If you are in the self-storage business and trying to grow it, or if you have been trying to get in the business and it is going slowly, then this episode may be for you.
But I will take a very different approach than most in the next couple of episodes concerning how to get the most out of this year (or any year for that matter) for your business.
I started last week with my experience on my lifelong journey of creating wealth and goals and what I have discovered so far.
If you haven’t read or watched last Episode, 446, start there.
In 1987, I created $50,000 and was astounded when I realized I had almost hit the exact cent I had believed I could get.
It started me on a journey trying to figure out exactly how that could possibly have happened or to solve it for myself once and for all, but it was a fluke.
I quickly realized there are two main ways humans can explore how the world works: (1) spiritual (religious or metaphysical studies) or (2) science (rigorous application of the scientific method).
Of course, I went down both avenues.
Double Slit Experiment
Again, please read or watch last week’s episode so this conversation is in context.
Last week, we talked very generally about the evolution of science in the previous 600 or so years and the astounding discovery that it appears that behind everything in the 3-dimensional universe is consciousness or awareness.
Let’s tell that story.
It started way back in 1801 with the first “double slit” experiment.
Scientists back then knew that light was energy.
Everyone knew that. It warms us, helps crops grow, and you can get sunburn. Energy.
Scientists did an experiment to measure the energy where they shined light through two vertical slits and then measured the wave pattern on a screen behind the slits. Energy shows up as waves when measured. One can measure energy by measuring the distance between the peaks and valleys of the wave pattern.
We can hook your brain up today to a machine and measure the energy, or brain waves. Same idea.
Back then, it was assumed that light was energy, but elements were not. Elements were solid, unlike light.
Over the next hundred to one hundred and twenty years, science got better at breaking down elements (and light) into smaller and smaller particles.
In the early 1900s, science had gotten to the point they could send light photons through the double slits (a piece of metal or cardboard with two vertical slits in it) and measure the energy (the wave pattern).
As science was able to get single light photons to fire through the slits, on one fateful day, they set up a small device to measure which slit any individual light photon was going through to see how that may affect the energy wave distribution.
Something extremely weird happened.
Rather than a wave-like pattern (energy), they saw what looked like a scattered shotgun pattern of particles hitting the screen behind the slits (matter).
Thinking something was wrong, they removed the measuring device from each slit and re-did the experiment.
Waves…energy.
They checked the measuring devices to ensure they were working well and put them back on the slits.
Particles…matter.
Over and over…same results.
This experiment has been done hundreds of thousands of times with the exact same results.
Not only with light. But as science began to be able to break down atoms into subatomic particles, any subatomic particle of any element produced the same result.
If there is no measurement (i.e., no consciousness observing) … energy.
When measuring (i.e., consciousness observing)… matter.
Science went down a weird rabbit hole, and it has not emerged since.
Obviously, our universe (this 3-dimensional universe) is made up of matter. Physics has come to the inescapable conclusion that the fundamental reality behind our universe is consciousness or awareness.
For matter to exist, theoretical physics says there must be consciousness.
Einstein called it “quantum weirdness.”
The universe functions like consciousness, a thought, not a machine, as science has thought for hundreds of years.
Everything is energy; until awareness is present, it turns into matter. The term science uses for this phenomenon is “wave function collapse.”
All matter is energy until a subatomic particle actually exists in a given space in a given moment …wave function collapses.
Awareness or consciousness causes this to happen.
I assert that when creating goals, it could be a goal for your 2025 self-storage business; if you do certain things, something akin to a wave function collapse happens, and what was previously only a thought (energy) can show up in reality (matter).
Again, let’s look at science to see how this could happen.
Reality Is Stranger Than Anything You Can Picture
For hundreds of years, science thought that when we got to atoms and sub-atomic particles, we would better understand how the world functions.
Well, that didn’t happen.
What happened is that we thought reality just got stranger and stranger. I am just going to barely touch on it today.
We all know matter is made up out of atoms.
We all have a picture of an atom in our minds from school. Right?
Only one problem. This is incorrect.
To really have it in proportion, picture this in your mind. We are going to picture a hydrogen atom, the simplest atom there is. The hydrogen atom has a nucleus and a single electron.
To be fairly accurate in proportion, the nucleus of this atom would need to be about the size of a Volkswagen bug, and approximately 20 to 30 miles away, the electron would have to be about the size of a pea.
It gets stranger than this.
The electron is pictured whirling around the nucleus at the speed of light.
Well…kind of.
What’s really happening is the electron is darting in and out of 3-dimensional existence at the speed of light.
The electron has no mass.
I know this is hard to picture with our minds, but the electron is never in a single point in space at a single point in time (i.e., whirling) until a wave function collapses.
Physicists relate to this field where electrons “whirl” as a probability field because electrons are not really there, and how our minds relate to something being there. There is just a probability of an electron existing at any given moment in a given space.
So, atoms, the stuff all matter is made is 99.9999% empty space, and does not fully exist in three dimensions until awareness or consciousness, for whatever reason, causes a wave function collapse.
So, my immediate next question as I asked was, why don’t I just sink into the floor? If I am 99.9999% empty space, and the floor is 99.9999% empty space, why do I, and especially the floor, appear to be hard and solid?
Well…if you could shrink down to subatomic size and size down a spaceship if you traveled into the field where the electron “whirls,” you would instantly be blown apart.
There is a powerful energy field where electrons dart into and out of existence. It’s called the “strong force.” The strong force holds all matter together.
Now remember that this atom exists as energy or as a probability, not as matter, until awareness is present, and then the wave function collapse occurs.
Then, what we see as solid is, in reality, 99.9999% space.
This is a fairly accurate description of how the reality of the world in which we find ourselves. It is not the reality of hard objects; it appears to us with our limited perception.
Eastern sages for thousands of years have said the world is really an illusion—frozen energy.
It appears they were not too far off.
All forms and forces in nature, including the complex human body, have been first produced in the realm where God’s casual ideations are made visible in the forms of heavenly light and vibratory energy.
-Paramahansa Yogananda – Yoga Master
The Tao is the sustaining life force and mother of all things; from it, all things rise and fall without cease.
-Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching
We sought for firm ground and found none. The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe; all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.
-Max Born – Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Your 2025 Goals
So, is it too far a stretch now to imagine that if you keep a crystal-clear thought in mind (thoughts are energy), and behind all reality is consciousness, something like a wave function collapse can occur and show up in reality?
Everything else you see in the visible universe appears to exist in somewhat the same way.
Now, I have come to understand that I can’t just have a thought, and out of the empty space, something just materializes.
I learned there are certain things I need to do and certain ways in which what was in my mind travels to show up in my world. The next episode is about what these are.
But before we do, let’s have one more conversation about the apparent fact that underlying all, according to theoretical physics, is consciousness and what this has to do with our 2025 goals.
Awareness Behind Reality
Now, to many, this sounds like I am making an argument for the existence of God.
Well …perhaps…but that is not my intention.
I have no idea about what this awareness really is.
It appears to be everywhere present in our three-dimensional universe. In every space of the universe, it appears to be equally present because matter exists everywhere.
From the quantum level of subatomic particles to the furthest reaches of visible space in galaxies that are so far away that by the time the light from those distant places reaches our telescopes, they have long since died.
Here is what we can deduce about the underlying consciousness behind all reality.
It seeks to be more…to expand.
Everywhere in the visible universe, everything is expanding. Galaxies are speeding away at the speed of light in all directions.
This awareness apparently seeks to always become more. That is the urge behind everything.
If we walk down the street, in a crack in sidewalks, life grows out of it. This awareness is always seeking to be more…more life.
A bigger version of life.
So, it is natural and part of the flow of life for us to seek to become more.
I assert that it we are this awareness in human form, and unless we are trying to expand and become more, we are actually shutting down a space for this consciousness to express its true nature through us.
I have removed for myself the idea that somehow it is right, noble, and part of the natural order for us to experience poverty or lack in any way.
The idea that God, or some being, wants poverty, smallness, not becoming all we can be, that playing small is somehow righteous, to me, shows up akin to a “sin.” It is 100% the opposite of what I can tell, which is how reality is structured.
So, I suggest that this week, look into your life and belief systems and see if you have any lingering ideas or beliefs that some deity out there wants you to be small and that there is something righteous about being poor.
My coaching is, don’t just, with the wave of a hand, say that’s not me. To some extent, we are all born into this conversation, and it is part of the background beliefs we all inherited.
Really look at your life.
Be aware that I am not arguing for a religious belief at all.
In fact, strange as it may sound, I have come to understand that one does not need to have any spiritual or religious beliefs to form a working relationship with the underlying awareness we have been pointing to.
Setting goals and utilizing the creative force of this underlying awareness in many ways appears to me to be similar to the 12-step programs.
People who utilize a 12-step program rely on a “power greater than themselves” to relieve them of the compulsion that is part of what is at the root of their particular addiction.
I have seen total atheists and agnostics be able to live full lives and become productive members of society and never believe or utter the word God. They rely on a “power outside of themselves” but do not relate to it as God. Their beliefs are irrelevant. They are relying on something, even if it is just the process itself.
I have also seen very religious people with strong faith die of drug addiction and alcoholism.
I have come to realize what one believes is, for the most part, meaningless.
What people do is what is responsible for 100% of the results they achieve in life.
Next week, I am going to share with you what I know about what to do. We will cover (1) how we may align ourselves with the awareness that is behind reality, (2 ) how to act in a certain way that increases the chances of your goals turning into reality, and (3) practice steps for your ongoing growth.
I know this has been a very unusual episode, especially for a business podcast or YouTube channel. Thank you for allowing me to indulge myself in what is a passion of study for me for the last 40 years.
In the last episode, you created up to three short and clear goals. If you haven’t, you can do that before next week’s episode because that is what we will be using to create your 2025.
See you then.
