subliminal part, you know, for me driving early on before I knew you, seeing that sign, It did something to me and my wife in the car. You can’t pinpoint it in that moment, but it absolutely does.

Just like, and I think it’s an important reminder, just like every other thing that our eyeballs see during the day, negative, positive, and everything in between, whether it be on social media or a billboard or in real life, that I don’t know if people take these things as seriously as they should and what we consume, because that becomes us. Which is what you’re talking about. There’s very little awareness around that, and that’s because awareness and consciousness is, generally speaking, not taught in school. So children aren’t taught awareness and consciousness because everything that a person sees is registered. Every single thing registers in their subconscious mind.

So Life is a pattern of behavior that is very, very, very misunderstood. So I will tell you part of the experiment that I’m currently doing. I started doing this 4 months ago.

I did it last night. I did a presentation last night. And so I do this all the time. So I say to people, look, when you were 4 months old, and you’re screaming and crying because you’re really upset, but you’re 4 months old and you can’t talk. Well, at 4 months old, if you could talk, there are only 4 things literally that you would ask for if you could speak at 4 months old.

There’s only 4 things. And I ask audiences, what are the 4 things? Now, most of the time they’ll name at least 2 or 3. They won’t name the 4th one. So the 4 things are Feed me, change me, hug me, or hand me my stuffed animal.

Hand me my stuffed teddy bear. That is it. Instantly, when one of those 4 things happen, emotions change instantly. Within 1 second, the baby’s emotions change. Why does that happen?

4-month-old child, their emotions change instantly. What are those 4 things called? There’s a term for them. They’re called pacifiers. Well, that’s interesting.

What’s a pacifier? It’s a distraction. So, if you can hand a baby a stuffed teddy bear and within 1 second its emotions change completely, what does that baby learn at 4 months old that they continue to do their whole entire life. They search for pacifiers in the outside world. Well, happiness doesn’t exist in the outside world.

There’s no happiness in the outside world. There’s pleasure in the outside world, but pleasure and happiness are 2 completely different things. Pleasure causes- well, let’s see, pleasure causes everything from criminal behavior to abuse to you name it. It comes from pleasure-seeking. So it’s very interesting because that statement right there, every time I say that to people, it changes.

What they do is they become aware. They never thought about being 4 months old and crying. So now all of a sudden their awareness changes and they go, gee, I mean, I wonder if that’s why I take my credit card and I buy pacifiers with my credit card. And then at the end of the month, I’m in shock when I get the bill. See, it’s all based on that.

It sounds really complex, but it isn’t. It’s very simple. It’s a very simple process. Yeah, I feel like our entire universe is simple but complex. You think about the structure of atoms, it gets simpler and simpler and simpler, but compounded, it becomes more complex.

That is correct. What you’re talking about early on compounds over time and becomes very complex When, when you let that play out. But when you reflect internally rather than- because I think what you’re alluding to is that we’re always looking outside of ourselves for the solution. Exactly. This will make me happy.

We’re trained that way. When it’s inside of us, which is, I believe, your ultimate discovery, it’s, it’s in you. So I use that to, to emphasize what I just said about being 4 months old. I use an algorithm or metaphor. I use the penny doubled.

I used it last night with the audience. So I asked the audience, raise your hand and tell me what a penny doubled for 30 days is like. $0.02, $0.04, $0.08, $0.16, $0.32, $0.64, $1.28. Raise your hand and tell me how much is a penny doubled? That’s based on the law of compounding.

Okay, so a penny doubles over 30 days. Now, nobody in the audience is going to know the answer to that. People will go $500, $2,000. A penny doubled for 30 days is $5,368,709.12.

If you add 5 days to it, it’s $160 million. Now, people listening may go, wait a minute, that’s impossible. Go ahead and Google it. Go ahead and search it. Do the math.

It is $5,368,709.12.

It’s based on the law of compounding. Well, everything is based on the law of compounding. If you’re 4 months old and an external item will change your emotions, well, you do that your whole entire life. And I will add something to it. Now, I don’t drop the names.

I spent 25 years as a director of security and bodyguard for some of the most well-known, richest, most powerful males and females on planet Earth. And I can tell you, because I worked face to face with these people, I can tell you absolutely 100% for sure, They are all miserable. They’re not happy. They’re- and what’s worse is not alone are they not happy, but they tend to be over-abusive to the external world. And so these people own an unlimited supply of money.

But okay, if an unlimited supply of money, like billions, and they’re miserable, there’s a learning experience. Oh yeah, it’s a classic clich� though. Money doesn’t buy happiness. But I don’t think people take that seriously. But there’s a reason for that clich�.

It’s because you see, even if you didn’t have your experience, you can see sometimes that in yourself Did that thing really buy me happiness? No, it’s just pacifying me. Here’s a statistic. So this morning, my friend owns a 7-Eleven. I go there every morning and get coffee.

So this morning I’m in there and there’s a woman standing next to me with a uniform shirt on, and I couldn’t tell if she worked for the city or what. And I said, do you work for the city? And she goes, no, I’m the lottery person from the state. I’m the late state lottery person. She goes, I know you.

I ran across you somewhere and you gave me one of your books. So she’s standing next to me at the coffee stand there, and, and I started talking to her about the lottery. And I said, well, if you work for the state lottery, you know the statistics about the Florida lottery, that 95% of the people who have won the Florida lottery, it has completely destroyed their life. And she goes, oh, I’m well aware. It completely- 95% of people who win $50 million- somebody last week won $600 million, $800 million in Bradenton.

Uh-huh. Had a lot of luck. Generally speaking, based on the statistic, their life’s over. It’s done. That’s crazy.

Yeah. Why? Why is that? What’s going on? Because what happens to them when they get all that money.

A person thinks, just like the people I was a bodyguard for, movie stars and everything else, the common belief is this thing called money will buy them this internal feeling. But what they do with that money is they buy external things thinking that will- it will create the internal emotion, and it doesn’t. That’s not what it does. It’s not what it does at all. It causes people to be frivolous.

And like, if they drink a glass of wine a day and they have $800 million, now they’re drinking 2 bottles of wine a day and it’s $100 a bottle instead of $6 a bottle. So yeah, I’ve spent 40 years studying human behavior. It’s the most fascinating thing between body language, and what people chase after to find this thing. I also worked in the personal development industry for 25 years too, and there’s no quick fix. You can’t sit in a chair for 4 days and spend $6,000 and leave a different person.

It just doesn’t work like that. That would be great, but it doesn’t work like that. Right. It seems to be that so much is sold to try to be that. We’re constantly surrounded by, here’s the quick fix, lose this amount of pounds in this amount of time, or whatever that is.

And everybody’s just looking for fast. Instant gratification. That’s what it’s called, instant gratification.

Everything that I’ve experienced in life, and I’m 37, realized that the more work I put into it, the greater the reward. And also sometimes the harder it is. For instance, my drum set’s peeking at us out of our peripherals here. That is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It was so difficult and still is and gets harder and harder, but more and more enjoyable.

It’s the most fun, rewarding thing I’ve ever done besides raise my daughters. Yeah. And that’s, that’s, that also is the same thing.

But also the difficult thing is that people are raised in a particular way, and certain people maybe don’t get an opportunity to develop a thing or work hard at a thing, so they’re trying to grasp for something quick.

It’s so complex and not at the same time. I feel like you must run into this all the time where it’s like, Now you’ve experienced such deep research and knowledge and experience of this thing where you hear and see these things playing out, and I can tell you’re trying so hard to scream from the rooftops going, guys, let’s simplify this. After the Easter school vacation of 10 days or whatever it was, I went and spoke at a local elementary school here in St. Petersburg. So I spoke to the 4th grade. There were 150 4th graders in the room.

I only had 8 minutes, which is really challenging for me. So I didn’t know 8 minutes was in your world. It isn’t in my world. That’s what they gave me, 8 minutes. And I go, okay, what am I going to tell these kids?

In 8 minutes. So I had 3 really quick things. I said, look, at your age, people are going to ask you, what do you want to be when you grow up? There’s only one answer, happy. That’s your only answer.

Don’t let the outside world push on you to say doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Don’t do that. The second thing I told them, which was the most powerful thing, and coincidentally, the school I was speaking at was literally 2 minutes from my first job the day I graduated from high school. I graduated from local Boca Ciega. The day I graduated, I went to work at a gas station as a mechanic when I was 16 years old.

And it was 2 minutes from the school. So I told this- these 150 kids, I said, listen, whatever you choose for a career path, choose something that you would do 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, and you wouldn’t want money. You would do it for free because you love it so much. You don’t care about the money part. Choose something like that and turn it into your career because then your career will last a lifetime and you’ll love what you do, which is exactly what I did.

I mean, I was a car mechanic at 16, which is not normal to be a car mechanic at 16 years old and repair engines and transmissions and brakes when you’re 16, because at 16 you wouldn’t necessarily have that knowledge. But I turned that into a career path, among other things. Among many other things. But see, I’m currently 81 years old. My voice doesn’t match my age.

It’s not even close. Your energy as well. I work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, and I will never stop doing that. People go, when are you going to retire? Retire?

I’ll tell you what retirement means to me. 4 new tires, retire, and another half million miles. I, my friends, and this is sad. My friends, 95, 90% of all the people I grew up with, me being 81 years old now, 95% of them are all on the other side. They’re all in a cemetery somewhere.

Why? I can name them by name. They worked hard their whole life to get to 65 so they could stop working. Don’t do that because that tells me if your whole objective was to get to 65, you were doing a lot of things you didn’t want to do. If you wanted to stop, if you’re doing what you love, you don’t, you don’t stop.

You keep going. Also, that’s like you’re from 15 when I started working to 65. That’s a big chunk of your life where you got a lot of energy. Yeah. And I mean, the other part of that is people don’t realize how they’re affected by the external world, how their behavior was affected.

I mean, me starting with the 4-month-old and the crying and screaming and the 4 things. Well, when you take that into a life, okay, people don’t realize that their life is a pattern. It’s a pattern of doing something in it, and it becomes very mechanical. People without them realizing it. So last night- I’ve been doing this now for about 8 months.

I did it this morning in this 7-Eleven because I’m in public 7 days a week. People go, how are you? Happy. And then I say to them, in your lifetime, no human has ever responded with that, have they? Not one person has ever said yes.

And I go, look, test it. Test drive it. The next time somebody says, how are you? Say happy regardless of your brain that’s going, oh, I need a bigger house. I need a new car.

I need my credit card debt needs it. Don’t do that. Don’t let your brain do that. Just say happy. Well, what’s going to happen based on autosuggestion, which, by the way, you can research it.

Autosuggestion literally can cure cancer and pretty much every other disease as well. Diseases are what happens to the body when the body gets conflicted, when it’s not synchronized. As soon as you unsynchronize your body and you’re going in 2 different directions at the same time, which is called cognitive dissonance, 2 conflicting core beliefs, like I love this and I hate that, don’t do that because that’s- you will eventually pay a huge price for that kind of behavior pattern. Huge. My wife has gone deep into manifestation, essentially, at its simplest form.

And what I’ve learned, because I was skeptical at first, like, man, you know, but after practicing it or thinking about it, learning about it, what we do and say is everything. It literally is how everything plays out from at a cellular level. It’s what my skin now believes, that I am happy, that I should be grateful, that I can do this. That I shouldn’t do that or give that energy or time because that’s negative, that brings me down. And then you become that.

I, in my book, The Happiness Experiment, I explain both sides of the equation. Okay? So I tell people all the time, they have to be older people. I go, look, my life is like Babe Ruth, the very famous baseball player. Babe Ruth, held 2 world records simultaneously.

He held the all-time home run record, and he held the all-time strikeout record, and he held them both at the same time. My life is just like that. So the first third of my book is autobiographical. It talks about the traumas that I’d gone through, and then later in the book, it talks about the home runs. Okay, so one of them- and this, Josh, this addresses the human imagination because the human imagination can literally do anything.

There’s no stops on the human imagination. So when I was 16 years old, my routine was my parents were out on Saturday. There was a television show I always watched on Saturday. NHRA Today, National Hot Rod Association. The name of the show or the company that produced the show was Diamond P Sports.

It was drag racing. So every Saturday without fail, I’m sitting in front of the TV for an hour. But the weird part was, and I never understood it, at the end I was fixated on the credits. I was like in some kind of hypnotic trance staring at the credits. I would sit in a chair and no matter what happened, lightning could strike the house, and I’m staring at the credits.

The last credit is always the executive producer. Well, the executive producer’s name was Harvey M. Palash, and his logo was a diamond and it spun around really slow and it had a P in the middle of it, and it just put me in a trance. I’m staring at it And I can remember being 16, and I did this for about 5 years. I would watch that program, then I moved on in my life. All right, so that was in- I started doing that in 1962 through about 1967 or ’68.

Now I’m going to fast forward. This is in the book. I’m going to fast forward to 1989, a friend of mine calls me, George. Hey, Gary, meet me for lunch tomorrow at Bennigan’s, the chain. It doesn’t exist anymore, but Bennigan’s out on 4th Street in St. Petersburg.

Meet me for lunch there. Okay. So I go to Bennigan’s on Friday and the host or hostess is at the front and I go, I’m supposed to meet my friend here. Oh yeah, there’s 2 guys way back in the back corner. You can’t see them.

Go back in the back there. So I go back. My friend George is sitting there in a booth with another guy. So I sit down in the booth and George goes, let me introduce you to Harvey Palash. Oh, no way.

Oh, well, that’s nothing. So I meet Harvey Palash and I became the general manager of Diamond Peace Sports, the very company that I fixated on 25 years before, I was the general manager of that company for Hubbard Broadcasting out of Minneapolis. That’s a factual, true story. I stared at that guy’s name, and now I’m in a booth with him in a restaurant 20 or 25 years later. That’s fact.

There’s other stories. I can tell 25 stories just as specific as that that got me traveling 4 million international air miles on somebody else’s credit card, not mine. 4 million international air miles. I’ve been to Australia 46 times. Geez.

Oh, man, that’s brutal. I mean, it’s great, the flight time, you know. Well, lucky for me, I had no issues around flying. A lot of people have a lot of issues. I didn’t have any issues.

I mean, the flight from Tampa to where I went in Australia was 37 hours. Do you do on flights? Do you sleep? Do you read? Do you write?

Well, because because the I was not an employee. I was a subcontractor in the entertainment industry.

Don’t tell my competitors about this. Every morning. The Intel Club tells me what they’re doing, what’s changing in my industry, and where the opportunities are for only $99 a month. Honestly, they should probably charge more, but let’s keep that between us. Sign up for 7 days free at theintelclub.com.

So I didn’t get- I eventually flew first class a lot because of the miles I accrued and I would only fly on American. So I created a system that nobody else figured out. So it was always 747s. So I- they book 747s front to back. There’s 74 rows on a 747.

So I would always book row 74, an aisle seat in the center section, because they booked from front to back. The other thing was the baby things that fold down. Row 74 is as far away from those as you can get because of crying babies. Okay. The other thing is they serve food from back to front, not from front to back.

All right. The other thing is the restrooms are right behind the bulkhead behind row 74. But the best part of it all was the center row is 5 seats. They don’t- never- they very seldom book row 74. The armrests go up and you can lay down 5 seats across.

So, so I had a, I had a system. Hey, I had a system. It sounds like you have quite a few systems. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, ultimately I accrued so many miles that I automatically flew first class. That’s awesome. Yeah. Wow. What- so in the entertainment industry and these people that you can’t say exactly who you worked with, how did you end up in a position to be consulting with them?

Because- or working with them? Because this is pre-Happiness Experiment and all of that. So like, were you in that realm before, or what specifically were you doing? I started in that realm in 1992. I started, um, I originally started as a volunteer, paying my own way.

I was a volunteer, and what happened was, see, what I brought to the table to celebrities and the production industry was I had been an event producer starting in 1971. I produced the largest single event in the history of St. Petersburg, which was the offshore powerboat races at the pier. 250,000 spectators and 2,000 volunteers. And I trained all those people. So I had 175 security staff and 175 paramedics.

But internationally, I managed an international medical team of doctors, LPNs, paramedics. I managed them and I did all the emotional triage. So see, my background brought me into an industry that, that then I was face to face with all these celebrities. And one of them, probably the most well-known female, highest-paid female, I actually coached her. And one day I told somebody I did that, and they said, there’s no way you did that.

And I said, yes, I did that. And so I went on this person’s website, and I copied a picture of me. I was 12 inches from her face coaching her, and I printed the picture, and I gave it to the guy because he said, my wife said that you’re just a big liar, and I go, here, show your wife this. So, yeah, but you know, years ago, there’s a movie you can watch on YouTube. It’s called Uncommon Friends, and it’s about a guy.

I think he was either a yard maintenance guy or something, and he met Edison, and then he became friends with all of Edison’s friends- Harvey Firestone, all these people. And that’s what my life’s kind of been about. I mean, I’ve been with I have a Secret Service clearance. I’ve been with presidents from both sides of the aisle, both the red and the blue side. I’ve been with presidents.

My picture’s on the front page of newspapers with presidents. And Gary, how did you- Listen, I don’t know how all that happened other than the human imagination has no boundary. There’s no boundary on the imagination, no boundary of any kind. I mean, And the interesting thing is, I mean, a part of my life, not the book, because the person who filmed me didn’t read the book, but my life, a portion of my life story. And the title of the movie is called The Happiness Experiment.

It was a film festival movie. It has been shown on 6 continents. It’s won 18 film festivals, including Monaco. It won Best Inspirational Film at the Monaco Film Festival. Well, did I ever think that part of my life would be filmed and travel all over the world?

No, I didn’t. But that’s just, you know, the human mind can do anything. The problem is the Western educational system doesn’t focus on anything that- in my world, the value in the educational system is pretty slim to none. It seems to almost intentionally keep it at bay. Like, look, here, stay in this box, and if you perform well in this box, good job, and you feel accomplished.

I can go there with my background that a- let’s put it this way, you can’t manage happy people. You can only manage frustrated, unhappy people. They’re very easy to manage. You can’t manage happy people. The other thing that’s very interesting And it goes down a different track.

And I’m only going there because the movies I watch are movies like Serendipity, The Legend of Bagger Vance, movies that have very deep meanings in them.

I’m trying to think of some of the other ones. The Ultimate Gift, movies like that. So I went and saw Disclosure Day. I went the first day it hit the theaters. Okay.

Spielberg’s movie. Why did I do that? There’s a multitude of reasons for that. But what was interesting about the movie, I’ve seen it twice. I saw it twice at AMC and I cried through the last 30 minutes both times I watched it.

I cried the last 30 minutes. A 2.5-hour movie. Now, what happened worldwide after that movie showed a lot, people were trying to figure out what the message was.

There was a crystal clear message, but most people couldn’t find the message in the movie. And so at the end of the movie, there’s this segment where there’s a creature, and the creature whispers something to the whistleblower, and who whispers it, okay? And everybody’s trying to figure out what that message is. Well, the message- and they’ve now figured it out- the message was, and I’ll try and quote it, the message was, if humans do not become empathetic, humans will cease to exist very soon. That was the message.

And the reason the message is like that, and people listening to this, you may doubt this, but it’s fact. I mean, I do a lot of research. It’s not- and what I’m about to tell you is not an opinion. You can Google it. Only 2% of the population of planet Earth is empathetic.

98% of the planet does not have human empathy. Whoa. That’s online, and I’ve researched that several times.

It’s interesting because when you- Sounds odd. It does, but in a way it’s interesting because you think of survival of the fittest, you think of evolution where it’s just constant. You look at human history and Boy, what a battle. What a battle against the elements of nature to keep going. And then a battle now against each other for power, land, resources, whatever it is, and just keeps playing out.

But now we’re at a moment in humanity where people could be taken care of and things could- the resources are there. It’s now in our minds, in, in, in- it’s almost fabricated barriers to true happiness or support of one another. So I- wild. I joke around, you know, I, um, I, I mess with audiences all the time. So I, I, um, people come to me and they go, hey, you’ve been a speaker for 30-something years and I have to do a presentation and I’ve never done one before at my company.

Can you give me some advice? And I go, yes, I can. You need to do 4 things. You need to make the audience laugh. You need to make them cry.

You need to make them think deeper than they’ve ever thought in their entire lifetime. And you need to come from your heart when you do all this stuff. Okay? Don’t be using PowerPoint. All right?

Come from your heart. If you do those 4 things, you’ll capture the audience. You will capture them completely. And see, what’s interesting about all that is when I went to 12 years of public school, I was not captured by the teachers. I can tell you there was only one teacher, Flora Harrington, Now, how could I possibly remember my 4th grade teacher’s name?

Because Flora Harrington had empathy.

Flora Harrington cared about Gary King personally. That is not a judgment of other teachers. That’s not what that is. That’s my human experience. That I can remember my 4th grade teacher’s name.

How many- I don’t remember, I don’t remember any of the other teachers’ names that I can even think of. Maybe the shop teacher, and I can’t even remember his name right now. But yeah, the, the point in that is when a person crosses your path and they impact you, all right, so I tell different stage stories. Okay. And the reason I tell stage stories is because stories tend to really impact people, really impact them.

So this is one of the stage stories I tell. It’s called The Old Man on the Beach.

So One day, a young man was walking the beach. He was walking the beach, and he walked by an older man who was sitting on the sand staring out over the water. And the old man turned around and looked at him and said, wow, what’s wrong with you? You look terrible. And the young guy said, listen, I’m getting evicted from my apartment.

My wife’s leaving me. I’m buried in debt and I’ll never get out. So the old man looked at him and he said, wow, I understand those kinds of emotions. He said, I was married for 65 years and my wife recently passed away. He said, I think I can help you.

The young guy goes, what do you mean you can help me? And he goes, I’ll bet you $500 I can beat you in a foot race down the beach. The kid looked at him and went, what are you kidding? What are you, 100 years old? You’re going to beat me down running down the beach?

He goes, look, I can’t borrow any more money, so I can’t do it. I can’t borrow $500. So thanks for your offer to help me, but there’s no way. The old man said, look, I sit in the same place 7 days a week. If you change your mind, I’ll be right here.

So the next day, here comes the kid. All right, old man, I need the $500. I was able to borrow it. I got to return it immediately. Let’s do this thing.

So the old man stands up. They’re standing next to each other. The old man hesitates and goes, oh, kid goes, what? He goes, you have to have your hands tied behind your back. What do you mean?

Listen, look at the difference in our age. Okay, big- no big deal. Tie my hands behind my back. Okay. So they go to start a second time.

The old man says, um, hold on a minute. Now what? Um, you’ve got to be in this burlap sack. He hands him a sack. I have to run in a sack?

Yes. Why are you making a big deal out of it? Look at the difference in our age. Okay, okay, let’s get on with it. I got to get the $500 back.

All right, so he gets in the sack. They go to start a 3rd time. The old man hesitates again. Now what? You have to turn around backwards.

I have to run backwards? Yeah, why are you making a big deal out of it? You’re, you’re, you’re one quarter of my age. Okay, all right, let’s do it. I- okay, so he turns around.

So the old man yells, go! Down the beach they go. The old man wins. The kid is furious. He goes, you ripped me off.

No, I didn’t. Yes, you did. You ripped me off. You cheated me. No, I didn’t.

He said, I taught you a lesson that taught that it took my whole life to learn this lesson, and I just taught it to you. What lesson? You didn’t teach me a lesson. You cheated me. He goes, no, I didn’t.

He said, I taught you life’s most valuable lesson. You let me make all the rules, and I made the rules so I couldn’t lose. Do you know what most people do? They let the outside world make all the rules. I know parents who, whatever you want to call it, influence, pressure their children to be in sports or be a lawyer or be- and the child really doesn’t want to do that.

But what do they do?

They become a pleaser. And they do that, and it’s real common. And that’s because parenting’s not a skill. Parenting’s a behavior. It’s not a skill.

A 4-year-old, when a parent says, shut up, don’t touch that, don’t do that, don’t say that, go to your room, eat that whether you like it or not, a 4-year-old cannot process discipline. To a 4-year-old, that means Oh, let’s see. What do all children chase after? Acceptance, approval, and appreciation. Well, that means to a 4-year-old, I’m not appreciated, I’m not accepted, right?

I’m not approved of, I’m not loved. And what does that become? A behavior pattern that says, okay, I’ll do what you say. Yeah, it’s deep. It’s deep and it starts so early.

Yeah, right. That’s one thing my wife has done really well is recalibrate my thinking, definitely, and our collective thinking, because she did deep dives. And it’s like, don’t say no unless it’s really dangerous. Otherwise, it’s, is that a healthy choice? And explain the danger part.

Explain it. Yeah. Yeah. And all these things are, I have realized, are almost- it’s felt Herculean to not do it, to not go, uh, instead to use these phrases. But I know, I get why, because then they’re just going to do what I do, or they’re going to feel a particular way about something that’s absolutely unnecessary.

That is correct. And up until 7, these crazy formidable years, They’re getting programmed and we constantly get programmed. But that is when you’re talking about timescale and those years. I mean, you were talking about perception the other earlier and, and how we can see something and no matter what, it’s in us. I have seen that play out more clearly now more than ever with my daughter, who’s about to turn 4 this month.

Yeah. And she’ll see something earlier in the week one time and then she’ll randomly bring it up. And it was like one speck moment, but it stuck with her. I go, how did you even- oh yeah, how did you even recall that? But it’s clear as day for her.

Perception in a 4-year-old is way greater than perception when you get older because the 4-year-old doesn’t have all of the the program running that they gain until they’re 7 years old. So, if I was doing a parenting training, I would go, listen, here’s what you do. You take your 5-year-old child and go, hey, I got a great idea. Let’s go to a bunch of stores and touch stuff. Because what’s the main thing that happens in a store?

And I see it 7 days a week. Don’t touch that. People are screaming that- don’t scream at your child like that because what you’re doing, and you think you’re helping the child, you’re not helping them. Let’s go touch stuff because then you can teach, oh, you know what? I love you so much.

Let’s not touch the glass that can break. Let’s touch How come I have 18 different career paths? My friends don’t have 18 career paths. I mean, I raced motorcycles, I raced cars, I raced boats. I have an engineering degree in the Navy.

I know how to engineer the steam turbines that run the Navy ships. I’m a speaker, I’m an author, I’m an artist, an inner- why? Because I didn’t put limitations on myself. I didn’t do that. I can do If I want to be good at- if I wanted to be good at playing drums and I believed I could be good at playing drums, I could get on your drum set and after a while I could be good at playing drums.

Well, you’re not going to be good at playing drums if you think you can’t do it. 100%. That’s a fact. Yeah. It’s never too late, by the way, Gary.

You’re always welcome. A human has unlimited capability. Unlimited. But they’re not taught that way. That’s That’s not the way it works.

I mean, if you grasp hold of the fact that the human imagination can pull off anything. Here’s an experiment I just did. It’s way over the top. It’s in downtown St. Pete in Straub Park. There’s 2 very famous banyan trees in Straub Park.

Most people don’t know the history of those trees. Those trees were planted in 1920 by Firestone. I think his first name was Harvey. They- he planted those trees in 1920. They’re very famous.

They’re all- they’re on the internet all over the world. They’re beautiful. All right, so I knocked off an experiment that, um, Darren Brown did, I don’t know how many years ago, in a village outside of London. He did an experiment. People can look it up.

It’s re- the video’s on YouTube. It’s amazing. He did this experiment called the Lucky Dog.

It, it, and this experiment was based on a statue of a dog that was in a park, but he didn’t do the actual experiment. He hired a newspaper reporter to facilitate the experiment, and then he kept himself hidden and watched it cuz he was a public figure and everybody in the UK knows who he is. So he hid in cars with disguises and watched the experiment. Well, the experiment, when it came to the end, there were hundreds of people in an auditorium and he was on stage and he became public. And the experiment came to the end and he was in total shock of the experiment he created.

He was shocked by the end result. So I knocked it off. I had an idea. I was going to do this 5 years ago in Straub Park with a statue. But I decided to do it with the trees instead.

So I had 2 4-foot happiness signs custom made, and I put them back to back on a light pole that’s between the banyan trees with spotlights that shine up into the trees at night. So these 2 4-foot happiness signs are custom made. So it- at the top it says, the Happiness Trees. At the bottom in big letters under the word happiness it says, Walk around these trees 3 times, comma, and you will attract amazing luck. And it is absolutely 1,000% true.

It’s absolutely true. Anybody that walks around those trees 3 times, their luck will change dramatically to the point it’s shocking. And people go, I don’t understand. Well, If you’re walking around the trees to begin with, you’ve already decided that your luck’s gonna change, right? Yeah.

Okay, that moment, once you make a decision- and most people don’t know the definition of the word decision. The definition is to cut off from. So once you decide something, you’ve cut off any other option. So if you’re walking around the trees, you already have a belief that you’re gonna have amazing luck. Well, it absolutely works.

I go down- I just went down there, uh, when was I down there? Last Saturday. Put 3 quarters in the meter, and I’ve been looking for a van to put graphics on, but it’s got to be a very special van. It’s got to be red, and it’s got to be extended. So I put 3 quarters in the meter.

I walked around the trees 3 times. I stopped. I walked around them a second 3 times because I went I want the full impact of this. I want the whole thing. Same day, found the van.

Bought it. No way. It’s- see, people, and there’s lots of people walking around. I was filmed down there. Channel 10 filmed me down there at the trees.

Yeah, anybody who’s in St. Pete and is listening to this, go down there, walk around the 2 happiness trees, the 2 banyan trees that are directly across the street from from Park Shore Grill or next to the museum, walk around the trees 3 times and watch what happens. You will be in complete shock at what happens. We’re gonna pause this and go walk around them and then come back, keep recording. It’s amazing because it’s a mindset. It’s a mindset.

You know, and everything plays out from that. It’s amazing what we can do. I have to back up because I feel like it’s important for context too, because I feel, first off, it’s just awesome ping-ponging around this really cool dynamic life that you’ve lived. But I’m curious to pull out what the actual spark was for The Happiness Experiment. Your life was headed in particular directions and building up, but I’d love to understand what that actual spark was.

Was it 2019? So here’s exactly what happened.

Um, I went through 36 horrific traumas. Um, I’ll name a few of them to put it in context.

So I have an incurable disease called RSD, reflex sympathetic dystrophy. I almost died in St. Anthony’s Hospital back in the ’80s. Uh, my best friend was murdered on my birthday. Um, I went to visit my father in, uh, Bayfront, which used to be Mound Park. Um, I walked in the room.

He was due to get out in 2 days. He’d had a heart attack. I walked in the room. I was in the room 30 seconds and he died while I was standing there. I collapsed in a restaurant.

It took 8 paramedics to save my life. I was in a home invasion when I was 17 years old. I was attacked by 5 guys, kicked in the head until I was unconscious, and they continued to kick me in the head and I wound up with brain damage. And the worst one of all, I was down in Australia speaking. I got a phone call on July 29th, 2012.

And my only child, my son, Jason King, had jumped off the Skyway. This is why I started the Happiness Experiment. I started it for 2 reasons, to see if I could reverse and heal my PTSD, which I did, which turned into complex PTSD, and to honor my son who struggled through his life and just couldn’t do the struggle anymore. That’s why I did it, to hopefully reverse and heal my PTSD, which on June 13th, 2022, I figured it out. I no longer have- I suffered my whole life with PTSD.

I no longer have it. I reversed it. You know the date? Yeah, June 13th, 2022. When I figured it out, I was walking on Gulfport Beach.

I got halfway down the beach and I stopped. And I went, oh my God, I’m free. That’s exactly what I said out loud. I’m free. Because PTSD is being imprisoned.

That’s what that is. You’re in a prison. And, and soon, because of a connection I made a couple of weeks ago, I think soon I’m going to start doing something at the local VA here. It’s wonderful because I know how to teach people with PTSD. I can teach them in 3 hours to not have PTSD anymore.

I know exactly how to teach it. Wow. And, and why I’m apparently, according to AI, I’m the only one of the only ones, or the only one that knows how to do that with no therapy and no drugs. So that’s how it all started. So on On November 19th, 2019, I bought 10 happiness signs made out of aluminum and fiberglass to do the experiment to see if me handling the word happiness constantly and staring at that word would change me.

And it did. So I put one up. I lived on Treasure Island at the time. I put one up on a palm tree under a streetlight, And 3 days later, code enforcement took it down and threw it away. So the next one I put up, I drilled 2 holes in it and I bolted it to a St. Pete city limits sign, and I took a picture of it and put it on I Love St. Pete.

Within 24 hours, all the media was chasing me around town. It started with Aaron Murray from Bay News 9 filming me putting them up, and, and now it’s, it’s almost every month the news contacts me and they’re they’re filming me. Recently, Dave Wagner from Channel 10 did an amazing interview with me, and we went to the Skyway, and I put up a happiness sign on a palm tree right next to the highway at the Skyway. I know you’ve been wanting to do one. Well, I have a 4-foot one I’m going to take down there and put up, and they want to film me doing that.

It’s 4 feet wide, and I made a backing for it. With a piece of plywood so it’ll last a long time. But the interesting thing about the Skyway, I think statistically 50% of the people that drive over the Skyway don’t like driving over the Skyway. They don’t like it because of heights or fear. Yeah, for multiple reasons.

It makes them nervous to be up that high. They know the history of the bridge. It’s the second suicide venue in the United States next to the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn’t realize that. Yeah.

It’s ironic in a way because you came in before we started recording and you told me that every day people come up to you and go, I recognize you, and then they lay on you something very heavy. So-and-so, I lost so-and-so to suicide, and things like that. Isn’t it ironic that your happiness experiment has led you to people’s worst experiences in a way? There’s a beauty in that. There’s a heaviness in that.

You, you hold a lot in your, you know, in your bones. Yeah. And including your own experiences. Just this past, let’s see, today’s Thursday. I think last Friday I got a message on Facebook Messenger from a young woman who said, is there any way, and she sent me a picture, is there any way you will put a happiness sign on the fence in front of my house?

When I was in the 4th grade, my father committed suicide. I get those 7 days a week. And I went down to her house and I put happiness sign on her fence. I took a picture of it and I messaged it back to her. She didn’t even know I did it.

Oh my gosh. And that happens. How powerful is that? That happens a lot. But the other interesting thing.

When I started this whole venture, and I can’t think of the guy’s name, I credited him in my book. I can’t think of his name. He was kind of a hippie guy in Australia. He was real tall with long hair, and he did this thing. It was in the ’80s.

He took a piece of poster board, and it was in Australia in a walking mall, a street that had been closed, and you could only walk on the street to go to the shops. So he took a 3-foot by 3-foot piece of poster board and he wrote with a black marker, free hugs. And he stood there with it over his head and people just walked by. And then an elderly woman came up that had scoliosis. She was staring at the ground and she looked up and saw the sign and he gave her a big hug.

Well, that thing went viral and he wound up on Oprah because of that. That was in the ’80s. Well, I knocked it off and I had a red 3-foot square thing that said Free Happiness, and I would go to the market, the outdoor markets, and I’d stand there with a Free Happiness sign and give out happiness stickers. That’s how I started doing all that, and I’ve given out 24,000 of those stickers. Those stickers are on cars.

People stopped using bumper stickers years ago. They’re on cars all over the United States and Canada. They’re on my walls. They’re at home. They’re everywhere around me.

Yeah. Well, now there’s restaurants. Dead Bob’s, which is a really popular restaurant, it’s got a 3-foot one on the wall. Oh, Maddie’s has got a 4-foot one. Yeah.

It’s interesting that someone would take your first one down. Or what’s going through your mind taking down a happiness sign, man? People ask me all the time. They go, You have all those signs and say, did you get permission from the city of St. Petersburg? I go, I didn’t get permission because the city knows me.

I was an event producer starting in 1971. They know who I am, and why would the city take down something that has all upside and no downside? There’s no ID on it. There’s no .com. There’s no phone number.

They don’t have to pay for them. It’s free happiness. That’s what it is. And then they go, how about Duke Energy? No, no, no.

Duke Energy will not touch the signs on the poles. They won’t touch them. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So yeah, people ask me all the time, will you put them up in St. Pete Beach?

Absolutely. You go to St. Pete Beach Code Enforcement and you get permission because the signs are $25 apiece. And I’m not gonna put ’em up in a city where they take ’em down. Right. So if you get permission, I’ll put ’em up in St. Pete Beach.

Nice. So you’ve dominated the St. Pete region and it’s, it’s clearly elsewhere in the world. Yeah. And in random spots. If you had to pick one specific location to next do what you’ve done to St. Pete, say in a month there’s just you and a team of 10 that go and do the same thing?

Where would that- that’s very interesting because I got asked that question last night when I did this presentation locally. They go, is one of your goals to have people doing this all over the world? Absolutely. But people go all the time, they go, are you part of the organization that puts up the signs? I am the organization that puts up the signs.

There is no organization. So locally, here’s what just happened. Somebody from Palm Harbor, somebody from either Clearwater or Palm Harbor came to me and said, if I go to the city, will you- yes, that’s all you have to do is go and see. What I do is even though I’m not registered yet as nonprofit, whatever profit I make from the sale of the t-shirts and the hats and all that stuff, That buys the signs that go on the poles. So it’s nonprofit.

It’s not a profit thing. Sure. Right. It’s not what it’s about. I mean, I can tell you right now, and this is another experiment that I need to, to contact somebody about.

I can tell you right now. So I have 9 8-foot happiness signs in 9 local school cafeterias. It changes the whole school. Now think about it. Kids are sitting in a cafeteria.

There’s nothing on the walls but an 8-foot-long happiness sign in red and yellow. What sticks in their head? The word happiness. That’s the way subliminal works. Okay.

Do you have them currently in 9? Yeah. Or you want them in 9? No, they’re in 9 schools right now. Yeah.

Deer Beach Fundamental. Um, Azalea. Yeah. They’re in 9 schools. Bay Point.

Do you have a connection to Lakewood? Is Lakewood one of them? Because I have a connection there. No, people contact- Because that’s a no-brainer. Same with you had told me about buses.

Put them on the buses. On the school buses. Has that gone anywhere? No, because I’m a one-person organization. See, all it requires- See, here’s the thing about school buses.

There’s 500,000 school buses in the US. They are not controlled by the school board. The school board has nothing to do with school buses. The school buses are controlled by Florida Department of Transportation. They own them, they control them.

So it requires somebody, and FDOT knows who I am. They know exactly who I am because I wrote the letter that got the bridge fenced. Oh, really? I wrote that letter. The Skyway.

They know who I am. Yeah, it was on the front page of the St. Pete Times. Years ago. So here’s what somebody told me to do. Contact DeSantis’s wife.

She’ll jump on that. See, but that’s a matter of, you know, that’s 6 degrees of separation, if you know what 6 degrees of separation- yeah, that’s 6 degrees of separation. But the other thing that would be really impactful- now, I spoke in the prisons in Dublin, Ireland, I spoke in the men’s maximum security prison. I’ve spoken in the women’s prison several times. You put an 8-foot happiness sign in a prison and the whole entire prison population will change.

Also, I’m thinking my meeting here at 2 is with Recovery Epicenter Foundation, who’s a client of mine. Recovery centers. So can you stick around? Yeah. Okay.

Because he runs it. Yeah. As long as I can leave it at Quarter to three. Yeah. Oh yeah.

I mean, because these are no-brainers. I need to go the way I’m dressed right now. So yeah. You’re dressed great. You’re wearing a happiness sign, a loud, wonderful Hawaiian red shirt.

Yeah. I apologize. We’re just we’ve done one video podcast because I was at that private island. Yeah. I introduced you to.

Oh, I just. But it’s a lot of work. Colin, right? Colin. Yeah.

He just walked by. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Their office is right here, so we can.

I can also. Interesting. I thought he was at the island. No, he did live there for like 16 months. Because I just, I had been communicating with him and I got so busy because of the movie.

It’d been a month went by. I even had an image made on chat of that island saying the Happiness Retreat, home of the Happiness Retreat. I love it. I just emailed him 2 days ago and apologized for not getting back to him. Well, he’s super cool.

Oh, that would sell out. So yeah, I’ll, I’ll introduce you to Colin in person then. Will, shout out. I thought he was there. I didn’t know he was here.

Yeah, yeah, he was there for a long time. See, the impact of this is beyond human imagination. And, and I use 2 examples of subliminal.

Okay, NASCAR. Why would a company give a race team $25 million to put a logo on the side of a race car? Why would they do that? Because they think the person’s going to leave the track and go buy the product? No, because in marketing it’s called top of mind.

That’s the term, totally top of mind. So if you see a Coke logo, Coca-Cola logo, or a Pepsi logo going by you 500 times Chances are when you go in a store, you’re going to gravitate toward whatever’s on the side of that car. That’s why they do it. I think that’s the most compelling argument for what you’re doing that most anybody can relate to, because I don’t think people think about that really. I’m in marketing, so I get it.

But you put it in that context and then your signs, they go, oh, I feel like that’s the most powerful. And what’s this spaghetti one? I’ve never seen this. Okay, so you’ve got a sign. You’re holding a sign.

I have a sign in my hand. It’s a copy of the happiness sign. All right, it’s red and yellow, it’s 2 feet long by 6 inches wide, made of aluminum fiberglass, and it says spaghetti on it. Why spaghetti? The word happiness has 9 letters in it.

The word spaghetti has 9 letters in it. I use this on stage and I go, if I put 804 spaghetti signs all over St. Petersburg and Gulfport, you would not be able to buy spaghetti in any store in Pinellas County. It would be sold out. But the strangest part is at least 50% of the people who went and bought the spaghetti don’t eat it and don’t like it, and they couldn’t figure out why they bought it. It’s subliminal.

So, the classic story I tell is Disney, The Lion King. Now, people can look this up. The trailer for the movie, which is 2 minutes and 9 seconds long, it shows the lions on a slanted rock. It’s at night and they’re staring up at the sky. That’s the trailer.

They’re staring at the stars in the sky because nobody, for the most part, realized that the stars spelled the word sex in huge- in a huge pattern. No way. Yes, you could look it up. People go, what? Yeah, because you can’t see it.

Somebody has to point it out to you, but your brain registered it. People go, why would Disney spell the word sex with the stars? Because adults buy movie tickets. Children don’t. Liquor ads, they use ice cubes and the cracks in the ice cubes spell sex.

Really? In liquor ads. But you would never see any of that. It’s subliminal. That’s the whole idea behind subliminal.

So the signs, well, people consciously see them, but their unconscious sees the word. Their unconscious mind sees it. Because sometimes I’ll go, you’ve seen the happiness signs all over town? No. I said, you’ve never seen them?

No. Where are they? They’re all over. There’s 14 of them on Central. I can’t miss them.

Then I see the person a week later and they go, they’re everywhere. And I go, they’ve been everywhere and you’ve seen them, but you consciously didn’t see them until now. Now you see them all over the place. Well, they’ve been all over the place. I started in 2019.

They’ve been all over the place.

I needed a researcher, an analyst, a strategist, someone watching my competitors, and someone finding real opportunities that I could act on. So I hired The Intel Club for only $99 a month. It’s absurd. Sign up for 7 days free at theintelclub.com.

It’s fascinating. It’s a fascinating thing. I mean, first off, you had mentioned it, like, how hasn’t anybody thought of doing this? And I, I mean, there’s got to be in humanity a first for everything. How didn’t someone think about making this metal into a cymbal?

It sounds so cool with drums. You’re the first. Yeah. Have people tried to, like, Do you see people doing it in different places in different ways? Have you noticed anybody trying to do it?

No. No. That’s also surprising. No, nobody. If I’m in Indiana, nobody has knocked it off.

Nobody. Comcast. Those are the people that own the electronic billboards. Comcast. If Comcast put that on those 60-foot-wide electronic billboards, the change would be astronomical.

So last, last week I’m at the Channel 8 studios in Tampa for, for a, um, a breaking news story, and I was telling the staff before they started interviewing, like, look, just think about this for a minute. Some people know what a green screen is, some people don’t. A green screen is what’s behind the news anchors, and they project an image on it that looks like they’re sitting in Times Square or they’re on the beach or somewhere else. It’s called a green screen. They post an image on it.

All right, if they took the Happiness logo and they put it on the news green screen and the news anchors did not mention it, they didn’t go, look what’s behind, they didn’t say a word, the viewership would increase by 25% in 30 days.

What news station puts the word Happiness on the green screen? Not one. But they’ll put other things on the green screen that cause what? Anger, frustration, depression. They’ll put all that stuff on the green screen, but they won’t put the word happiness on the green screen.

It’s interesting. A woman came up to me last night at the presentation. She wants to fund it anonymously. She wants me to put happiness signs in front of every fire station in in, um, St. Petersburg. No way, that’s a great idea.

Yeah, that’s because of- I mean, I’m a first responder, so I understand the stress that first responders go through. Yeah, she’s going to contact me, she’ll fund it, but she doesn’t want her name contacted to it. Once you do that, um, I have, uh, clients all in the EMS world, um, and I’m embedded in that. We could share that. I think wildfire.

Well, she was serious about it. And I have no problem. Matter of fact, probably the most impactful way to do it would be to put the 4-foot ones in front of fire stations. Yeah. Yeah.

There’s a 4-foot one on 46th Street and 1st Avenue North on a palm tree in front of a guy’s house. I feel like there’s going to be, and I’m surprised it hasn’t happened Money is such a barrier in so many ways because you found a funder, someone to say it. If that works out, there are signs on all these fire stations. You can apply that in different ways if you can find a model to then just spread. Let me give you a point of reference for this.

I understand it’s easier said than done, but- Point of reference. Yeah. Okay. So there are, there’s one store that I started that sells them in St. Pete, Enchanted Notions, 645 Central. When I started, and the movie, my life story movie, part of it was filmed in the store.

Okay, so they sell the signs. So it used to be that I stocked them with 10 at a time. They used to sell 10 every 6 weeks. Now they typically sell 10 to 15 every week. Yeah.

Now there are 3 stores that sell them. So Sun Drunk sells them on Corey Avenue and Stella’s in Gulfport sells them. Now, my point in saying this is It has reached critical mass because now people are, where do I get a sign? Where do I get a sign? Where do I get a sign?

Where do I- it’s compounded to the point it’s reached critical mass. But see, the school bus, look, if the 4-foot version got laminated on a school bus, it won’t do anything. It won’t hurt the paint. It won’t do any damage to the school bus. It’s laminated to the side.

Well, school buses roll 12 hours a day. It’s not just children who see them. It’s everybody in the whole city sees your word traveling all over the place. Yeah, it’s like a rolling billboard. Yeah, that’s why I just bought- I just purchased an extended bright red Ford van to put graphics on.

It’s red. Find a factory red extended van of any brand. You can’t even find one. They’re all white. All right.

Yeah, this is- you don’t have to paint it. This is bright red. Yeah, it’s- I- critical mass is exciting because number one, you know, I mean, I don’t know if it’s clich� to say, but like, the- we definitely as humanity have our issues. It just seems like things have gotten slippery where it’s like, really, we’re here? And I feel like something- it’s- this is so elegant, you know?

It’s, it’s elementary too, right? It doesn’t- it’s not more complicated than what it is. It’s- I mean, we’ve been talking for an hour and 20. Yeah, but, uh, the, the concept behind it, you don’t have to say much. You can look at it and go, and does that make me mad?

Is that doing any harm? Then cool. What do we have a problem with? Let’s let it go. Yeah, and see, more and more now stores and restaurants want them on the front of the store or in the restaurant, on the wall in the restaurant, because it makes a dramatic difference.

We have one in our coworking community. Yes, you do. We’re sitting proud. Yes, you do. I point to that almost every day in reference, and people who are in here are surrounded by that.

People comment on the energy. So to dive into the quantum physics part- yeah, great. So the number 9 is the number of infinity, okay? The average person wouldn’t know any of this. It’s my research.

So all the planets, the diameter adds up to the number 9. The seconds in an hour add up to 9. The diameter of a circle adds up to 9. The corners of a square add up to 9. Everything in the universe adds up to 9.

Okay, the corners of a pyramid, of a triangle, it all adds up to 9. 9 is the only number you can add to itself a million times and it adds up to 9. There’s no other number you can do that with. Huh. So think of, so 4 times 9 is 36.

3 and 6 is 9. Oh. 3 times 9 is 27. 2 and 7 is 9. Interesting.

Well, you can do that to infinity and it always adds up to 9. Always. What about the corners of a triangle? What do you, how, what is, how do you quantify the number 9 in that? The degrees adds up to 9.

45, 4 and 5 are 9. Oh, 90 degrees. Uh-huh. A hexagon, the degrees always add up to 9. There’s 9 letters in the word happiness.

Does this, um, does this get, um, not bother you, but is it sort of Overwhelming sometimes? Because I know for me, because you’ve ever seen that movie 13? No. With Jim Carrey? No.

Oh man. Yeah. The number like takes over his entire life. Yeah. You might, you might be interested.

I’ve seen a lot of his movies. I copied one for- I spoke at UCSD for 12 years, University of California San Diego, to 300 teens from 25 countries. And I had a video made a short video made that I played that was from his movie called, um, it was about the truth. What was the name? Liar Liar.

Liar Liar. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I took clips from that and had this thing made. But, but, you know, once a person- I don’t know. Well, I do know I read 2,300 non-fiction books, and that was because In 1987, I had an NDE, which is very interesting.

NDE stands for near-death experience. What happened? I was clinically- I died. I was clinically dead in 1987. What happened to you?

Alcohol poisoning. My goodness. So that’s part of your story as well there. Yeah, I grew up an alcoholic because my father abused me.

Wow. So I started drinking when I was- so that’s, that’s a whole subject in and of itself. Substances. Oh yeah. Why do people go towards substances?

For the same reason that a 4-month-old cries. What is a, what is a bottle with milk in it? It’s a substance. What’s a teddy bear? It’s a substance.

Okay, so why do people gravitate toward substances? Because they’re trying to shut the voice up in their head. That’s what a substance does. Well, I started doing that to manage my emotions because, listen, people create debt. What are they trying to do?

Manage their emotions. I need this. So that I can- okay, well, if you start studying that stuff, you’ll find out it doesn’t work. Okay, so yeah, I was 37 years old, and, um, I had just like the penny doubled. Listen, I started when I was 15 years old.

Somebody offered me a beer. I can almost remember where I was. Somebody handed me a can of beer, and I was 14 or something. Well, that led to drinking a fifth of Bacardi rum a day. And then I hit 37 years old and I went through a whole bunch of traumas and I went, I can’t do this anymore.

And I’m really, um, strong emotionally. And I did something that was very foolish. If you drink that much alcohol and you stop, you have to be monitored. You have to be. And I wasn’t.

And I made a decision, never again. And I stopped and I died. Because you stopped? I died within 12 hours. I was dead within 12 hours.

Yeah. Yeah. You have to, you have to. Yeah. I went, I went cold turkey and you can’t, you can’t do that.

But your body was so used to it. My body just went into shock and it did. I was clinically dead. And, you know, I try and describe it to people and, you know, there’s all kinds, 5 million people in the U.S. have had NDEs. Okay.

It’s not, and very famous people, Anita Moorjani, Dr. Eben Alexander, very famous people have had near-death experience. It’s not imagination. It’s not, you’re really dead and you really leave and you get- Where’d you go? What was it like? I went up against the ceiling and I’m looking at my body laying in the bed.

No way. And I’m going, wait a minute. I can see, I can hear, I have all my memories back to childhood. And I’m going, how is this even possible that me has nothing to do with that? I’m looking at my body and I’m going, there’s no connection.

It was like something I didn’t even recognize. I’m like, it’s a doll or it’s a vessel or it’s an old Volkswagen. There was no connection at all. Wow. How long was it?

I don’t know. See, man created time, so I could have been dead for 10 minutes. I could have been dead for 5 hours. I, I don’t know. But what I can tell you, when I went back into my body, I couldn’t be around people for 18 months.

Really? Stay away from people. Yeah, because what happens is when you leave your body like that, you can see inside of everything. And so if I was around people, if I was in a room with 50 people and they weren’t talking, I could hear their thoughts. Oh geez.

I could hear everybody’s thoughts. Oh yeah. Just like they were talking. So I had to, and I can still do that now, but I don’t, it’s not a focus now. I can still do it now.

That’s why I, you know, with audiences, I’m, I can sense what people feel and the expressions on their faces and all that stuff. It’s just, it’s odd, but it is what it is. I mean, that happened to me. Nothing in life can happen by accident. It can’t.

There’s no accidents. Everything has a purpose. Life has a purpose. It takes you down a path and you either, you know, there’s a thing I teach. It’s called the circle and the ant.

You can take a piece of white paper and a black marker. Draw a circle and put a live ant in the circle. The ant will not cross the black circle. It’ll run around like crazy and it won’t cross. And then after several hours, it’ll finally cross the circle.

Well, then you make the circle smaller, the ant does the same thing again. Well, that is how they train the CIA. They train them using the circle and the ant theory. Well, the circle and the ant theory teaches Perception versus perspective. 98% of the population of the Earth lives their life by perception.

Only 2% live by perspective. So perspective was what happened to me in the near-death experience. You see, I had a perspective. I’m looking at myself, but I’m outside of myself. That’s perspective.

Perception is what people say and do, or what they don’t say and do, affects every human’s life. That’s what happens. Watch the news and watch what happens to people. Perception. They’re watching the news and their perception is what?

I have to feel this way. Sure. So that plays out. So years ago, after the Parkland school shooting, I was invited onto a panel in- at the Cox Studios in Orlando, a 12-person panel. There were 2 sheriffs, somebody from the psych ward of the Orlando Hospital, a couple of celebrities, somebody from the college, the Florida colleges.

And the whole reason for this 2-hour thing was to determine a way to stop school violence And it was based on the Parkland shooting, and the shooter’s name was Nathaniel Cruz. He’s still in prison. All right, when I left there, I went, you got to be kidding me. What people were talking about as a solution- converting the teachers’ lounges into sheriff’s departments. Oh yeah, giving janitors handguns and all.

And I’m going, whoa. So I created something called Life’s most important question.

So if Nathaniel Cruz was sitting next to me in the chair next to me right now, and he wasn’t intimidated by me, I wasn’t trying to catch him, make him wrong, judge him, and I asked him life’s most important question, I know his answer. So here’s life’s most important question. What happened to you that caused you to feel the way you feel, make the decisions you’ve made, and take the actions you’ve taken? If he was sitting here right now and I asked him that question, I know exactly what his answer would be to life’s most important question. Here’s how he’d start his answer: when I was a child, comma.

Yeah. So if I go to San Francisco right now, and I interview 50 homeless people that are not high, they’re not drunk, they’re cognizant, and I interview 50 homeless people that live on the sidewalk, and I ask them life’s most important question, every one of the 50 is going to say, when I was a child. All 50 of them are going to say that. So where’s the solution to homelessness? How come they can’t find a solution to homelessness?

Because they’re not asking life’s most important question. Because all humans have what’s called inner children, inner child, but most humans don’t acknowledge any of that. I mean, why did I wind up being an alcoholic? Because my father verbally and physically abused me. Is that unusual?

Nope, not unusual at all, because his father did the same thing to him. That’s why he did it to me, because that was his life experience. Sure. Did you break the cycle? Was that the last time that you drank when you were 37?

Oh, here’s what happened to me. It’s really interesting. So I call it the pendulum theory. Okay. The pendulum swung way over here.

Yeah. Alcohol, the compounding effect, the penny doubled effect. Interesting. One beer leads to- see the compounding effect? Sure.

Right. So I stopped for 7 years. I wouldn’t go near alcohol. Now, one day a week today, I meet a friend of mine at Fenway in Dunedin. And I have What’s interesting, it has nothing whatsoever to do with alcohol.

Nothing. I have one Bloody Caesar and I have one little 1 ounce of Baileys. I get no effect from it at all. Zero. Really?

And that’s it. Huh. And the only reason I do that, the only reason I do that It has nothing to do with the alcohol. It has to do with the taste of the Baileys. It’s sweet.

And the taste of the Bloody Caesar, which is Clamato juice. The alcohol doesn’t do anything to me at all. Nothing. Sure. Because that’s not why I’m doing it.

Wow. See, the other time I was doing it to change the voice in my head. Well, I’m not trying to change the voice in my head. The voice in my head is fine.

Yeah. And I could never do that again and it wouldn’t affect me at all. I could never do it again. But see, that’s the interesting part about the behavior of a human.

When you start to study and you go deep into why, my next book is called The Why, because what is going on in the world? Well, turn on the news. You can hear what’s happening. But there’s no why. Yeah, right.

Why are there 76,000 homeless people in Los Angeles? Why are there 180- why are there, uh, what’s the stat? Why are there 18 million homeless people in the UK?

There’s a reason for that. It’s not accidental. It’s interesting because all these things like that committee you were on or that talk, asking questions and things like that, I feel like there are simpler answers. Correct. The questions are being asked, the wrong questions are being asked to get to the solutions.

And of course then you get these Band-Aids or things that make it worse because people are asking the wrong questions. That’s correct. And almost, it seems like in certain ways, and not always, but, and I try to be careful about this, but there’s intention behind it, whether it be control or power or money or greed to keep the things the way they are. Listen, if I, if I, and I could do this, I could pull it off. Look, I’ll pay my own way.

I’ve been to California so many times I lost count. Not after all the homeless stuff started. I used to go to San Francisco all the time. But if somebody wants to film me going to San Francisco and doing what I just told you, I’ll find 50 homeless people living on the sidewalk who are not high or drunk, and I’ll ask them the question on camera and watch what they say. When I was a child.

That’s what they’re going to say. Well, then where is the solution? The solution is You have to go to the beginning point, the starting point. You can’t go somewhere in the middle and fix it from the middle. Right.

I’d like to talk about that more because if we could sort that out and go for a week, we could film it. I feel like what would be powerful is if we named it, you named that short film, when I was, or something like that before you went there to Babe Ruth it. Hey, this is- you’re calling it. This is what’s going to be said, and then you play it out. So, here’s the interesting thing about the whole homeless thing, and it’s out of control.

All right, all children- I’ve spoken all over the world in schools- all children seek acceptance, approval, and appreciation. All humans do that. Why are homeless people doing that? Where do they get acceptance, approval, and appreciation? In a homeless community.

Because it’s a community. What- they’re accepted, they’re approved of, and they’re appreciated. Somebody’s living on the sidewalk next to them. But see, the irony of it all is who’s factoring that in? Well, I’ve never heard anybody say on the news, Oh yeah, all humans chase after acceptance, approval, and appreciation.

And the reason they do that is because schools don’t teach self-acceptance, self-approval, and self-appreciation. So last year I spoke at Eckerd College. Get this, because I’m an extemporaneous speaker, so the room’s full. The demographic is 50/50 male/female, age 30 to 75. Right in the middle of my presentation, I did something I’ve never done before.

I said, okay, I’m going to ask you a question. I’ve never done this to an audience before. I’m going to ask you a question. The only thing I require is you immediately answer. Don’t sit there and ponder the question because you know the answer when I ask the question.

Don’t think about it. So here was the question. Raise your hand if you unconditionally love yourself. You want to tell me what happened in the room, Josh? When I asked that question to an audience of a broad demographic?

Not enough hands. 2 people got their hand to their ear.

I tried it again. The same thing happened. Now, what can I tell you about that? Well, when a person doesn’t unconditionally love themselves, they’re subject to The please disease, the lie disease, the cancer disease, the everything disease. Yeah.

Because love is an energy and it heals everything. That’s a beautiful statement. I continually go back to the, the, when you’re on an airplane, they say, look, before you put your, uh, help your kids with your mask, you got to put yours on first. And you know, it’s kind of counterintuitive, but I can’t help them if I can’t even- I’m not alive. So it’s an order of operations.

It’s the same thing. Same with marriage. My marriage is not going to be great if I don’t even love myself. That is correct. What are we doing here?

That is correct. But it’s also, why does it have to be, or why is it, why is it that we don’t unconditionally love ourselves? What’s wrong? My children, my perspective has certainly changed since having kids. I’m not saying that someone who doesn’t can’t have this, but it has forced me to see purity in a form that I had never experienced before.

They are perfect. There’s nothing wrong with them. They have done nothing wrong. And they’re beautiful at the core and every cell of their body. Then I think that was every human.

They came into this world perfect, or there was nothing wrong with them in its truest form, that they’re just a beautiful being that hasn’t done anything. It’s interesting. In the books that I’ve read, I read Uh, what’s his name, the, the New York street magician, um, the very famous David Blaine. David Blaine. I read his book and it’s crazy.

He was raised by his mom and he said, my mom never disciplined me. All she ever said was, David, you’re going to be really famous. David, you’re going to be really famous. That’s the way she raised him. Now, what’s, what’s interesting is, and I tell people all the time, I go, stop calling it a brain.

Don’t call it a brain because calling it a brain means it’s all- call it a hard drive because that’s what it is. It’s a hard drive. Don’t call it a brain. Stop calling it a brain. Just go, look, I have 95% hard drive and I have 5% RAM.

In computer lingo, RAM means random access memory. What do humans- how do they live their life? They have 95% hard drive. It doesn’t change. It stays the same.

And the RAM is resolving abusive memories. That’s what humans do with the RAM. They try to resolve abusive memories. They try and resolve what happened yesterday. They try and resolve what they think is going to happen tomorrow.

They try and resolve going back to childhood. Well, you can change all that. I, geez, I did it. Where did I just do it? And I freaked people out.

Where was I? Where was I speaking?

Anyway, the last time I did it to a huge audience, it was at Reuben I. Cott. There was a couple hundred people in the room. And I go, look, one of the major ways of changing human behavior is with hypnosis. And every day of people’s lives, they’re getting hypnotized. They just don’t know it.

So I’m telling you all in the room, I’m going to hypnotize you. So I’m telling you in advance, so I’m not tricking you. I’m going to hypnotize you and it’s going to take me 90 seconds. And the people in the room who are saying to themselves, This guy can’t hypnotize me. You are easier to hypnotize, trust me.

So in 90 seconds, I hypnotize the whole room. I’m looking at them. They’re all in a trance. What’d you say? Well, don’t hypnotize me because I got stuff to do.

I do it to show them how simple it is. I can do it right now. It’s 90 seconds. I can show you how it works. Okay.

Is there any way to block it? No, you don’t have to block it because it doesn’t harm anyone. Okay. Because I explain it after I do it. I explain it.

Yeah, let’s do it. So here’s, here’s what- and will it affect anybody listening right now? So I’m at Reuben Eichhaut and I tell everybody, so everybody that’s listening to this, okay, here’s what I’m going to do. So there’s a little girl. She’s 5 years old.

She’s out in the backyard. She’s got a garden hose. She’s got mud all over herself. She’s got mud everywhere. She’s throwing mud on the house.

She’s got mud on her face. She’s got mud in her hair. Her mother comes out, opens the back door, starts yelling at her. Stop throwing the mud. Stop with the garden hose.

Stop. You’re making a big mess. It’s terrible. Quit throwing the mud. Quit doing it.

Quit doing it. You’re making a horrible mess. Daily Mail. You’re making a terrible mess. Stop doing it.

So I just did it.

And here’s what I did. So, and I just did this the other day to a huge audience, and only 2 people raised their hand because that was the result at Reuben I. Cott when I did it. I tell the audience, when I got done doing what I just did, I said, here’s what’s going to happen. If there was a paper rack in the foyer of the Reuben I. Cott Center where you are right now, and there was 200 newspapers in it, Every single person in this room, when they leave, is going to buy a newspaper. Whether you bought newspapers before in your life, you don’t buy newspapers.

But the weirdest thing is the newspaper’s the number one newspaper in London, and you’re going to buy one. Everybody in the room is going to buy one. What? Yeah. Why is that?

What’s the name of the number one newspaper in the UK? Is it like Mud or something? The Daily Mail. Uh-huh. Did you hear me say it?

No. Well, it’s in the recording. Wow. Wild. Yeah, in the middle.

That’s why I was talking so fast. And she’s throwing mud, and the mother’s, stop, stop, Daily Mail, stop throwing the mud. Uh-huh. Interesting. Well, what do you think happens?

What do people think happens When you watch the news and somebody’s talking really fast, because the nature of a human, they don’t hear every word, but their subconscious mind does.

Yeah, I just did it. And I asked the audience, I said, okay, who heard me say Daily Mail? And only 2 people raised their hand in a whole room full of people, because that’s typically the way that that works. That’s why it’s really easy to do. Interesting.

Wow. It’s fascinating. All this is so fascinating because once you explain it or you think about it, it seems just like your science, seems basic on the surface, but getting there or carrying it out is the complexity, I guess, now that we’re in a complex system. I’ll give you a real simple example. Without using the words.

Now, anybody listening to this, if you use your imagination, you will know exactly what the six words are. So starting in basically 2020, let’s say starting in January 2020, six words destroyed the world. Shi. 6 words destroyed the Earth. 6 words.

Because those words created beliefs, behaviors, words. 6 words. Now, anybody who hears this and you go back to 2020 and you think about the 6 words that were used trillions of times on the news, trillions, social media, trillions, 100 trillion times, 6 words were used starting in 2020. 6 words. Anybody that goes back to 2020 in their memory, let’s see, what was the hot topic in 2020?

Oh boy. And they’ll come up with the 6 words. Well, those 6 words, what did those 6 words do? Cause behavior patterns. Because that’s what words do.

First, there was the word.

Well, people reacted to the words. They started throwing rocks and they started doing this and they started doing that because of words, because that’s what words do. They create emotions and they create patterns in people’s behavior. Well, where are the 6 words? I never do that in a pub, in public.

I never do that in public because- say them. Yeah, I never do that because it leads down the 2 paths that I don’t go down. Gotcha. So I won’t put it in the recording. Gotcha.

I will tell you when we end the recording. Okay. And I’ll tell you what the 6 words are. Okay. Sorry.

Anybody listening to this, if you go back to 2020, you don’t have to put a lot of thought into coming up with the 6 words. Sure. It’s pretty simple, actually. Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting how powerful some, some things can be. The ripples that particular things- I mean, I think that’s an illustration of your signs.

This ripple, it’s subliminal, it’s small, but it’s big. Small becomes so big over time or over repetition. You know, you use, you use the human mind and you use it as a tool, and you, and you use a marketing concept called top of mind Well, if you want people’s behavior to change, just use a word and get it to stay on a person’s top of mind. And let me tell you, I grew up in an era where the news was 30 minutes long. It was on at 6 o’clock for 30 minutes, and it was on at 10:30 for 10 o’clock for 30 minutes.

That was it. Yeah, it was not on 24 hours a day. And they weren’t telling the same thing 250 times because that’s how you brainwash a human. Yeah. And you get things to be top of mind, whether it be products, behaviors.

Yeah. Study. I’ve spent 40 years studying behavior. It’s just really, really, really, really fascinating. But most people don’t spend any time doing that at all.

You know, when I went- oh my God, I went and saw Disclosure Day. All right. Oh my, I haven’t been in a movie theater in 15 years.

So there’s 45 minutes of previews. Oh yeah. Upcoming movies, like 12 of them. And every single one of them was extremely violent. There wasn’t one movie preview of anything, of any humanity, human takeaway.

There was no human takeaway. It was all violent. All of it. And it wasn’t, it was like extremely violent. Well, what happens to people when they watch that?

They think it doesn’t affect their behavior? Sure, it absolutely affects our behavior. I think we fight certain things. No, that doesn’t do anything. It’s just like drinking.

It’s the classic thing like this. I’m not- it doesn’t affect others or this or that, or it doesn’t affect me. It’s everything you do affects everything and everything that you consume affects. Now we’re in a landscape where everything’s immediate, it’s instantaneous, it’s all over your phone, your monitor, you can’t escape it. It’s everywhere all the time.

Last night at the presentation I did, there was also another person that did a presentation after me. It was a person from the city of St. Petersburg that did an overview. This is a neighborhood, it was a neighborhood thing, and it was an overview of the hurricane season and showing maps of what happened in the past and all that stuff. Now, if I was doing- because of my past as a first responder, if I was doing something locally having to do with the hurricane season, I would do something completely different, okay, than what this person did. All right.

So I would do something like, raise your hand if you have an external power supply. Most people don’t even know what an external power supply is, but you can go to Lowe’s and buy an external power supply and it’ll run a home refrigerator for 3 days. It’ll run all your laptops, all your, all your electronic devices for 3 days. Yeah, it’s, it’s $600. Most people don’t even know what it is.

Raise your hand if you own a generator. Raise your hand if you own a gas generator. Throw it away. Don’t own a gas generator.

Only LP. Hmm. LP? Mm-hmm. LP?

Why is that? No carbon monoxide. Uh-huh. Right. You know how many people die in the hurricane season because they have one in their carport and the carbon monoxide leaks through the windows?

Right. And they wake up in the morning dead? Geez. People tell me LP produces- no, it doesn’t. No, it doesn’t.

That’s why all forklifts that are in buildings can’t be gasoline. Right. Oh yeah. That’s the reason. Yeah.

So that’s just an example of information, and that was based on complacency. So how many people are complacent about their life? Yeah. I just, I think Also, we just move so fast now and you get caught up, you know, and as time progresses and you’re like, a lot of people like, how’d I get here? Well, look, I can use, I can use the, mine’s in my car and I use this a lot.

I go, listen, my mobile phone is very sophisticated. It’s from Star Trek. It’s all the way from Star Trek. It’s very complex. So I pull it out of my pocket because I carry a flip phone.

People give me 9 miles of nonsense about carrying a flip phone. I go, well, first of all, when you have a background in the security business, you do not carry smartphones. You do not do that for 50 reasons. Okay? But the saddest part of it all, and I see it every day, and I don’t Look, people are- I don’t sell beliefs.

I don’t do any of that stuff. But 7 days a week, I’m in restaurants.

Family of 4. Oh man. Walks in, sits down, has a meal for an hour. Not one word is said. I see married couples.

Not one word is said. Yeah, all 4, 2 on the phone the whole entire time. That’s crazy. Never say a word. The only words that are spoken is what they order off the menu, and then they’re looking at their, their thing.

In my book, there’s a chapter, and I call smartphones electronic fentanyl and electronic heroin. Because that’s the effect it has on people. It’s not a judgment, it’s an observation. It is sad for me to see a mother and father and 2 little children never talking. Oh yeah, never talking.

We have a strict no-phone policy at any meal. Our kids still don’t- we watch a movie here and there with them. We’re very into Because you, you don’t do that and it’s over. Because once they get there, that into that routine of, of in use to that, it’s, it’s over because it’s so addicting and it’s powerful. Yeah.

But you can go both ways, you know, because like for me, I do a lot of work with screens. Yeah. But I try to use it positively, but it still consumes. I’m in a restaurant having lunch with somebody and my phone will ring in my pocket and they go, your phone’s ringing. I hear it.

Aren’t you going to answer it? No, I’m not going to answer it. I’m talking to you. I’m good. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I’m not going to do that. Yeah. Plus, me answering a phone in a restaurant regardless, I don’t- I just- I have strict phone rules. I just don’t do it. Well, also, I manage my phone.

It doesn’t manage me. Yeah. No, that’s huge. I’ve, uh, I mean, so number one, I know we could go on, and I think part 2 will eventually be inevitable. I’d love, number one, to talk about- I don’t want to forget your idea about going to California.

I mean, maybe we don’t even need to go to California for it, but it sounds like you have a vision of that. Nobody’s been able to- I say nobody generalizing because it’s on the news all the time. Los Angeles, New York City has I forget the count. I was watching that the other night. San Francisco, now London.

I was watching the thing about London, but nobody seems to- so the state of California has spent, I don’t know, $25 billion on the homeless, but it’s getting worse. It’s not changing, it’s growing. What’s going on? Apparently somebody can’t figure this out. Well, they can’t figure it out because they’re not in the mindset of those- all those homeless people had something happen to them.

They’re not accidentally homeless. Something happened to them that gave them a mindset that got them to a point where hopelessness and helplessness became a lifestyle. You know how many people are- that manifests itself out because you- it’s all based on the law of compounding. It’s all based on that. Listen, if a 4-year-old starts telling lies, by the time they’re 21, they’re telling big ones.

That’s how it works. Sure. Yeah. There’s a good book about that by Sam Harris called Lying. He wrote a really short essay called Lying.

Oh, I have. I’ve read all the books on lying, believe me. Well, all of this plays into your level of happiness or how you treat yourself or how you love yourself. Which compounds out to the world, inner and outer. That’s exactly right.

Yeah. I hired someone new. They watch my competitors, track my market, find real opportunities, find hot leads, and send me a briefing every single morning about it. Their salary: $99 a month. Technically, they’re a software.

It’s called called The Intel Club, and it’s absurd. Sign up for 7 days free at theintelclub.com.

So in order to keep things moving, we’ve reached a time at this interview, as all of my shows do. It’s called rapid fire. Yep. I’m all in. Let’s do it.

I know It’s going to maybe be tough, but if you- maybe I’m going to ask you a series of questions. If you can keep it as short as possible, let’s see how you attempt to do that. But if you need to, you can expand upon it. I always just tell people you lose points. All right.

All right. You ready? Yeah, let’s do it. So, number 1, what is your biggest source of inspiration? Oh, my biggest source of inspiration.

Beyond anything is when I climb a ladder and put up a happiness sign. I love it. Beyond a doubt. Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s such self-generating.

You created the thing, you do the thing, and that’s your inspiration. Because what I’m doing is I’m, I’m affecting thousands of people. I’m affecting thousands of people because I can put up a word on a power pole or on a tree or on a fence. Do you reflect on it when you’re, when you’re screwing it in at that moment? Yeah.

Is it a pretty powerful moment? For you when you do that. When I’m interviewed, I go, every time I do this, it creates miracles is what it does. I remember when you put up this sign, you had a lot of intention. You didn’t rush it.

Yeah. You know, you- it was- there’s something about like the cadence of that moment. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how to put it into words, but I could- it was a very meaningful moment. Very deep. Sometimes I’m putting them up And I’m crying while I’m putting them up because I know the person who messaged me and why they messaged me to put it there.

Oh yeah, that’s like- right, that’s powerful. So we’re gonna transport to an island, let’s just say Pranamayan Belize, right? And you can only have one book that plops from the sky that you can continually read. What’s that book? Oh boy.

See, that’s a trick question for me because I’ve read 2,300 books, all nonfiction. So boy, this is- I know, probably I’ll put it this way.

I was a huge fan of Wayne Dyer. I went to see him live and he wrote 43 books. I read a lot of them. And so just off the top of my head, it- and there’s probably a lot of other ones. Yes, I’ve read the Bible and on and on, but a series of books by Wayne Dyer, that, that’s the author’s name that pops into my head.

And there is a very specific reason that that pops into my head too. Wayne Dyer. Okay, so any, any- it could be a random one of his that pops, pops down and you’d be fine. Yeah, he was, he was a really good author and, and he only had one assistant and he wrote 43 books, man. And he died young.

What a machine. Sadly, I think he was 67. Jeez. Yeah. Okay, I’ll have to look at what he wrote.

Um, same, same scenario, but it’s an album that drops from the sky. What’s, what’s the artist or the album, if you can get that specific? Okay, you’re talking about a record album. Yeah, music. I’m an album person.

Okay, so get this. I have to say this because I’m looking for it. I have sealed in the cellophane the first record album that the Beatles produced. What? I have the first one.

That you own? Yeah, that I own. It’s in my building. I can’t find it. Oh, it’s worth a ghastly amount of money.

But if you’re asking me about an artist, there’s only 2. And I was talking about this morning, it’s funny you bring that up. That would be, um, it would be Jimmy Buffett or the Beach Boys. That, that’s, that’s my deal because that’s the era I grew up in. And I knew Buffett.

So also, that doesn’t surprise me about like the vibes of the type of music. Oh yeah, that music. I love the Beach Boys. I saw them live and it was wonderful. They catch such a particular sound that it’s sort of overwhelming.

You can’t fight it. It just kind of washes over you and through you and you’re like, okay, I guess Well, see, that’s their crowds too. Their crowds weren’t the radical crowds. Their crowds were the crowds that were affecting the people’s heart and their soul by the music. The Parrotheads and the whole- yeah.

The Good Vibrations. Yeah, Good Vibrations. Every time I hear that song, I go, how did they write this? It’s so unique. But also, when you hear a song, And then you’ve heard it, you go, so obvious, there it is.

But it’s like it’s existed all the time, but it hasn’t. And good job on them that they did that. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there’s Thunderstruck.

Yeah. So in lieu of time, the last rapid-fire question is, how do you define success? I love that question. There is a book, the author’s name, last name is Holiday. He wrote a book called Rethinking Success.

So this is my answer. There’s no such thing as success. There never was. What there is is freedom. And in order to be free, You can’t be managed by the outside world in thinking that.

And boy, if there was anything that was crystal clear in my path of working with celebrities, they’re running 1,000 miles an hour to be what? More successful. More successful. Like it’s a destination. Success is a- well, when success is a destination, you never get there.

You never arrive because you can never have too much success. See, happiness is a journey. It’s not a destination. Success, people have turned success into a destination.

The problem is when they arrive at a certain financial level, it’s not enough. If they arrive at so many movies, it’s not enough. And that’s why the Holiday book is Rethinking Success. He’s basically saying without saying there’s no such thing as success because it’s always leading somewhere. Yeah.

Maybe from here on out, I should, instead of how do you define success, say, how do you define happiness? Exactly. Because a lot of people, I would say 80 or more percentage of people answer that question on happiness. Some people say sustained happiness and get specific, which I’m like, cool, how can you sustain it? Like true, true happiness.

But happiness is usually the answer. What may- and isn’t that ironic? So maybe I ask the question that’s already going to be answered and dive more deep is how do you define happiness? Here’s the irony of that question about success. Recently there was a program on YouTube from- I forget if it was from Monaco or someplace like that- where people own 200 and 300-foot yachts.

Okay, so they’re interviewing the owners. It was- I’m sitting there laughing at this. So they’re interviewing the owner of a 200-foot yacht. He’d owned it 18 months. He had it custom built.

Okay, 200-foot yacht, I don’t know, $180 million, some stupid amount of money. So they’re interviewing him and he’s going, yeah, I’ve owned it 18 months, but man, I’m just not satisfied. I, I, you know, I had it custom built, but now I’m regretting that I didn’t have a gym put in it. So he said, I’m- I just had a new one designed. It’s 300 feet.

Now I’m watching that and I’m laughing. I’m just sitting there laughing because here’s a guy who owns a 200-foot yacht and he’s upset. Yeah, he’s not happy, right? Because something was missing. And that was my point about success.

Now, when he has this new yacht built, he’s still not successful. Oh yeah, he’s going to forget something else. Oh, it didn’t have a wine cooler or a wine cellar and all that stuff. And see, the irony that- and the reason I can say that, not because I read about it, because I worked in that environment with people who are seen from the outside world as being extremely successful, and on the inside world, they’re miserable. They want more, and they’re not even conscious that more- I mean, one of the people I worked for would charter jets, and then he bought a jet.

And then he bought 2 jets. And I’m curious how you can fly on 2 jets at the same time. Why do you need 2 jets? Because you see, 2 jets is more successful than having 1 jet. That’s the irony in it all.

And see, I can also say this personally. So in my lifetime, I built and owned the largest house in the city of Treasure Island for 26 years. I had a 50-foot yacht. I’ve had race cars, race boats.

Was, was that successful? Nope. You know where I live now? I live in a World War II airplane hangar that I converted into a house. Do you?

Yeah, I do. Oh, I didn’t know that. But somewhere in there is that Beatles album? Yes. Okay, maybe sometime I’ll come look for it.

And a whole lot of other albums too. I have a whole stack of albums. Oh my gosh. From the ’50s and ’60s. I’d like to help you find it.

My goodness. I’d like to find it because it’s worth a ghastly amount of money.

Geez. Well, you won rapid fire. Congratulations. You did good. You did good.

And I appreciate your perspective on that and everything. Man, I just appreciate what you’re doing. It’s so inspiring. It’s just For me, what lights me up is watching people do stuff, actually do it, take action, and for positive change. I’m just getting started.

I love it. I’m just getting started. I’m not even really into it big yet. Yeah, it’s just the beginning. No, I can, I can tell, and I know, um, and, and what- wherever, you know, because I like to ask people, you know, where, where do you see it in 10 years or 20 years or whatever?

But I mean It’s just more of this. It’s interesting because it’s like, how much do you want? Talking back to what we were talking about, more. A lot of people just want more. See, the really- this, there’s just, this needs more.

You know, when does it end? No, see, you, if every single, if every school bus, just the school buses alone, if every school bus had the 4-foot version, on the side of every school bus in the United States, you would watch the country change and nobody could figure out the why behind it. They wouldn’t understand the why. Let’s figure out how to do it. It’s just a matter of somebody that’s connected to DeSantis or somebody that’s connected personally to FDOT because it’s not a money thing.

Yeah. Because I can tell you right now, people would donate that money to have that done. And what they would do if they took, as an example, if they took 36 buses in just Pinellas County and tested it, they’d be in shock. Yeah. Anybody listening who can help that?

Complete shock. Let’s see. I know what it does. I’ve been doing it now since ’19. I know what it does.

I know the effect of it. Yeah. So just to kind of put this all in perspective, there’s a young girl in my movie, The Happiness Experiment. She worked at Barnes Noble on Tyrone Boulevard. She had decided that her life wasn’t worth living anymore.

She made a plan. I’m going to drive to the bridge, drive to the Skyway, I’m going to throw my car in park. I’m going to run to the fence. I’m going to climb the fence and I’m jumping. She left Barnes Noble, drove down Tyrone Boulevard, made the curve in front of St. Jude’s Church and saw a happiness sign on an oak tree, changed her mind and went home.

She’s in the- she was filmed standing at that oak tree. So you see, what is a human life worth? A million dollars? $50 million? A billion dollars?

No, human life is priceless, absolutely priceless. And she saw a happiness sign and it saved her life. Not much more to say.

What more of an explanation needs to be given? She’s in the movie. But the real ironic part of that It played here May 1st, AMC 2, sold out. I sat in the top, the only seat I could find was in the top row next to a railing. There was a lady sitting next to me and the segment played about the girl.

She tapped me on my left shoulder and said, that was my daughter. And I went, wait a minute. That’s your daughter in this movie? She said, yes, it is. I said, did you know she was in the movie?

No, I didn’t. Oh, no way. How could I be sitting in the only empty seat? How? Now just ponder, everybody that listens, ponder that question.

How could I wind up in the only seat And then the young girl’s mother is sitting next to me. And you think there’s not coincidences? You think there’s no structure? Oh yes, there is. There’s no such thing as a coincidence.

Boy, I think that’s a pretty good way to end it there. I appreciate you, Gary. I appreciate you too, Josh. Thanks so much for your time and what you do. I love what I do and I’ll never stop.

Yeah, I love that. Let’s, uh, hey, if you’re listening, you can help some of these things along, or you want a happiness sign somewhere, just hit me up, or thehappinessexperiment.com. happinessexperiment.com. The, the clothing, the apparel is on there. The signs are on there.

You can contact me personally. Um, you can message me on Facebook, Gary King. You can email me kyingme2@aol.

So it reads King Me Too, but the King part is spelled with a Y, not an I. You can email me and I’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much for your accessibility and for what you do.

It’s, it’s unbelievable. My honor. Do it. My honor.