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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Joe, for agreeing to be part of this Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Joe Vitale: Well, I’m Joe Vitale.  I’ve written numerous books, including the recent one, Attract Money Now.

Toni: Well thank you, Joe, for being here.

Joe: Of course.

Toni: So Joe, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does it happen?

Joe: Well, I’m hoping I’m inspiring the people reading my books or watching the movies or listening to my audios.  I’ve felt since a very early age that my mission is to inspire people to go for and achieve their dreams.  So I’m hoping I’m doing that through everything that I’m producing and sharing with the world.

Toni: Joe, forgive those of us who may not be familiar with this body of work that you have created.  Can you help us understand, how does that inspiration happen?  How does someone learn from Joe?

Joe: Well, I would hope the primary reason or way that they learn from me is through my books.  I’ve been writing books since 1985.  I’ve written 52 books.  The most famous is probably my book, The Attractor Factor that got me into the movie “The Secret” and, of course, that got me all over the place, all over the globe.  I do all of this to teach people to look within themselves, find their goal, their calling, their mission, their life purpose, and then give them the techniques and the encouragement to go for it.  This is what I’m doing with my production of books and audios and DVDs.

Toni: Joe, there’s been a theme that’s been flushing out, unintentionally, through the Get Inspired! Project, and it is, whether it’s been a jazz musician to a hypnotist to a hospice worker, and people are talking about, with these questions, their passion and purpose.  When you are inspiring others to find that passion and purpose, what do you think is the number one thing that they have to do?  What happens?  What do you give them or teach someone that they can start to look towards that passion and purpose?

Joe: Well, there’s two or three things that I always ask people to do.  One of them is to pretend that they were already wealthy.  Everything’s paid for.  They won the lottery, and it was up to 65 million dollars, and after they paid taxes and went around the world 50 times and bought 30 cars and five homes and did everything that they wanted to do and indulged themselves, they wake up one morning – what are they going to do now?  That will help lead them to their inspired path.

Another thing I ask people to do is remember when they were a child, and what did you do for fun?  What did you do for your pastime?  What was your hobby?  What did you do for relaxation?  What did you say you wanted to do when you grew up?  And that can be anything from “I wanted to be a fireman” to “I wanted to be the President” and anything in between.  So I encourage people to look within themselves to find their own inspiration.

I end up telling my story, hopefully to inspire them, because I was homeless 30-some years ago.  I was in poverty for a very long time, and here I am with all these books and TV appearances and everything else.  And so I tell this story only to say “Look, wherever you’re at right now is only your temporary current reality, and it will change as soon as you start following your inspiration.”

And your inspiration is as available as your next breath.  You just have to look within yourself and say “Okay, if I was carefree and everything was paid …” or “If I was a child again, what would I be doing?  What would I be creating?  What would I be serving?  What would my inspirational path be?”  That all helps to lead in the right direction.

Toni: How does that help people then explore their potential?  Once they figure that piece out, what happens after that?

Joe: Well, they have to go and do it.  I’m a great believer in taking action, and you can’t just think about these things.  You can’t just nod your head and go “Oh, that’s a great idea, that feels wonderful, and that was a wonderful moment.”  You have to then implement it.  You have to bring it to life.

I really believe that each of us has an inspired path, and when we start following our inspired path, everything comes together.  We start to feel happier.  We start to feel healthier.  I think our prosperity increases, our wellbeing increases, our connection with the other people and with the Universe increases, all when we start following that inspiration.

So for me you have to take action.  I am the guy whose middle name is action.  You don’t write 52 books without taking action.  You don’t appear in all these movies without taking action.  You don’t fulfill your own life purpose without taking action.  So I say, once you find your inspired path, breathe life into it by getting up and doing something to implement it.

And usually it will be something fun, because when you’re following inspiration and you’re now living this inspired life, you’re doing what’s bringing you the greatest joy, so it’s not real effort.  You’re certainly doing things; you’re certainly taking action, but it’s not that sweaty action that you always complained about.  It’s no longer work.  Now it’s your life passion, and you bring it into reality.  That’s when it becomes really, really cool.

Toni: So not to take away the hard work that’s going to occur when you’re working on your passion, but what I’m hearing from you is that it’s the hard work of figuring out what inspires you, to get away from what might be having you tangled, to go back to what does bring you inspiration.  That may be very hard for people.

Joe: It might be, but I think it’s only hard work when they resist it.  I think actually the answer is there, and when they follow the answer that they do know what to do and they’re willing to do it.  But most of us resist our own good.  I have been asked several times from people that would say things like “I don’t really know what I want to do in my life.  I don’t really know what my path is.  I don’t really know what my inspiration is.

And when they come to me for that, I’m rather blunt, and I say “Look, you’re lying.  You’re lying to yourself and you’re lying to me, and maybe you’re lying consciously, maybe you’re lying unconsciously, but you are lying.”

Now, why would somebody lie about their inspired path, about their calling, about taking action?  It’s because as soon as they admit what they know they’re here to do, they have to take responsibility for it.  They then have to either do it or not do it and have a rationale for whatever approach they’re taking.

Most people will find it easier to just cop out.  They’ll just say “I don’t know my inspired path.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.  I don’t know what I really want to do with my life.  I don’t know what makes me happy.”  That’s all BS.  It’s self-deception.  It’s self-sabotage.

And so if somebody is in that mindset, yeah, it’s going to feel like hard work because they’re dodging their own answer.  But when they accept the reality that we’re co-creating everything in our life as it is right now, and you can live an uninspired life, or you can live an inspired life.  It really is a choice.

Henry David Thoreau said “Most people are leading this life of quiet desperation.”  Most people still are, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  Turn within, find what inspires you, take action on what inspires you, and the life path becomes easier.

Toni: So Joe, I think this is going to be a very easy question for you to answer – what inspires you?

Joe: Interesting.  I don’t know what you’re imagining my answer would be, but I’ll tell you this.  I am inspired by all the people who have gone before me, most of which have written books about what they’ve done.

I’m still a bookaholic.  I write them, read them, collect them, buy them, share them, and so forth.  I just love books.  Even when I was homeless, my salvation was going into the public library.  Anybody can go there for free.  All the wisdom of the Universe, right there on the shelves.  I’d pick it up, I’d start reading, and these people, whether it was Jack London or William Saroyan, some of the classic writers that have written some of the greatest American literature – those people inspired me.  Those people encouraged me through their words, through their books, to reach for something more, and I’m always looking for that today.

There was a fellow by the name of Allen Carr who created a way to stop smoking, stop cigarette smoking, and he died – he got lung cancer and died because he believed in his mission.  Now when I hear stories like this, I am inspired to do bigger and better things.  So I’m looking for the people out there who are the trailblazers, the people who are either writing books or just … you know, Benjamin Franklin said “Either do things with writing or write things worth reading in order to really make a difference in the world.”  I look for those kind of people to be inspired by.

Toni: Joe, what was … how did you have the courage to change your life?  That’s been pretty apparent through the Project as well with other interviews.  There’s been some phenomenal changes that people have gone through in order to change their life.  Did you … was it an event, a process?  What happened that got you to this point?

Joe: I’m often asked how did I go from homeless nobody to this celebrity with these bestselling books and everything else, and I used to be frustrated with the question, because I thought “Well, how do I answer that?”  Until I finally realized that the best answer is to say “I did everything.”

I did everything.  I read the books, I read the articles, I listened to the audios, I attended the events.  I took action.  I worked on myself.  I worked on my beliefs.  I worked on my self-esteem and deservingness.  I kept moving forward.  I would learn marketing techniques.  I would learn about publishing.  I would keep working on myself as an author, as a writer, and I would just keep taking action, just kept doing everything that occurred to me to do to move forward.

So the reason isn’t really due to courage, it had to do more with I did not like the reality I was living.  I did not like being homeless.  I did not like being in poverty.  I did not like being unpublished and struggling.  What I wanted was this vision, this inspired life that was awake in my brain and in my soul.  I wanted to breathe life into that, so it was my waking reality.

And so I just kept working until that became my reality today.  And the life I have today is so dramatically different than what I had when I was homeless in Dallas decades ago that it’s almost unbelievable, but it happens to a lot of people.  There have been many people who have been homeless and they went on and they became inspired leaders or authors and making a difference in the world.

How do you do this?  You do it by constantly picking yourself up and moving forward and following inspiration.  That’s what it takes.

Toni: And the final question of the Project is, what are you doing now to explore your own potential so that you can keep moving forward and taking action, but then everyone can learn from that action as well?

Joe: Yeah … well, I keep raising the bar on myself.  I used to be a runner, and I knew that during those days they had this wonderful phrase “Exceed your personal best.”  It had nothing to do with competition.  It didn’t matter if you won a particular race.  What mattered is that you did better than the last time you ran.  And so I’m always raising the bar for myself to raise my own personal best.

One of the things I’ve created is a movement called Operation Yes, and Operation Yes is a movement to end homelessness in America.  And it seems like a big, wild, preposterous idea, yet I believe it’s possible, and I’ve already implemented it.  I’ve got a team together.  We’ve got a website up at operationyes.com.  We’re working on a book for Operation Yes.  I’ve got people ready to do a seminar with me on Operation Yes.  I’ve got media lined up.  I’ve got CNN that’s already been filming me about homelessness and ending homelessness.  I’m working with another partner who’s already ending poverty in America.

It’s all coming together.  Why is this coming together?  Because I got the inspiration that it was possible, and then I took action to make it happen, and now we’re following through.  As I do this, I’m inspiring myself, I’m inspiring the people who hear about this project, and I’m helping people realize that I don’t care what it is that you’re looking for or trying to achieve, I don’t think there’s anything impossible.

We don’t know the limits of reality, and what we have to do is go out there and test them.  What I’m doing, which is coming from inspiration, is working to end homelessness with Operation Yes.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  And you have absolutely brought a deeper meaning to that word inspiration in the Get Inspired! Project, and really, listening to you, Get Inspired! Project, based on your interview, could be all about getting to action, and listening to all of these people, yourself included, who have done amazing things to move themselves forward.

We can’t wait to follow this Operation Yes to see what happens next with you, and people will have all of your links at the bottom of the transcript so that they can find out more about you or buy your books.  Joe, the time you’ve taken today to be part of this Project, I cannot thank you enough for that.

Joe: You are very welcome.  It’s a great Project, and I encourage you to go forth with it.  So Godspeed to you and everybody listening.

Toni: Thank you so much.  Take care, Joe.

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For more information about Joe Vitale:  www.JoeVitale.com, www.AttractMoneyNow.com, www.OperationYes.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Jim, for agreeing to be part of this project, and before we go into the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Jim Stovall: I am Jim Stovall, and I’m just delighted to be with you today.

Toni: Thank you.  Jim, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then I’ll head into the questions.

Jim: Well, I was born here in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I’m speaking to you from today.  As a young man, my only life ambition was to be a professional football player, and somewhere along the line getting ready to play a season of football, I was diagnosed with a condition that would result in my blindness.

I shifted gears and became an Olympic weightlifter and concluded my athletic career.  At 29, I lost the remainder of my sight, and I started a company called Narrative Television which makes it possible for the 13 million blind and visually impaired people in our country and millions more around the world to enjoy movies and television.

And then I’ve written 15 books and made a couple of movies, and write a weekly syndicated column.  About three times a month, I go out and do an arena speech.  Today, I’m just delighted to be talking to you.

Toni: Well, thank you very, very much for agreeing to be part of this project; and with all of the work that you’ve done, Jim, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you think that you do inspire, and how does that happen?

Jim: I think I first and foremost inspire people that have challenges in their lives.  You know, we’re all willing to accept any excuse that we can give ourselves that keeps us from doing the best we can be.  My problems as a blind person are no bigger or greater than yours or anybody listening to us or reading about this, but the issue is people think when you see a blind person it takes away all the excuses.

So I think to a certain extent I inspire a lot of those people that want to do something in their life but they’ve been letting something stand between them and what it is they know they are supposed to be doing.

Toni: How do you do that, then, Jim?  How do people find you?  How does that inspiration get transferred to them?

Jim: Well, I write a weekly syndicated column that’s read by about three million people in 400 newspapers and magazines, and I get to speak to almost a million people a year in arena events.  I’ve written about 15 … I think my 16^th book comes out this next year.  Millions of people read those books.  Most recently, the movies have started based on some of my books, and that helps me reach a whole new audience that, you know, otherwise wouldn’t listen to me or read the things I write.

Toni: When people are looking at the work that you do or reading or listening to what you’ve produced in this body of work and it does inspire them, how does it then move them towards their potential?  How do you help with that?

Jim: I think I encourage people to look at the biggest dream they ever had in their life as their passion, as the thing they should be moving toward, and help them to realize that that dream would not have been put inside of them if they did not have the capacity to achieve it.

So they begin to realize that they change their life when they change their mind.  All they have to do is activate that thing that they’ve been given and start moving towards it.  And they may not have all the answers, but if you start moving toward it and taking them one thing at a time, you will get from here to there.

You know, too many people are waiting for all the lights to be green before they’ll leave the house.  I think for a lot of people, I am just that catalyst.  I’m nothing more or less than that.  They had everything they needed to get there.  I always tell people in my events “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.  I will help you frame the questions, and when you look at it, you’ll understand you always had the answer.”

Toni: Now when you think about inspiration for yourself, what do you need to be inspired?

Jim: I think I need to be challenged.  I think I need to be disciplined.  People both excite you and encourage you and also hold you accountable.  You need both ends of that; both the carrot and the stick, if you will.  And I have people in my life that do that for me; mentors, people that encourage me, but people that also that I have given permission to hold me accountable and say “Jim, you said you were going to do these things, and it doesn’t appear from this activity that you’re moving toward that as quickly as you indicated.  Where are we here?”  And so I think you need both of those things in your life.

Toni: Are there tools or methodologies that you’ve reached for over the years that have helped you when you feel that need to be inspired, when you need to be filled up yourself?  Do you reach for things?

Jim: Well, I’m a huge reader.  I’m embarrassed to tell you when I could read books with my eyes like you do and most of the people accessing this interview, when I could read like that, I don’t know that I ever read a whole book cover to cover.

Now, thanks to the National Library for the Blind and a high-speed tape player, I read a book every day.  I can listen at 800 words a minute, and I’m able to finish a book virtually every day.  And so I have the ability to access the greatest minds the world has ever known — be it Albert Einstein or William Shakespeare or anybody before or since — and I can learn from these people; the good and the bad.

Toni: Jim, of those who have listened to these interviews in the past, they know that there are certain words that come to me when I’m listening to these interviews myself, and the word that I just wrote down is courage.  That’s what came through for me, with just this little bit of time.  But I’m wondering, did you always come to the table that way?  Were you always so positive and courageous as it seems to be?

Jim: No.  I was scared to death, and to be quite honest with you, I still am today many, many times.  I mean, it doesn’t matter how we feel.  What matters is how we do.  I don’t have to always feel courageous; I just have to act courageous.

And sometimes for me it’s as simple as saying “If I were empowered and if I were courageous, what would I do right now?”  If I’ll do that thing, I’ll always be happy.  It doesn’t mean I don’t feel fear or feel anxiety.

You know, we live in a society today where we’ve been convinced that if everything is perfect we’ll feel great and feel empowered all the time, and that’s simply not the truth.  Successful people feel scared and discouraged and everything else; they just go ahead and perform as if they didn’t.

Toni: Was there a turning point for you?

Jim: I think, you know, immediately after I lost my sight, I moved into this little 9’ x 12’ room in the back of my house.  I thought I would never leave again.  And the thought of even walking out of that room much less traveling a million miles a year and running a television network and all the other things was just beyond daunting to me.  I couldn’t imagine that.

And I sat in that little 9’ x 12’ room with just my telephone and my tape recorder, and my radio for months and months and months.  And finally one day it dawned on me, whatever I’m afraid of out there cannot be worse than spending the rest of your life in this little 9’ x 12’ room.

So, you know, the first day I walked out of there, I didn’t start a company or make a million dollars or write a book or make a movie.  I walked 52 feet to my mailbox, and that’s the day that changed my life.  It’s not this huge thing; it’s taking that first step that really makes the difference.

Toni: And it’s doing whatever it takes to move forward.

Jim: Absolutely.

Toni: When you look at what you’ve been through and what you need to be inspired, how does that then help you to continuously explore your own potential to keep moving forward?

Jim: Well you know, that’s always a challenge, because we can always look at where we have been and where we are now; and you start receiving accolades, and people start telling you you’re great.  One of the bad things about having a disability is no one expects you to do anything, so if you do anything at all they will give you a standing ovation; and you have to become internally motivated.

You have to start realizing you’re writing your obituary every day, and we have a limited amount of time here on this planet and in this realm, and we’ve got to go do what it is we’re supposed to do.  And you’ve got to feel that kind of passion and urgency towards those things that really matter to you.

Toni: How does that happen, though?  Because I will tell you that has been a running theme through the interviews that people — and again, these are random, you and I have never met before – and so you said it as well.  It’s knowing what that sense of purpose is and having that passion to move forward.   But people who are reading and listening to these interviews, how do they find that?  How do they get there?

Jim: Well, I think they spend so much time making a living that they forgot to create a life.  They’re just trying to fill in the blanks, and they’ve never really thought about what it is they want to do.  You know, most people spend more time planning their three-day weekend than they do what are they going to do for their rest of their life.

They’ve never really sat down and realized this life you’re living right now is not a practice game, and you have an open blank check.  You could do anything you want with your life.  And they’ve never thought “If I could do anything I want to do; money, time, place, contacts, connections – if none of that were an object, what would I do?  If I could do anything … if I had a magic lamp and I could have three wishes, what do I want that I don’t have?”

People have never even considered that because they only look at A, B, and C and “Do I want this or this or this in my life?” and they don’t realize there are an endless number of choices.

They have not because they ask not, because they pursue not, because they question not.

Toni: And is that what you live by on a daily basis so that you continue to move forward?

Jim: Yes, I try to.   And I will tell you and everyone that hears this, I haven’t mastered that.  I always tell my audiences “Please do not miss the power of the message due to the weakness of the messenger.”  I’m a fellow traveler, and I will point out some of your weaknesses, and I know where they are because that’s where mine are.

Toni: Well, I’ll tell you, you have been absolutely amazing in this interview, and I can tell you from the Get Inspired! Project we could be talking for another half hour.  And your time is precious, as well, so I thank you for the valuable information you have given as far as who you inspire, how you go about it, and what you need, but then also what you have to do to keep moving forward.  Those lessons are invaluable.  And the fact that you have shared them with the Get Inspired! Project, we are humbled by that, and we thank you.

Jim: Well, my thanks to you and everyone involved with the project.

Toni: Thank you, Jim, and hopefully we’ll talk again.

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For more information about Jim Stovall:  www.jimstovall.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Werner, for agreeing to do an interview with us today, and before we go into the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Werner Berger: Yes, my name is Werner Berger, and in some circles I’m known as the Everest Guy.

Toni: The Everest Guy … can you explain that, please?

Werner: Yes, two years ago, actually 2007 in May, I climbed Mount Everest and doing so became the oldest Westerner and the third oldest person in the world to actually get to the top of that beautiful, beautiful mountain.

Toni: My goodness!  Well, thank you so much for agreeing to be with us today, and based on your accomplishments, Werner.  Professionally and personally, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Werner: That’s a good question, actually.  I am told by a number of people — actually people literally of all ages — that I inspire them.  And the way I inspire them is just simply by what I do and who I am, and probably also my physical capabilities.  Oh, and I should include people that are overweight see me as inspirational, and how I do that is — it’s not intentional.  The young tell me that I dispel the myth for them that 50, 60, 70 is over the hill simply because of my accomplishments, and the older folks tell me that they realize that they’re not relegated to the rocking chair or to the TV set as long as they look after their body and do what needs to be done.

The overweight people say — and especially when we talk about the fact that overweight has less to do with overeating than it has to do with cellular malnutrition — and then of course they say “What do you mean by that?”  And it’s so easy to say to them “Look, the system that you’ve been exposed to relative to weight loss is all wrong.”  The system says eat less and exercise more.  And that doesn’t work, because if the cells are already not nutriented, how can you ask somebody to eat less, nutrient themselves less, and expend more energy through exercise?  It just doesn’t make sense.  I actually am a fairly good model body structure wise, and the information that I have is just so revealing or so relieving for them.  So, those are just a couple of ways.

Toni: Werner, when you are talking to other people and working with them and they’re looking at you as this example of what’s possible — and also not only what’s possible in an achievement but what’s possible for them physically — how do you think that translates into exploring their own potential?

Werner: A number of possibilities here.  I think the basic or the bottom line here is I really do care about people.  In my early days, I didn’t have much self-confidence basically because of the way my parents interacted with me, especially a father that was very, very autocratic; and he didn’t ever listen to me.  And that was such a huge revelation when I finally realized that connection between people comes not just from caring but also from listening.

The other element, of course, that comes into play here is the willingness or the ability to ask questions and to really delve fairly deeply into who are they and what is it that inspires them.  What is it that really has them get up in the morning looking forward to the day?

When people start articulating that, it is just so interesting to me how they rise beyond what might have been or what their day might have looked like in terms of just seeing that there’s something else, there’s something more, that they really are special, that they bring some qualities to this day or to their environment that are very unique to them.  And if they can explore them, exploit them, live into them, not only does their satisfaction level get elevated dramatically, but they influence others or inspire others to move.

So that’s just one of the ways or some of the ways that I help people explore their own potential or their own capabilities.

Toni: So really it’s providing that person that’s in front of you – I don’t know if you do this on an individual basis or with groups or just in your day-to-day life, but having someone in front of you — it sounds to me that when they are in front of you, they’re the most important person at that moment.

Werner: I think that’s true, and I don’t go about with that thought in mind.  However, my sense is I become that individual, and the other part is I’ve been a corporate consultant for “X” number of years, and the question always at the end of the meeting has to be “So what are you going to do differently or what are we going to do differently?”

And that’s also just become a little bit part of my pattern when people say “I want to do this.”  I won’t stop there.  I’ll say “Okay, and when will you start?” or “What are the steps that you have to take in order to reach that result?”

That’s become a fairly natural part of my interaction with people.  And when they start seeing that there are some very, very simple things that they can do absolutely today that will start forwarding this vision or this goal or this idea, again, it just gives them a handle on how to progress or how to proceed.

Toni: When you are doing all of this work with people and providing this opportunity and place for them to be able to feel safe enough to move forward and have someone listen to them, when you are looking for inspiration, Werner, where do you go?  What do you need to be inspired for you?

Werner: I think the key for me actually is to have some compelling goal, something to truly look forward to.  And when I have that, and I’m seriously committed to it and realize that if I want to do this I have no option but to take certain steps, then life becomes very easy.

Let me give you an example of that.  When I have a climb in mind, an Everest or even a Kilimanjaro – which is not a very difficult climb – there are certain things that are “must-do’s” and they are get fit –because the fitter I am, the more enjoyable the climb is going to be, the easier the climb is going to be.

And ultimately, I realize the mountain doesn’t care whether I’m fit or not.  However, being fit will make a huge difference in my performance and my enjoyment and my experience.  So exercising regularly to the point of the climb is just simply a must-do, and there is no longer an option or a choice around that.  It’s just something that has to be done.  And clearly, if passion is involved in that goal or that accomplishment, that becomes the driving force.

If there is no compelling reason to do it or if there are no consequences – actually that’s the other part – if there are no consequences to failing, it’s not as compelling to me.  On the other hand, when I’m on Everest and I’ve spent tons of money and tons of time preparing and I don’t succeed, the consequences are pretty dire in terms of just the emotional impact of having failed.  So, I can’t allow myself the luxury of not exercising or not eating right.

By the way, that’s such a critical element, again, in life.  Many people don’t talk about how nutritionally depleted our foods are and how we have to change our eating habits.  And I was one of them, because in 1994 when I was exposed to an opportunity to eat differently, I said “I don’t need to do that.  I just eat right.”  And, of course, I’m talking about really effective supplementation.

Toni: During these interviews, and people that are reading and listening to these interviews, there are certain phrases that come to mind when I’m listening to someone during these interviews.  And what I just wrote down as far as what inspires you about what you have to do in order to get to what you want — and that was the phrase that came to my mind — is that I have to do this in order to get to what I want — which is that climb, which is that success — and then it becomes the must-do.  I really think that the readers are going to resonate with that.

One thing I wanted to ask you though, as well, as far as things that inspire you is, was there a moment for you?  You had referenced earlier in the interview that you didn’t come to the table this way always with this positive attitude and this must-do.  Was there a moment or an event that became the change for you?

Werner: I don’t recall one single event, and many people are very surprised by that because in many people’s lives there is a defining moment.  And I’ve often thought back, you know, “What was my defining moment, what was my defining moment?” and I cannot come up with one.

At the same time, I can come up with a lot of little ones that finally had me say to myself “Yes, Werner, you are okay.”  Because that, to me, has really been the struggle is to find the Werner that is okay, that’s not living up to other people’s expectations but is determining for himself what is significant, what’s important, what are the things I want to do as opposed to I should do because of needing to look good or needing to feel okay.

So lots of little benchmarks, maybe I could call them, that had me finally decide, “Okay, I am who I am and, yes, I have some flaws and it’s not all perfect, and I’m okay with that.”

Toni: That’s fantastic.  When you listen to you and you hear everything that you’ve done and what you continue to do, how do you continue to explore your own potential?

Werner: One of the ways – actually there are a couple of ways.  One is I look at life as a continuous learning pass.  One of the areas that really made a difference and was one of those little blips was when I became a corporate consultant and started learning about … very specifically learning about people skills.  What do you do in order to be in connection or in conversation or in rapport with people?

The other part is when there is a really compelling goal or – how am I going to say this – there is something that needs to happen, and I finally have a sense of “I can make a difference here.”  What I’m thinking of, again, is the Everest climb.  People kept saying to me “Who is sponsoring you?”  And I kept saying “Nobody.  Why would anybody sponsor me?”  People would say, “Well, because of your age.”  I just simply couldn’t get that anybody would sponsor me “because of my age.”

By the way, your listeners will probably want to know I was 56 days short of my 70^th birthday when I got to the top.

Finally it dawned on me that I could possibly use this climb as a metaphor for health and influence people to start looking at who they are and what they’re doing and what their belief systems around age are.  So we formulated what we call the North American Health and Wellness Revolution, and that actually ended up morphing into a movie.  The name is Back from the Edge and, again, when we clicked — and I’m talking about “we” because I formed a small mastermind group to explore this — when we clicked on that, that is something that absolutely inspired me.

So to fulfill my own potential, I needed some help from others and also needed to follow my heart in terms of really making a difference, doing something that seemed an impossibility – how the heck do you change North American health – and finally clicking on something that could make that difference.  And that, of course, ended up drawing me back into a game that I hadn’t even thought about maybe three or four or five years ago.

Toni: So what you continuously do to explore your potential is to keep making a difference in people’s lives, continuously learning, trying to educate and move people forward.  Is that what you are doing today to explore your potential?

Werner: Yes, and I would add to that surrounding myself with people that will also challenge me by them challenging themselves, by them doing something that I hadn’t even thought about or I hadn’t thought that I could do, or maybe not even thinking that there was something that needed doing.  And when I see that, again it inspires me to think in a different realm.

The other part I have to add is successful completion or moving towards something successfully certainly has an inspirational quality for me, as well, or the ability for me to expand my potential.  So forward movement, people that are around me that inspire or draw me, or do things that I can say “Oh wow, isn’t that neat, I can try that” certainly make a difference for me.

Toni: Werner, the information that you have given in this small gesture of time for people to benefit and learn from is amazing, and what you do to explore potential in others and inspire others is to give that information and share that information to make a difference.  I know the people who are reading and listening to this interview are going to be incredibly inspired by you.  And all of us here at the Get Inspired! Project cannot thank you enough for giving your time today and inspiring us with your interview.

Werner: Absolutely, my pleasure, Toni, and thank you so much for doing this because it will have a big impact on people that are listening to it or reading about it.

Toni: Thank you so very much, and I hope that we speak soon, and take care.

Werner: Thank you so much, too.

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For more information about Werner Berger:  www.MeetMeAtTheTop.com, www.BackFromTheEdgeMovie.com

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Danielle, for agreeing to be with us today; and before we get into the questions, can you take a few minutes to introduce yourself?

Danielle LaPorte: Sure.  Thank you for having me, first of all.  I’m Danielle LaPorte, and you can find me at whitehottruth.com where I write mostly about self-realization and entrepreneurship.  I do what I call Fire Starter sessions, one-on-one and in groups with entrepreneurs.  It turns out it was mostly women.  I  review your business in advance, and then we jam on the phone about everything from creativity blocks or social media to raising money to your next great idea.

I was lead author of a book called Style Statement that came out last spring.  It’s about defining the two words that name your authentic self and using that to really design your life.  And I’m working on my next book called The Fire Starter Sessions about creativity, vocation, and desire.

Toni: Thank you for that.  When you think of the work that you’ve done, this great body of work that you’ve done and you’re doing and the word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how do you do that?

Danielle: Well, what’s reflected back to me is that what’s working about what I’m doing in terms of inspiration is I think I inspire people who are seeking meaning in their lives and seeking to create meaning in their lives.  They want to be more awake, they want to be authentic, however they want to label that.  It’s about living from your soul or your original self or your essence.  They want to be free, and they want to make a contribution to the collective while they’re doing that.

Toni: How you do go about that, Danielle?

Danielle: I tell my story.

Toni: You tell your story?

Danielle: I tell my story.  There’s a fantastic quote from Audre Lorde.  It says “If women told the truth, the world would crack open.”  And the response I get is “Thank you for being frank, thank you for telling it like it is.”  I talk about my struggles in entrepreneurship, in relationships, in seeking and creating my own meaning.  I’m very righteous and opinionated about what I do and how I do it and, at the same time, different strokes for different folks.  I’m really open to people’s different choices about the way they find and define their own version of the truth.

Toni: So when you are working that way and relating to people in that way during the inspiration process, how do you think that helps people explore their own potential?

Danielle: Well, reflection is big.  It’s dynamic.  I think you need to open yourself to the dynamic process of seeing how other people are living their lives.  And it helps to know that you’re not in this alone, that people are struggling, people are winning, people are succeeding, that there’s a common ground in our mortal coil and our greatness that, on some level, we’re all hungry for poetry and to make a difference and there is a shared search.  There’s a shared hunger amongst us.

Toni: And the people that you work with, do they find you?  Are they drawn to you for that presence, so to speak, of being honest and being frank and open and allowing them to be the same?  Do you find that that’s the way that happens for you?

Danielle: Yeah.  For me, it’s all about resonance.  One thing I learned in my journey that became really clear a few years ago was I was no longer going to sell myself; that it wasn’t about seduction, it wasn’t about the sales pitch.  It was just about showing up clearly and firmly about who I am, what I stand for; and if you resonate, great.  If not, that’s great, too.

There’s lots of other people whose work you’ll love to read and who you want to do some strategic jamming with.  I’m not so much into the pitch anymore.  I’m into emanating my own vibe really cleanly, and people self select and members of your tribe find you.

Toni: Can you spend just a moment and help everyone who is going to listen or read your interview understand, was there a moment for you in this journey?  Did you always come to the table this way, or did some sort of a moment happen for you to go, “You know what, that’s it, I’m not going to do this anymore” and led you on this other path?

Danielle: Oh God no, I haven’t always been this straight up.  There have been a few defining moments, passages.  You teach what you need to learn, and my whole shtick is about authenticity, so of course life is always bringing me sort of high stakes situations where I really need to bring myself to the table.

I used to run a think tank in Washington, D.C., and we had 20-some futures.  We did scenario planning and strategic planning, consulting to the likes of the Pentagon and IBM’s mobile competing division, and that milieu had a lot of cache.  But I felt like a big fake.

I’d get to my desk every morning and there would be the New York Times and the Washington Post, and I was supposed to be caring about weapons of mass destruction and AIDS and water issues, but really I wanted to read the Arts and Culture section.  Our funding was very closely tied to the dot-com boom, and when that bombed it became clear that everything was falling apart, and my façade needed to fall apart.  So that was a big defining moment for me.

Another — which was really my sort of Phoenix rising from the flames in my life — was I started a company a few years ago based on Style Statement and our tagline, our slogan, our empire, was built on “inspiring authenticity.”  We raised a ton of money and Oprah called, and I had thousands of subscribers, but behind the scenes it was actually getting very inauthentic.  There were leadership issues and venture capital involved and a lot of things going on in that equation, and I walked.  I walked from … my name was on the letterhead, it was a domain name, and I knew that to really save my soul I needed to walk away.  And I got truthful, and that’s how I created White Hot Truth.

Toni: I would imagine that takes a lot of courage to do that.

Danielle: Yeah, it takes some moxy, that’s for sure.

Toni: Yes, there’s a great lesson there that will be learned by others listening to what you just said.  When you think about inspiration from your own perspective, what do you need to be inspired?  Where do you seek inspiration?

Danielle: Well, I think the whole inspiration question is potentially revolutionary for people.  I think if we all asked ourselves “What inspires me?” it could really change the course of your life, because that is unfortunately not how many of us live.  We live according to what’s going to work, what are the Joneses doing, what’s status quo – so I just want to put out there that I really value the question.

What keeps me inspired?  Beauty, poetry.  I’m obsessed with words.  I have my own sort of inspiration file.  So as a writer, what actually really keeps me going are other lectures and songs.  So if I need a fix, I go listen to some TED lectures, some of the most brilliant, creative people in the world.  I get 20 minutes of great juju and excellence.  I pick up some Rumi, some Rilke, some Leonard Cohen.

I love really, hard, intense funk music.  So if I’m stuck on an article sometimes, all I need is some Red Hot Chili Peppers or some Parliament or some Franz Ferdinand, to like funk me up; that helps.

I love children’s art.  I love the perspective of the stuff that my five-year-old boy brings home from school.  It’s like “Of course that’s what a dinosaur looks like.  Of course, why didn’t I see it that way?”  That does it for me.  And light.  I love the quality of light.  It sounds so woo-woo and cheesy, but candles and incense and fire and being warm.  I’ve got a big thing about being warm; that usually loosens up my own inner inspiration.

Toni: How do you take all of that, Danielle, and drive that towards the exploration process of your own potential then?

Danielle: My own potential … well, you know, I’ve often gotten the question about “What scares you?”  Not very much.  However, my one particular fear is that I won’t live up to my potential in this lifetime.  So I guess I’m really driven by fear.  Fear of being a loser, not writing enough books.  On my deathbed, I may be saying, “I could have written just one more book.”  So that keeps me going.

I’m hooked … I’m thrilled by the search.  I’m thrilled by the search.

Toni: The search of what?

Danielle: Things that feel right.  Things that feel truthful.  Sometimes they feel absolute.  Sometimes they feel universal.  Sometimes it feels very personal.  I am hungry for communion, connection, divinity.  I want to feel at home.

Toni: Sometimes that doesn’t mean necessarily being home though, does it?

Danielle: No.  Not at all, not at all.

Toni: When you talk about how you explore your own potential and the fear of not living up to your potential – what a great way to say that – and the things so passionately that you expressed that inspire you, how do you think that that all transcends — what you do to seek inspiration and to explore your potential.  How does that then drive what you do when you inspire others and help them to explore their own potential?  What’s the connection?

Danielle: How does that transcend and what’s the connection?  Feels good!  That’s it.  I think the answer is that simple.  It feels right and feels true to be of service, I think.  I’ve always been wired that way.  I don’t know.  It’s a question sort of up for me right now.  Are people naturally wired to connect and be of service?  I don’t know, but I am; and I want to be useful, so that drives me.  The desire to be full transcends the day-to-day.  It transcends and it integrates the day-to-day.

Toni: And people who are not truthful and that are not authentic do not have the ability to truly inspire others, because it doesn’t come across that way.

Danielle: I don’t agree.

Toni: Really?

Danielle: Yeah.  I think there’s lots of cheese heads and big fat phonies out there who are inspiring people, and people who are inspired by what they’ve got to say are resonating on some level.  And I think … you know, there’s the old Winston Churchill saying that even a broken clock is right once a day.  So even people that are inauthentic, sometime, somehow, authenticity shines through.

I mean, I’ve had a number of connections with charlatans and gurus who were in some ways incredibly corrupt, but in other ways really spoke the truth; and you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  So I think we run into … there’s a philosophical conundrum around expecting people to be perfect, and at the same time, I get what you’re saying.

Yeah, the more you show up in your honesty and your nakedness, I think the deeper you will touch people.  I think the more sustainable it is, the more long-lasting your effect will be.  But you know, even bozos have something to say.

Toni: Even bozos have something to say … I think you’re right!

Danielle: You know, maybe someone listening to this thinks I’m a total bozo, but they just got a little ounce of inspiration.  Take what you want, and leave the rest; I’m down with that.

Toni: The bozos and the cheese heads will have to just go away!  Oh my goodness!  Well, I’ll tell you, you have been absolutely marvelous to interview for this Project, and you’ve given a lot of information and just by sharing your story of where you come from as far as inspiration and how you do it.  I really appreciate the time you’ve given us today, Danielle.  We will be putting information about you and how to reach you at the bottom of the blog post.  I can’t thank you enough.

Danielle: Thank you. I love what you’re doing.  Best wishes.

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For more information about Danielle LaPorte:  www.whitehottruth.com

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Toni Reece: Maggy, thank you so much for joining us today, and before we go into the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Maggy Whitehouse: I’d be delighted, Toni, thank you so much.  I’m Maggy Whitehouse from Birmingham, England, and I’m the author of 15 books on aspects of spirituality and prosperity.  I’m a Kabbalist, not with a Kabbalah center, I’m a priest in an independent sacramental church.  I’ve been a TV and radio presenter, I’ve been widowed, I’ve been divorced, I survived an encounter with an 8-foot barracuda which didn’t have my best interests at heart.

I was the first person ever legally to take a dog from the USA to the UK without quarantine, even though apparently it wasn’t actually possible at the time, and my job is to help people understand the difference between ego, self, and soul because they are very different levels of the psyche and they feel very different, so it’s quite easy once you know the techniques.  And my main focus is on helping people overcome damage caused by what I call tribal religions, specifically in the areas of abundance and money.

Toni: My goodness!  Well, having said all of that, that is really interesting.  Let’s go into the very first question, Maggy.  In all of this work that you do and everything that you’ve been through, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Maggy: Well, you know, I think the first thing I need to do every day is inspire me, because we all teach what we most need to learn and I really, really needed to know about opening up faith and belief and aspects of spirituality and money.  I started all this work as a newly widowed crisis addict.  I used to be in TV and radio and do journalism, and I was always at murder trials or war scenes or accident scenes, so I was completely up and down all the time with crises.

My first husband died a year after our marriage, which was a huge crisis, and I went into holistic health after that because healing was the only thing that helped Henry, and I found that my income just took this huge plummet.  And it wasn’t that I wasn’t qualified or anything, I just started realizing that there was something going on in my belief system, so that’s when I started studying Judaic mysticism.

So that’s where I sort of came from, so I have to inspire myself constantly because I think there’s a huge difference between motivation and inspiration; and I notice Barbara Winter, who is one of my favorite people on your website, was talking about that too.  When you motivate yourself, you’re kind of pushing yourself, whereas inspiration is receiving.  And hopefully the people that I do inspire are those who have been raised with an underlying belief that it’s somehow wrong to be spiritual and wealthy.  Practically all my private clients are life coaches, because they haven’t actually been taught that slight difference between the poverty of the soul, the aspects of the ego that need money, and I find it so fascinating.

We’ve been taught, for example, that Jesus and his followers are good people, are poor; but it isn’t actually true.  So I inspire mostly people in holistic health and in aspects of spirituality, and I have a lot of people who come to me who have been really damaged by religion.  Primarily, my job is with the 3 religions of the book; Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

Toni: When you talk about poverty of the soul, you mentioned that … what does that mean?

Maggy: Well, all poverty first extends to your soul because we’re naturally creative, you know, we’re children of a creator; we want to call it the Source or the God or whatever.  And it’s when we move that vision of life and hope and joy that we first experience the aspect of lack.  And quite often that’s trained into us in a religion where there’s some kind of judgmental God or some kind of reason why we can’t live the life we want because we have to live the life of taking care of others before ourselves, and I think it’s very, very important to understand that poverty does originate in the soul.

And then the ego, which is the part of this, which responds to the tribal influence in all our training.  You know, the Jesuits had a saying “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”  It’s trained in through a Reticular Activating System.   And then, the ego starts behaving in a way that’s going to get the kind of strokes that you want, people telling you you’re a good person.  And quite often I find that most of my clients are so good; they’re the kind of people who’d give you a lift to the other end of the country, but they wouldn’t remember that they needed to eat first and fuel the car first and check the controls for the petrol.

It’s actually about … what I teach is very simply three things – inspiration, celebration, everybody else.  Because if you take that line of inspiration, taking care of yourself, and then nurturing others, you’re a much more powerful giver.

Toni: So the three approaches were inspiration, and …

Maggy: Celebration, and everybody else.  It’s actually the Old Testament tithing system which has been really badly interpreted.   It’s about lining up for inspiration so you’re full, then celebrating your life and having fun and taking care of yourself and just really chilling out and enjoying life, and then everything else.  We do it with money, as in whenever you get some money in of any kind, put a little on the side for inspiration; that’s a good book or a workshop or something, or just something that really makes you feel terrific.

Then for celebration, for some chocolate or some wine or to go out for the evening with your loved one.  Then pay the bills, because that tells the Law of Attraction your priorities.  And it need only be one dollar for the inspiration, one dollar for the celebration, and then maybe you had to pay 500 bucks for the bills.  But if you do it in that order, your life starts to turn around.

Toni: That’s very interesting … and this is the technique that you use when you are inspiring others who come to you with that poverty of the soul?

Maggy: Pretty much.  That’s the one we always give away for free.  It’s on my website and whenever I talk to people I say “Just try it, just try it.”  It got me out of 50,000 pounds worth of debt.  It got me through a really difficult divorce and a failed emigration, and I just feel it works.  If it works, let’s tell everybody that it works, because the good thing about prosperity consciousness and inspiration is that I’m always giving you ideas for nothing, I give it away for free; it’s not a problem.

Toni: Maggy, when you are seeking inspiration, you had talked very early in the interview about you need to teach what you learn, so you need to stay inspired, you need to be inspired.  So what do you seek when you are looking for inspiration?

Maggy: Firstly, meditation.  Always meditation, the things that are most soothing.  But the most important thing I actually do is I go on dates with God.  A date with God is when you actually … I put a whole day on one side, but people might just take an hour or two and you should wake up and say “Okay, my life is in your hands today.  We’re going on a date.  You say where, you take me to wherever you want me to go.  You show me were you want me to go, and we’ll do what you want me to do; and really open up.”

I got to these incredible places, because I will just get on the bus into town or the tube train, the subway, or maybe drive to somewhere that I like to start off with and then I’ll look for a poster or something and honestly, spirit just takes me where it wants to show me stuff.  And then what you do is you look at the world through the eyes of Source, not through your own eyes, and the difference, Toni …

I will give you an example.  When I lived in London, I just got on the subway to go into the center of town and said, “Okay, date with God time.  Show me.”  And I got shown this poster for the Victorian Albert Museum which I’d never ever been to.  So I went to the Victorian Albert Museum, and I stood in its gallery which was just full of blue and white plates, that was it.   And normally, I’d have walked straight through that.  And I said “Show me” … and I spent 2 hours on a third of that gallery just looking at these plates, these blue and white plates, and I was just getting the idea of the love that Source had for this creative, impulsive human being.

The Source didn’t make the plates, a human did, and it was just … look at grain, think about the person who made this, think about the idea behind it, the inspiration that they had, the actual colors and all the people who were involved in the journey that this plate had.  It may sound really trite, but it’s mind-blowing the beautiful experience, because the Source says “Yes” to everything.  It seems that we are so utterly inspirational.  We invented justice and truth and mercy, and we invented boredom; and we invented chocolate.  If you look at it that way, really, it just fires me up!

Toni: I can hear that!  Your passion is very contagious, very contagious.  So what inspires you is your dates with God which — thank you very much for that example as well, that was lovely — and meditation, and when are looking to explore your own potential are there tools that you look for, a methodology that you need to teach yourself in order to explore your own potential, to stay inspired as well?  What do you do for that?

Maggy: Well, I write, because I am naturally a writer.  If I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I’d be scrolling on the rocks or reinventing paper or something, so I will write every single day something because if I show up at the computer and start to write, then the muse shows up and ideas flow.  I write factual and fiction.  I’ve written four novels now on an inspirational theme.  I love the Abraham Hicks works.  I love Eckhart Tolle; I love the work of the Jewish mystic Z’Ev Ben Shimon Halevi; I love the work of the British alchemist and Kabbalist and angel teacher David Goddard.  I’m always looking for new things to take me along, and I’m really happy I’ve got some wonderful, wonderful inspirational friends.  I have a wonderful husband who is absolutely my rock, and you know, the oddest thing might be I get a lot of inspiration from Facebook.

Toni: From Facebook?

Maggy: From Facebook!  I’m on Facebook, and I’ve got lots of friends on Facebook and they post every day.  They post videos, they post ideas, they post quotations; and if you’ve got yourself a network like that every morning, new stuff comes; it’s just delightful.

Toni: Well that’s fantastic, I think Facebook would really like that plug, too!

Maggy: I think you should be on Facebook, and even if you are Toni, the whole inspirational thing should be on Facebook.  I’d post about you already!

Toni: Well thank you for that.  We are, we’re getting better.  Well my goodness, so you’re writing and you’re looking for … The books that you seek and the work that you read, that’s how you continue to explore your potential.  And then how does the work that you look for to learn from, how does that transfer then to what you give back to your clients as far as helping them explore their own potential?  Is there a correlation there for you?

Maggy: Absolutely.  I usually find out what I need to know for an individual client within 24 hours before the client comes; all the basics.  And I do a lot of talk and seminars and workshops.  I’m very lucky; I can teach all over the world now.  So I will always pass on whatever I’ve got, and I’ve also got a lot of people who have trained with me who work with people on the basics and backups for therapy support groups.

The basic things, I say “Let’s look at whatever the underlying belief might be about whether it’s okay for you to be spiritual and wealthy; what do you think about money?”  Because there’s a huge correlation between exactly what is God, what is the Source, so eventually you go, “It’s energy” and then you go “What is money?” and eventually they’ll say “It’s energy”, and we’ll say “Okay is the relationship with your fear of a judgmental God or the idea around you’ve been trained, is that the same as your feelings about money?”.   And 9 times out of 10 they’ll go “Oh my God, it is!”

So I’ll just introduce them to the money, the beautiful pattern from the money; and so this is a representation of your energy field, and if you start hating it because you are resentful of the people who perhaps are doing better than you, look at the energy by Law of Attraction that’s working there.  Let’s make friends with this energy thing and understand it’s purely a linear exchange and we use it, we actually use it as a barrier to put up resistance to our own good.  It’s a huge problem worldwide, and I think prosperity teaching is incredibly, incredibly important.

You know, once I did meet Louise Hay, the author of Heal Your Life, and she said “What do you do?”, and I said “Oh, I teach prosperity consciousness”, and she did one of those sharp intakes of breath, you know – ssssss – and I went, “Oh, why are you saying that?” and she said “Oh, well you know, I’d rather teach a week on sex and relationships than a day on money because people have so much stuff!”.  I had so much stuff, but you know, I live a wonderful life now.  So I just know it’s possible to be spiritually wealthy, and I just want the world to be able to experience that, too.

Toni: So basically, you are taking from your own experiences and your own learning and spirituality and everything that you’ve been through and that is what you are in turn transferring into others to keep them spiritually wealthy and to move them from the poverty of their soul; that’s what I’m  hearing from you.

Maggy: I hope so.  That is the absolute goal because if I can’t do it, I can’t teach it.  I know I’m still learning, and I’m still learning, but let’s face it, nobody would ever go up to anybody and say “Please tell me the secret of your failure.”  My cousin said to me the other week, “You know, I envy you; it seems like you can do whatever you want.”  And I said, “You know, he’s right, I can.”  I’m absolutely free, and it’s such a lovely thing to experience, helping people just to see that they lock in to these ideas about money and actually we do make money a God as in “I can’t live my life because I can’t afford it.”

In fact, I think all the Law of Attraction teachings which are so, so helpful nowadays are talking about the idea that it’s the road that you have to make peace with, not the destination.  If you’re happy on the road, the destination being happy is a done deal.  But you can’t get to joy on a road filled with misery or lack.

Toni: You have been so enlightening in this interview, and again your enthusiasm and your passion has come through greatly.  This is one of those interviews that I hope that people will listen to as well as read, because you have been so contagious, and the learning and insight that you have given people that will listen and read your interview will be amazing; and for that I thank you so much for taking part in this project, truly, thank you.

Maggy: Oh Toni, thank you, thank you so much.

Toni: This has been such a joy and thank you again, Maggy, for your time today.

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For more information about Maggy Whitehouse:  www.pureprosperity.com

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“If you ask the right questions and you respond to the answers, you can actually get people to see things in different ways, and you yourself can also, by the way, learn from that same experience and sometimes see things from a different perspective.”

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Toni Reece: Gary, thank you so very much  for agreeing to take part in this project, and before we begin the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Gary Oppenheimer: Sure, I’m Gary Oppenheimer. I’m a computer nerd from the 1970s. I’m also a master gardener; I’m a Rutgers environmental steward; I’m a director of a community garden in our town; and I’m also the founder of ampleharvest.org which is a site that strives to diminish hunger in American by enabling millions of backyard gardeners to find neighborhood food pantries that they can donate their excess produce to.

Toni: Oh my, well based on your introduction, it’s a great lead-in for the very first question, which is, when you think about what you do and those around you, who do you inspire and how do you go about that?

Gary: I’m not sure inspire is the right word; I think I try to simply lead by example in many arenas.  In my early computer days, I actually designed an early email system in the 1970s, and so I helped to roll out commercial email in the 1980s, and you can see where that’s gone off to.  I designed what I believed to be the first electronic newsletter back in the mid 1980s to try to get people to slowly move away from paper.  My friends and neighbors have considered me a tree hugger for the longest time, so I decided to put my money where their mouth was, and I bought I think it was the 73^rd hybrid Honda sold in America in April, 2003, and I have since lectured on hybrid cars.

I am a long-distance cyclist.  I try to get people outside in cycling and just good exercise and good transportation.  My daughter has ended up as a nationally ranked cyclist I think partially as a result of that.  We heat our house with wood; we live in North Jersey where we have lots of it.   And so I’ve ended up being a lecturer also on things like heating with renewable resources like catalytic converters in your fireplace and stuff like that.

And, lastly, with my getting involved with hunger issues in America with Ample Harvest speaking to people about the depth and scope of the hunger situation that we have in America, and I have found that I’ve had to express things to people about hunger that go beyond simply throwing numbers.  I can say that “X” million people in America don’t have enough food; that’s one thing.  But if I say the number of people in the country that don’t have enough food approximately equals the populations of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York combined, that rings very differently with you and that seems to be resonating with people.

Toni: Then what I’m hearing from you, Gary, is that when you talk about who you inspire, whether that’s the right word for you or not, it’s really by what you’re doing with the cycling and the way that you heat your home and educate people on hunger issues; that it’s not just what you do but it sounds as though you’re also educating people along the way to these things that you do as well?

Gary: I think so.  I try to find ways of expressing my ideas and my perspectives in an analogous way by presenting things in a way in which the words will connect where people think rather than the way I’m seeing it, I get ideas across.  And again, by more doing stuff than preaching stuff, I think I can influence what goes on around me and changes start to take place.  The hunger situation is an example.  Many of these other things; these are things that anybody can do.  Frankly, if you do things in your life that represent your belief in things, you may well find other people say “That makes a lot of sense”, and they follow the same path.

Toni: So when you work with others or you are doing by example and not just speaking, what do you do to help others explore their own potential in those areas?  How do you go about that?

Gary: I like to challenge other people.  My favorite Thursday night activity is going to a local tavern where my political beliefs are different from other people’s and actually engaging in debates.  When I was in high school, I really enjoyed Plato’s Republic in which Socrates actually gets people to change their thinking, not by telling them things but simply by continually asking questions.  And that’s where the learning process comes through.  If you ask the right questions and you respond to the answers, you can actually get people to see things in different ways, and you yourself can also, by the way, learn from that same experience and sometimes see things from a different perspective.

So I find that challenging other people, I think, goes a long way towards that.  I think also I like to be challenged by other people.  I really like people to come at me with an idea or perspective that’s different from mine and see if my perspective stands up against theirs, or maybe mine needed to be changed a little bit.

Toni: So you basically use the power of your social interactions on a Thursday night going down to the local tavern and challenging and debating and wanting to be challenged back — but with the issues that are very important to you — so that you can possibly open up someone’s mind but also open your own.

Gary: Yes.  But I mean, it’s not limited to Thursday nights at the tavern, but that’s the most frequent.

Toni: Okay.  Gary, what do you need to be inspired?

Gary: I don’t need too much, frankly.  I need really just two things; I need a problem and I need time.  I’m a problem solver by design.  When I see something that doesn’t look right, that doesn’t feel right, I’m driven to try to change it, try to solve it, try to fix it, sometimes to my life’s distraction; but that’s my nature.  I like to solve problems and address those issues.  And the other thing I frankly need is the time in which to do it, and I sometimes find myself short on that, but finding the problem is …

I will give you an example, and it’s pertinent to what we’re talking about.  I do a lot of growing on our property here — we have a good size property — and two years ago I had a really large bounty in my garden, and it got to a point in which my wife said no more stuff in the house and I was giving away extra produce.  But there is frankly only so many cucumbers you can give to friends and still have them call you a friend.  I finally said, you know … I had like two large shopping bags of cucumbers and peppers and zucchini and tomatoes and what have you, and I couldn’t see the stuff going to waste.  That just felt plain wrong to me, so I tracked down a battered women’s shelter here in our town, and I called them up and said would you like to have this, and they said “We’d love to”, so I went.  There was 40 pounds of produce, and I gave it to them.  And what was interesting — this was sort of almost a tipping point in everything — the woman who answered the door, a very, very pleasant woman, thanked me profusely and as I left she said “Thank you, now we can have something fresh to eat.”  And that caught me; that’s an odd thing for somebody to say, and I went away thinking, “My God, what are these people just having canned vegetables and food all the time?”

Last year, I had again another 20 pounds of extra produce.  I went back to the same place, same woman, same comment.  In October 2008, I was asked to take over the community garden here in West Milford — a preexisting garden, 30 plots or so — and I agreed to do it.  And while I was going through the old records and emails and stuff, I learned that, historically, towards the end of the summer as people were going away on vacation, getting overwhelmed with what they had grown or just getting bored, they were leaving food to rot in the garden, and I thought that was just plain wrong.  So I realized we had a problem here.  And I also, with my experience with this battered women’s shelter, I realized there was a problem in terms of people being hungry.  I said I’m going to create a committee in this community garden, and we’re going to take the extra food from the garden and donate it to local food pantries.  It seemed like a very simple, logical thing to do, food pantry, shelters, what have you, in town.

I went on Google to try to find all of the food pantries that we had, and Google said the nearest was 25 miles away in another town.  It turned out we have more than six here in our town, and that’s the point in which I realized that if I’m having this problem as a gardener and also as a director of a community garden — finding places to get my extra produce to — other people across the country must be having the exact same problem.

That was in March, 2009.  I got up the next morning, and I went on the internet, and I grabbed the domain of ampleharvest.org.  And I had this vision at that point that we have a problem.  There’s hunger in America and we have a problem; there’s too much food over here — that problem, rather, being the solution — and I designed a website that could bring the extra food in people’s gardens to their neighborhood food pantries, and effectively ampleharvest.org was put in place in five, six weeks.  We got it out, and it’s been promoted across the country.  In fact, we’re just shy now of 1,000 food pantries in America registered on ampleharvest.org.  So basically, I saw a problem and I saw a solution.

Toni: And so that was what you needed for inspiration, was to be able to look for those ideas, look for those challenges.  You saw that, you went back, you revisited it, and the inspiration came to you to not only meet your own needs of being able to give away the produce that you were producing and also the community garden, but also then to help others, and so I think that’s really amazing.

Gary: And the thing is, I had the time to do it.  The frustrating thing is I’ve had other problems that I’m working on — I’ve got inventions I’ve had no time to invent — but this was something that was the nexus of everything.  Everything came together; the right problem, the right solution at the right time in our country’s history, and it’s been really interesting to watch as it grows.

Toni: It is interesting.  Based on everything that you’ve done, you’ve spoken to in the beginning of this interview to have this be the one that you found the time for is a very interesting moment, isn’t it?

Gary: Yes.

Toni: Let me ask you — we have about four minutes left to the interview — what do you need when you’re working on Ample Harvest or you’re working on other challenges and needs?  What do you do, Gary, to continuously explore your own potential?

Gary: I like challenges, and I keep looking for places where I can do things I haven’t done or I haven’t done well; and I keep on trying to improve them.  As a cyclist, when I come to a hill, I tend to accelerate up hills.  I leave other cyclists who I’m riding with behind, and I actually shoot ahead.  Not that I’m a Lance Armstrong. I’m not, but I find that when I’m challenged with a problem (and the hill being a problem), I tend to go at it really hard and overcome it.  I just have that drive in myself.

Toni: And that’s how you explore your own potential, by continuously pushing yourself towards those challenges, to overcome them?

Gary: I wouldn’t say pushing.  I’d say driving.  Pushing implies something that you’re going beyond your limits; but I have a drive to take on the things that I can, things that I haven’t done well, things I could do better, and this has been in me my whole life.  My mother says that when I was a child I used to be hyperactive for days on end, days on end, and then I would just fall asleep for like 24 hours — something like that — having burned out my batteries and needed to recharge them.

Toni: Well, I tell you, it just is absolutely amazing how you speak about what you need to explore your own potential as challenges, but yet how you inspire or help others explore their potential is to, if I may use the word, challenge them in a debate and debate them on issues and challenges to learn so they can learn from information and you can learn from that; so it’s interesting how that comes full circle.  I appreciate so much your time on this interview, and it sounds as though Ample Harvest is providing a service that we so desperately  need in this country, and so I know that there are many people who will listen and read this interview that will learn and benefit from it, so I so appreciate your time with that.

Gary: It’s my pleasure.  I appreciate the opportunity to share this with other people, and I have to tell you, I also very much appreciate the opportunity to listen to some of the other people who have been interviewed and to learn from them — get some insights on how they’ve done things in their lives.

Toni: Well thank you very much.  There are amazing people that are doing things from the smallest gestures to the most grand, and they are donating their time to this project, including yourself; and I so appreciate that and thank you so much, Gary, for what you’re doing and your time today.

Gary: Thank you very much.

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For more information about Gary Oppenheimer:  www.ampleharvest.org

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