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- [00:07]
Pam Grout
Journey on magic lies within the trails we ride.
- [00:13]
Warwick Schiller
You're listening to the Journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman, trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home study courses@videos.warwick shiller.com.
- [00:45]
G'day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey on Podcast. I'm your host Warwick Schiller and my very special guest week this week is a lovely lady named Pam Grout. Pam is the author of 20 books, two screenplays, a live soap opera TV series, and as she says, enough magazine articles that I haven't starved in 25 years without a 9 to 5 job and how Pam came in my radar. You know, if you think back, I did a podcast or two podcasts earlier on on books that have influenced me and it Pam's book was one of the books that have influenced me, but I don't think I actually had it on the in that list. So Pam wrote a book called E Squared and it was nine experiments to prove to you the power of your mind to attract things like to manifest. And if you think about it, I did a whole podcast on manifesting and recently this book came into my world again and I thought I might reach out to the author and see if she might be interested talking about this stuff on the podcast, you know, thinking that she was probably a too big a deal for me to get, but I'll try anyway. And I reached out and you know, not very long later she emailed back. She goes, let's do it. That's all she said was let's do it. No, no, she said, I've been waiting for you to ask. I've been waiting for you to ask. I think it's almost like she knew I was going to ask. Bit weird. But anyway, yes, reached out to Pam, Pam got back. So we made a time and record the podcast and I'm so glad I took that opportunity to reach out to her because what an amazing podcast guest and an amazing human. And yeah, listening to her story is definitely going to inspire you to expect a bit more out of life and manifest your dreams. So before we get to our next guest, I want to tell you guys about our new Journey on Podcast courses. You know, we have a podcast summit every year where we have the guests come and present over three days and the Feedback from that has been absolutely amazing. And my wife Robin thought, wouldn't it be a great idea if we could get these guys to do some sort of an online course where people could dive deeper into each of the podcast guests area of expertise. And so at the moment we have 11 of these journey on podcast courses. We have one from Heather Lucas called Rewilding. Carla Buckmuller does one on the writer's breath unlocking the power of proper Breathing. Jamin Fraser from Australia does one called Unhindered. My wife Robin does one called Reset your Nervous System, Reset yout Life. Hannah Paz Quinzo does one called Mindful Mornings. Everybody's favorite astrologer, Denise Elizabeth Byron does one called Flow with the Changes. Pete and Louisa Brendel do one on Long Riding Explained. So it's videos on how to long ride if you want to do what they're doing. Super Genie does one called Light your life on Fire. Shalin Harkin does one called the Genie within. And Kathy woods does one on mindfulness and horsemanship. And also Emily Ksdotter does one on if you've listened to her podcast episode and she talked about the Hashemite horses which fascinated me, she does one called the seven Lines, the teaching of the Jordanian Hashemite Horses. And so I can't. It's a four part zoom series and I cannot wait to listen to that one. But yeah, if you guys are interested in doing a bit more of a deep dive into any one of these podcast guests, these courses are great. They're exclusive, so you can't get these information, these courses anywhere else. And all you have to do is go to courses.warwickshiller.com and you can get started on those. Pam Grout, welcome to the Journey on podcast.
- [04:56]
Pam Grout
Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here.
- [04:58]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, I'm thrilled to have you here. You know, you're. One of your books was one of the earlier books on the ability to manifest things that I'd read. But I think by the, by the time I read it, which, and that book is E squared, which I do want to talk about quite a bit. But I think by the time I discovered that book, I looked back and I'd already been doing the things for years without even knowing I was doing it, you know, I actually recorded a whole podcast called Manifesting and I talked about all the crazy things I manifested. And probably the first one I remember was I wanted to come to America to learn how to train horses. And I own this, this pickup truck that I'd bought for $5,000. But for reasons unknown to me, you could insure it for 10,000. And I had said to three different people on one occasion, eats. You know what? I wish I knew how to write this thing off without killing myself. Because if I did, if I could do that, I would take that money and go to America. And you know, a couple of months later, blew a left front tire going about 75 miles an hour down a country road and ran off the road into a stand of small gum trees, not one big gum tree because that would have killed me, was enough to kill the truck. And I opened the door and walked away. So, yes, but I want to talk about all that sort of stuff. But first I want to start out with on your website, the under about Pam, you know, your bio or whatever it says. Pam Grout is a world traveler, a loving mother, a best selling author, a millionaire, and an inspiring witness to everyone she meets. Which sounds cool for someone who's successful. You know, it's great. I mean, I, I hear a lot of people, I may have a lot of people on the podcast who have that sort of a bio. But then you say that line is an affirmation I started using some 20 years ago, before I'd ever had a child become a travel writer or an author. And for that matter, before I even liked myself all that much. There's a lot to that right there, especially that, that, that last part. But to me about that. When did you write that line?
- [07:05]
Pam Grout
Well, now it's been even more than 20 years, as I say in my bio, my sometimes updated website. So I wrote that when I was soon out of university. This is how long ago I made those intentions. I was really lucky in that soon. When I was first living in Kansas City, after I graduated from college, I happened to go to this class. It was sort of about manifesting, like you mentioned, you'd been doing it for a long time. It's been out there, this idea that what we put out into the universe is going to come back to us. I mean, that's an old idea. I mean, going back to the Bible, ask and ye shall be given or whatever that says. So this is an idea that's been around for a long time. But I happened to go to this sort of, it wasn't really a class. It was like this woman that just was offering this and she said, just write down five things that you like or ten things or whatever. So I did, I jotted down those five things and some of them came immediately. The one that took a little longer really wasn't until E Square became the big success that it was. But it was amazing how just putting that intention down there made that happen. And I believe we do that all the time, but we're just not conscious of it. So it's become more conscious of it. It becomes a lot more exciting because we can kind of watch what we're thinking, we can watch what we're intending, and we can, you know, create this magnificent life.
- [08:27]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You know, I. So I came across E Squared again recently. So I was in Australia presenting at a horse expo. And the hotel we were staying in had a big, kind of a big library that was a, you know, need a book, take a book, have a book, leave a book sort of a thing. And I thought, I'm always interested to see what books the universe puts in front of me. So I just walked over to the bookcase and I started looking. And it's been. Oh, it may have been 20 years since I read E Squared. No, it'd be less than that. But anyway, I'm walking along and it jumps at me like, there's E squared. I talk about this book a lot, and the copy I had, I don't know where it ended up. Got lost in one of our moves or something or other. It's definitely not a book that I would have put in a garage sale like that. That one's like, that's a kind of a keeper. But I don't know what's happened to it. But, like, there it is right there. So I started reading it again, and I was. I remember it was nine experiments on how to prove to yourself the power of basically manifesting. And I was. In my recollection, the book starts out, you know, experiment number one sort of thing, but it didn't start out with experiment number one. There was a lot of stuff before you get to experiment number one. And reading that probably made me more excited than anything because it was stuff that I've really come to understand in the time since I first read that book about how, you know, everything's energy and, you know, our thoughts are energy, and it's all connected. And we're way more connected than, you know, we are taught in school or by our families for the. You know, usually our family of origin for the most part. So there was so much of that in there. It was almost about. It was almost. It's kind of like what's happening these days is. Is science and spirituality are actually coming together. And it. That's what the. The first part of that book was. Basically explaining in layman's terms in a way that anybody reading it could understand it and really get it. You know, it's. It's not something you'd kind of reject and like, oh, that's a bit too weird for me. So, yeah, I love the start of it.
- [10:37]
Pam Grout
Oh, thank you. Well, that's, you know, most people liked it because of the experiments, like, oh, it's really fun to not just read about this but to actually see it with your own two eyes. And that's what the experiments really did. But I really like you lots of part explanations because I like to write, you know, and I like to explain things and I like to explain things so I can understand them. Because, you know, some of this stuff is very complicated. Well, all of it's really complicated, but it needs to be really easy to digest. And I also try to make it so it's a little bit funny and relatable to everybody. And I use like pop culture references. So it's a little bit different than typical science. But it does explain how these two are coming together and they truly are. I mean, every day we get more proof of the kind of things that I talk about in the book. I mean, every day they're proving that, you know, consciousness is the foundation, it is the blueprint for our reality. So, you know, I love it that, you know, the scientists are finally catching up to us spiritualism and discovering what's true about reality.
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Warwick Schiller
So do you say you weren't the scientific type, you're more the spiritual type always?
- [11:50]
Pam Grout
Yeah, I've always been interested in possibility. One of the things I talk about a lot, you know, most people you were talking earlier about what our culture trains us is to live in problem state. You know, there's a problem and let's try to solve it. Well, I've always believed in living in possibility state because once you define something as a problem and it's set in concrete, it's that, you know, collapsing the wave of thing that I talk about in the book. And then that's what you're solving. You've got that concrete thing. But if you stay open, all this other big field that has so many infinite answers is out there and it's still available to you. So I always have preferred to live in possibility state, or what I call possibility state. And I call, you know, that thing that we experiment on, field of infinite potentiality. And we're all connected to this field of infinite potentiality. And we're all, you know, manifesting from that. But as long as we're only manifesting from, you know, this little viewpoint. You know, just think what we're missing. So I love the idea of being open to all the infinity of what could be possible.
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Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And I want to unravel that. So you've written 20 books, I think, three plays, the TV series, and two invented two iPhone apps. Is all that correct?
- [13:13]
Pam Grout
Yes. I. I didn't invent the actual how the app goes together, but a developer came to me and asked me to do so. I did the content for these two apps, which, believe it or not, well, it's easy to believe there. I don't think they're still in existence. One of them was a scavenger hunt of Nashville, where you go and take a selfie of yourself in all these different places. So it's kind of a way to visit a town. You know, I did travel writing for a long time, so it's a way to visit a town, to take a selfie at all these kind of funny, funky places. And so I did that one, and then the other one was. What was it? It's been so long ago. Acts of kindness that you can do every day, as I remember, random acts of kindness. I don't know. This has been a long time ago that I did these. But, yes, it's very true. I did write the content for two iPhone apps that. Well, they were also Android apps for a while. And then I think the developer went under something. I don't know. I don't think they're still out there, but.
- [14:08]
Warwick Schiller
And what about the TV series? What was that?
- [14:12]
Pam Grout
I still work on that or my characters. It hasn't been produced, but I've written the pilot for this TV series. And in fact, you know, if anybody out there, one of your listeners hears it and they want to know more about, let me know. So it's a beautiful story about six people that sort of live, totally defined the cultural Kool Aid. I mean, they live on their own terms out at what I call an eco village. It's called Milagro Springs. Well, of course, Milagro means miracle. So it's a place where these six characters. Because, you know, every TV series has characters. But anyway, they live, you know, off the grid. They live, you know, in a very unique way. And then they have all these people that come and take classes and do different things, and that's where kind of the, you know, the conflict or whatever comes up. But it is a really unique thing. And again, I live in Kansas, and I've always known that if it's meant to be the dude, as I call potentiality, will bring it to me. So, you know, it's. It's just something that's out there that I've created. I'm a person who, like you, I believe, really enjoys creating things, and there's so many things you can create. So, you know, that was just one of the many things that I came up with to create.
- [15:27]
Warwick Schiller
So, yeah, one of the many things what I want to unravel, which I usually do on the podcast, and I kind of explained it to you before, is that I interview people like you who are successful. And by successful, I don't mean monetarily, but, like, have achieved a lot of really cool things in life. You know, it's not just the house with the picket fence and two kids and go to work and then die sort of thing. And I like to unravel. How did you get on that path growing up where you grew up and you happen to be a good one? You grew up in Kansas. And I think of, you know, I tend to think of Kansas, and maybe this is just my prejudice here, but I tend to think of someone who grows up in Kansas, never leaves. You know, I grew up in a small country town in Australia. I've got two older brothers. Mum and dad still live there. My two older brothers still live there. You know, they. They just grew up. You know, there's a. There's a. A country song by. I think it's by Kenny Chesney. It's called Small Town. And now the. And one of the lines in it is, it'll hold you back or it'll hold you down.
- [16:39]
Pam Grout
Right, that song. Yeah.
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Warwick Schiller
And I think for my brothers, it holds them down, and for me, it held me back. Like, no, there's more to life than this. So you growing up in Kansas, how did you end up doing all these amazing things that you've done?
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Pam Grout
Well, one of the things I talked about TED Talk, was I knew that if I wanted to leave this little town that I would have to create what I call creative capital. But I did have a little bit of help from my parents and that my mother was originally from Michigan. She was a. Grew up on a dairy farm in Michigan. My dad grew up in Texas. And so we did go visit, you know, other places, and we didn't go overseas. We didn't. I mean, you know, preacher's family. We didn't have that kind of money to do that. But we did travel in our little station all over the country. So I was already eager to leave and to see other things. You know, I've always wanted that. Oh, we did go down to Mexico. You know, my dad was fluent Spanish, so we would drive down to visit his family that was in Texas and we would go down to Mexico and you know, so we did do some of that. We went to Canada, went to Expo 67. So I did grow up knowing that there was more than just my small town. But, you know, I went Back to my 50th reunion this last summer from high school. And it's amazing how so many people are still there, still doing the same thing. It was such a blast to see everybody and I'm so glad that I didn't just stay there. And I, I don't know, I. I think for me, probably the writing is what opened all those doors again. You know, I call it creative capital. But by being a writer, I was able to get an assignment and go interview someone that fascinated me. Kind of like, you know, the cool thing about having a podcast, you know, now you can sit and talk to him for hours, right, on a podcast. But so that's what I did. I had an assignment about somebody that I was interested in, or if there was a place I wanted to visit, I would get an assignment to write about that place. So I would say as much as anything, writing opened that door for me to live this life most extraordinary, or what I like to call life most extraordinary, because I couldn't have done it on my own dime. Like I said, I didn't come from any kind of money. But I don't know, I also feel like I have the gift of what some might call naivety. I believed that it was possible. For me, I think what happens if you don't have that belief or that idea that you're only going to get what you see. That's it. That's what you're entitled to is what you see. What your parents did, what your culture does, that's what you get. But I always believe that you could do more and that more was possible. I don't know, was it naivety? I don't know. I mean, a lot of people said you're crazy. You know, my mom urged me to go into computers because, you know, when I was getting ready to go to university, that was the big thing. You know, computers were open up doors. But that wasn't interesting to me. I mean, using a computer, obviously you could tell from our little bugaboos trying, trying to get connected today that I'm not real proficient in computers. But it has, you Know, computer's been a good tool for me to, you know, to send my words out there for sure. Yeah. Writing is what opened the doors for me.
- [20:02]
Warwick Schiller
I'd say you mentioned something there that really made me think because I commented before about the start of V squared and how you explain how, you know, you talked about the field of potentiality. And I want to talk. I want you to explain that here in a minute too. But you said your father was a preacher and it's. And it would be very, very easy to grow up the daughter of a preacher because. Because the start squared, you basically, you know, you, you draw the lines between consciousness and God and it's kind of all the same thing. And for the daughter of a preacher to have that view. How did you, how did you get out of that? If. If. I mean, I don't know what sort of preacher your dad was, but I'm just kind of guessing here. How did you get out of what, you know, the. The Bible's 100 true and it's a fact and, and everybody else is wrong. And how did you did. Was your dad a bit that way? And if so, how did your mind grow from that?
- [21:09]
Pam Grout
Well, I still have members of my family that probably pray for my soul. So, you know, I, I did leave the strictures of what I was taught, however, in the Bible, you know, because that is, you know, my dad was a Methodist minister and that's pretty traditional. Although he was sort of a non traditional kind of guy, but still, you know. But the good thing about that is you believed in miracles. Like I was taught that, you know, that Jesus got, what was it, five loaves and to a couple fishes and he fed 5,000. I was told that you walk on water, you could change water into wine. So while I left a lot of the real, the sinning part or the, you know, the separation part, but I really, I guess dug that part about anything could be possible. You know, miracles happen on the daily. I mean, that is my belief that they happen all the time. And there's some quote where it says there's miracles are happening all the time, just waiting for our wits and senses to grow sharper so that we can see them.
- [22:16]
Warwick Schiller
It's actually, it's actually a WB Yates quote.
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Pam Grout
Is that it? Okay. Yeah.
- [22:22]
Warwick Schiller
And it says the world is full of miracles waiting something about. And the reason I know this, I was in Ireland last week, okay. And I happened to long crazy manifesting story, got invited by a lady who probably will be on the podcast, who owns a castle. And I Got to go stay there for the night. And we're having dinner and on the table in front of me is a bottle of water. And this is kind of a crazy how it's all reconnected. The reason I was in Ireland, sorry, long story, but I was in the UK presenting at a horse expo one weekend and I had to do some other sort of gigs like that the next weekend. But I had the week off. You know, I had nothing to do during the week. And so my ancestors are from Ireland. So my great, great grandfather left a little town in island called Boris Ali and moved to Australia in 1852 and imagined to escape the potato famine because it went from 1845 to 1852. And this is a little town on the map. Like it's a tiny little town. I'd never heard of it. I had to search it out and it's a tiny little town. And so I went there to see if I could find gravestones and things for my ancestors, all that sort of thing. Okay. Getting about to go to this castle thing. So I'm in the castle and there's a bottle of water in front of me, a bottle, a purchased bottle of spring water. And the town it's from is from this borders elite. Like I'd never even heard the name before. And there it is sitting on the table in front of me. So I look closely at the bottle and as I looked up the label of the bottle, there was a WB Yates quote that said the world is full of miracles, waiting for our senses to grow sharper or something that effect. And it was really interesting that that was the quote. Now you're mentioning it. But the little town that I'd never heard of and most people in Ireland probably would never have heard of it was where this spring water was bottled. So it's just weird how things are.
- [24:20]
Pam Grout
That is cool. And how I just happened to mention it and you just happened to have seen it. You know, a lot of people would call synchronicity, it's really deeper than that. But you know, synchronicity sort of works for those people that don't want to believe that we're actually interacting with this stu field of infinite potentiality. But I do love that. And I. And I love talking about these kind of stories. I mean, I used to always say this is the only conversation that really matters. Let's talk about what's possible and exciting, interesting things that have happened to all of us.
- [24:55]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, I have the quote here. The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for Our senses to grow sharper.
- [25:02]
Pam Grout
Ah, perfect. I love it.
- [25:04]
Warwick Schiller
I took a picture at the bottom.
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Pam Grout
Excellent.
- [25:08]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So sorry to get off track there, but you're talking about. You're talking about. I was asking you about, you know, growing up the daughter of a preacher and then kind of going off in definitely a spiritual direction, but not necessarily a. What comes under the guise of organized religion direction.
- [25:26]
Pam Grout
Yes, I pretty much left organized religion in college till that point. Also, my dad left the ministry when I was 16, and that, you know, kind of put a little, I don't know, wedge in kind of the beliefs that I was taught as I was growing up. So, yeah, a lot of things probably happened to. To take me away from that, but I still have cousins and relatives and a brother who still very devoutly believes the kind of stuff that I was taught as a kid. But I just prefer believing in a story that's more fun, that's more meaningful to me anyway. So, yeah, I believe in a loving God. So, yes, I still believe in God and don't always call it God, but I still believe that there is this magical something you can call it God. Call it. In fact, that's what I said in the book. I called it the dude, but it didn't matter what you call it. It just matters that you call it forth, that you use it in your life.
- [26:27]
Warwick Schiller
Talk about the dude reference. So that's a reference to the. The guy in the Big Lebowski who was played by Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges, that's right.
- [26:38]
Pam Grout
He was such an iconic figure. And so I was like, what can I call this force? And so I just thought, oh, the dude abides. Because he would say that all the time in that movie. Oh, the dude abides. You know, he was the Dude. You know, Jeff Bridges was the. The Dude. You know, drinking is. What was it those. Oh, it has kahua kalu and cream, I think was his drink of choice or whatever. But he was. So anyway, that was just another fun pop culture reference that I put in there for that was the very first experiment. Is there really this force out there that has your back? Is that true? Is that not true? And let's. Let's see.
- [27:16]
Warwick Schiller
I think that's. He's a great. He's a great character to have as that, because you can imagine consciousness is just like this chill sort of Dude. Like, yeah, it's all gonna be all right. So tell me about your interest in seeing writing is the thing that. That took you places. What were you interested in writing as a. As a kid?
- [27:39]
Pam Grout
Well, it started, I would suppose, with reading, and I loved to read. And again, books take you places too, you know, outside of your tiny village. So by the time I was in second, I had read like 256 books. And granted, they were picture books, you know, in second grade you're not reading, you know, you know, fancy books. But nonetheless, I realized that, you know, from a book, you can go to England, you can go to Africa, you can go all these different places. So the imagination isn't centered in one location. It takes you everywhere. So I think that anybody that reads a lot eventually starts thinking, maybe I could write something here, you know, so it just became a natural thing. So even as early as second grade, I was already writing little stories, you know, like Patty the Penguin, you know, that I would illustrate. I mean, they're silly little books. I think I still have them in a box somewhere. But. So it was a way. So reading opened up doors for me. And then writing, not only does it, you know, spark your imagination, which, like I said, can take you anywhere, it also was a good way to, I don't know, get in touch with a deeper thing, you know, to get in touch with that real spirituality that, you know, maybe my religion was talking about. But it's like, well, you know, that was all, you know, 2,000 years ago. What's. What's true and relevant for me right now. And I think that's what writing really helped me tap into, into that what was true for me now, what was real for me now. So, yes, that. So really, I guess you could say imagination. Imagination is the thing that took me away from what could have been the conventional cultural Kool Aid that I was taught that I was brought up in.
- [29:28]
Warwick Schiller
Right, so you went to. Where'd you go to college?
- [29:32]
Pam Grout
I went to Kansas State University, which is, you know, and I grew up in Kansas. I was born in Kentucky, near Lots of horses. You know, it was in Lexington area is where I was born. But we moved. My dad got a preaching assignment soon thereafter in Kansas. And so in the church denomination, he was in Methodist. They keep moving you. So we moved to a town of 600, then we moved to a town of 1500 and then eventually went to a town of 15,000, which is where we were when my parents divorced. And then that's where my mom stayed as she was a teacher, you know, until she passed. But anyway, what was the question again? I've kind of forgotten now.
- [30:12]
Warwick Schiller
It was about where you went to college and.
- [30:14]
Pam Grout
Oh, college, yeah. So when it was time to go I went to Kansas State University, which had a journalism department and a home economics department. And it's funny because I never took a single home economics class, but there had been a class in my high school, and it was about. It was kind of having to do with writing, sort of like personal relationships and personal getting to know yourself. And I love that so much. So I thought, oh, I'm going to major in both of these things. But I went off to K State. Never did a single home in the contest, but I did stay with journalism and then, you know, worked for the newspaper and kind of just worked my way from there. But even that, I didn't stay working for anybody else very long. I quickly struck out on my own because I wanted to write about what I wanted to write about. You know, a newspaper's great. They give you assignments, but, you know, they give you assignments. I had these other things that I wanted to write about, other places I wanted to go, so. And using the writing to explore some of those other interests.
- [31:12]
Warwick Schiller
You know, you said a phrase before, and I wrote it down. You're talking earlier, you said something about. Because it was interesting to me. And, you know, like, in my family, I think the, you know, the how life goes is you. You're born, you grow up, you go to school, you graduate, you know, you get out of school, you get a job, you get married, you have kids, you die. Sort of thing that get a job is just get a job that pays the bills. It's not something that interests you. And I've always followed the things that interest me. And it sounds like you've followed the things that interest you, too. And. And it just dawned on me, like, maybe that's. That's the key. You know, I'm always trying to unravel. How did. How did you podcast guest get from point A to point B and think about now? Yeah, it might be just the. The following things that interest you.
- [32:10]
Pam Grout
Right. What are we curious about? And what can I learn about this thing I'm curious about? But, you know, in regards to your thing about what we're taught, you know, the picket fence and the getting married and all that kind of stuff, it's almost like we're giving this. Given this manual, you know, like this is what you're supposed to. To do. And most people don't question it. And our parents even kind of believe it's their duty, you know, to make sure we. It's unspoken. But, you know, we do pick up these rules, you know, the rules in the manual, you know, this Unwritten manual of how we're supposed to do life. And I don't know, I always think that really the best advice a parent could take would be to follow their kids example rather than trying to train into their kids what this manual that just sort of, you know, exists out there in our culture because kids know when we're born, that's what we're doing is following our curiosity. We're not thinking, oh, my Lego tower doesn't look as good as his Lego tower. You know, we're always comparing or you know, as we get adults, you know, so kids have that free spirit that, you know, knowing they don't think there's something wrong with them or that they can't do this. It's just like, hey, this is fun. I want to be a, I want to, you know, be a firefighter today. So they're on their fire truck, you know, I want to be a doctor today. So here you lay down, be the patient. I'll, I'll take your tonsils out or whatever, you know, so kids are always exploring, always living in their imagination. But then the rules say, nope, you gotta go to school, you gotta learn how to do it right, how to do it the best way. And you know, again, that's all subjective, but we, we pick it up. So anyway.
- [33:59]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.
- [34:00]
Pam Grout
Smarter than we are.
- [34:01]
Warwick Schiller
While you were talking right then I was thinking, because I was thinking I had a conversation. So on the other day, like, we're talking about what should we be taught in school? Not, not what are we taught in school, but what should, what should we be taught in school? You know, we're saying, like, you don't learn to do your taxes. But we're talking about what if kids were taught to meditate. What if kids were taught to do yoga? And then I just had a thought. What if there was a class on E squared? Like, what if E squared, your book was compulsory reading? Because it's not just a, it's not just a read. It's an experiential thing. Like you, you read it and then you do the things and they work. And then your mind gets blown to where you're like, oh, the world does not work the way that I was told. It worked, that I thought it worked, that how would life, how would, how would the world be if every kid got that. Your book as a class and had to do the experiments?
- [34:59]
Pam Grout
Well, you know, two things came up when you were talking. And the first story I thought of was this teacher, this guy that was in New York City. And he won teacher of the Year. And this has been many, many, many, many years ago, but his kids were so prolific, and they did all the things score on the test. But here's what he'd do the first day. He'd say, I want you to go out and come up with what you want to learn. So he literally. He'd take the closets of the school and he'd let them be their little offices, and he literally took away all things that he thought they should learn, because how does he know? And he did the very thing that you said about following curiosity and doing what's interesting. And his students did fabulous. And he won teacher of the year. I wish I could remember his name. I read a book by him long, long ago. But it was so fascinating, his approach to teaching and, you know, because I think we know it. Do we need to read a book like E Squared? We know it coming in. I think kids know it until it gets trained out of them.
- [36:02]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [36:03]
Pam Grout
The other thing I wanted, and I wish I could remember this teacher's name. I'll have to research this after we. After we hang up, so to speak. Because it was really powerful, because he had such faith in their own ability to solve. I think maybe each one had to pick a project. I think that's what it was. You pick a project that interests you, and then I want you to go out and pursue that. And he gave them total free reign to do that. He gave them the time to do their own project. And a lot of parents might think, or society might say, oh, well, they're just going to go goof off. They're going to go smoke drugs, whatever. But no, he got them so excited about some project. I mean, they got themselves excited, but he let them follow that excitement. And, you know, the results were amazing. But the second thing I thought of is actually, in about two weeks, I'm heading to South Africa where we're doing these Ubuntu camps with some of the kids in the villages, and we're using E squared kind of as our curriculum. I don't like that word, but, you know, kind of our.
- [37:07]
Warwick Schiller
As a God.
- [37:08]
Pam Grout
Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we'll see what happens with that experiment.
- [37:14]
Warwick Schiller
Tell me about Ubuntu camps. And before you do, do you want to explain to the listeners if they don't know what the word ubuntu actually means?
- [37:22]
Pam Grout
I love that word so much.
- [37:24]
Warwick Schiller
Right word, isn't it?
- [37:25]
Pam Grout
It is. It. It means. It's. I think it's Swahili or whatever language they speak in South Africa. I am. Because we are. And that is just such a beautiful concept. I think Nelson Mandela. Mandela after he. I mean, I think that was something he might have come up with, but he certainly talked about that. It's a big part of the South African culture. And we're going. I'm going with Love Lights. The two two two foundation that I started, we helped fund this summer camp. You know, it's summer there. I guess it's summer in Australia too. But anyway, so we're going to be doing that with E Squared as our sort of our base for the. For the. In their summer camp.
- [38:08]
Warwick Schiller
You know, there's. I've had several podcast guests who. One of them is. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and she is. She's like a CEO shaman, but she helps lots of people in management or whatever. But she talks about this indigenous mindset that she actually learned from an Australian aboriginal elder. And it's. It's about care for all. So every decision made is made for the. The best benefit of everybody. No makes. No one makes decisions for themselves. And then I had a lady from Sweden on the podcast who is a. She's more than an animal communicator. She almost inhabits the consciousness of the animal. And she actually gets messages from the collective consciousness of animals. And especially, you know, she shares what she hears from the collective consciousness of horses. And they're exactly the same like the animals. We make decisions. Like in a herd situation, we tend to think there's a leader and there's a whatever, you know, but every decision made is made for the good of the whole. And if there's a. There's a. Let's say there's a horse in a leadership type position. They're the best horse for that position. And if they start to fail in their duty, they get removed from that. Not because we don't like what you're doing, it's because you are not serving the good of the whole. If you can't protect us anymore, we'll remove you and we'll protect you. And that's the same as the Ubuntu thing. It's. It's. And it's a. And when you grow up in our society that has, you know, kings and queens and popes and bishops and prime ministers and presidents and hierarchical society, we don't have, you know, we don't have that. And the more you, you know, you look into, like, mental health issues and all sorts of things, the further we get away from the way we're supposed to live, the more problems we seem to have. So I love that, that you brought that word up, because I love that word. I love the fact you're taken E squared to Ubuntu camp.
- [40:29]
Pam Grout
Right, right. Well, I think what you just said is so spot on because we feel like that someone else is out there, that this is a person against me somehow. I mean, that's kind of what our culture teaches us. But they're. They're us. Everybody is us. So whatever we do to them, like we say, oh, I want to get ahead. Well, if you're getting ahead and you think you have to do it at the expense of someone else, that's not really even serving you. In our culture, it looks like that, or we're taught that that's the case, but in the end, that's not even true. Everything we do to anybody else, we're actually doing to ourselves, because we are all one. The trees, the animals, everything we are, are one. And the biggest mistake we made, I think, as we got along, is believing that somehow we could be separate from that, because we're not. But we believe that we are. And when we think we're separate, we have to defend ourselves and we have to look out for ourselves. And it all goes back to me, me, me, me, me I, I, I, I, I. Well, that's not a recipe for happiness, but we're taught that it is. And we're taught that we have to do that. That.
- [41:48]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And I think that's why, like I mentioned, just mentioned, like, mental health problems. You know, I've been to South Africa. I've been to Kenya. You know, I've been to some different countries that, you know, people are living in what you might call third world situations. Happiest people you've ever met.
- [42:07]
Pam Grout
So true.
- [42:08]
Warwick Schiller
Like they. Their smile comes from their soul sort of thing. You know what I mean?
- [42:13]
Pam Grout
I find that over and over again. It's one of the most rewarding things about traveling. You know, this story we're told about them. The other, you know, the story that there is another and it's not even true. I mean, in our story, the one we believe in makes us unhappy. I mean, it makes us miserable. That's why a lot of people are. Why we do have a mental health crisis in the civilized world, so to speak. Whatever you want to call it, the first world, whatever called these days.
- [42:42]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, well, it used to be what we call the civilized world. Now. I now tend to think that we're a lot less civilized than those people. That we, you know, back in the day we would term them savages. It's like they're the ones that, they're the ones that had it, had it figured out.
- [42:58]
Pam Grout
Exactly. I believe that so strongly and I feel that as things kind of start falling apart in this culture that we've developed society that we've, that we will eventually go back to a lot of those indigenous ways. So I feel that, well, like, I don't know if you ever read the book about the people in Australia, you know, they could speak to each other from miles and miles and miles away without being in their vicinity. But that's not possible. I mean, that's, you know, what we're taught, that's not possible. But they have so many ancient knowledge that, you know, that we've missed out on in our, in our separate way that we think is the right way.
- [43:38]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And if you get really, get into some of that sort of stuff thinking about how did ancient civilizations move, you know, 200 ton blocks of stone? And there is a school of thought that it was done with energy, like with sound, vibration. Yeah, it's. Yeah, that all, that's all that stuff really, really fast. Totally fascinates me.
- [44:10]
Pam Grout
Yeah, no, it is really fascinating. I mean, I think what we've done is just limit ourselves. Like, okay, well this is the only one way to do things and that's not true at all. But just being open to that possibility that there could be a different way and that it might defy everything that we think is logical and reasonable and rational. Everything we were taught is logical, reasonable, rational, is probably limiting us in big ways and we can do other things beside that.
- [44:40]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. I think the lucky people are the ones who get to experience something that's outside the guidelines of that rational way we were taught to think. And when you experience something like that, whether you experience it through meditation, you experience it through, you know, psychedelic healing journeys, you ex. It might be running a marathon, you know, and you, and you have that experience of something completely different than what we've been culturally, you know, told is, is true. Then your eyes wrap me like, well, what else is there?
- [45:19]
Pam Grout
You know, Right? Your toe gets in the door, like, wow, I just thought this isn't the way it is. And look what's happening here. So what else might be outside that door that I just stuck my toe through? So, yeah, it's an exciting time.
- [45:36]
Warwick Schiller
Very exciting. So let's get back to you. We're talking about you here. So you went to college and you, you have a, the degree what were you studying?
- [45:44]
Pam Grout
Journalism. Journalism, again, I like to write. See, that's one thing, you know, like, my arc isn't necessarily that huge because I started out writing, like I said, in second grade, and then I feel. Feel, to this day, love to write. So in some ways, I feel like I was just truly blessed because I found something that I love to do. Well, it sounds like you did, too. I think a lot of people are searching, like, what do I want to do? And they, you know, go to law school or go to medical school or go to whatever school that they think they want to do. But I always knew I wanted to write. Now, I didn't know quite what I wanted to write or in what context. So I have done a lot of different. Like, I've written for a newspaper. I've written for magazines. I've written for companies doing PR releases. That was, you know, my first job in journalism, but it was always to do with writing. It was always, to me, being able to use this talent in this thing that I loved. And so I always felt like I was so blessed in that regard because I was able to make a living doing the thing that I love to do. So, you know, so I didn't have this huge arc where I, you know. You know how you want the big arc in the movie where you go from this to this. In some ways, like, little incremental steps of just following. Following my nose. Following my nose. What was interesting? What was. What was I curious about? But always kind of in the context of writing.
- [47:09]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So I love the fact, you know, you mentioned that ubuntu word before, but what you're talking about right now is. What. Have you heard the Japanese term ikigai?
- [47:18]
Pam Grout
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. I love that word. Yeah. You know, excited to jump out of bed in the morning. That's kind of.
- [47:25]
Warwick Schiller
Well, it's, you know, it's like a Venn diagram.
- [47:28]
Pam Grout
Yeah.
- [47:28]
Warwick Schiller
What are you interested in? What are you good at? What can you get paid to do? And what does the world need? And what will the world pay for? And something else. And if. If they all cross in the middle, that's. That's icky guy. And that's. I think you're doing that. I'm doing that. And I think those of us that get to do that are very, very fortunate, because not everybody gets to get to that middle dot on that. On that Venn diagram.
- [47:56]
Pam Grout
Okay, well, here's my question, and I love to hear your thoughts about this. You said not everybody gets to. Is that true or is It. Because most people choose not to are not aware that they could do that.
- [48:10]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, yeah, most. Most certainly. I think.
- [48:12]
Pam Grout
Yeah.
- [48:13]
Warwick Schiller
You know, like, they don't unravel that societal and cultural conditioning, and so they get stuck in that route. They don't. They don't believe it's possible or whatever. I mean. I mean, I think everybody in the world could be in that spot. You know, one of the. And I might ask you some of these questions that you chose. Usually I wait till the very end, but a lot of times we've answered them already. One of the questions you chose is what do you feel is your true purpose? And before you answer that, I think everybody in the world has a true purpose, which is that icky guy thing that I. I think, you know, I said the lucky people are the ones who get to have that icky going, but I think the lucky ones are the ones that actually get to discover what their true purpose is. And you've got to. You've got to shed off all that cultural conditioning to do that, I think.
- [49:08]
Pam Grout
Well, I. You know, it's not. I mean, this sounds like something you'd say if you're in a beauty pageant, but it. I feel like my purpose is to love and serve as much as I possibly can, that I. And I feel like we all kind of have the same purpose and to love and serve the community, to love and serve the world. Not to love and serve myself, but in doing, loving and serving of the world, of the whole, it does serve myself. But myself isn't as important either. I mean, one of the biggest things that our culture tells us is that there's scarcity and that only some people get to do the thing, you know, that only some people are going to reach a guy. I'm not sure I'm saying it right, but what if we can all do that and just that possibility blows people's mind? Well, no, how's that possible? But what if it is possible? So that's where I kind of like to go, is to really stretch what people think. Well, they. Oh, well, who's going to pick up the trash or, you know, whatever stories that, you know, we might have it. Everybody's got their stores up. But what about this? What about that? You know, all those what ifs or what about this? But, you know, we've got AI and robots and things like that so we all can express and do the thing that we love. I think we're heading in that direction. I think that could be possible now. I don't know how to do it. One of my greatest gifts is I always say that I know nothing, but I do know that there's this force bigger than me that does know. And so the less I do, the less I try to have it my way or to interfere with it, the more room it has to do its thing within my life. Because on my own, pretty, pretty hopeless.
- [50:58]
Warwick Schiller
See, that's something I talk about a lot. That giving up control, like not trying to control the outcome, that's a big thing. But something else you mentioned there. You said that your true purpose is to love and to serve. And I really believe that that serve part, there's a magic, there's a magical energy to that serve part. If you can give with no thought of getting anything back, it's got to be a pureness of, of purpose that it's a giving. You know, it's in a giving frame of mind. It's with a giving energy at serving energy. And that's where the, you know, that's where all the magic happens. And you know, you, you mentioned a Bible quote before and there's one, you know, there's something, I don't know what it says in the Bible, but there's one about only those who give shall receive. Or if you, whatever you give, you'll receive tenfold or whatever. But I think that the, the crux of it is you've got to be giving, not trading. So the lady from Sweden I was talking about the, the does the animal communication, she gave me that, you know, that outlook she talks about giving versus trading. Trading is I'm going to do this so that something else happens. Giving is a pure, has a pureness to it. And I believe that's where the, you know, the, that's, that's where you tap into that, what you call the field of potentiality. That's where the magic is. But.
- [52:40]
Pam Grout
Right.
- [52:40]
Warwick Schiller
You know what I mean?
- [52:41]
Pam Grout
That's when it's just, you can't contain it. Because that is our true nature, I feel like, is to give is to love. That's who we really are. But because of these other things, we're trained into their scarcity. And then we have to look out for number one, we don't. We hold that down, that natural desire, it's like a, you know, a flowing fountain that wants to come out of each of us. I mean, but we suppress it because we gotta be careful and look out for, you know, our best interests and be afraid of everybody. So these are the messages that we learn and that there's not enough to go around. I mean, it's all scarcity thing. We learn that we're separate and things are scarce. It's the exact opposite of what's really true. We are not separate, and there is an abundance of all the things that are important. You know, marketing teaches us that, oh, you got to get this and you got to have that, and if you don't get it now, someone else is going to get it. I mean, that's how we're trained. And that's not the truth of the world when you really look at it. I always say, go out into like a typical field and you just look at the blades of grass. There's so many there. I mean, we can't even count them or how many leaves on a tree. That's the state of the world. True and complete abundance. But once you learn that there's scarcity and that there's not enough for everyone, which is the story our culture teaches us, then you start getting scared. You start being fearful of everybody else. But I think our natural state is abundant. Our natural state is to give and to serve. And I feel like that's what makes us happy. That's the root of happiness right there.
- [54:17]
Warwick Schiller
So let's get back to your journey here. Even though I love all these little side.
- [54:21]
Pam Grout
Yeah, I know I can get philosophical.
- [54:23]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, no, I get as philosophical as you like. You're in the right place. The. So you, you've graduated with a degree in journalism. What was your first job?
- [54:37]
Pam Grout
My first job was writing press releases for a theme park. You know what a theme park is? You know, land or that kind of a place.
- [54:46]
Warwick Schiller
You, you know, remind me, when I first came to America 35 years ago, I was talking to this guy and he goes, do they have towns in Australia? And you were just like, do you know what a theme park is? Yeah, I know what a theme park.
- [55:01]
Pam Grout
Not everybody knows what it is. And they're kind of their manufactured little worlds, you know, that people go to and, you know, not everybody would want to go to a theme park. But anyway, that was my first job. So I wrote a bunch of articles and I added to their magazine. They had a magazine called Great Times. And it was everybody that paid parking, you know, to go to the theme park would get a copy of this magazine. So there were stories in there about roller coasters and stories about, I don't know what to do at the theme park. So anyway, that was my first job in journalism, but I left very soon thereafter to, you know, to go out on my own because again, I wanted to write about what I wanted to write about. I mean, roller coasters are fascinating. I love writing about them. I'm done writing about them. You know, I've learned about roller coasters. So let's move on to something else. So anyway, that was my first job out of college. And then I did do a couple other jobs. I did some waitressing for a while. I did a job doing public relations for another company for a little bit. But as soon as I could. Well, soon, like when I was 26, is when I got the scholarship to go to Australia. And that, you know, that was amazing because, you know, everything was provided for me. Talk about manifesting a really good year. They paid my airfare there, they paid my tuition, and they paid my living expenses. And that's, you know, I had a whole year in Australia. I mean, I worked on my novel. Never got published. But, you know, I had this free time to explore this wonderful country and to do all these exciting things. I mean, I think I was only in class maybe four or five hours a week. And the rest of the time, I had the, you know, follow my curiosity.
- [56:38]
Warwick Schiller
So we talked about that before you got on the podcast. So explain to people. You got a master's degree in what while you're in Australia?
- [56:43]
Pam Grout
In journalism.
- [56:44]
Warwick Schiller
Journalism.
- [56:45]
Pam Grout
The reason being after. After college, you know, it became really clear to me really quickly that I didn't want to do corporate world. You know, it just wasn't interesting to me. I mean, I was wearing flip flops to work and. Flip flops, or thongs, whatever you call them, you know, working.
- [57:02]
Warwick Schiller
Wait.
- [57:02]
Pam Grout
I wasn't dressed the proper way. I wasn't following the rules. So I decided maybe I'd go back to school. Better than working in a corporation. But then I found out about this Rotary scholarship. They have a journalism fellowship that they give to someone, and it's like, how did me, a girl in Kansas, think she was going to win this fellowship? But I applied. I was always, you know, someone who would give it a go, you know, like, go ahead and try. Most people stop before they even apply. Like, well, I bother to apply. There's too many people, you know, they tell the story in their head where that could never work. Whereas I'm like, well, why not me? Why. Why not try? And again, being a good writer, it's easy to fill out applications, or it's easy for me to apply. So I did, and I went in front of the little committee, and they. They, you know, decided to give it to me. And as I was telling you earlier, it was to study journalism in another country. And because I didn't speak another language, I chose Australia because it was as far away as I could think I could go, you know, where I could speak English. So I went to Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and then got a master's degree in, in journalism. And you had asked me earlier why I didn't put that on my resume. Because as a writer, your resume is your clips, it's your work and that's, you know, what people go on. But it is funny, you know, I did my classwork while I was in Sydney that year and then I came back and I finished my thesis and I sent it off, you know, back to Australia. Didn't even think about it really. But maybe about three or four years later, I get this little horoscope, my horoscope said, you will get good news in the mail. So that day in the mail, I get this letter from the committee in Macquarie and they said the professor that you sent your thesis to, he left soon thereafter. We just found it behind a file cabinet and so we just reviewed it and hey, here's your master's. And they sent me my master's degree. But again, it was irrelevant at that point because I already was working in the field I love to work in. But anyway, that is, yeah, that's what happened. I did a master's at Macquarie University in Australia.
- [59:15]
Warwick Schiller
So what was your first book that you wrote and what, what led you to write that book?
- [59:22]
Pam Grout
Well, the first books that I did were for a seminar company and they were like Creativity in Business. I did that and then I did, let's see, Finding a Mentor, you know, how to Find a Mentor, which I've never been good at. So it's funny, I wrote a book about that, but these were what the similar company, you know, signed me to, just little books that they sell at the back of the room. So I did those three and then I decided I wanted to write a book of my own, like I tend to do. So I did a book about breathing practice and I self published it and eventually I was on a talk show in New York and there was an agent there and said, hey, would you be willing to sell this to a big publisher? You know, because I had self published it and I said, well, sure, I'd be willing to talk to a publisher. And so anyway, that led to then Simon and Schuster picking up the book and then from that point on I pretty much had books that, you know, publishers did.
- [60:20]
Warwick Schiller
And that book was on what Breathing, Breathing Practice so what sort of breathing?
- [60:29]
Pam Grout
Well, you know, in yoga, if you're interested in that, breathing is the, is the most important thing and it tells a lot about a person and it gives you a lot of power, so to speak, or a lot of control, I guess, over your physicality. So I had done a training in rebirthing, a six month program in rebirthing. And that's kind of how I decided to write the book about breathing.
- [60:55]
Warwick Schiller
Tell me, tell me about rebirth. Tell me about rebirthing.
- [61:00]
Pam Grout
Rebirthing. It's a type of breathing, it's a connected breathing. And I get a six month training in Connecticut, you know, a long time ago, 37 years ago.
- [61:10]
Warwick Schiller
Now we're getting somewhere. So what led you to want to do this six month course in rebirthing?
- [61:18]
Pam Grout
Well, they talked a lot about manifesting in that course as well. So that kind of got me interested in that. You know, that your thoughts create your reality. So it had many focuses. It had some about the course in miracles, which I'm to this day a student, of course, in miracles, breathing practice. And then it had, you know, something about manifesting. So I just like all the topics. And again I was, you know, a single woman just being adventurous and that sounded like fun. So I decided that I would, you know, go out to Connecticut and do this training sight unseen. I mean, I knew nothing about it really, but decided to. Decided to go do it.
- [61:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Breathing is so amazing. Have you ever read James Nestor's breath?
- [61:59]
Pam Grout
Yes, yes. That's a great.
- [62:01]
Warwick Schiller
That book, that book answered well, changed a lot of things about what I thought about breathing and the importance of it. But almost it actually taught me some things about me. So I had pneumonia and bronchitis a lot, really badly when I was a child, like starting when I was an infant. And at some point in time in my life I had to have a tooth removed because this tooth was kind of set back, it wasn't in the, the front line of teeth that was pushed back like it didn't fit there. And then after reading James Nest's Breath, where he's talking about if you're a nose breather, it shrinks your dental arch, I realized, well, when, I mean, if you're a mouth breather, sorry, not a nose breather, if you're a mouth breeze, it shrinks your dental arch. And I thought, well, the first, probably the five years and first five years of my life I spent breathing through my mouth, mouth because my nose would have been all clogged up. It's like, makes so much sense, you know? Yes. So Important. What else did you mention? And so tell us about A Course in Miracles. In case people aren't familiar with A Course in Miracles. Tell us about that. Because that. That's a big subject there, right?
- [63:11]
Pam Grout
A Course in Miracles. Yeah, it's. I'm trying to remember how I first heard about. Oh, I read the book Love is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald Jampolsky when I was young, you know, just soon after college, and I really loved it. He talked in there about the Course in Miracles. So I went and got an actual copy of A Course in Miracles. And then I, you know, had done that training or not a training. It's sort of a way of getting out of your own way. It's like at your mind. And what is your mind creating? And is there a better way to look at the world? So Course in Miracles really says that everything we believe pretty much upside down, backwards, inside out. Most of every single thing that we take to be true is the opposite of how it really is. For example, the things are scared. That's not true. That we are separate. That's not true. So it's kind of a way of retraining your mind to see the world through the lens, through the viewpoint, because lens even makes it small from the, you know, the big viewpoint of this life force to which we are connected. God, if you want to call it that. Infinite potentiality. You want to call it that, but we are connected to that. And here's a way of letting go of what I think is true and letting this bigger thing work through me, speak through me, use me in whatever way I am best fit to be used. So it's like total surrender now. Do I always do that? No. You know, but do I want to do that? Yes. And all it takes, the course says, is just a little bit of willingness. So I do have that little bit of willingness to let go of all my beliefs and assumptions about the world and to let it use me.
- [65:09]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Now. Now it's. I'm. I'm. I'm really enjoying this unraveling here because it's all making sense how you, you know, how you came to view the world the way you. The way you do. And I can see that there's a, you know, there's probably quite a bit of the influence of A Course in Miracles in E squared.
- [65:28]
Pam Grout
Oh, for sure. Yes. I was already actively in the Course in Miracles before I wrote E squared. I don't know if you heard the story. I actually wrote E squared as another book that got published, and it was called God doesn't have Bad Hair Days. But it was basically the same book, and it was 10 experiments instead of nine experiments. And a publisher bought it and they were all excited about it. And then it went out of print within a year or two and. And the editor said, I just don't understand. Because it was about the time that the movie the Secret came out. And so many of these principles are similar to the ones that Rhonda Byrne wrote about in the movie the Secret, because I don't understand it. But what happened, it kind of had God in the title. It was the same book, basically, but they hired a traditional Christian publicist, you know, so they're trying to sell it to traditional Christian magazines or whatever. It's like, wait, that's not my market. My market. So anyway, and I thought, okay, fine, I went on, wrote three books for National Geographic. But then I had a hit. You know, again, if you're listening to your intuition, you know that book you wrote a while back called God doesn't have Bad Hair Days? You should repackage that, you know, as E squared and send it to Hay House. So I did. And then of course, it became this huge international Sensation, translated to 40 languages. But it had been written actually nine years earlier under a different title, but again, by just listening to my guidance and not getting all upset about it. I mean, sometimes I think people. Things didn't work out the way I wanted them to. Well, sometimes that's a gift and sometimes that's a really good thing, but you just continue to listen. And again, I wrote the thing of just way before its time, you know, when it finally did come out nine years later, repackaged as energy, not as God, you know, then it, you know, took off like a bottle rocket. So it was all about timing and even timing in my own life and what I was ready to take in. You have to be willing to accept the good. You know, I was, you know, I wasn't maybe sure up until that point that I really deserved it. I don't know. You know, we were constantly working on ourselves, and I don't even like that we're working on ourselves. We're constantly playing with life and becoming more open. I think that's better. I try to say. I don't. I don't do work. I don't call what I used to lead workshops. I call them play shops. I feel that it's more fluid and fun to play around with these principles. Back when people write, oh, they didn't. This experiment didn't work for Me, I said, well, you know, that's okay. Just chill and try it again and just play with a little bit, have fun with it. Because I think it's really important to make this process fun, not to get all clenched up and work so hard with it, you know.
- [68:14]
Warwick Schiller
Well, see, don't you think though, the experiment, the experiment doesn't work if you don't have the right energy. Like I help people with their horses and a person can do the right technique, do all the right things on the outside of their body with a horse and it doesn't come out right because there's, there's, you know, there's some incongruencies in their body or their, or they're wanting it to happen. There's a, there's a needy energy in there. And I'm, I imagine these experiments are exactly the same thing. You can do the thing, but it's not the actual thing because the energy's different.
- [68:52]
Pam Grout
Exactly. And playing with it is the best approach. And you know, I'm sure the horses really sense that in a way because they don't have the same language, you know, so they can sense an insincere energetic field better than, you know, any human. So, yeah.
- [69:11]
Warwick Schiller
So let's go back to this thing I read at the start, this affirmation that you wrote more than 20 years ago now. Where were you at in life when you wrote Pam Grout is a world traveler, a loving mother, a best selling author, a millionaire, and an inspiring witness to everyone she meets. Where were you up to in life when you wrote that and what, what caused you to write that affirmation?
- [69:36]
Pam Grout
Well, I would have been a few years out of college, I would have been living in Kansas City, maybe writing for the Kansas City Star at that time. Maybe already have moved on to the job where I worked, did public relations. But anyway, so I was just really new in my career before I really went out on my own. But all those things ended up coming true because I put them out there and those are just things that I decided I wanted to do with my life. What was the biggest dream that I could have? You know, to, you know, to be independent, you know, to be a bestselling author. You know, when you're a writer, that's always like the, oh, the thing you think you want. So just the things that I thought maybe I wanted. It wasn't like I obsessed about them or gave them a lot of thought, but I just noted them and I wrote them down. So it would have been when I was in my early 20s, 20s or my mid-20s probably.
- [70:31]
Warwick Schiller
And then you said that you, you know, wrote that before you ever had any of those things happen. And the last line of that thing, or for that matter, before I even liked myself all that much. Do you, can you share a bit about the mindset of you writing that part of that sentence?
- [70:51]
Pam Grout
Right. I think we have to believe that we deserve things. Things. That's a lot of what you said about that energy. If you still have the belief that you need to tick off all these boxes in order to deserve this. And that is something our culture will tell us. You know, you're not, you can't get to point Z. You can't get from A to Z. You have to do BC you have to do all these things. And so a lot of us believe in that linear way of being. And if we still believe that way, then we're locked in that box. So we may not think we're entitled to be there yet. So I think for me, a lot of everything that I've learned is learning how to get out of my own way, learning how to, to allow all the gifts that the universe wants to do, to allow the blessings in, to allow my eyes to be open to the miracles. And so that's what it is. It's not about getting something. It's about letting myself be open enough to receive. And so that's what I meant by not liking myself enough or not not believing that I was ready or that I deserved it or that, you know, you know, that, that this little kid from Kansas was, you know, good enough to do all this stuff.
- [72:07]
Warwick Schiller
Right. And that's, that's, that's the unraveling, isn't it? Getting, getting past those limiting self beliefs because they carry like an energetic signature that rejects the good things the universe wants to send you.
- [72:24]
Pam Grout
Exactly. And it really is, it's very powerful. It puts up a little wall around us. You know, I think the universe is always wanting to give to us. I mean, that's its nature. Giving, serving, loving. That's the nature of the world, nature of the energy. However, we create our little boxes and then we live within that. And so that energy you cannot get to us. And that's all it is. It's not about getting anywhere. It's about putting down, getting out of the boxes, opening up and letting the flow come.
- [72:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yes, the, the allowing instead of the controlling.
- [72:58]
Pam Grout
Right, right.
- [73:00]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that's the big thing. So in your thing here, it says you, like I said before, it says you've written 16 books, three plays. What were the plays?
- [73:08]
Pam Grout
They were. Well, they're a couple different plays. One of them was about speed dating. It was kind of a funny one about speed dating. And one of them was set in a women's bathroom, you know, where a woman was sitting in a stall and she was talking to the different people as they came in. So let's see. What was the third play I wrote? I don't even remember the third one now. Does it say three?
- [73:32]
Warwick Schiller
It says. Well, it actually says 16 books, three plays, TV series, and two iPhone apps. But. But then I read somewhere else there were 20 books, so.
- [73:40]
Pam Grout
Oh, yeah, there are now 20 bucks at the old, you know, thing that was in there. But yeah, I said sometimes updated website. I guess I should update that. Yes, I'm up to 20 bucks now.
- [73:55]
Warwick Schiller
So. E squared. So we talked about E squared, how you'd written it, and then it got. Then it. Then you. Did you. Did you approach Hay House about it? Is that what happened you?
- [74:08]
Pam Grout
I did. I got the hit to do that, and I sent it to them. Un agent that was going to be.
- [74:16]
Warwick Schiller
My question was, did you have an agent? Did you approach. How does that work?
- [74:19]
Pam Grout
I've had an agent many times, but I got the hit, you know, the intuitive hit to send it to them. And I did not have an agent at that point. And I just wanted to quickly send it to them because, again, I just felt that I was being led to do that. So even though they say very clearly that they will not accept a book that doesn't without an agent, they did. They picked it up out of what they call the slush pile. That's what. I think that's what publishers still call it, where people just send in, you know, random ideas and somebody liked it. They plucked it out and said, hey, this is a good book. We will publish this. And, you know, I think they just kind of did it to complete their list. And I think even they were surprised at how quickly this book caught on. It was about the time that social media was getting really big, so people were putting up YouTubes about their experiments, and people were writing about this on social media. And I think that's what really. Because it was so fun for people, and I think so many people were so thrilled with it, and they were putting it on social media, so their friends all decided to get it. So I think that's kind of how it took off. In fact, when it took off, a house didn't even have enough books, you know, anything. Number one New York Times bestseller. They had to scramble really hard to get books out there because they hadn't printed enough. They weren't expecting the onslaught that it created.
- [75:33]
Warwick Schiller
You said it's been translated into 40 languages?
- [75:36]
Pam Grout
Yep.
- [75:40]
Warwick Schiller
How many books get translated into 40 languages? That's got to be a pretty special sort of a club to be in, doesn't it?
- [75:46]
Pam Grout
Yeah, I don't know. Too many. I mean, how many languages are there? But anyway, it's been translated into quite a few languages. It's so funny when I get up and I do get emails from people all over, you know, Russia, Iran, Turkey, you know, it's just fun to hear all these different stories and people are fascinated within whatever culture they come from.
- [76:06]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, so I, you know, I get people, I get emails from people telling me stories. Either, you know, maybe something a podcast guest said or triggered him to do something. And there's this amazing story that comes from it sometimes. It's from my horse training videos, whatever. What's the craziest story? Do you have a craziest story you've ever heard from like someone reading your book and they manifested something? Do you have one of those off the top of your head?
- [76:35]
Pam Grout
Well, you know, it's funny because in the book It Cubed, which was the follow up book to E Squared, I put in a bunch of stories in there and so many interesting things have happened, but a story that I've often related. And this was just, I mean, you know, the ones about hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in, you know, cars, you know, all those kind of typical material things happening, but one that kind of stood out that I really like a lot was about it. It was the one where you asked to be shown something or like you pick out. I think I said, you know, a feather or a bird, a particular red bird or something. You know, just pick something that you're going to be shown in the next 48 hours just to see that you're connected. So this woman decided that she was going to look for white feathers. That was going to be your thing. So as I often say, it's like the crock pot principle. Set it and forget it, you know, so she wasn't really thinking about. It's like, am I going to see white feathers? So she wasn't really thinking about it. She's out with her kids geocaching during the time frame of the experiment, and she's driving back home and all of a sudden her daughter said, mom, look, somebody must have killed a chicken. And lining the highway for like four or five miles were white feathers. She said, the traffic had slowed down, but just in case she was going to miss it. She says, I don't know if a mattress truck turned over, I don't know what happened. But literally the traffic slowed down and there were white feathers lining both sides of the highway. Eventually they got through that little backup, they got home. And on her welcome, Matt, as she walked in the front door was one white feather. She said the message she got is, you can ask for a lot or a little, but you know, there it is. So that one was kind of remarkable. But in that book E Cubed I did, I talked about some of the people are always sending me these stories like, you are never going to believe this. I mean, I cannot tell you how many emails I've gotten with that, how they begin this way. And so they'll tell me all kinds of stories. But I mean, they range from relationships being healed, somebody finding out they had all these long lost relatives they didn't know they had, to financial stress, losing a job and getting a great job. I mean, literally name a topic, and I had gotten an email about that of people doing the experiments. And I think the part that's the most rewarding to me is just all the opening that it's done for people that they begin to realize, wow, maybe maybe my thoughts are interacting with the universe and maybe I can have a little bit better life than the one that I have, you know, settled for now. And so, I mean, in some ways it's kind of a beginner course in this kind of a thing, but it is an introduction. And I think people then from there go on to, you know, try it with some other things. You know, these aren't, oh, we do this and then we're done. This is like, this is what could be possible. And I think that's what really has excited me. But I've had so much fun reading all the emails and I've gotten literally probably a million different emails from people with all the crazy stories of things that have happened. And in fact, there's a chapter in Ecuben that said, well, duh, I mean, this is what I'm talking about. These kind of things happen. But you know, why are we surprised? In fact, the fact that we're surprised kind of tells us a little bit that we settle for so much less than what could be possible. There's so much more possible.
- [80:03]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Yes. The funny thing is we're surprised. But I love what you said then, you know, like it opens the door once they, you know, you said it's a Beginner book. But the beginning is. Is the thing. Unless you get that perspective, change that that's possible. You're not going to go on to. To all the other things. But. Yeah, that's. That's very cool. I wanted to. One of the questions you didn't choose. Yeah, out of my list, but I feel like you might have one. Do you have a book that you recommend to people a lot? Not, not your favorite book to read, but one that you say, you know what, you should read this book. Do you have one of those?
- [80:50]
Pam Grout
I don't really suggest most a lot, but I do talk so much about the Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles. So I suppose that that would be the one that people would pick up from what I write about that they might decide to do. I'm also a big fan of Byron. Katie, you know, her. Her work. The work which is where you question your thoughts because, you know, and it's our thoughts.
- [81:16]
Warwick Schiller
It's five questions, isn't it?
- [81:17]
Pam Grout
It's four questions. Questions you know, is it true? And four of the two of the four questions. Are you sure it's true? So, you know, 50% of it is belief you have, you know, this couldn't be possible or that so. And so is a big asshole or whatever it is, you know, are you sure that's really true or is it your head telling you that? So. So I don't know. I like doing her work. I mean, I guess any book get you to actually investigate for yourself. And that's really. So the book itself may not be that great, her books, but the work is something I find really, really helpful for people. You know, I've enjoyed Eckhart Tolle's book, Michael Singer's books, you know, all the ones that everybody knows about. So I don't know that I would recommend that a lot, but I would say Course in Miracles is one that I go back to regularly. I continue to do the lessons every year. So probably that would be the one, you know, that I would. Would say is the one I recommend.
- [82:16]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I thought you might come back to that one because you mentioned it before. So I'm going to hit you up with the. Some of these questions that you. That you chose. And one of them is what advice would you give for someone about to enter your occupation? Well, first of all, before you, before you answer that, you want to tell me what, which, which of your occupations?
- [82:39]
Pam Grout
Oh, being. Being a purveyor of miracles.
- [82:43]
Warwick Schiller
That's what you are.
- [82:45]
Pam Grout
That's. That's my Profession. But I met writer and I think the thing, the misconception a lot of people have is that I want to sell something or I want to, I want to, you know, be a best selling author or I want it, whatever it might be. But to me the gifts of writing is it gives you an avenue to really get to know yourself. It gives you an avenue to be able to express yourself and it gives you an avenue to find out what you really believe, what you really want. And so it's not about the money. In fact, that's the biggest misperception of that. Everything's about the money and that's what success is. I love that you said you talk to successful people and not necessarily those that in society's terms might be successful. Like we're so limited in what we think is successful. Oh, making a lot of money, like that's some big great thing. Well, there's so many, you know, suicidal billionaires out there. I mean, truly, that is not the recipe for happiness. But anyway, so I guess the biggest, that's what the advice I would give is to do it because you love it and do it because it's going to open doors for you. So that, that would be, that's make sure you have true intentions for doing it because it can be difficult and it can throw things your way. So it's important. I mean, you get a lot of rejection as a writer. Lots and lots of rejection. So you have to really love it to stay with it.
- [84:11]
Warwick Schiller
I love that phrase you just used, true intentions.
- [84:16]
Pam Grout
Yeah.
- [84:16]
Warwick Schiller
Like that, that covers a lot of ground, not just for your occupation, but, you know, I was talking before about the, the, the act of giving with no thought of getting anything back is, there's a magic to it. But you have to, I didn't use the word, the phrase true intentions, but that's what you've got to have and.
- [84:36]
Pam Grout
Exactly.
- [84:36]
Warwick Schiller
I think anything that has true intentions. Yeah. Has that magic to it. Basically what you were describing then when you said that was basically, I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic.
- [84:52]
Pam Grout
Oh, yes. I love her. Yeah. Yeah.
- [84:54]
Warwick Schiller
And you know, she said I've, I was always going to be a writer, whether it paid the bills or not. I'm a writer. It's not, I'm a professional writer. I'm a writer. And she said, I've been a ranch hand and I've been a waitress and I've been a short order cook and I've been all these things and I wrote on the side and she wrote for herself. She wasn't writing for somebody else. Do you know who Rick Rubin is?
- [85:19]
Pam Grout
Yes, I love him.
- [85:20]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, music producer. I saw a great clip of his a while ago and someone's. The guy interviewing him said, so what, what happens if you make some music that people don't like? And he goes, I don't make music for other people. I make music for me. He said, he said that. He, and he was saying that if you make music because you want somebody to like it, it doesn't work. He said. And, and the last line of this interview was, he said, if you're making music for other people, that's not art, that's commerce.
- [85:59]
Pam Grout
Exactly. Yes. That's exactly how I feel about writing. And that was. You said it better than I did as far as, you know, why you would want to do it. You know, don't enter it for the money. Don't enter it for anything other than it's because you have to, you have to express yourself in that way.
- [86:16]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I didn't say, I didn't say it. Rick Rubin said it. But I, we actually, we have reach, we have retreats here at our ranch. And, you know, we kind of have an idea of what we're going to do over the weekend. We want to lead the people to a certain place. How we get there, we're not quite, you know, it's not that we're not quite sure, but a lot of times about, you know, 11:00 on the Saturday morning, we, we take a turn and go somewhere different. We always end up in the place we want to end up. And here it was a few months ago, now we're having a retreat. And Sunday morning, or maybe it was Saturday night, I saw that Rick Rubin clip come up on Instagram, I think. And so the next morning, like I said, we gotta listen to this. And I played it through a little, you know, Bluetooth speaker sort of thing, and then there's like three hours of conversation that came out of just that little Rick Rubin clip about art, it being art, not commerce. And that was all about what you said, true intentions. And I love that phrase. I'm going to steal that, if you don't mind. And I'm going to quote, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you the credit for it. But, yeah, true intentions. I love that phrase.
- [87:32]
Pam Grout
Yeah. Well, it's funny, you like Big Magic. One of my books that I wrote way before it was actually the first book after the Breathing book was called Ark and Soul, and it was about the exact same thing that that big magic is about. And again, it's like listening to the muses, you know, the higher thing. It all comes back to this higher thing that's going to lead you. And that's where the best writing comes from. All great art comes from that. It's from this bigger thing. And all you do is show up and be willing to be the secretary. I'm willing to be the secretary to serve.
- [88:04]
Warwick Schiller
I love that title, Art and Soul. That is very cool. What? Okay, now you really got me interested. You've written 20 books and you haven't bragged on any of them. I've asked you about some. So there's that one. What else were they about? Are they all along similar lines? Because that one sounds a bit like it's a. It's. It sounds big magicky, which is E squared E. Are they all along that some similar.
- [88:33]
Pam Grout
Well, half of my books are travel books and half of them are these kind of live your best life books. Like, I've done three books for National Geographic. And so they're a combination. Like if you looked at like people would say writing, again, this is what society would say, pick a genre and stick with it. My books have been kind of all over the place. However, you know, breathing, breathing practice have to do with. In fact, one time my publisher said, what. What's the thread line? What's the through line in your books? It's like, well, they're all about being more. And about following your curiosity in a sense. But. But anyway, yes, I've written about a lot of different topics, but a lot of them are travel because again, I do love traveling. I love, you know, exploring the world. So.
- [89:23]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, where's your. What's your favorite country you've ever been to?
- [89:27]
Pam Grout
People ask me that and I don't have a good answer because just like you wouldn't always want pizza for every meal, you know, it kind of depends on what you're in the mood for. But I often say the country I just came back from, so I just came back from Mexico, so I'll say that. But I do love Australia. I do love New Zealand. And I know people tend to glop those two together, and I know they are. Anyway, I do, I love, I don't know, I love going to South Africa, like, so that's part of the reason I'm going back next month.
- [89:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [89:55]
Pam Grout
But I love, I don't know, I love a lot of places I've been to, I don't know, 80 to 100 countries, so.
- [90:01]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, wow, that many. You know, it's interesting what your response to that question was, because I was in Amsterdam, I was in Holland a few years ago, and my son was with me, and we took a. I was presented a horse expo. We had a day off, and I. We took a bicycle tour of historical Amsterdam, so all about, like, the Dutch East India Company and all that sort of thing. And there was a group of us, and we pulled up at a. I was going to say coffee shop, but it wasn't a coffee shop. It was a place where you get coffee. It wasn't a coffee shop to actually have a coffee. And there was a guy there, he said he'd been to 80 or 90 countries or something like that. And not long before that, I'd read somewhere that there's a diminished rate of return after about 22 countries. So if you've traveled to 22 countries after that, there's a diminished rate of return, probably because if you've been to 22 countries, you've seen a lot of different things, and maybe now it's not as exciting or whatever. And I said to this guy, so have you ever encountered that? And he said, no, not at all. And I thought, oh, well, maybe that's. Maybe that's not true, the diminished rate of return thing. And then I asked him, what's your most favorite country ever been to? Same as I asked you. And his answer was similar. He said, I'd say whichever one I'm in at the moment. And I'm like, yes. And I saw my son later. The reason he doesn't have a demonstrated return is because he's not comparing this experience to that experience. He's in the moment, and that's why he doesn't have a diminished rate of return.
- [91:33]
Pam Grout
And that's the key to everything right there. You know, what could be more exciting than this moment that you and I are talking together? That this technology allows us to talk to each other? I mean, what could be more exciting than that? This moment. Always. And if you look at each place you go, every country that way, everything. I mean, there's a person in that country that you've never met before that alone, everything's different and new and exciting every moment. If you look at it the right way.
- [92:00]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah. And I like what you just said, too. I'm. I'm totally enjoying this moment. I'm totally vibing with you.
- [92:07]
Pam Grout
Yeah.
- [92:08]
Warwick Schiller
So your other question that you chose, too, was about your profession. It says, what's the worst advice given in your profession?
- [92:19]
Pam Grout
Oh, you know, there are so many books written about being a writer. I mean, you know, every. A lot of people want to be a writer. I mean, if you're a writer, the thing you probably hear more than anything is, oh, I've got this great idea for a book. And of course then they want you to go for it, but. So the worst advice would be that, oh, gosh, now what was I gonna say? I had. I had something I was thinking of. Well, to do it for money would definitely be. Would be very worst advice. But that, yeah, I honestly don't remember. I think it just had to do with how important it is to really write because you love it and because you want to be interested in things. And so I suppose. Oh, I know. Is that you should follow all these rules about writing. Like, I remember when my daughter was in school and she was learning to write, you know, like her composition classes. It's like, you do this, you do that, you do. It's like there's all these rules, like, no true writing, true greatness comes from being connected to this bigger thing that we all have that connection to. So any rule about writing is, to me, the wrong path to go down. So that's the worst advice. And everybody, oh, let's read this book about. This is how you become a mystery writer. This is how you become an inspirational writer. I mean, you can find advice on everything. But the best advice I have is don't listen to anybody's advice. Just listen to your inner voice, your inner calling. That right there. It's the only advice you need.
- [93:49]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question was you said before I was asking you about one of the books you wrote, and you said, and you kind of pointed to your forehead like this, and you can. You said, yeah, my intuition told me. How does your intuition come to you? Do you get pictures, you get words, you get sensations in your body? Is it a. Is it a conglomeration of all that? Is it just a knowing what. How does it come to you?
- [94:19]
Pam Grout
I would say in my journal, you know, I've been journaling for. Well, ever since forever, always journaling. So I think I get a lot of ideas in my writing. I kind of figure out what I think, what I. What I want from, you know, reading my journal or from writing in my journal. So the intuition is just like a thought that keeps coming to me. I don't see a picture necessarily. It's just a thought. It's like with the, you know, bringing back the. God doesn't have Bad hair days and repackaging it as energy, not God. That just. That just kind of kept coming into my consciousness. Like, I didn't plant that there. I didn't put that idea there. But it came from somewhere that wasn't me. So I think that's how I follow my intuition. When I get a hit, or what I call a hit, or, you know, something comes up that, like, wow, I never thought of that myself. This has to be something bigger and more important than something I'd come up with. That might be how I get my intuition.
- [95:19]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I'm always interested in how people get that. But when you said it's a thought, it's not a. It's not a thinking thought, is it? It's not like you're ruminating and you come up with something, it just kind of pops in there.
- [95:32]
Pam Grout
No, ruminating is never the answer. Ruminating. Just get stuck in those loops. So I like to go, you know, south of the head. And what. What's more true down here than what's going on up here? You know, that's where more truth would come. South of it.
- [95:46]
Warwick Schiller
And do you have a. Is there, like, say, a meditation practice or something that you might do that that helps with that, or it maybe causes that or any of those sorts of things?
- [95:58]
Pam Grout
Well, I do meditate. I've done different meditations over the years, but the one consistent thing I've done is kind of a meditation in my journal, you know, or just me consulting with myself and just kind of quieting down and listening what's true for me right now? What do I need to know? And I've recently, for about a year now, done this practice, which is actually kind of similar to what Elizabeth Gilbert's doing, where you literally ask for help from something outside of yourself and say, hey, what would you like me to know? What would. So I feel like my journal has always been my little log of what something other than me wants me to know. So I'd say journaling is my consistent practice.
- [96:41]
Warwick Schiller
I love that. I'm doing some. You ever heard of inner child work?
- [96:47]
Pam Grout
Oh, inner child. Yes. Yes.
- [96:49]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Yes. So yesterday. So I do these zoom calls with my therapist, and yesterday there was this sensation that came up, and she said, ask it. What do you want me to know? When you said, that's the reason I was laughing when you said that. A minigame. Because yesterday we had this whole big thing about, what do you want me to know? So tell me about your journaling. When you journal, do you think about what you're going to write, or you just put pen to paper and it's kind of like this sentence I'm in now. I'm not sure what my next word is going to be as it comes out. And you're not sure what your response is going to be. And it comes out. Is it like that?
- [97:25]
Pam Grout
It's very much like that. In fact, it's being there that allows that thing to come out. Because, I mean, sometimes, like back when I used to interview people a lot when I was doing a lot of articles for, say, People magazine or variants, you had to, you know, get what they said and you had to take notes and all that. So you're writing down concrete things. And what this process is with journaling is just like you said, I don't know what I'm going to say the next minute. I don't know what I'm going to write the next minute. I'm just letting it flow. Flow is such an important energy, you know, that's the free energy, that's the anything could happen energy, the possibility energy. So that's more what I guess I feel in a. And even when I'm writing something, like I have a book assignment or something, I still like to kind of rely on that sort of flow. And then I might go back and, you know, make sure the facts are all correct and get everything, you know, settled in a more concrete way. But I do sort of trust that bigger thing. It's either what you might call it inner guidance or again, I like to call it the muses or the thing that's not me, you know, the thing that's not my little limit that me come through.
- [98:30]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah. So you feel like you're, you know, you're a. You're a channel for that sort of thing.
- [98:36]
Pam Grout
Yeah, yeah, in a sense, you know.
- [98:39]
Warwick Schiller
In a sense, yeah. Have you ever read the War of Art by Stephen?
- [98:44]
Pam Grout
I love that book. Yes, Steven Prescott. That's one of my favorites. In fact, you asked what book that's one I will read. I've read more than once, you know, I've read that sometimes I'm, you know, it's not flowing very much and I'll get out that book and read it. Because he's all about the discipline, you know, and discipline is pretty important.
- [99:02]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I love the. There's a quote by. I'm not sure who it is, but a famous writer in there that says, I only write when. When. When I get divine intervention from God. Fortunately, God shows up at my typewriter every nine o'clock, every Morning.
- [99:18]
Pam Grout
Exactly. Yeah, that's a good one.
- [99:19]
Warwick Schiller
And the other one I loved, and that was James Michener. Someone asked him, how do you write such thick books? And he says, I make myself stand at my typewriter for, you know, from 9:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon. And it doesn't matter if I write something or I write nothing, but I have to stay there. And if you stay there long enough, it will, it will come, right.
- [99:39]
Pam Grout
You have to prove to the muses, and that's what I said in the book Art and Soul, that you are serious, that you are a reliable secretary. You have to prove to them because anybody can show up and write. But if you show up day after day and you, you, you say, look, I'm willing to do this. I'm willing to, you know, be the air traffic controller that brings these ideas in. I'm willing to, you know, let them come in, then the muses will show up for you. So that's a very, very important thing.
- [100:07]
Warwick Schiller
So it's very easy for someone to go, oh, like, it's just like with, with E squared. It's easy for someone to go, I try it, it's not working right.
- [100:16]
Pam Grout
So, you know, they might believe it wasn't going to work. There's so many different reasons for that kind of thing happening. That I wrote two or three down the road was called bank and Grow Rich, kind of like a takeoff on Think and Grow Rich, but it's all about gratitude. You know, if you're sitting there looking at what you're grateful for, then this course can work through you so well. If you are living in this frequency of gratitude, that is the most important thing. And that's where you see the miracles that gratitude, the frequency of gratitude.
- [100:48]
Warwick Schiller
Right. I love your, your titles that are takeoffs on other things like Art and Soul.
- [100:55]
Pam Grout
Yeah, yeah.
- [100:56]
Warwick Schiller
And thank you very rich. I saw a clip on Instagram the other day about gratitude. You know, a lot of times you're told, you know, write down three to five things that you're grateful for. Like first thing in the morning, write down three to five things you're grateful for. But this guy I saw the other day, he said, I like to do it at nighttime, he says, because then during the day, you know, you have to write that at the end of the day. And so you're looking for things to be grateful for instead of waking up in the morning going, oh, okay, what was I, what am I grabbing? You know what I mean? Like at the end of the day.
- [101:30]
Pam Grout
Yeah. I have a thing in the book thank and grow Rich. And I've talked about this so many times. So I don't know if you've heard me say this, but I have a little program I called AA 2.0 and it has two steps. You know, the AA, the old AA has 12 steps. Right. Well, so this is. I'm all about smooth and easy. So this is a two step process. And the first step is I get up and I say, something amazingly awesome is going to happen to me today. You know, that's the aa, something amazingly awesome. The second step is I have what I call my possibility posse. And I text them three blessings, three miracles, three gratitudes from the day before. But like that guy that said he, he knows he's. They have to be different every day. So I'm like, I voiced it like Lewis, Lewis and Clark. I'm not their scout, man. I'm gonna make sure no blessings gonna escape my notice. So I'm, I'm really tuned into that. So that's my little can step 8.2.0 program. I kind of wrote it as a joke, but it is true. I do this to this day. I have my little possibility posse and I text three blessings. And they're always different. You know, I might have always said, oh, I'm so grateful for that. I'm a writer. I'm so grateful I got to be a mom. You know, all that stuff, this is like specific. Has to be different each day. So I'm on the look and I'm on my toes. Wait for those things to be grateful for.
- [102:50]
Warwick Schiller
So this possibility posse, these are actually real people?
- [102:54]
Pam Grout
Real people, yeah. Okay.
- [102:56]
Warwick Schiller
And do you guys text each other? Like, do you only text them or they text you too? Like, everybody's right.
- [103:01]
Pam Grout
We all do. We all do.
- [103:03]
Warwick Schiller
Are they, are they writers or they're just friends?
- [103:07]
Pam Grout
No one happens to be a writer, but they're just people that I've known. And I've got other possibility posse too. I just always like that term. You know, sometimes if I've given a play shot somewhere, I will say that. Group together. This is a new possibility posse. And we might do something like we're going to dance a full moon every time there's a full moon or, you know, some way for us to stay connected. But I just like that possibility posse. We're. We're not going to be sitting around talking about problems. We're not going to solve anything. We are busy looking for possibilities. We are busy believing in possibilities. So, you know, we're making them happen.
- [103:43]
Warwick Schiller
See, that's one of the reasons I asked so many questions of people like you on this podcast, because, like, right then that's. That that's an actionable step that someone listening could do and quite possibly make quite a difference in their life. You know, it's like your book E Square. These are actionable steps. And, And I love the fact in the book you. You say, don't believe me? Try it for yourself. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not preaching to you. And I think there's one last question that I didn't get that you chose and what it was. What quality do you admire in others?
- [104:23]
Pam Grout
Well, it kind of goes back to some of the things we've talked about, you know, being authentic, being real, and being loving. Enough service, you know, really, truly feeling connected to the whole. People that are just so open and loving and, you know, they. They're not out for themselves, they're just out to give. So that would be the quality. And, you know, I picked those questions kind of last minute, like, okay, well, I better pick something. I mean, I could have answered any of them or was happy to answer any. I might have. Know, I might pick five different ones if I look at the list after. After this, but.
- [104:56]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, you know what? No, there's one that I didn't ask that I really want to know. What's the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?
- [105:03]
Pam Grout
Well, I've had so many lucky things, but I feel like getting to be a mom to my daughter was just such an incredible gift because I was 37, I was single when I found out I was pregnant, and I ended up getting to be a mother, and that was just the greatest gift I loved, you know, being able to. To be Taz's mom. You know, it was just. I felt like it was a gift from the universe in a sense. You know, I wasn't married. I wasn't trying to have a kid. You know, I. Not consciously, you know, it was like angels of my better nature brought this child to me, which enabled me to look through her eyes, enabled me to slow down. I mean, it just. So many good things in my life came from just really slowing down and being Taz's mom. And I feel like she was just the greatest gift.
- [105:49]
Warwick Schiller
And what's your daughter's name?
- [105:51]
Pam Grout
Tasman. It's. She was named after the sea between Australia and New Zealand. Her father was actually from New Zealand, so Tasman Sea. I always called her my Tasmanian angel.
- [106:03]
Warwick Schiller
See, I was. You're going to South Africa soon. This is all very serendipitous, but I did a clinic in South Africa a few years ago. My son was with me. He's 27 now, but he's probably in his early 20s. Then there was a girl at the clinic who was about the same age as him, and her name was Tasman in South Africa. And I've never, ever heard the name Tasman for a girl. Any human. Yeah, and when you said Taz, I'm like, my ears kind of pricked up. So this. This actually, this was in Johannesburg. So Tasman took my son clubbing in Johannesburg. But. But when you said Taz, I'm like, oh, my ears pricked up. Like, what is your daughter's name? And how do you actually get that name? Well, there's a. There's. Well, there's a Tasman in. In Johannesburg, South Africa. So there you go. Her dad was an Aussie. That's how.
- [107:00]
Pam Grout
Oh, okay.
- [107:01]
Warwick Schiller
And so we have a border collie dog. Her name's Tasman.
- [107:05]
Pam Grout
You know, I hear that a lot people have dogs or some cat named Tasman. So that's not an unusual thing that I've heard.
- [107:11]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, really?
- [107:12]
Pam Grout
I'm also wondering is, when Tasman took your son around Johannesburg, did they go to the shebeans out in Soweto by any chance?
- [107:20]
Warwick Schiller
I don't think. I don't think he went with her to the shebeans, but he went on a tour that, like, they went to. They went to Soweto, they went to Coronation street where Desmond Tutu and.
- [107:33]
Pam Grout
And.
- [107:38]
Warwick Schiller
I think. I think they may have took. Took him up to the. What do they call it? The crown cradle of mankind that. Like the.
- [107:45]
Pam Grout
Yeah, I haven't been there, but I. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.
- [107:50]
Warwick Schiller
Very, very cool. Wow. Lots of serendipities. Okay, so we need to wrap up here. Why don't you tell us how people can find you your books, your offerings, whatever you have to offer people.
- [108:04]
Pam Grout
Yeah, if you know my name, which is Pam Grout, you can find me. I have my website's pamgrout.com on all the socials. It's Pam Grout, so I'm pretty easy to find. Just Google my name, and there I am. More than you could ever want to know. I do have on my. On my website. I blog really regularly, so there's all kinds of free resources. And, I mean, there might be more than. I don't know, could be a thousand. Probably getting to be a thousand different blog posts on there, you know, inspiration Things and it's all free. And, you know, I'm all about giving. You know, it's like, forget the commercial model or whatever. I'm. I'm going to give what I got to give. And so that's, that's a good resource for people that want to know more. My books are listed there. I don't sell them myself, but, you know, they're available, Amazon, bookstores, whatever they can find them.
- [108:50]
Warwick Schiller
They're out there or in hotels that has a. Have a need a book, take a book type situation.
- [108:56]
Pam Grout
That story that is so great that led us to this conversation today.
- [109:00]
Warwick Schiller
It did. And you know, I was reading that. I was reading it again. And I'm thinking, you know what, Because I've had, I've had some authors of books on the podcast. As the podcast has gotten bigger and you know, a bigger listenership sort of thing, I'm like, I'm a bit higher sort of thing. So I've had. There's some books that I've, you know, one of the two of the podcasts I've recorded were actually called books that have influenced me. And I just talk about all these books and so some of them I'm like, I might reach out to that guy. And I've actually had a couple of authors on here. And then I thought, oh, Pam Grouchy, she'd be a big deal. But. But she's on about what I'm on about. Like, I'd love to be able to have her on the podcast. So I reached out and you. It's funny you got back to me, but it seemed like to me it was like, I think this is a, like a form letter thing because it said it was really short. It's like, sure, I'd love to, let's do it. And I'm like, this is what. And that was, it was funny. It was like, yeah, sure, love, or whatever. And I thought, I don't think that's a real person. And then I must have emailed you back again. And I didn't hear back from, that's right, I emailed, I reached out and I said, okay, I'd love to have you on the podcast. I'm available, you know, between this time and this time, you know, these in this month, I'm home or whatever. And then I didn't hear back from you at all. And I thought, yeah, it's not going to happen. But then I was on the plane to the UK with your book. And experiment number one is set an intention like, okay, if there is a dude out there. If there is, if there is a dude out there who listens to this stuff, give me a sign. And I landed in the UK and I, you know, that night when I checked my email, the lovely Pam Grout has replied. I'd love to be in your podcast. And yeah, it was so cool how it all turned out. So, yeah, thank you so much for joining me. It's, it's been an honor and a pleasure chatting with, with you and it's certainly been an enjoyable experience hearing all your stories and especially I'm, I'm just so excited that people got to listen to you share that stuff because I mean, you know, you know, this stuff changes people's lives when they can embrace.
- [111:16]
Pam Grout
It, you know, for sure. Well, thank you so much. This has been so great. Listening to your Australian accent is just the icing on the cake, but it's been great. So thank you so much.
- [111:26]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it's been awesome. Thanks for joining me. And for you guys at home, thanks for joining us and we'll catch you on the next episode of the Journey on podcast.
- [111:35]
Thanks for being a part of the Journey on Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com Be sure to to follow Warwick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.