You can listen to the podcast and read the show notes here.
In this interview, I spoke with Tal Gur.
Michael Smith: Hi, welcome back. I'm here with Tal Ga-Gur. If I'm saying your name right, I nearly screwed that up.
Tal: You said it correctly.
Michael Smith: All right. You describe yourself as a change agent, and you've got an amazing story about how you studied IT, and were super logical and were into computers. Then you gave all of that up and went traveling around the world with your new business, helping people with your coaching skills and your intuition.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: So, welcome Tal.
Tal: Thank you. Do you want me to just talk a little about that?
Michael Smith: Yeah, I mean that's a very big transformation, right? To go from computer-y stuff and then going into coaching …
Tal: I studied computer science and actually hated it. I was good with …
Michael Smith: You hated it?
Tal: I hated it.
Michael Smith: Why were you doing it?
Tal: Good question, I guess it could be fear, it could be the security that came from the money that I would earn as an IT expert. I was one in Israel, and I remember reading the salaries that IT professionals get, and I was like, “All right, I'm pretty good with Mathematics, it's kind of natural for me, so I'll just go for that.”
Michael Smith: All right.
Tal: It seemed also a challenge to study computer science.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: And I thought “All right, I'm up for the challenge.” But I hated it, and actually once I got a job, I hated the job even more.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Tal: Yeah. I was not designed to program-
Michael Smith: Was this a goal you had, to get the most hate into your life?
Tal: Yeah, I enjoyed parts of it, I enjoyed the challenge, and I enjoyed the smart people around me. As I said, I'm pretty good with mathematics and things came naturally to me, so that was fine as well. But overall, sitting in front of a computer coding … That is not for me.
Michael Smith: When did this change?
Tal: I think around the age of 27-28, I finished my bachelor degree in computer science, got a project management job, and started to hate my job. I started to hate my life, the way I was stuck in traffic for an hour, all of those kinds of things. I was supposed to be happy, because I had a beautiful apartment, nice salary, new car, beautiful girlfriend, everything was supposed to be kind of perfect in that sense. I asked myself, I remember one time, I was really angry and upset, and I asked myself, “When was the last time I was really happy, not just happy for a day but happy for a long time?”
Michael Smith: Mmm.
Tal: The answer was when I was in Australia. I was [inaudible 00:02:47] in Australia, I lived with eight people in one room, I worked as a dishwasher, and I was the happiest every day. For months, I was happy. It kind of didn't make sense, logically. Here you are with a prestigious position, everything's comfortable, new car, everything, and on the other side, you live in one room with eight people, and working as a dishwasher, and I thought, “Okay, I can't understand that logically but what I would do is I'm going to change my life, I'm going to go to Australia.” I decided to go to Australia, and as an excuse, I said, “I'll do a master's degree.” To get a student visa, and have some structure, so I got a visa for three years.
Michael Smith: Oh, okay. That let you escape from this hateful experience?
Tal: Yeah, but then I got back into it again, because my master's degree was in IT.
Michael Smith: Oh.
Tal: I thought, “What would be the easiest degree that I can do that won't require me to study hard or whatever.” I just wanted to be in Australia. I went back to Melbourne. I thought, “Okay, that might be it.”
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: I did my master's degree, it was a year and a half, the last year I didn't even go to the university, it was just doing the tests, sometimes I showed up, and I worked as a bartender. I really enjoyed the bartending job because it's the complete opposite of the programmer, 9 to 5. You work at night, everyone is happy, beautiful, dressed nice, so I enjoyed it, but after a year and a half I felt like, “Okay, it's time to make a decision with what I'm going to do with my life, I'm 30 years old.”
Michael Smith: Mmm.
Tal: Then my story started.
Michael Smith: Okay. You decided to not go back to the corporate world.
Tal: I got to the corporate world for a little bit.
Michael Smith: Okay.
Tal: They saw potential in me so they gave me a lot of space. I was an IT manager and then I changed positions to a business development manager with a lot more opportunities. Ridiculously enough, I actually started an MBA as well, to study an MBA. I [inaudible 00:05:09] I just wanted to grow all of the time.
Michael Smith: Right.
Tal: I realized during the MBA that I was designed to be an entrepreneur. I was not designed to be in the corporate world, big companies, be like a cog in a machine.
Michael Smith: How did you realize that?
Tal: First of all, they did some tests, like the Myers-Briggs, you probably know it, and it was written. I remember reading the report, and it was written. Like change agent, entrepreneur, all those words were written. Also, again, I didn't enjoy the whole confined university structure. I remember I took a marketing course and there was nothing about online marketing. Nothing. I asked the professor, “How can we be doing an MBA about marketing and there's nothing about online marketing? That's the future.” He said, “No, we just need to follow the book.”
Michael Smith: Mmm.
Tal: “Follow the rules.” It was actually his book and I was like, “All right, that's not serious.” Just doing something for a certificate, and so I quit the MBA and then I started to change my life.
Michael Smith: Ah, cool! Did you keep all the rational, logical way of being at that point? Or is that where you got more in touch with your intuition, or … ?
Tal: Well, now I'm 40 years old. Definitely it developed throughout the years. Now I'm way more connected to my intuition-
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: Than I was. But for glimpses, I changed a little bit. Even getting a bartending job, for example, you know? Unless you have that … That kind of didn't make sense logically, but I went for it.
Michael Smith: Mmm. And it worked out.
Tal: It worked out, it was fun.
Michael Smith: Probably a good training ground to hone your intuition because you get some weird characters in bars, and you need to intuit-
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: What's going on and how you should react.
Tal: It's a much more changing environment than being in front of a computer, let's say 40 hours.
Michael Smith: Yeah, right.
Tal: I actually remember once I finished my master's degree, I was interviewed for a job and part of the interview, I had to be in front of the computer for a few hours. I got the job, I started to work, and I quit the first day.
Michael Smith: Mmmm.
Tal: I couldn't hear the clicks of the cubicles, it was horrible, I didn't care how much money I made, I had to quit.
Michael Smith: You went now, from keeping a job you didn't like for a few years, to being in a degree you stayed in for a year or so before you quit, and then finally you had a job you only stayed in for a day because you just get the message.
Tal: Yeah. But then again, as I said, I got a good job that they saw the potential in me in the sense that they gave me more freedom.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: In the business. I could learn whatever I want, I could take the business in a different direction. I really took the business more into the online world, because I saw that as the future and they liked it, they really liked it. I was doing well. But even then, I still felt, I mean I can go how I started traveling the world, even then something felt too confined.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: Just being in a job where I had to ask permission from my boss for certain things. There was one moment where my parents had a car accident and they lived in Israel, I lived in Australia, and I had to ask my boss for permission to … I was like, this is ridiculous.
Michael Smith: Mmmm.
Tal: Yeah, I need more of my freedom.
Michael Smith: Yeah, so that's an important value for you, your freedom.
Tal: Yeah, freedom and growth, my top values.
Michael Smith: All right. Is this when you changed your name as well?
Tal: Well I changed my name just before I flew to Australia.
Michael Smith: Oh, okay.
Tal: Just before. I didn't really change the name because I felt like spiritually or intuitively I needed to do that, I just felt it and it made sense and then a lot of things happened from it. I flew to Australia, became a bartender, traveled the world, became an entrepreneur, a little bit more flowing than the year before, that was more logical, computer science, very career-based, step-by-step.
Michael Smith: Yeah. Do you think changing your name had anything to with that?
Tal: Yeah, nowadays, I think yeah. There might be something there.
Michael Smith: How did you pick a new name, I'm kind of curious?
Tal: I just took the last … I just shortened it. It was really very random.
Michael Smith: Hmmm.
Tal: But now I guess I know that it's not that random, right?
Michael Smith: You said that, you told me earlier that you evaluated if the name was good using numerology.
Tal: Well only a year ago.
Michael Smith: Only a year ago.
Tal: Only a year ago, I just started to learn about numerology and I was like, “Oh, let's check the different numbers with the previous name and my name currently,” and I realized, oh wow. They're so different and actually they fit the description so well.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: The type of personality I was before changing the name and the type of personality I was after changing the name.
Michael Smith: Are you okay sharing your old name?
Tal: Yeah. It was Seguri.
Michael Smith: So it was Tau Seguri?
Tal: Now it's Tal Gur.
Michael Smith: Oh, okay. Yeah, there's different energy there.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: That's interesting that you could see by studying the numerology that it had different energy.
Tal: Yeah, last year I did the [inaudible 00:11:00] so every year I did a different focus, different area.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: It was so I really started to read a lot of things about astrology and numerology, I was open. I was really open.
Michael Smith: Yeah. That's interesting for changing a personal name but it's also useful if you're picking a product name or a company name, to look at the energy that it has in it and numerology and astrology are both ways-
Tal: Yeah, I was in Bali last year and I met an astrologist and he actually … I realized the date or the date you start a company also can matter in that sense.
Michael Smith: Absolutely, that's how you do astrology on a company, you look at the date.
Tal: Yeah, I didn't know those kind of things. It's more … Nowadays, I'm more open to different philosophies-
Michael Smith: Some places in China deliberately form a company on a certain date and time and place for that very reason.
Tal: How interesting.
Michael Smith: Yeah, because they believe it will bring greater fortune and luck.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: It is interesting. So, you changed your name, you're now traveling around, you're coaching people, you're doing goal challenges, I know you wrote a book, you achieved 100 goals, right? After 10 years?
Tal: Yeah, I'm actually writing a book right now called, “The Art of Living: Lessons Learned from Pursuing 100 Life Goals in 10 Years.” Yeah, 10 years ago I set 100 life goals.
Michael Smith: Were these little teeny goals or bucket list kind of goals?
Tal: No, big life goals.
Michael Smith: Life goals. What's an example?
Tal: Achieving financial freedom. Doing an Ironman Triatholon. Getting a residency.
Michael Smith: Mmm.
Tal: Those kinds of things.
Michael Smith: So pretty big.
Tal: Yeah, I divided them into 10 categories, and so every category was also in some way … Intermediate goals to the big goals. For example, to do an Ironman Triatholon, there were some goals along the way to actually get me ready to achieve the big goal.
Also, the financial freedom, the [inaudible 00:13:20] thing was to earn, I think, 1000 dollars online, something like that. That could be hard as well, it's not necessarily easy for someone just starting out …
Michael Smith: Often earning the first dollar is the hardest dollar.
Tal: So, those kind of goals.
Michael Smith: Then how did your intuition play into picking those goals and achieving them?
Tal: Sometimes, again it was so random, the Ironman Triatholon, I just saw it on TV, I was in a bar, and being in a bar for two hours, drinking whatever, and then I realized in theory it's still the same race, same Triatholon race.
Michael Smith: Long race.
Tal: Yeah it's a long race, actually the Ironman Triatholon is around 10 hours, or 11 hours, or 12 hours, and I just told one person, “I'm going to do that one day.” It was so big and so inspiring what they're doing, and I didn't pay attention to what I said, I was in a bar, drinking whatever, but then a few years later, the opportunity came up, I felt like it was time to take my fitness to the next level. As I said, every year I chose a different area of focus.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Why did you choose a different area each year?
Tal: I really believe in growth, so I looked at my life, I could be doing very well with my career but that's not really a life experience. It's just one area of life. I wanted to be very good in knowing my body, fitness-wise, I wanted to have good people skills, so I had a year of socializing. I think as a human being, sometimes we just focus on one area,
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tal: Then neglect other areas. Let's say a relationship, or very important areas. I wanted to be good in life, not just good with computers.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tal: Understanding life and actually that formed a living.
Michael Smith: Mmmm.
Tal: Yeah, that's something that was really strong in my mind.
Michael Smith: You told me earlier that you had an experience of not listening to your intuition when you moved to a foreign country one time.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: Tell us how you knew that your intuition was saying not to do it.
Tal: Well nowadays, I know my body is smarter than my mind. I really listen to my body. Nowadays.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: There was a point like two years ago where my ex-partner and I were thinking of moving to the U.S. She wanted us to move to the U.S. I wasn't sure about that, and the first time we talked about it, I remember my body … I wanted to vomit. And I wasn't sure where it was coming from, because I didn't anything or whatever.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: I remember telling her, “I don't know what's happening here, but this conversation, somehow, something's happening in my body.”
Michael Smith: Something, I mean, it's pretty major. It wasn't like a small twitch in your left toe, you wanted to vomit.
Tal: Yeah. Interestingly enough, also in the U.S. I started to develop an illness, tinnitus, tinnitus, whatever, how do you spell-
Michael Smith: Ringing in the ears.
Tal: Ringing in the ears, exactly.
Michael Smith: I have a theory about that, I'll share in a moment.
Tal: Yeah. I remember going to doctors, specialists, and they told me, “It's incurable, you're probably going to have it for the rest of your life.” Interestingly enough, the minute that I left the U.S. it changed. I got my hearing back.
Michael Smith: Should I share what my-
Tal: Yeah, sure.
Michael Smith: So often for me, ringing in the ears is spiritual messages from angels or guides, and they're communicating in a way that I'm not hearing the message, and it comes in as ringing. If I ask them, “Hey guys, I'd like to hear what you're saying, but all I'm hearing is ringing, can you show me the message another way?” The ringing stops, I'll get the message. Either I'll hear it, or I'll get some sign or another. That works for me.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: I'm guessing that your angels and guides were probably trying to tell you stuff, you weren't hearing it, and you didn't ask them to tell you a different way, but as soon as you didn't need the message anymore and you'd left the country, it went away.
Tal: It's interesting, when I left the country, for the first time in my life, I didn't have a plan. I remember looking at the wall map-
Michael Smith: Isn't that frightening?
Tal: Yes, scary. It was scary, because I always had some kind of a plan. For the first time, looking at the wall map, and I can go anywhere, because I have an online business, it can support me anywhere, and nothing was like … I was like, “Where do I go? I don't know.” I decided to go to Israel for two weeks, visiting the family, and there, first of all the illness, I had back pains, everything disappeared. Suddenly, I started to get clarity. Clarity of … For example, I had this 100 life goals list or whatever. I looked at it, and one of them was learning to dance salsa. I said, “All right, I'm going to dance salsa in Colombia, I'm going to fly to Colombia and dance salsa, that just felt right.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: It's almost like I neglected the list, the 100 goals list, but it was almost … It's interesting now, writing a story about these 100 life goals, it all makes sense, I can connect the dots. Back then, it was just a list, a fun thing to do, just kind of interesting, kind of writing a dream-
Michael Smith: Something bigger came out of going to Colombia?
Tal: Yeah, I took the list seriously. In the sense that, “Okay, I'm actually … That is saving me.” I didn't know where to go, where to turn. It felt right. When I looked at the list, I was just reviewing it and then dancing salsa … Learning to dance salsa, it just felt right. It felt right and I could even explain it logically, because there was a lot on my mind and dancing … If you go back to your body … It was good for me.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: The intuition, if you just do it … I remember telling my family, “I'm actually going to dance salsa in Colombia,” and they said, “Well, you can dance salsa here in Israel, why fly all the way to Colombia?” I said, “Because it feels right, intuitively, that's where I feel I need to go.” Since then, it's really, really helped.
Michael Smith: That's a good technique, picking something, if you have a list of different options, whether it's a list of different prospects you might follow or whether it's a list of different places you might go, or different products you might launch. Feeling through the list of which one feels right is a way to hear your intuition's message.
Tal: Also, I was open. I was open so I could actually …
Michael Smith: You could hear.
Tal: I could hear, yeah.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: If I was too much in my mind, I would look at the list and I might not see it, or I might not hear it, because I'm in my mind, not connected to my body, I'm not connected to my intuition.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think that's really important, we tune out … Intuition is often a quiet voice, and it's easy to turn up the music in our mind, just like if you're in a car and you have a GPS, you can hear the turn left, turn right, or if you crank up the music, you don't hear anything.
Tal: Yeah, that's a beautiful analogy.
Michael Smith: I think intuition is a bit like a GPS, it gives us guidance but, it's up to us to decide whether we want to take the guidance or not.
Tal: Yeah. Being logical, I didn't believe in intuition, I always tried to explain, understand, put boundaries, put labels, definitions, that's what the mind wants, in some ways.
Michael Smith: A bit like your employers putting you in a cubicle to be controlled.
Tal: Something like that. Now it's different. Now I listen.
Michael Smith: Mmmm. So you talked earlier to me about a guided universe, can you tell us a bit about that? What that means to you?
Tal: Basically, I trust the universe. The universe is not that random.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: All the synchronicities that can happen, we can always find, “That's a coincidence, that's a coincidence,” but when a lot of synchronicities happen, and that's something that happened to me one after another, it just didn't make sense to label them as coincidences. When you have a lot of synchronicities in your life, I personally realized, it's not that random, the universe is guiding and all I have to do is just listen.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: And I listened. So even writing this book that I'm writing right now, that was listening. It didn't come from a logical. I never saw myself as an author. I never thought I would take this story and publish it, it was just something fun to do. But now it feels like, “Okay, that could be bigger.” It's something I need to do. It came up a few times. I resisted it, and it came again. If there's something strong that is really needed, it will come up a few times, in my personal experience.
Michael Smith: Yeah, I've had that experience too, depending on what the message is, it may come back. That's often a clue that it is a message from the intuition, it comes in several different ways. I also find that with messages from my body. If I have a pain or disease in a part of my body, that's usually a message. If I just hear it, that part of the body gets better.
Tal: I really recommend people, in general, to actually notice it's there, even if they don't … Even if they're suspicious about the whole emotional intuition and they're still questioning it. Just to delve into knowing yourself better, because once you know yourself, really know yourself, you know why you're here. Then the whole idea of a guided universe makes sense.
Michael Smith: If someone wanted to know themselves better, how would they go about that? It's not like you can take a course in it.
Tal: I know, there's different philosophies though. You've got where they divide people into three types, main types. You've got astrology, you've got, even Jung and Myers-Briggs and whatever, they divide personalities. If you go to 16personalities.com and do they test there, you realize how accurate it can be, the type of person that you are. That's a hint. It's more a psychological test, but it feels like another layer to realize, “Oh, okay, I'm that type of person, that's …” When people ask me, “Who are you, Tal?” in that sense, in the past, I used answer, “I am whoever I want to be.” Because I could always change.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: I proved myself that I can be … That type of person, that type of person. But there's an interesting part where if I look at my life, certain values never change. Never. In my essence, that's who I am. The parts that never change. For example, if you're a lawyer, you can always change it. You can be someone else, a banker, so you're not a lawyer in your essence. If you're Jewish or Christian, you can always change your religion, same thing with the country that you were born. For example, I'm growth agent, I'm always, always, throughout my entire life, wanted to grow, love to grow, more than most people I know, and that has never changed. In my essence, that's who I am. There's other people like that.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: Speaking of a guided universe, when you realize that, you realize, oh wow, that's interesting, it's not that random.
Michael Smith: So some guiding energy helps you if you listen to it.
Tal: Yeah. You have an essence, I have an essence, everyone has a certain essence, and if you know your essence, again, the parts that never change, you can know why you're here. It's actually more fun to live your life knowing why you're here verses, “I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do.”
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: It's just way more fun and it's also, you have more inner-peace.
Michael Smith: You talk about hearing guidance from the universe and your intuition, and how it's not always easy for people, for you, to trust that initially, when you first encountered it.
Tal: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Michael Smith: How did you grow … It sounds like you now trust your intuition really well?
Tal: Yeah, because when I didn't listen, I realized that actually my body started to fall apart. It wasn't just the ringing in the ear and back pain, whatever, it was even things that in the beginning I didn't actually pay attention. I was always a runner, always, I ran marathons, whatever, and I got injured, I had Achilles Tendonitis, and I suddenly couldn't run anymore, just couldn't run.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Tal: A lot of things happened, again, in terms of … I started to collapse, I lost my sense of self, I lost my … Kind of illnesses … When you get to that point, you start to listen. You start to be more open-minded.
Michael Smith: Well, you either listen, or you get worse and die.
Tal: Yeah. Perhaps some people are so stuck and they're not willing to change.
Michael Smith: Sure.
Tal: I think I'm lucky because I love to change. I love change. It doesn't scare me to change. I was willing to change. That's actually what saved me, in that sense, and brought me back into my intuition, brought me back off course. Now I'm on course, but I was off course.
Michael Smith: As someone who's really good at change, what would you say to people who are having difficulty making changes in their life, in particular, if they want to follow their intuition more, and they're finding that hard to do? How could they change?
Tal: One thing they can always think about is what's the worse that can happen? Because a lot of times we imagine the worst. Things that it's not really so bad, you can always go back to your old life. Almost treat changes as experiments. Right? whatever. Let's say you're a smoker and you want to stop smoking. Okay, do a 30 day experiment. But I'm not smoking [inaudible 00:28:38] whatever. I think that would be the key, just kind of treating life as a series of experiments. The rest is fixed, safe, comfortable, this is who I am. You open it a little bit, yeah, experiment a little bit here. I'm not going to change dramatically, change who I am whatever, just do a 30 day, maybe you've got a feeling that you need to travel. Take a 30 day travel trip, you can always go back to your old … And see how you feel once you're in it, once you've changed. See how you feel.
Michael Smith: Mmmm.
Tal: Because sometimes when you're stuck in your mind, you don't know. You don't know what you don't know, you kind of sense it. Once you actually go into the other version, let's say you move to another country, you can really feel, “Oh wow, I feel good here. Maybe that's something I should do.” Kind of listen to the body. The body is smarter. It tells you, “That's right, that's wrong.” It's almost like we have an internal GPS, it tells you where to go. You just need to listen.
Michael Smith: Right. Turn up the volume on the GPS, turn down the volume on monkeys chattering in the mind.
Tal: If you don't change, if you don't go through those experiments, the mind might continue to be on a loop, because you're in a certain environment, you're in a certain kind of situation,
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: Once you do the experiment, you really gave it a chance to kind of like, “Okay, this is a time to experiment, it's time to quiet the mind to see how I feel.” Get a little bit out of your comfort zone and you can listen.
Michael Smith: I know some people have difficulty of change because they have beliefs that get in their way and you said something to me over lunch about beliefs.
Tal: Yeah, so we all have beliefs, it's almost kind of the operating system. In some ways, that also will regulate our emotions in some ways. For example if I believed that a rainy day is not that good, I might have certain emotions right now, but if I open my beliefs and say every day, even a gray day is a great day, then I feel much better, my emotion would change. Beliefs in some ways is everything, because it's the filter in which we see the world.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: When we talked at lunch, I told you that the most important belief is the belief about your beliefs. So what do you believe about beliefs? Right? So what I believe is that beliefs are not true. It's certain statements that I take and I make them true for the moment. I'm open to change them, and that's very empowering.
Michael Smith: Tell us a bit more about that. If beliefs are not the truth, what is the truth?
Tal: Every person has to figure it out on his own, but in some ways … I mean we can speak about what is the truth but it will always be subjective, because again, I still have beliefs. Maybe subconsciously, and what I'm trying to say, is everything is still filtered through my beliefs. The truth, for me, is always in the moment. I can tell you the truth is x right now, and maybe a year later I will tell you a different truth. That doesn't scare me. All right well you know. 100 years ago, people believed that the earth is flat. Really, they believed that, that's a belief. Now we believe it's planet Earth, but it can always develop. We can learn more and more and more. I personally keep myself very open.
Also, I'm choosing beliefs that empower me. I'll give an example. I'm writing a book right now. If I had a belief that I'm a crappy author, and I wasn't designed to write this book, then the reality that I will experience writing the book would be very unsatisfying. I wouldn't enjoy, necessarily, the process. So, I'm changing my belief. Just like that.
Michael Smith: It's like putting on a new pair of clothes. This other pair of pants I was wearing didn't fit too good, the color didn't look good on me, I'm just going to change them to a different pair of pants. If this belief doesn't feel good, if it's not serving me, it's not useful, just take it off. Try on some other clothing as an experiment for thirty days.
Tal: When I do that with people, the whole belief exploration process, it's really hard to just drop their beliefs just like that, they're like what do you mean-
Michael Smith: They may have been wearing that pair of pants for the last 4 years, they're kind of glued on.
Tal: I always say that every belief serves you to some extent. Even, let's say you want to have peace and you're in a state of anger, even the anger serves you. We hold belief because on some secondary level, they serve us.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: Maybe some belief is keeping us small and that's pretty nice, we don't need to be out there and fail-
Michael Smith: It's keeping us safe, trying to protect us.
Tal: Once you actually realize those things, you have more choice.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: More choice to choose a different belief. But again, the most important belief is the belief about beliefs. If you don't believe that you can change beliefs in a split second, that will be your reality. It's going to be hard.
Michael Smith: Right. And one thing I've found useful in this is the book.
Tal: What's the truth?
Michael Smith: Yeah, or is this belief really true? Is it absolutely true? How do I feel when I believe it? How do I feel when I don't believe it? Some reverses, and as often enough, going through that process to change beliefs. That's a cool tool for that. So yeah, being able to change your beliefs sounds really important. I know you mentioned earlier, you used to live in a lot of fear when you were in this corporate job, and doing things you didn't like doing. Now you are prepared to just do whatever your intuition says and don't have so much fear.
Tal: I trust my intuition now 100%.
Michael Smith: Okay.
Tal: Even though I know that sometimes I might misinterpret … I might think something is my intuition, but it could be a fear. Sometimes it's hard to identify. Is that really my intuition, or is that just my mind speaking or something like that? That's a skill right by itself. But I'm willing to accept that, which means I'm following my intuition, and it wasn't the right thing. I still prefer that than questioning my intuition. And say, “Oh you know, I'm 90 percent following my intuition.” No, now I'm 100%. Could be, what relationship to get in, could be what business to start, doesn't matter, 100%. Even this conversation we're having right now.
Michael Smith: Cool. So you find that reduced the amount of fear that you experienced, by trusting your intuition 100%?
Tal: Yeah, there's nothing to fear about really when you think about.
Michael Smith: Even one of the motivations I have for writing this book, is that things are changing in the world more and more rapidly, technology is changing, society is changing, and it's hard to keep us as a business with all of the change and all of the decisions that have to be made, if we have to make all of them rationally. It's much quicker to use intuition and make them turn out correctly for you.
Tal: Yeah. You just have to be out of your mind, not stuck in your mind in that sense.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Tal: But I'll be your first customer, really. I love the topic.
Michael Smith: Yeah, it's very, you know … To me it's inspiring, because if all of the businesses on the planet run using intuition as well as their rational mind, just think how much more efficient the world's businesses would be, how much happier all of the people working in them, and customers of them would be, and I don't think we have all of these crazy things some businesses get up to that are very destructive now. Just because that wouldn't make sense to intuition to do that.
Tal: We live in a very imbalanced world, in that sense. A very mind, kind of. It's time to bring the world into a more balanced, I would say, feminine, essence.
Michael Smith: They're just tools, intuition's a tool, rational mind's a tool. Is it getting you what you want in your life? For me, I don't think the rational mind alone gives me what I want in life.
Tal: What I really like is sometimes it can look as contradictions, the logical mind, the intuit, whatever. But they both serve us on the same level, so I like to look at it as, I can choose every single moment to either use my logical mind or to use my intuition, to talk with them, sometimes I talk with both of them, because I'm not in my mind in that sense. Or even my feelings, I'm not my feelings. A lot of people identify with their feelings, I've done the [inaudible 00:38:16] and during [inaudible 00:38:17] you realize that everything is passing by, every feeling that you have. If feelings change, how can you identify with them? But they still serve us, the feelings, thoughts, so I'm not like … Now I'm like, okay just full intuition and I'm not going to listen to my … That's not the case. You said it correctly, it's tools. We can always choose what tools to use, and every single moment might need different tools.
Michael Smith: Guess for people who don't know it is a multi-day silent retreat sitting, in one place for like ten hours a day or something.
Tal: Yeah it's ten days, around, I would say twelve hours a day of meditation.
Michael Smith: You get the opportunity to observe all of the crazy thoughts you have and all of the wacky emotions.
Tal: Yeah. You think about your thoughts. You observe your thoughts in that sense, it's crazy.
Michael Smith: Then you learn to not be so attached to them, and attached to the emotions, they come and go.
Tal: Yeah, I highly recommend doing that because-
Michael Smith: And that's free right?
Tal: It's free, it's all around the world, it's free. The food is also free, I think it's just you can donate, you don't have to but you can. It's just an opportunity, it's pretty extreme, like 10 days but if you open-
Michael Smith: I think for most people, 10 minutes of silence would be pretty extreme. We listen to music, we have our phones out, are flipping through social media, we watch TV. Many people don't even have 10 minutes of complete peace and quiet each day. That could be a good place to start, just get a few minutes of peace in your life, focus on your breath, you know there's a yogic technique I teach in class on yoga, which, it's called minute-breath, where you inhale for 20 seconds, you hold your breath for 20 seconds, you exhale for 20 seconds.
If you can't get to a whole minute, you just start off 5 seconds in, 5 seconds hold, 5 seconds out, or whatever number you're comfortable with, and you count in your own head. The interesting thing is, just doing a short period of minute-breath will totally change how you feel, it'll give you more peace, and no one needs to know you're doing it. You can be in a business meeting that's gotten a bit crazy, you can be in a discussion in a relationship that you're in, you can be in a supermarket line, you can be at a red light in your car. You can choose consciously to change your breath.
Tal: Listening to you I'm breathing deeply now.
Michael Smith: There you go. We talked about this consciously, but it also happens unconsciously. If you're in an argument with your romantic partner, and you start to change your breath, they will change their breath without even knowing it.
Same thing if you're in a sales meeting or some other business meeting. You change your breath, other people will change or shift how they feel. It's a powerful tool for effecting change.
Tal: Yes. Breathing is definitely-
Michael Smith: Everyone is able to control their breathing.
Tal: It's also detoxifying, it's great for metabolism, if we knew how beneficial it is, we probably would be way more conscious of the way we're breathing, because we definitely breathe more shallow these days.
Michael Smith: A lot of people breathe shallow, many people breathe in reverse. I think you may have done yoga, or I'm guessing.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: So you probably know that when you breathe in, ideally your stomach and abdomen comes out as you breathe in, expanding the lungs, and as you breathe out you contract your stomach. More than half the people in the United States breathe backwards. When they're breathing in, they're pulling their stomach in, and it makes the lungs smaller so they get a smaller breath.
In fact, if you've ever smoked, smokers typically do that. If you take an imaginary cigarette to your mouth and inhale, typically you contract your stomach when you do that.
Tal: I didn't know that.
Michael Smith: Yeah, it's a re-learning there and it totally shifts how you interact with the world because when you have shallow breathing, or reverse breathing, it pumps up the fear.
Tal: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. It's also something we do every … We do it all the time, it makes sense to invest understanding more about the benefits. You can live without eating for days, but breathing, that's not the case. In terms of health, my prioritization is breathing is the most important, then water, then nutrition, I take that 20-80 approach, like what's most important? Whatever. Good that we talked about it. I'm more conscious today.
Michael Smith: I'd throw another one before breathing which is a connection to the light. Connecting to the universal energy is actually more important than breathing, I think.
Tal: For me, because I'm … I was so logical, and my mind always resisted sitting and not thinking. It was really hard, meditation was always a struggle. It's funny, almost everyone I know have some kind of struggle with it, even though we logically know the benefits. I really like to trick the mind by telling it I'm just going to do meditation for one minute. That's it, one minute of breathing, it's very simple, that's all I'm going to do.
I'm not taking a challenge of 30 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, because the mind has more resistance. By the way, any habit that you want to change, trick the mind in that sense. Take a small experiment, don't let the mind resist you. Make it so simple. The magical thing that happens is that usually once you sit for one minute breathing, you kind of want to do it more. Same thing with writing. You sit for one minute-
Michael Smith: I'm just going to write for one minute this morning.
Tal: Yes something like that and then suddenly you're really into that and you're writing for thirty minutes or forty minutes.
Michael Smith: I'm just going to make one minute of cold-calls.
Tal: Yeah. Exactly. That's probably the best way to change a habit. One more strategy that I learned, in my case, for example, I like the extremes. I like inspiration that comes from an extreme. So for example [inaudible 00:45:05] ten days of meditation, suddenly I feel more inspired and more energized and I'm like, “Okay I'm going to take it on.” Same thing with the Triatholon.
Michael Smith: You should have been around Jeremy Ginsburg last weekend when he did the ice bath.
Tal: Oh I heard. Yeah.
Michael Smith: Take a bath full of ice cold water and you stay in it for five minutes. It's a mental challenge.
Tal: I had a conversation with him. Similar to me, he also had some health challenges. That brought him back in tune with his body.
Michael Smith: Yeah. Bodies are amazing things. And it's quite a miracle really, we have trillions of cells in our bodies and even more bacteria living in our body. I think it's like 60 trillion cells that are human cells and then there's like 600 trillion bacteria hanging out in our body, and that might be part of the intuitive mechanism because the gut, the belly-brain that people talk about … Some of that is involved in all of this bacteria hanging out there.
Tal: I have a question for you actually. How do you identify … How do you know what's intuition and what's maybe your fear, because maybe if you have a lot of voices, how do you know which one to pick?
Michael Smith: I find when I connect to the light, that's where I go up, bring the light down through my body and go to the center of the Earth, bring it back up through the center of the Earth, expand my heart out, universe. When I'm connected to the light, I'm connected to the universal truth. If my energy is contracted, which it's typically in a state of fear that your whole energy is contracted, then I have a more local version of the truth. If I connect to the universal truth, and then listen to my intuition, i'm going to get a better message than if I'm in a state of fear and contraction.
Tal: How would that translate to something practical in a sense, like of just sitting, meditating, and connecting to my higher truth? That's basically and then I-
Michael Smith: It's an exercise where you take your consciousness up, so let's just do the exercise. You go up a few thousand miles with your consciousness, close your eyes and do it, and then bring that down through the top of your head, through your throat, chest, down through your tummy, hips, feet, down, down, down through to the center of the Earth. Feel the love, support, acceptance of Mother Earth and bring that up through your feet, legs, hips, tummy, heart, throat, head. Now you have light coming from above and light coming from below at the same time. Now, expand your heart out as big as the room, as big as the house you're in, as big as the city you're in, across the country, the planet, the solar-system, the galaxy, and as big as the universe.
That's what I call connect to the light. I give it the acronym TLC for to the light connect. TLC in American also stands for Tender Love and Care. This is an act of love to yourself. That's what I mean by connect to the light. Then, when you listen to your intuition, you'll more likely get accurate information. The other thing you can do is, there are many ways to get information, you can get feelings in your body, words in your head, you might get a knowing, you might see something, you might have angels are telling you things, you might see animals unusually appear, are sending you a message. You might use a pendulum, you might use tarot cards. There are a myriad of different ways you can to your so … Or, you might talk to someone who is an intuitive and ask them what they get. They can pick up what's in your energy field. If you have some message and it's a major life change …
If it's a minor thing like do I eat Chinese or Indian food, I don't think it's really going to matter probably not, just go with whatever your thing is, you don't need to worry about it. But if it's like, shall I sell my business? Maybe you want to check into it a bit more, and get some more messages. You can ask questions. The better questions you ask, the more information you get. Shall I sell my business is one question, another question is how joyful will I feel in six months time if I sell my business today? It might give you more information. It might be you feel really happy for three weeks and then you're depressed later. Then you decide am I going to sell it or do I need to sell it to do something else? Or do I need to not sell it? There's different things you can investigate. You could also in the case of selling it, you're probably selling it to a particular person or company, you could check out how happy you are with the relationship there.
Tal: Yeah.
Michael Smith: Usually in a business sale, it's not, hand over the money in the middle of a dark forest one time and you never see see them again, you're probably going to be involved with this other person or company in a out or other interactions for a while, so you want to check is there a good relationship here?
Tal: I would add to that, I would emphasize to check how your body responds. Ask questions, they can answer, but what the body says as well, so you really want to be in tune with your body. Yoga, in that sense, is good for that …
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Tal: But any type of movement as well, bring yourself back from the mind to the body.
Michael Smith: Let me just share with everyone a way to do that. If you imagine there's an elevator in your mind that has your consciousness in it, and you send the elevator down through your throat, to your heart, down to your tummy, down to your hips, and then notice how quiet your mind has got when you do that. That takes your consciousness out of your head and into your body. And I'm using the hips, some people put it down into their heart, but the heart is often filled with emotions and past traumas, there's usually a lot more space in the hips in the body. That's a good exercise to do. If you're ever feeling freaked out, that's a good thing to do. I've used that, if I'm taking a walk in the countryside, and someone's dog is getting a little crazy and looks like it's going to attack me, I've played with putting my energy down into my hips, and the dog just gets quiet and leaves.
Animals are very good at picking up information. They are psychic. There's been a scientific study where people's pet dogs were home and the scientists sent off the person on a random trip away from home and they had a computer send off a pager message for the person to tell them they should start returning home. They're 50 or 100 miles away from home, and they're videoing the dog, the moment that person receives the page and they make the decision to return home, the dog changed his behavior.
Tal: Wow.
Michael Smith: And it didn't hear the page, it didn't know what the computer was picking.
Tal: They're more in tune, yeah, they're more in tune with who they are and they don't question it really. We question.
Michael Smith: But I think people are just as capable. There are stories of when a mother's son is killed in war, before she receives the telegram on the news, she woke up in the middle of the night and she just knew that her son had died. There's a psychic connection that people have, and we just generally don't pay attention to it.
Tal: I really like the concept though, I believe the concept of remembering versus looking outside and finding. Uncovering something because we already … For example, a lot of people say, “I need to find love.” I say, “No you want to uncover the love that already exists in you.”
Michael Smith: That's great. Same with finding money. “I need to find money and wealth.” No, “I need to uncover the wealth and richness within me.”
Tal: Exactly. That's way more powerful.
Michael Smith: The same way with learning to use intuition in your business, it's not so much that you need to learn new skills, you need to unlearn all of the things you did to cover up hearing your intuition, that you picked up in school and other jobs. Because I really believe that young children come in with perfect intuition and creativity. Usually before they're like 3 years old, they're really in touch with their intuition, they're really in touch with their guides. When little children say they're talking with an imaginary friend, they really are talking with an imaginary friend. But then the adults say, “Oh no, that's silly you shouldn't do that.”
Tal: Yeah. Well you just have to look at them, how free they are, how they don't let fear …
Michael Smith: They just laugh. I heard a study, they looked at how often adults laugh and how often little children laugh. Little children were laughing like three or four hundred times a day. Adults, maybe two or three times.
Tal: Yeah. There's a lot of uncovering to do. I think the love one is, for me, the most powerful. I don't even need the love outside, I have all the love inside of me, and anything I get outside is a bonus. From that place, suddenly you get more in tune-
Michael Smith: That's very deep. Because I think you were referring to romantic love. But I'm going to extend that to food, movies, business, money, everything. Because so many people use food as a substitute for love. I'm feeling a bit depressed, I'm going to have a snack. Or, they use money. “I don't feel worthy enough myself, so I'm going to make more money.”
Tal: Yeah. Or have more sex, or whatever. Certain things that we do to get it from the outside. Yeah. Changing that changes everything. Everything. Every direction-
Michael Smith: Because then you are radiating love and light into the world.
Tal: You're not needy anymore, you're not going to validate yourself, you're not looking … You're not in a state of fear, you have all of the love inside of you. You're don't necessarily need … For example, one of the biggest fears is being on stage. Presenting-
Michael Smith: I've read surveys that said people fear that more than they fear dying.
Tal: Yeah. Interestingly enough, one of my challenges was to appear on stage. [inaudible 00:56:15] stuff like that.
Michael Smith: Great.
Tal: I loved it. I didn't have any fear. I think it's because when I went on stage, I just reminded myself that I have all the love, everything that I get outside is a bonus. I could really tune in and be me, in that sense, not fearing if people are going to like me or not going to like me. I like me. I like myself. That's enough.
Michael Smith: Yes.
Tal: And then again, you're not the fear.
Michael Smith: That's sort of related … What's that book Mark Manson just wrote?
Tal: “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.” What a great title.
Michael Smith: That sort of relates to that.
Tal: Yeah. It speaks a lot about-
Michael Smith: If you love yourself enough, it doesn't really matter what other people are saying or doing.
Tal: It's a bonus. We still want the love of others. I love that you love me right now.
Michael Smith: Oh Tal, I love you.
Tal: Yeah, great. But It's a bonus.
Michael Smith: You don't need it.
Tal: I don't need it. That's so powerful. It changes, really for me, it changes everything. It changes relationships, changes my relationship with everything else.
Michael Smith: That works in business. If you're running your business like I am, “I love myself, I love my business,” then whether a certain prospect becomes a customer or not isn't really important. We don't have to create a meaning of rejection.
Tal: Exactly, the rejection-
Michael Smith: We're giving an offer, either it fits or it's not a fit. If it is, it's beautiful, if it's not it's beautiful.
Tal: As an entrepreneur, going through rejection is probably the number one thing that people need to go through, because you wouldn't be a good entrepreneur if you're afraid of rejection. You want to try certain things, and so I know a lot of people that marketing-
Michael Smith: That would be like saying if you want to be a runner, you need to learn to put one foot in front of the other because otherwise you just ain't going to be running. If you can't make requests of other people and being okay whether they say yes or no …
Tal: Also, it doesn't feel like a risk anymore. They can reject you, great. I learned something new. Actually, I think there's a book, I don't remember the name, but it's something about rejection or cards or whatever, you change the belief around rejection, you actually say, “The more I get rejected the better,” in that sense, because you're almost becoming used to that. It becomes, “Oh, I got rejected five times today, great.”
Michael Smith: It's like you get a second wind when you're running.
Tal: Yeah. So you basically go into your fear. If you're afraid to do cold-calling, go and do cold-calling, do 100. Don't do 1 or 2, just do 100.
Michael Smith: After you've told your mind you're going to do it for one minute right?
Tal: Yeah, yeah. That would be the highest level because as an entrepreneur, you want to take risks. You wouldn't take risks if you're afraid. Afraid of what other people are going to say. It can also be in the context of career, with your boss, getting a raise, even you see a beautiful girl passing in the street and you really feel inside of you, go talk with her, talk with her, and you're just like, “No no no, I'm not valuable enough,” you know, people-
Michael Smith: I want to flip that around, if you're a woman and you see an attractive guy then you go talk with him too because women are generally trained not to do that.
Tal: As a guy, we love that.
Michael Smith: There you go. Well this has been an amazing conversation, Tal, if people want to learn more about you, how would they find you online?
Tal: They can google my name which is T-A-L, Tal. And then the surname is Gur, G-U-R. One of the sites will come up.
Michael Smith: And your website is talgur.me?
Tal: Yes.
Michael Smith: Or fullylived.com
Tal: Yes.
Tal: Two places to find him. Or, you may just follow your intuition and bump into him across the world as he's doing amazing things in different locations.
Michael Smith: Thank you.
Tal: Great, thank you.