(upbeat music)
- Hi and welcome to Between the Lines.
I'm your host, Lea Woodford,
and with me today is Jim Phillips,
author of "The Key To Life Living in Full Expression".
Hey Jim, how are you?
- I am well, thank you.
- Welcome to the show.
- It's my pleasure.
- So Jim, let's just talk, I'm gonna jump right in,
let's talk about this book.
What does the the key to living life in full expression,
what is that?
- Well if you look at the word life,
first and foremost it's the acronym
for Living In Full Expression.
- Mmhmm.
- So I believe that's what life is all about.
It's about each one of us getting to our own truth,
living from that truth, and as you live from your truth
and as your truth, you're living in full expression.
But it's an ongoing process,
so it's not something that all of a sudden
you just wake up and you're living from your truth.
Because we gain more and more of the truth
of who we are through every experience we have in life.
In fact, every thought we have, every believe we have,
every choice we make, which results in an experience,
which gives us that opportunity.
- Now, I noticed it says "ancient wisdom
for a modern world", can we talk about that a minute?
- Sure.
The reason that's on there is because
I don't believe there's any new information.
I believe even what I have in my book
and any other book that somebody picks up,
it's just a repackaging of what's already been put out,
ideally it's truthful.
Now, is it the truth?
I don't know, but I think that's what we're here to do
is to reveal to ourselves our personal truth,
but also the truth.
And I think that's what life's about.
In fact, there's a quote I was given,
and I take my early morning walks,
and I ask questions, and it's very dark out,
and I just ask the question one time
because I felt like what was happening in the world
was so ridiculous.
- Right.
- I don't get why humans do to each other what we do.
I don't understand why there's countries
where people are living in civil war constantly,
and there's famine and there's all the things
that people have to experience.
So, I went for a walk,
and I just said what's this about?
I said to me this makes no sense whatsoever.
And the answer that I got was that the purpose
of life, our reason for being here,
is the progressive realization of the truth.
And it's through all these experiences,
all that we see that are happening with other people,
it's our experience of those events that we see.
And then also it's the experiences we create ourselves
through our own choices.
They give us the opportunity to learn more about ourselves,
and it's always within the context
of that particular experience.
But then it's about living from that truth,
recognizing that what we're gaining
is for our own benefit,
regardless of how the event may unfold.
We can label it good, bad, stressful, terrible,
whatever we want, but there's always
that underlying benefit, and the benefit is gaining
more and more knowledge of who we are
and how we can live in this world.
- Well, let's just talk about these for a second.
How do you think these have affected the way we live
and the way we think and the negativity
and the distractions?
- My first thought is, and especially if you look at
social media, is that I seriously doubt most people
would say what they say on social media
face to face with somebody.
- Isn't that crazy?
- Yeah. So, first and foremost, people are hiding.
The other thing I find discouraging
is that people pass on information
without reviewing the information
to make sure that's it's true
and to make sure it actually is in alignment
with their beliefs.
And I'll get people will send or post things
that are, you read the headline, it's a very
catchy headline, and it could be something
that is attractive to the person who receives it.
But then you read the body of whatever the post may be,
and it has nothing whatsoever to do
with what the headline was.
So what I find is people are passing on information
without reviewing it, that has nothing to do with what
they thought it did, and I mean I've come
to the point now where we're hearing the term fake news,
well we're the greatest perpetrators of fake news.
- Right.
- We're the ones who put it out there.
I mean maybe the first person that puts it there,
but then it gets sent out to everybody else
and I think it's terrible because I don't think,
especially the younger generation
now know how to communicate.
- That's so true.
We're so connected and yet disconnected at the same time.
Now what was your inspiration for the book?
- I've been in the real estate business
for a really long time, and I've been speaking
and teaching within the real estate business,
but I've always had a very spiritual slant
to everything that I did.
I can remember during my whole life,
it was always thinking about, I was always thinking about,
what's life about?
What am I here to do? What can I do?
I've always had a sense there was something
I was supposed to do,
some message I was supposed to deliver.
And so I would be writing down all kinds of notes
and be getting some of the quotes that are in the book.
I think there's 41 quotes that, I'm not going
to say they're original, but they came to me
during my morning walks.
I just got to the point where
there was so much information there
that I felt that I had to put it together
in some kind of a format, and it resulted in the book.
And the title being "The Key To Life"
to me it just meant that we are
to better understand ourselves.
And one of the quotes that I, this is not my quote,
but I think it's a really cool quote,
that another reason we're here
is to understand what's been misunderstood.
And I think that is so powerful
because so much of what we believe is true is not true
or we misunderstood what the truth of it was,
and if we can go through our lives better
understanding that,
shedding the untruths that have been heaped upon us
and that we actually heap on ourselves
Nobody else, somebody could throw it at us,
but we're the ones that hold onto it.
We're the ones that keep it close to ourselves.
And if we can become more aware of the fact
that we're doing that, get to the point
where we recognize what's true for us.
And I say that intentionally because what's true for you
may not be true for me,
and it doesn't make it right or wrong.
It just means that's your truth right now.
Your truth could totally change tomorrow.
Your truth could change today because of something
that we say to one another during this conversation.
Just as mine can.
And so the whole idea in the book is to get people to think.
I mean really think for yourself.
Question why you believe what you believe.
Don't judge yourself on it, but really get down
to, you know, what's real for you
and who you are, who are you authentically
in the course of life and what you want to accomplish,
what you want to experience, how you want to be remembered.
- Let's talk about happiness.
I'd love to hear your take because happiness,
everybody says they want it,
but really what is happiness,
and how can we become more happy?
- The whole, I was going to say the whole idea
of happiness, happiness is not an idea,
it's a state of mind,
it's a matter of just deciding to be happy.
There's a, I was given some information one time,
and it said that to experience and express joy
in the face of adversity is to truly know God's love.
And what that meant to me what that we are joy.
What do people say when we come into the world?
My bundle of joy.
I joke and I say that's the last time most of us
have been called that.
(laughing)
But at the same time, that gets back to our essence
of being loved, being basically of love energy.
And the whole idea with happiness
is just letting go of all those things we hold onto
that prevent us from having the experience of joy,
or having the experience of happiness.
And when I say have joy in the face of adversity,
it's not about being happy and excited and jumping
up and down when you're going through a very difficult time,
but it's understanding the underlying joy
of everything that is and realizing that everything
you experience in life, and I'm not gonna say everything
that happens to us because it doesn't happen to us,
it happens for us, and that's a very interesting
and powerful distinction for people to make,
is that when you are faced with something,
understand there's an underlying benefit for you.
Somehow, some way you called it to yourself,
or you've been put in that particular situation,
because it's gonna help you better understand who you are
or understand what's been misunderstood to that point.
- So important.
I'm gonna switch gears.
Let's talk about, you're a movie star,
let's talk about this upcoming movie.
- Yeah, it was another one of those interesting things
that just came.
I had not intention of being in a movie,
but there was a, I'm part of a Facebook group,
and a lady that was in the Facebook group
had produced two movies, and she was getting,
her second movie was getting picked up
by a major distribution company.
But she needed more reviews.
And so she put out a post asking people
to review her movies.
So I jumped on that, and I reviewed her movie.
And her movie was very much in alignment
with my book and other work I had done.
So I gave her her review, and I commented on the fact
that my book was very much like what her movies were about
and I really enjoyed and appreciated it.
Two days later, she called me up
and she said I reviewed your book.
I reviewed all your information.
I'm making another movie, would you like to be in it?
- Wow!
- So that was how that all came to be.
- Now what's the name of the movie?
- It's called "Becoming the Keys",
and it's actually the third in a trilogy.
And it's got some really cool people in it.
It's got, Brian Tracy's in it, a lot of people
in the business world know who he is.
Dr. Joe Batali is in it.
He was in "The Secret".
A very interesting gentleman by the name
of Dannion Brinkley is in it.
And he has sold 35 million copies of his book.
- Mmhmm.
- And his book is called "Saved By the Light".
He was struck by lightning at the age 25,
and for me and my generation,
it's what your mom tells you not to do.
Don't be on the phone during a thunderstorm.
He was on the phone during a thunderstorm.
Lightning came down the phone line,
and he said it blew him up in the air.
He was basically on his ceiling looking down
at his shoes that were smoking.
He died, and I think he was dead 28 minutes,
which is crazy to think that he was out that long.
He crossed over, brought back to life a lot of information
and that he had since died five times.
I mean it's just wild.
So he's another person that's in the movie.
So the whole movie really is about
looking at all the different things that people
have experienced in life and how they have overcome them.
It's not a movie for anybody to feel sorry for anybody
because we all have our stuff that we're going through.
But it's really to show that regardless
of what life puts in front of us,
we are always capable of overcoming it.
And I think most people have heard
God doesn't give you anything you can't handle.
Well, I take it a little bit further than that,
and I say there isn't anything you can't handle.
So when we look at somebody who's gone through
something like that, we don't understand.
You know, I don't know how
you could have possibly done that.
Well here's the truth.
You didn't know how you were gonna get through it either.
- Right.
- When anybody is faced with a really challenging situation,
we don't know how we're gonna get through it,
but we do and as cliche as it is,
it's the one step at a time.
It's looking for whatever benefit you can.
And moving through it with as much grace as we possibly can.
- I love that word grace.
- Yeah.
- Let's talk about that because right now,
it feels like there's a lot of anger and negativity
in the world, and how can one protect themselves
from becoming part of the problem?
- Well, first and foremost, I think it's getting
off social media (laughing) to a certain extent.
I'm not saying stop it because there's a lot
of really good information that gets shared.
But I think stop paying attention and getting involved in
all the negativity.
And part of the challenge with that, this is more
from a spiritual perspective, is if we see something
we don't like that's on social media,
that's against what our values might be,
or we see somebody being attacked,
or whatever the case may be,
if we engage in it, even in fearful thought,
or anything like that, we're putting energy into it.
And we have understand that regardless of what we do,
we're contributing to whatever it is
that's being put out there.
So, first and foremost, if we can limit the amount
of time we're exposed to it, that's gonna help.
But then we see it, if we can look at,
okay well I'm not gonna share this.
This isn't true, this is not something I want
to be a part of, and then you don't think about it.
Then you're not contributing to that energy.
Then if you think about the beneficial and positive
and beautiful things in life, that's the energy
you're now putting out, and that contributes
to that part of it.
And there's a tipping point eventually.
I think unfortunately the tipping point
that we're at now is more on the negative side.
But I think that more and more people
are awakening to the fact that
they do have something to say, something positive.
I think more and more people understand
that they can contribute to the world
becoming a better place.
It's not about creating a cure for cancer.
It's about being a good person.
- Right? This, it's so simple.
- It is. It is.
- It's simple.
Thank you so much. This has been fun.
- My pleasure.
- This has been Lea Woodford
with Between the Lines.
Thanks for watching.