Hello and welcome to the blossom, your awesome podcast episode number 43 today on the show best selling author. David brower is here with us and he is teaching people the art of a life fullness, living fully energized and empowered each and every day. And he teaches people how to save for their lives pleasurably in each and every moment. I am so honored and delighted to have David here with us sharing his wisdom, insights and light. David, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. My pleasure. Thanks for having me suit. So David, you have such europe two amazing things. So I want to kind of start from the beginning. Um tell us you are from southern California from I think you grew up in Hollywood, is that correct? Beverly Hills, Yep.

Yeah Beverly hills and you are now and you've been living in Paris for 30 years. It just sounds so amazing and I want to hear how this all transpired for you and now you are a pleasure coach and bestselling author. So tell us um you know how this kind of transpired, that's a lot of years. That's a lot of life. Well, you know, I mean I was studying to become a lawyer in college let's say at U. C. L. A. And was doing everything to get prepared for the L sat the test to get into into a good school and I remember taking two preparatory courses, the two big ones Pritikin and Kaplan or whatever they were called and in spite of like over preparing like crazy you know I did horribly and it was a real wake up call to me as sometimes we have in life where we kind of run ourselves into a wall because we're or I'll say I was I guess too uncertain and unclear about where I was going with my life.

And so I kind of let the so and so hit the fan so that I could then escape really when I look back at my life, that's really the story that I tell myself. and so 22, 3 weeks after I got out of college studying political science, was going to go to law school, surrounded by people who are going to law school, everyone's kind of either that or going into a job and here I am saying, you know, I'm leaving to go to paris and I came here because my dad had a former lawyer connection from a couple of decades before trying to get a script to somebody here in the movie business and so connected me that way. And that kind of determined me coming here versus going to spain for example and I got on a plane one way ticket and new nobody really And started off with this 3-month mail boy job and from there I started to realize that like my life had just been rebooted, you know, I'm parachuted teleported into a country into, you know, I've never been to europe into a world, I knew nothing about language I spoke only a little bit of and you know significant culture and realized that I was you know in a kind of interesting playground to explore and just kind of see where it took me and yeah, you know zoom to today.

uh you know 30 years later I'm still here and in between you know got actually re involved in the entertainment business whether it was in publishing Disney or distributing you know television programs from paris to latin America for a small company that had the Jim Henson catalog. So this is all the muppets and all of these types of characters excuse me. And uh and then also working for a company called imax which probably people know the big screen cinema company for about a decade here for europe Middle East and africa in the film And distribution marketing and that was up to about 10 years ago. And uh in the meantime I married a beautiful uh a french woman and you know, built, built my life here. I never never moved back to the US after that moment when I left UCLA with my backpack and ah you know my remember bringing a like a comfortable inflatable mattress which like no one travels with.

I mean unless you're going my camping or something. I knew so little about traveling back then. It was crazy. It was absolutely comical and so so yeah, so built a life here and Up to about 10 years ago when I left the corporate world and started to explore more the types of Ways that I wanted to experience the world and potentially spend more of the rest of my life. I've kind of done 2020 plus years in the in the corporate space which was great, you know worked for incredible companies and people and always always had followed my my heart and passion and that respect and I didn't, I got quite lucky with that and yeah, but just felt kind of just like more to getting a certain sense of self actualization and being able to bring more the more and better potentially the gifts that I have, the talents I've cultivated and blend different passions of my life together too to somehow find a way to make a living and serve the world and um and kind of carry on from there, wow, oh my God, okay, this is such a cool story because you know, I love that you said that you were kind of escaping and you know a lot of times when we try to escape we always come back right because the escape isn't this romantic, beautiful, you know Parisian place, it's just wherever we think is going to be better, but I think it's so cool that you escaped to paris like that's amazing and you stayed there or the food, the food is better here.

I'm sorry to say that the wine is better. Well, you know, so yeah, and it's, it is a kind of fascinating piece of life. I think escaping is under under estimated for me, escaping is giving yourself the time and the space to roam. And I've often found in my life that that's those have been the moments where I've been able to reconnect with myself and able to go deeper within and also able to explore and experiment and try different things that I'm curious about, that I'm drawn to and you know, live live a little bit of a different life for a little while. So I couldn't encourage more people to escape. This said like you're saying, I mean wherever you go there, you are whoever said that.

Mhm If you can't, you can't entirely escape yourself. But I do believe that there's tremendous power in um placing yourself into environments and situations and circumstances that permits you to to grow potentially there where you have felt that you were maybe stuck where you were living. You know, and this could be in the way that you have relationship with romantic people. This could be the kinds of friendships you have, this could be the kind of work that you may allow yourself to be, this could be sort of the, the context that you that you live in. You know, there's quite a difference. I mean, I grew up in a very car culture and to come to paris, which is the polar opposite. I mean, how many people they meet there are still like 50 years old that don't have driver's licenses.

And like I was like how do you go on holiday when you're, you know, but to just give you a sense of the, like the difference uh of that. So I think there's a lot there, I think escaping, you know, a certain food culture, a certain drinking culture, a certain um maybe very polarizing way of seeing the world. So there's lots of positive aspects for me to be able to escape. And that helped me become more, I feel more the person that I wanted to become and I was hoping to become, you know more, more worldly, more traveled more, you know multi culture, I mean one of the beautiful things of living in europe is You know within two, hour flights here there's 25 countries including just getting to the start of the Middle East africa. So you're surrounded by really endless opportunities to go put yourself into some new context where you don't know the culture, you don't know the food, you don't know the language, you don't know the lifestyle, the architecture, what the bus stops are like, like how people dress like it's so it's so incredible for me.

So in the escape idea I put a lot of that and frankly speaking with a lot of holiday that we get here in most of the countries in in europe, particularly France is one of those, you know, the opportunity to be able to escape the urban jungle to go somewhere along the ocean or in the mountains and the french are very talented and very skilled that uh, you know, escaping the cities to go to either their country homes or some family members country home or, or just somewhere to, to get in contact with with nature, to be somewhere way more rustic two to get somewhere way more simplified and really reconnect with nature and calm and quiet. Uh and you know, just like a completely different kind of local village people, you know, so it's gonna, it's another kind of form of escape. So you know, it's really as we think as we speak about this, I come, I'm just realizing that I think probably I would be very troubled if I'd spent my life in one country no matter what it is, it could be France even in one country without traveling around the world to get a taste and a sense of the diversity and variety of our world because at the end of the day, isn't this what most of our struggles are about today is this kind of lack of curiosity and so kind of fear and this sense of the foreigner, the stranger uh and sort of taking these cliches and images, we get probably a lot from the media and movies of kind of what a culture is and who the people are and um You know, these type of things.

I mean one example is maybe you and your listeners have heard of Anthony borden who was this french guy who lived in America, who was a former chef. Such a great guy in terms of food, culture and searching for food around the world and funny and crazy. His book kitchen, confidential, whatever it's called is like the funniest thing. I'm like laughing out loud, radiant. He's been rambunctious and wild and off the chart. But nonetheless, you know, he kind of demonstrated that going around the world like this opens up us too. So much, so much richness and abundance and variety and like some of the greatest places he ate and who said that the people were the most welcoming ever. Would be countries that politically speaking we would completely discount. So for example, one of them was Iran you know, he went there and said it was like the greatest food and he's talking about home food, like the greatest food like ever.

And like the greatest hospitality. It's like who's going to put that at the top of their list. So you know we don't we don't really know so much. It's very humbling. Um Also to to escape like that mm that is just so amazing. Now, you know, you really rubbed that in and it just made me really so envious. I mean that is just um incredible and I think so now let me ask you, David, your obviously you have this deeper kind of ability to appreciate because you have this, you know, your twenties up to your, you know, mid twenties or whatever it is in the States, right? And then you go to this beautiful kind of other culture which kind of allows you this greater depth of appreciation because you have that contrast, right? Well, in the beginning, as with any experience we would have in something quite different in terms of culture and if you go to somewhere different and you don't play the expatriate, which I didn't do when I came here, some people come here and they live very much surrounded by anglophone, let's say you're an american or you come in, you surround yourself by anglophones and like only parents who and other people who only speak english, maybe you're part of networking groups and maybe you don't really speak the language so much.

So it makes that difficult and maybe a little bit older, so it's a bit more difficult. There's lots of versions of this, but my intention was I'm not going to come somewhere and not immerse myself so much to miss out really on the depth and the richness and the rainbow of experiences. I can possibly have. I'm like, I'm going to completely miss out and what really makes France France if I don't speak the language if I don't understand the culture, if I don't know, learn how to eat and talk about food. If I don't learn to improve my palate and learn to express what my senses are experiencing so that I can exchange it with people if I don't learn to be able to voice my opinion about a movie that I hated, but that for the people around the table table absolutely loved and no one really cares whether you hate or love it. What matters is the discussion, you know, and so a lot of, a lot of those kinds of things. I and yeah, you know, in in some ways there's a slowing down here and more of a desire to have more history and depth and you know, potentially to eat slower and to appreciate where food comes from comes from and who makes it and it's this very specific region for this little, this kind of sausage and that's the best one in France and everyone knows it and on top of it it's like, you know, it's like intestines or something, you know, that like everyone's going, yeah, but let me tell you, you eat it and you're not going to be doing that right?

And yeah, food has been a portal in a tremendous portal for like sensory and um since opening and particularly like the experiences that happen around the table when you feel the love and dedication and skill that is applied to make, it's always a very pleasurable, sensory sensual um shared moment. There is a great word in France, it's called Ali grass and it means shared joy. It's not just your joy, but you're sharing your joy and then suddenly everyone is kind of sharing it together. So yeah, I mean if you're fortunate enough to be um and find and maybe choose where you go, have your food experiences whatever that is in in life and you're really present and attentive to what you're experiencing through your senses.

You're actually slowing down and really, you know, expressing what you're experiencing and not just saying, oh this is good, but you're saying I love the texture of this calamari that was grilled um and then steamed and then you wanna, you know, ask the waiter and the chef like how did you do this? And so so like you're, your experience of life is d multiplied, it's amplified and enhanced in a way that's as I call it, very sensory allow and very pleasurable. Like we can get so much more out of an experience. And I talked a lot about the food and eating experience because of course where I am, but I think that's applicable to to really anywhere and almost any experience whether you're in a relationship, romantic or conversation, you're doing some work thing, you're doing some sports or whatever you're doing.

If you bring yourself to want to amplify the experience And kind of, you know, 10 excellent sort of modern language because you want to give it more value because you're giving it more attention and you're seeking like how to make this special, how to even make, it's surprising how to create a little bit of a little bit of and all of this and enter into a sort of savoring of the experience which requires us to be very present and value it. This is a bit different for me, this is a bit different than just being mindful of something being present. I feel a lot of ways we want to be able to adjust the volume and the colors of what we're doing. So I don't just wanna on and off switch for the lighting. I want like a variation, right? That lets me change the intensity and then I want the other one that's like a color knob, right? So, but like if you think of life like this and that you, you start to choose and and train yourself and create a lifestyle and um you know, kind of push yourself like, you know, we're always talking about pushing ourselves in so many ways in life or and like when it comes down to like daily living, these are the, this is like the spiritual playground, you know, and everything that we experience, I'm quite alone because I live alone now and I'm constantly seeking to make special beautiful moments where I feel like I'm in like self love one oh one, I mean I'm honoring the food that I'm eating, I'm having a pleasurable moment and because it's so tasty and it is so nicely plated because I'm always making an effort.

Like if you look what I posted, I think at lunch today on instagram, You know, it's like a 10, 10 vegetable salad that I made for lunch today. You know, it's like this rainbow flower, uh, you know, dining experience. Uh, and I'm not like getting my haircut and eating lunch. I'm not on the phone eating lunch. I'm not in front of the computer eating lunch. I'm seeking as much as I can to kind of be present and sit, you know, in a nice place in my home, sit up properly. Use a good napkin. You know, constantly saying to myself, David, you know, practice what you want to be when you're with other people also, right? So I'm not slumping. I'm not, I'm eating properly with both hands. Um, you know, my mouth, I'm eating properly and trying to constantly be like a beginner's mind Also to remind myself how beautiful life is and I don't have to be with other people to be in performance reminds me of a story if I may when I was, when I was growing up, I was probably early in high school, maybe 14 or 15 and I was eating with my mom and my stepfather and I was clearly not eating very properly and probably my arm was under the table, which has been part of the training there.

But mm was probably eating with my mouth kind of open and blah, blah blah. My and my mom literally said to me, you know, you know, sit up straight and and eat more properly. You can't, you can't eat like this. And I said to my mom, like the worst thing you could ever say, right? My response was like, don't worry mom when I'm out with other people. I don't eat like this. I mean like the worst thing ever you could say. Right? So, but it reminds me, how come I remember that one moment because it was, you know what you practice at home. You will be rewarded for in public and to apply that to all the experiences we have when we're alone for example. Um, and or you know, practicing something. And it's just, it's just a really nice reminder. I think two, you know, constantly give value to what we're living in every moment. And it's a form of what I call alive Fullness. Mm hmm. Yeah. That is so beautiful.

David and I want to get into this concept of a life fullness with you. Um, you know, but I want to just ask you speaking to what you just shared right now. Like, So this notion, you know, like life for you is it's romanticized right in this way where you really are kind of taking it in and you know, here in the States. We don't do that right? Everything is so fast paced and who has, I mean, there is that occasional moment. Yeah. You go out to dinner with friends and you hang out and you have fun or here and there with family, you're able to kind of sit, you know, for an extended period of time. But generally we are kind of just on the go. So what is your advice for people in other places and places like in the States to kind of how do we begin to learn to kind of slow down and savor the moment? Savor things. What's your guidance for that? Yeah, there's a lot there. I would start first with using the language.

I and not, we let other people live the life and have the experience that they want to to have so that we take back ownership for how we want to experience the life that we want to lead and sort of become the leader in that respect. Be the one who's inviting to a different kind of restaurant, be the one who's hosting dinners at your place. You know, where you pull out your best napkins and your grandmother's silverware, you know, make moments special. If you make moments special, people's brains wake up, you know, they feel like they're in a moment of celebration there suddenly and kind of thing of awe. They'll probably never invite you to their place because they never do that effort, but that's okay. It's kind of lonely at the top. But as you as you decide to as exactly as you say. So it's really kind of a way of romanticizing your experience of of living and frankly with so many areas in life, this enhances your, it enhances your experience.

This is sort of the, enjoy the ride, not just the destination, right? And so already to set the intention that you want to have more intentional, purposeful pleasure in your life. And so for you, for each person, like what would that look like in terms of eating, what would that look like in terms of exercise, What would that look like in terms of relationships and friendships and the kinds of conversations that you're going to have and the subjects that you want to explore within, like who do you want around your table and you know the french have done something very smart. Not only the french but the french really eaten three or four steps during a meal, particularly dinner is sort of longer meals and things, but Like you you don't put everything onto one plate.

Alright, You first of all you have kind of a starter and then you have a main dish with maybe a side and then maybe you have you know a cheese or a salad or something in and maybe some dessert or something. And so uh you know the sort of potluck of idea that everything should be on the table and just you know dig in which I hate that word. You know dig in Or even the other one is like when a when a when a waiter comes up and says are you still working on that on the plate here? And like I'm not working here like who's working you know? So just to like become super picky in a lot of ways about raising the standard of what you're willing to accept an experience and start to externalize and asking an elegant but assertive way and you start to get more agency over what your experiences. But also like don't go eat at places where you're not feeling like that honoring in that experience is is happening.

Start to integrate a little bit more. Um You know places that that are more into serving things more slowly or not like they're not into turning the tables so much. And there are places that are not doing that. That's one of the beautiful things here. It's pretty rare here in paris in France for people to be turning the tables. You know you have as much time as you want to spend. Mm hmm. Making this is also why fast food is not such a good idea. This is also why take out is not such a good idea. Uh You know you want to cook for yourself a little bit more potentially or learn to do that even better. Because first of all there's a whole sensory awhile meditative sensory process that gets you out of your head. I mean by a really sharp big japanese knife and trust me, you're gonna be paying attention while you're cutting vegetables, you know, you're going to be super present and start to just notice more, you know, use life like that in these sensory moments to be more attentive to um to what you're experiencing.

I mean, like why are people willing to meditate for 20 minutes, once or twice a day, but no one wants to spend 20 minutes preparing a delicious meal, You know, and being strategic about it enough so that you only spend 20 minutes to prepare it uh you know, and not just doing your last minute and not, not like making it important two to your life. So yeah, it's a conscious choice in a lot of ways and then making different choices about how you spend your time, potentially like where you spend more time than others, uh and potentially maybe finding people who eat more slowly, finding people who walk more slowly and look at the flowers, you know, like, like we need to value more of the kinds of people who are, who were doing this and we walk around with your grandparents, you know, trust me, they're gonna be looking at the flowers and smelling them, you know, to remind ourselves of, of all of this and at the end of the day, I really believe and feel and aspired to living in a way that that puts savoring at the core of our experience at the end of the day, this is a very spiritual adventure to decide that you're going to not just go from point A to B in whatever experience, task, job thing that you're doing, but you're going to fill in that make that sort of an A to Z and along the way you're going to get out of your thinking, get out of your head and lift your head.

For example, when you're walking from A to B, like lift your head and say to yourself, ask yourself, where am I okay? And then you start looking around and try and check in with your different senses, what am I smelling, what am I hearing? And you start to play a little bit more and you get out of thinking this, this overly facile place that we've conditioned ourselves to go to, which feels comfortable and safe and kind of, we just know what's there to pulling back and saying, I've walked 1000 times down the same street, but I've never looked at the trees. I've never looked at the architecture, you know, I've never spent my time looking on the ground to see if I find some kind of little little something that somebody left, I find gifts all the time on the ground, incredible things, you know, and so like observing, noticing and overall, like sincerely, I'm finding the value in that because we need breaks. Our brain needs, brakes, Our attention needs breaks.

We can't be 100% of our day caught in thinking potentially chronic anxiety around that in some kind of a loop maybe on some things, trying to figure something out consciously all the time. We need to be able to escape a bit that by leaning on our senses, exploring the world around us and later our subconscious and our brain work on the intention of the problem. We're trying to figure out or the, you know, the issue, we're trying to work through the anger, the frustration or whatever it is and allow ourselves a moment of respite. And again, when you make that pleasurable, when you start to say, wow, I mean, look at that flower. Like I have these new roses on my terrace here that just came out um this week, and I'm like, every morning I go out there and I'm like looking at them, like speaking to them, right? I'm like, thank you, I haven't seen you in a year, like, I want to value that. Like, this is a seasonal thing. I'm only gonna see for the next couple of months.

So if we don't, if we don't return and give value to what we experience and make the movie of our lives that were the audio, right? Where the writer, the director, the producer, like, it's not like going to the movies and someone is feeding us, you know, you choose your experience and that takes a bit of taking a step back. Like what is important to me? How do I want to live my life? What are the different choices I need to make? What are the new lifestyle habits I could cultivate and seek to experience so that I can expand the way that I um walk through life and and for me, a lot of ways, it's really to get out of your head right to be able to sense and savor and value, you know, the life around us, we can't just order any kind of food and because we're in some kind of conversation with somebody or we're caught in some thinking or watching something like we don't even know where we're eating.

It's just they were just kind of like, you know, plowing it into our mouth to use a crude word instead of really valuing it and savoring it. I mean my gosh we're eating to nourish our body two on our body and you know, so many people seem not to know how to eat or cook for themselves or even order things in restaurants that are going to make it so that as it was in Aristotle or somebody said, you know, make make food diet medicine and of course if you don't care about food, I mean really you're going to allow yourself to eat things that potential or not really that pleasurable, that purposeful. I like to kind of align pleasure with purpose so its performance. And so you need something, let's say delicious and pleasurable, but it's also fresh, healthy, non industrial and you're not eating the same thing every day, you're varying a bit so your body gets a mix of different nutrients and like, you know, without really making that much an effort the end day when it becomes a lifestyle suddenly you're eating way better.

Suddenly you're savoring more what you're eating. Suddenly you, because you're so attentive to what you're eating, you can't eat stuff that's not really that good because you're like, what am I eating? This is not so great, right? Like the minute you get attentive the food and the way you're experiencing it, if you want to live with higher standards, you know, it's not so easy to to accept if it's not really there. So, so I'm probably rambling on here a little bit, so I will stop for a moment and drink a glass of water. But no, I love it. This is so amazing now, you know, I I just I think it's so awesome. David that it seems like this whole disability to kind of slow down and savor through the meals, I'm sure kind of, you know, impacts the other parts of your life, right? Because you're kind of training yourself to slow down in this, you know, during breakfast or tea time or whatever it is and then that has to translate in other parts of your life as well, where you are able to kind of walk slower and smell the roses and all of that, right?

Has that kind of trained you to be more mindful in other moments, through this practice of really enjoying and treasuring and savoring. It surely helps. And I mean the lucky thing around eating is maybe two or three times a day you have that experience. And if you cook your own meals, the experience is even longer and cooking is a whole nother realm I could talk for hours about and the value of cooking for cultivating mindfulness or certain meditative nous ease, pleasure, connection with others creativity, savoring. I mean there's there's not that many things were actually all of your senses come into play if you really think about it than cooking, but really you're kind of exercising everything and at the same time, you know, it's that's helpful. And I would hope that for me and for anyone else who kind of lives, I guess in this kind of way I guess is that you do want to be able to then use that in other parts of your experience.

So for example, maybe you do this around food, but you do this with you know, the romantic partner in your life. Do you give them this, you know, dedicated savoring presents. You know where you're not on your phone, where you're not racing to do something else. We haven't so packed your schedule that you can't even linger and relish each other and, and reconnect like you were when you were first together 10 years ago. So that like, you know, there's all this watering down that's kind of happening. So it's, it's really, how do you bring this a life on this into more and more moments of your life, whether you're doing your taxes and you know, and I don't know, I mean, people say to me often like, you know, this doesn't work when you're doing something difficult or like, well, okay, maybe it doesn't in some respects, at the same time, you know, you could play your favorite kind of latin dancing music while you're doing your taxes and it's going to make that process a little bit more smooth, right?

You know, um, or you could drink your favorite smoothie or something. You know, it's like, how do you, how do you make a pleasurable these moments of, of life. And, and believe me, I have to constantly remind myself, even though I'm, you know, I have quite a bit of a cultivated um, skilled talent, um, you know, inborn stuff that I have to, to, to, to come to this presence, but also have serious motivation because I, two of my life have struggled with not being present. I too, in my life has struggled with, like, what did I just eat? I too have drank this, you know, 19 86 you know, 35 year old wine and because they get caught up in the conversation or something, I'm sipping without really sipping, I'm not really, they're tasting it and like suddenly the wine is gone. I'm like, so it's like it's constantly constantly reminding yourself until it becomes very naturally so more and more present that you start to get more and more out of the moments and you start to be able to kind of enhance that and again, really guide your awareness to where you want it to be.

And then again, really bring value to to that. Externalizing verbally is such a great thing. Also like when you have an experience to share it with somebody else, you know, really magnifies your experience. It reinforces what you've experienced, what you're learning what you're senses are having. It also teaches you how to kind of better express what you're, what you're about and like what you feel and what you sense, which is not so obvious for everybody, right? Like just sit around a table and ask people when they're eating to say three things about the food they're eating instead of, it's really good. Like Okay, we'll say three things. I really like the temperature of the food, I like the spicy level nous, I'd give it a four out of eight and I like how long the taste stays in my mouth, you know, or it could be like a memory like I just this reminds me of my grandmother's cooking or whatever or when I was in Mexico traveling on holiday.

So like we start to connect all these different dots and like when you also, when you highlighted someone else, maybe you're with somebody who's lost in thought they're struggling with something today and you're helping them to come into the moment, right? You're facilitating them to join you and to say, whoa, wake up, snap snap. Like do you realize what we're drinking here? Like do you realize the quality of what we're tasting like when was the last time you tasted something like this? I mean, do you realize what we've been gifted by John, you brought this bottle for us today that's been sitting as wine cellar for the last 15 years that he bought at a wine show um in a village. And you know, I mean like it goes like all the stories start to come out and we start to really live a more enriching lifestyle. I would say, mm that is just so beautiful. I'm getting so hungry and I just, okay, so now David, we gotta talk about this this alive fullness help us understand what that is.

And um yeah, and how we can, you know, be more of that embody that you clearly just embody it. You are like just hair with us and your hair with all of these experiences. So talk to us about a life fullness. We've touched on a lot of the elements of a life illness. It's, it's really, uh I kind of refer to it as the mindfulness, you know? Three point no, which is probably not a fair way of, of putting that. Um a life fullness is our ability to be present to what we are experiencing since a really intellectually in the moment. So a life illnesses first and foremost, your ability to train yourself to be able to come into the present moment, to be reconnected with yourself first of all to really, you know, feel in your heart to feel, you know, when you're touching your fingers and you're looking at your hand or whatever it is to trigger yourself to bring your awareness to something beyond your thinking.

And as you come into that connection, that embodiment that grounding with yourself, then you can actually lift up your head and ask yourself like we did earlier, like where am I? And look around and again, kind of do a sensory sensory Allchin check in like, like what am I seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, who am I with? And then suddenly you're really like, Like in in 5D you're suddenly you're suddenly there and then from there he was like, well what am I appreciated, what am I going to give value to? I'm in a museum with five paintings around me, which one is drawing me the most, what am I and what do I really appreciate about that and you start Externalizing it and sharing it either in your own head or with somebody that you're with. What do you like about that painting? What are you liking about loving about this sauce that's on this burger that you're eating, right? And so again, you're Externalizing what you are experiencing which joins us.

I'll address this shared joy on this, this empowered self expression of knowing what you give value to what is essential and important to you, what your preferences are. Uh huh. And this is good, bad and ugly. You may go some place and really not like that, but you need to be able to externalize and express what it is that you that you don't like and from there, you know, we can add some icing on the cake and say, you know, then you start to realize that when you go into experiences of your life with more intention that you would choose and make different decisions. So you get, you arrive at the restaurant and the maitre d just kind of unconsciously takes you to whatever table and it's like at the exit of the toilet and you're like, you're like no um I wanna peak experience at this restaurant and you're like, well I wanna can we sit at one of these tables over here and this is you know um and you know, you realize that they're just kind of sitting people probably in the worst seats we're not going to complain.

You know, so it's, it's standing up for yourself and it's again, it's raising the standards of who you are and uh, um self determining the kind of experience what you have and like, you know, pushing yourself to dare to affirm and assert who you are and that you have value and that you want to have the best experience for here for yourself and your friends, for your family and being the, being the leader there. Uh, and that, and you know, sometimes it doesn't always work, but most of the time it does, and in any case you're getting kind of more used to that and then really from there, just to kind of close the loop, It's about returning to a sense of deep gratitude for um everything that we're experiencing right to, again to like have a living experience of expressing gratitude. Um, some people are doing this in journaling in the morning at night, all this. I'm like, well, hey, let's do this throughout the day.

Let's be thankful to people, Let's express our appreciation and what we're experiencing, let's be complementary to people. Uh, you know, I think complementing is something that's been really damaged in our world in the last several years, serious things become so politically correct and there's a lot of male female conflict and things that have been happening in the world and it's like, what a shame it is to not be able to say to a, a woman, I love the way you're dressed or well, you look so beautiful in those high heels or whatever it is, right to be able to say that with the right intention, but to to be able to share that and livin in these beautiful moments and and I would hope that in our lives through the good, bad and the ugly experiences, we can bring this sense of a life fullness and expand our way of experiencing life. So, I mean, even with, you know, taking a cold shower which is such a big subject these days, right there, there is a lot of value in the sense that you are expanding your ability to experience more of what life is about.

If you're only going to always, you know, this is just a metaphor again, but if you're only going to always take the warm showers go the comfortable route, uh you know, you may be preventing yourself from experience something more deep in you more strong within you, more curious within you, you may be preventing yourself from experiencing all the possibility that you have within you. I talked about this sometimes also, you know, playing a life fullness in taking holidays. I mean if you live a relatively comfortable Life, I don't really see the point, you know, 100% of the time to go on holiday to somewhere comfortable, you know, and even if you go to some foreign country, like, you know, let's not go to Club Med, right, You know, the french have club bed where they go and travel around the world and that's probably good for families and stuff.

But nonetheless, like you go into an environment where it's like taking a piece of France and putting into, you know, somewhere in latin America. Um you know, well, I, I don't, I don't really see how that expands our ability to experience the diversity, the creativity, the local aspect, the difference uh in uh in life. And so the more of these experiences we have, I believe, the stronger we become as human beings, the more open minded, open hearted, curious and understanding, compassionate and empowered. We become when we come back home and we live our everyday lives and I'm not saying that I'd live like this all the time, but I certainly aspired to it, I practice a lot of what I preach. I'm really, it's sort of my, my way of feeling that like, like I'm not missing out on my life and I'm not withholding myself from experiencing what life is really all about.

Oh my God, David, I love it. You are just um loving life and we all need to be doing more of that. I think it's so beautiful, just your kind of um you know, the pace of life, I mean the way you kind of speak in your tone and all of that just embodies this kind of amazing life that you have been cultivating for yourself. And oh my God, you've been so amazing, David. Now let me ask you in closing. I feel like we could go on and on. And I would love to revisit this in the future and go deeper with some of what you teach. We really didn't even touch on that. But I know you shared so much wisdom and so many insights. But in closing, what is your message? Or a wisdom? What powerful words would you like to leave us with? Mm hmm. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Uh you know, 2, 2.5 years ago I I lost my beloved french wife. Um after 27 years of a very beautiful marriage. And following that, I wrote a book to honor that. And to remind myself in the first instance that life is finite, that life has serendipitous moments. Good, bad and ugly and our ability to be resilient through that and live with a as full of open heart and mind as we can. You know, being the best human we can. And doing what we can with who we are, where we are. And realizing that, you know, life is about coming back to loving life again and again and again through all the struggles we face whatever they are losing your job, a separation, divorce, best friend who betrays you, whatever happens in life to you know, come back to loving life And and this happens for me, it happens to reconnecting with, you know, pleasure purposely finding ways to savor the little moments, The middle moments, the big moments of gigantic moments creating and determining what is of value to you and being a leader in, you know, hosting dinner parties or whatever it is that you do in your life to bring and share the joy with others and just realizing that, you know, we just never know what can happen tomorrow.

And so the book is called Dance of the Love caterpillars, an inspirational romantic tale of the adventures of loving and trusting life. And I would just leave everyone with my wish that we don't settle for not living a life that we love. And we take our own responsibility for um finding our way are unique path to reconnecting with that. Uh and we live a life that is more about abundance and a cup half full and gratitude, appreciation and savory more than it is about sort of self pity and scarcity and feeling sorry for ourselves and not really facing What you know, what would make us have the most full experience of this 1.1. Beautiful life that we're going to live.

Oh my God, I love it. David. You have been so amazing and I just thank you so much for being here, your time and your love and light. You've been awesome. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Mhm