115. The Samurai Approach to Leadership with David C. Olcott

In this deeply insightful and soulful conversation, I sit down with David C. Olcott, founder and CEO of Samurai Success, Inc., to explore what it truly means to live with awareness, purpose, and spiritual alignment.

Drawing from over three decades of coaching experience, David shares how subconscious programming shapes our lives from childhood—and how we can reclaim our power through conscious choice, self-awareness, and personal ethos.

From his early work with Tony Robbins to the creation of his transformative book Swords of Illumination, David offers wisdom on bridging the gap between human potential and divine consciousness. Together, Serena and David explore what it means to live as a modern samurai—disciplined, intentional, and in service to others.

In This Episode

• The evolution of coaching — how the industry has shifted from mass seminars to deeply personalized 1:1 transformation.
• Choice and programming — understanding how our beliefs and responses are formed before age seven, and how to rewrite them.
• From awareness to transformation — why awareness alone doesn’t create change, and what steps to take next.
• Divinity and consciousness — what it means to recognize the divine within, and how that awareness changes how we live and lead.
• Living the Samurai ethos — how service, discipline, and alignment become pathways to mastery and meaning.
• Identity and attraction — how our inner frequency shapes the opportunities and relationships we draw into our lives.
• Spiritual energy made practical — using mindset, authenticity, and intention to project the energy you want to attract.
• The ultimate reminder — you are not here to discover who you are; you are here to create who you say you are.

Key Takeaways

• Awareness is the first step, but change requires consistent new behaviors and beliefs.
• You are always making choices—whether consciously or through old programming.
• Spiritual energy is not abstract; it manifests in your attitude, presence, and authenticity.
• Your identity determines your alignment, coherence, and what you attract.
• True mastery is being in service to others while continually refining yourself.
• The greatest freedom comes from remembering your divinity and choosing who you become.

About the Guest

David C. Olcott is the founder, president, and CEO of Samurai Success, Inc., an international coaching firm based in Denver, Colorado. A nationally recognized speaker and author of Swords of Illumination, David integrates psychology, performance, and financial strategy to help individuals and organizations achieve sustainable success through conscious design and spiritual awareness.

Learn more about David’s work and Swords of Illumination at samuraisuccess.com.

Connect with Serena

If you’re a quiet woman leader ready to be visible without performing extroversion or burning out, the Visible Introvert community has the solution to your struggle. Visit serenalow.com.au.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Quiet Warrior Podcast. Today's guest is David C. Olcott, founder, president, and CEO of Samurai Success Inc., an international executive, organizational, and personal coaching firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Throughout his more than 30 years of professional coaching experience, David has worked with numerous individuals, organizations, and companies throughout the United States and Hong Kong. His coaching focuses on developing strategies and structures that provide for sustainable growth and productivity. Even during the direst of economic times, such as in the aftermath of 9-11 and in the recent economic crisis, samurai success clientele have enjoyed record growth by following his proven methods of success. David is also a nationally known motivational speaker and lecturer. His dynamic and positive approach energizes audiences to move from being a warrior to blossoming into a warrior. During many of his presentations, he has motivated people without any martial arts training to join him on stage and smash boards with their bare hands. Welcome, David Olcott to the Quiet Warrior Podcast. Me too, me too. Although unfortunately, we can't have you demonstrating the smashing of bare boards since it's an audio podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

That's good. You haven't warmed up yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

David, could I take you back to your professional journey and perhaps your thoughts on how the coaching industry has evolved over the years?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah, so wow, 30 years ago, there wasn't even a name called coaching in the business world or life coaching kind of stuff. And I remember the journey of being one of the first to really start coming out. I'm like, what do you do? And I was like, well, I'm a coach for business, you know, for coach. And people always ask me for football, for baseball. And it was so unknown. You know, people always went back to what they knew was sports analogies, right? Um, and now, of course, it's become so prolific, uh, especially after COVID. So many people have moved into the industry. Um, and there's some really great coaches out there. There's no question about that. I used to work with one of those people named Tony Robbins, remarkable coach, top one, top percent for sure. There's no question about it. And his real focus has been on seminars. Our really has been moved away from the group size of coaching, you know, the 10, 5,000, 10,000, 5,000, 50,000 people. And we really focus on the smaller business side, one-on-one coaching, really focus on those dynamics. So that's one of the big changes that we've seen in the coaching dynamic, is moving from the groups down to the individuals. And where I love that samurai success has gone is that we've really moved into not only the smaller group or individual coaching, but segmented that into three different categories from the mental coaching, the psychology coaching, the performance coaching, and the design work that follows up with that, the process development that helps support you as an individual. And then the finance side. So when you hire a samurai success, you don't get one coach, you get three coaches.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

That is a very unique model. Tell me, how does coaching fit in with your personality? Where do you sit on the introversion, extroversion spectrum? And I ask this because if I remember correctly, and I've seen Tony's um seminars and retreats and his activities, and I've watched him on video, and he has this very huge, very loud kind of energy. Is that a requirement to be a Tony Robbins trainer?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Hmm. I've been, I haven't been around Tony for 27 years, so I don't know a lot of the characteristics they're looking for. As a matter of fact, I was part of his organization when coaching wasn't part of it. As a matter of fact, I actually went to the executive team and I was like, hey, there's a missing part of the seminar business. There's this follow-up thing that we need to be thinking about. Because I'd actually started doing this thing called coaching over the phone with people who had actually uh gone to Tony's seminars and made huge life decisions, but they weren't following up with it. There was no, what do I do after the seminar kind of thing, right? So in the beginning, that's really where the idea of samurai success came from was coaching people over the phone and getting them back on track, taking the same information they learned in the seminar, but now applying to their life specifically. And Serena, that is the game changer. And there's an axiom in this world called NLP that says change begins in the general but happens in the specific. So when you go and you meet a coach, what you're looking for is change. Because if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you're gonna keep getting the same result, the result that you don't want, because that's why you're hired a coach to be able to help make the change. So in order to really be at the level of coaching that we like to play at, that elite level, you've got to really focus on the specifics of the individual you're working with.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Got it. And would you describe yourself as more introverted, more extroverted, somewhere in the middle?

Choice, Programming, And Free Will

SPEAKER_02 5:02

I will tell you, that's been an evolution. That's why I'm really glad to be excited about talking to this audience because I want to let you know I'm definitely an example of someone moving from that introverted to extroverted concept. It's possible. I want to let you know that that's if that's something that you have to be able to do, it is possible within you because who you are is amazing divinity. You there is nothing you can do. The only thing that keeps us from really believing that we can do that is our own programming. We're gonna talk about that a lot today, I understand. Um, but it's something you can change because certain skills, like if you're in sales, it's a very tough game if you're gonna be introverted to be in the sales game. So, in order to be able to be really powerful and successful, if you will, in the sales game, you have to be able to learn to be able to change those roles. Now, interestingly enough, when I'm on stage, I'm like this, I'm very extroverted. But in my quiet times, I like to be really reserved and introverted, not talk for days, if you can believe that, because I talk for a living. So I enjoyed both those ends of the spectrum because I have access to those. And I think that's probably a great conversation for us to have at some point about hey, you're you're telling me I can choose this. Everything in this lifetime is you as a human being, I'm going to suggest to you today to remind you today that there is choice in everything. And once you understand that choice, then you can get on the path of actually maximizing whether being introverted or extroverted really fits for whatever environment you're in.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

I think some people might be hearing this for the first time. And just being exposed to the idea that we have choices and that we have a choice to move along the spectrum of our personality and how we express it is going to be quite revelationary for them. And could you perhaps go a little bit deeper into that? When you say we have choice, are you saying that somebody who is has been introverted all their lives can learn to show a different side of them, express differently from how people have been perceiving them all this time for a purpose?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

So the bottom line answer to that from my experience, my opinion about this, and working with over 450 companies, 50,000 individuals, there is choice even within all the things we don't think there are choices about. Now, I know that's gonna sound a little strange, but let me take you back a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

There is this thing called free will that is absolutely true about things.

Thermostats, Beliefs, And Triggers

Awareness To Practice To Identity

SPEAKER_02 7:33

And there's also something called programming, subconscious programming. So when you have these two dynamics working in gruency with each other or working in adversity to each other, we start to get lost in understanding that we've lost our ability to understand that we have choice in everything. And the reason for that is because once your programming stops, by the time you're seven years old, Serena, most of us, for every single subject in our life, money, your weight, how you're going to look, how you're going to look as you age, how you're going to communicate, how effectively you're introverted, extroverted, all these themes and concepts you and I could talk about, personality traits, everything that you and I possibly can talk about has been programmed into your subconscious mind by the time you're seven years old. That means you have a thermostat around every single one of these subjects that says, I'm going to set that thermostat at 70 degrees. And as soon as that exceeds 70 degrees, let's say it goes up to 80, then the thermostat's job is to communicate with the rest of the HVAC system, the heating and cooling system that says, hey, the thermostat says we should be at 70. I've exceeded 70. And now that AC kicks on to be able to bring the 80 degrees back down to 70 degrees. If you get cooler than that, then the heat is supposed to kick on and kick you back up to 70. And there's this regulating system within you that says that. That is also known as your belief systems. That is an element of your subconscious programming. Your values is another one, your questions, how you focus on things, your physiology, how you move that, your feelings are part of that equation. So interestingly enough, by the time we're seven years old, we already have meanings, reactions, and responses conditioned into us that feel like they're taking away our choices, because they are. You're so programmed about how to react and respond to certain subjects by the time you're that age that every single time that happens, you're simply responding and reacting just like you were when you're seven years old or six years old when you learn the lesson the first time. So let's imagine you're driving down the road and my wife and I are very different. So I grew up in Miami. So if somebody cuts you off in traffic, it was an aggressive move and you had to act aggressively. And I was like, what is happening to me? Because my wife is driving along, someone cuts her off, and it's like nothing. It's like, well, wait a minute, that's that means one thing, right? No, it doesn't. And this is the real choice that we have, and we've forgotten about as human beings, is that nothing has meaning but the meaning you give it. And the meaning you're giving to things is often correlated and responsive to your subconscious programming. If you do not like the way you're responding and reacting, like many things in my life, that I didn't like how I was behaving toward things, I now have the technology to be able to change the meaning I've given that at a subconscious level. So then when that event happens again, I already have a new response and new reaction to it based upon how I want to identify as a choice maker, not how I've been programmed to be able to respond and react by other people. And I will tell you, that is the level of freedom I highly recommend to people.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I think we're all looking for that freedom, although we are not aware necessarily what is holding us back from exercising that freedom. So what you are alluding to is that we need to have that self-awareness. So at some point, either something happens or perhaps we hear something, someone says something, and it finally lands and it opens a creates a little chink. Um you mentioned subconscious programming, which is that all this time a lot of us are functioning at a default mode of unthinkingness where we're not aware that we don't know certain things or we assume certain things, and these are all conditioned into us, programmed into us. So once you become self-aware or you start thinking differently, how do you then make that leap or that transition into that freedom that you were just talking about?

Divinity, Consciousness, And Will

The Attractor Factor And Mindset

SPEAKER_02 11:52

So there is always going to be events that happen in our lives, right? And the meaning we give that event is a choice, whether it's subconscious programming, which doesn't feel like choice, or conscious choice, which then goes, Oh, I'm making a choice about that. Either way, you're still making choices. The important part about it is that when an event happens and you have now reacted, responded instantaneously. This isn't something that happens like, oh, I got to think about that. No, it happens that fast. And you're responding, you're reacting to that. Being self-aware is the critical element of being able to start the level of change you and I are talking about. Because awareness is the first level of change. We've all heard that. That self-awareness is just the thing to put in front of it. Self-awareness is what creates that first level of change. But that doesn't change change. Awareness is just the first level. You then have to move into other elements of that. And the very first thing is you go from an unconscious uh behavior to a conscious behavior. Oh, I just did that. And this is how I got a response. I'm now consciously aware of that. And then I have to move into some level of motivation. Hey, I want to change that. And if you don't move in the motivation of wanting to change it, you that your brain just goes, oh, this happened. I don't need to do it. And you rationalize why that's happened. You create a story and you create a meaning. You're doing the same behavior, it's just not creating any change yet. You're just caught in this loop of, hey, the event happens. I've rationalized it to mean this and this and this, and it just keeps going back in this loop. Do not worry. The universe loves you enough to provide those examples over and over again until you get it. For me, it was like a cosmic two by four, right? It was like, I was so stubborn, Serena, that the universe had to be really tough with me. And if you've noticed things, the universe being tough with you, I'm telling you, you and I share a characteristic. You are as stubborn as I am. And the universe loves me enough that says, Dave, I know you don't want to live this life. So I'm going to keep sending that message to you until you get it. And that's a level of tolerance that you just have to get to. Now, your level of tolerance is going to be very different from mine. I will tell you that I meet with very high-end people, very established, very wealthy, very good at what they do. And they can put their hand on a hot stove for long periods of time. Some of us just have to touch the stove once, and that's enough. It's all individualized about how we're going to get to this level of tolerance. And that's an important distinction because how I work is different than how you work. Getting to know how you work is an important part of this process. Investing in you is essential to this. So now we have this self-awareness. Now we have this motivation. I've got to change this. I'm done with this. I'm no longer tolerating this thing. And you've got to be committed to that motivation. And then you've got to put a new thing in practice. You've got to practice something new, a new behavioral strategy. Because without that, you're just doing the same thing over and expecting a different result, which is the definition of insanity. So you've got to create a new strategy of behavior that's supported by a belief system that drives that new behavior over, let's just say, 10,000 hours. You've got to practice this enough times before it becomes part of who you are. And eventually that new behavior that was now very conscious that you had to make that change now moves back into unconscious behavior. It just becomes a part of who you are. And so that's a great model of understanding about, hey, now I've got this awareness, now I've got this motivation, now I've got to practice a new strategy. And then I've got to be able to do this over a period of time until I get a new belief around that, a new experience and a new result. So that I go, ah, that's new. And my brain can do that that fast. It's usually me getting in the way of that functionality because neuroplasticity says your brain learns something new, it can do it that fast. It doesn't have to spend weeks, months, or 10,000 hours. It's me having to get that. It's me changing my belief about that new behavior that really conditions myself through practice to create a new result.

Living The Samurai Ethos

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So what I heard you say was we start at a level of self-awareness, and then we need to practice some new behaviors. And those new behaviors need to get to that level where they become second nature for us and they overwrite that old programming. So that we are interrupting that previous loop and we've replaced it with something else. And because our brains are neuroplastic, it means we can learn anything. So we can't say, oh, you know, I'm born this way, I can't do anything about it. That's not true. We can change because we have choices, we have free will. And you also said we have did you also say we have divinity within us? What does that mean in a in a very practical how do you explain that?

Identity As Foundation And Service

SPEAKER_02 16:50

So, in my experience, I've seen way too many miracles to deny it for myself. And that's the only way I can speak of this. I can't speak of it for you or anyone else listening to this. That's why faith and your connection with something bigger than you is a very personal, verified experience. Only you can share that. No one can share that with you. Yes, they can influence it. Yes, they can propose things to you, yes, they can share their experiences. But until you have that moment or moments like I've had to have of just seeing the miracles, seeing the miracles, seeing how this, how magnificent this place is and how it actually creates things by design. And you are the designer. You're actually creating your world. And the masters have spoken about this for centuries. I'm not new to this. This is not new technology. It's something that I've found through my experience to remind myself of who I am. So each and every one of us has a level of divinity within us. It's called consciousness. And that consciousness is what brings up that self-awareness. So the higher your consciousness is, the more self-aware you are. The lower your consciousness is, the harder you have to struggle with to get to that self-awareness and then get to that change model we just talked about. So that level of consciousness exists in all of us. As a matter of fact, here's the best way to really say that two things about a human being. Can they do something? Will they do something? Can we do something, Serena? We're divinity. There's a soul, there's we're an aspect of divinity of God itself. We can do anything we put our minds to. And if you look around the planet, you can see an expression of that from both the worst sides of us to the very best of us. That has the ability to can we do things? Yes. The question isn't can we do things? The question is, will we do things? Free will. Will we do things? And that comes down to you being aware of your own, your mechanics of your body, how this machine, this avatar actually works. And part of that machinery is something called the subconscious programming that creates and manifests 95% of the events you're attracting in your life do not come from your conscious part of your brain. So you and I are having this wonderful conversation. You could sit down with yourself and with your friends and family and talk to the end of the thing. That doesn't change what you're attracting in your life. What's actually being attracted into your life is the source within you of how you believe yourself to be, what you deserve, what you're worthy of. All these beliefs and values that you have internally are actually attracting things into your life. And if you're noticing that you're attracting things that you do not like in your life, guess where that change has to happen? That change has to happen within you. And every single master on this planet, I don't care what religion you follow, there is a storyline that goes along with us. This is one of the major themes that we've forgotten as human beings of how powerful we really are.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

So we're on a mission to reconnect with that divine within us and to remember the things that we have forgotten. Is that one way of putting it?

Alignment, Congruence, Coherence

SPEAKER_02 20:03

I can tell you that's been my personal journey. I know there's something bigger than what I've been doing in this lifetime. I know there's something bigger than getting the car, getting the house, getting the girl, getting the money. I've I've lived that life, Serena. I lived it very young. When I was in my 20s, I was in real estate selling crazy amounts of real estate, multi-millionaires. I lived in a yacht, basically, and our office was on a yacht, driving a 560 on Mercedes. I was living on South Beach. I had access to all this stuff that people say is so important. And at 25 years old, I was depressed out of my mind. I was like, this can't be all that's going on. And the funny thing is that we all chase this material stuff, yet we don't get to take any of that material stuff with us when we leave this place. So if you really step back from what's really going on and this consumerism that we've been hooked in and programmed into, then start to realize there might be something bigger and grander going on here. And that's what I've chosen to explore this lifetime. Find out how that energy, which I would call spiritual energy, how that affects this place and how we can influence it and how it can help actually benefit us to actually live more successful lives, build better businesses, build better relationships, and for me to ultimately be the best I can be while I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

I imagine spiritual energy is another term that some of our listeners will not have heard before. How do you how do you make that more concrete? What's an example of you applying spiritual energy or using spiritual energy in your day to day interactions?

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Great question.

Worthiness And What We Attract

Swords Of Illumination: The 12 Themes

SPEAKER_02 21:52

So, what I'm gonna say to say to you is that it's impossible not to be using spiritual energy every single day. You have been doing this your whole Life. But let me share with you about a self-awareness around this. There is a thing called the attractor factor. Have you ever heard this term before? Okay. So if you take that and you make it practical, it's a frequency within you that you're projecting. If you've ever met someone that you're just drawn to them, you don't know why. You've now experienced practically spiritual energy. If you've ever been around an animal and that dog comes running up to you, just like it's known you its whole life, or there's a dog that looks at you and just starts growling. This is your frequency and how it's being perceived to the animals around you. And remember, part of this body is divinity and it also is animalistic. So there's this duality that happens within each one of these bodies, the animal side of us and the divinity side of us, that we're wanting to figure out how to make that work. Both of those things combined an integral way is creating a frequency and energy around you. And that energy attracts things and it pushes things away. So you're using spiritual energy every single day, but we're just not aware. We've forgotten that we're doing this. What we would call that, if you just wanted to make it practical, it's called attitude. I will tell you that if you work with high-end people like our sports performers, athletes, entertainers that we get to a chance to work with, the number one thing they work on is mindset. Because they know that if they believe they're going to get a role, their 90-95% chances of getting that role is very high. If you believe that you're not going to get the role, your 90-95% chance of getting not getting the role. You're what? Yes, this is that spiritual energy we're talking about in the form of a belief system, your value system. What you believe, you project outward, and other people are sensing it from you. Other human beings feel that from you. And I will tell you any genre you want to talk about, acting or in sales, when you have that authenticity, the frequency of authenticity, spiritual energy brought and manifest through the body, and you throwing this authenticity out, people feel that from you. Whether they get whether you buy that from or not, you get the sale or not, isn't even important. And people feel that from you because you're unattached to an outcome. You're not hooked by things that most human beings get hooked by. And so, how do you do that? Because you realize there's something bigger going on than just the animal side of you, the thing that needs and wants things. There's something that really wants to be in service to others. And that's something we call being samurai.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you, since this is the quiet warrior podcast and we can talk about all things warrior and martial arts. Yes, talk to us about the samurai. Who is the samurai today?

Channeling, Ego, And Soul Work

The Big Takeaway: Create Who You Are

SPEAKER_02 25:01

So again, I'm not Asian, obviously, right? And uh and I'm not looking to be able to take someone else's culture, but I will tell you when I was growing up, a minister said the greatest life you could ever live was being in service to another. And I think I was about nine years old, Serena. So I didn't get it at the time, right? But I was like, what is happening? So years later, I think I was around teens, 17, 18. By the way, I used to hate to read. I mean, literally hated to read. Today, you can't get me. You anytime you see me, I've got a book in my hand. Because I reprogrammed my brain to love reading, because I learned that reading was an important and essential element of me being my best, getting new knowledge, having a new way to articulate things. Um, the getting out of frustration was an important part of getting new pieces of knowledge and then applying that information. Get this information from this pre this this uh gentleman in my life that was a pastor, the greatest life you can ever live. I'm 17 years old, and I pick up this book, and the book is called Samurai Selling. And inside that book, it that tells me that now. So I've always been in love with martial arts movies. I've been studying martial arts most of my life, but I didn't know this word samurai loosely translated means in service of others. There it was. There was the connection. I'm getting goosebumps right now because I remember that moment of reading that quote and just welling up in my eyes, like something had touched me so deeply that I finally found one of those connections I've been looking for for a long period of time. I know 17, Dave, how long was that? I've been searching this a long time. So living this life of being samurai, which is about being in life of being in service to others. The way I approach that and with the symbolistic that reminds me of this every single day, part of my identity is being samurai. So it I when you take a look at the world of the samurai and how disciplined they were about being real warriors and being able to fend off some of the greatest warriors on the planet. Um, being Japanese samurai, being able to do that is truly remarkable. But their commitment to discipline was so important because they were constantly investing in themselves and their skill set. And what I now know today is that by me investing in me, Serena, I can literally work on all the stuff that keeps me from being in the way of a conversation like this. So stuff just flows through me when I'm in this really good space. But I've had to work on me a lot so I could get out of the way, so I can have a true conversation with you. Because if I if all that stuff is in the in our conversation, I'm just waiting for my turn to talk. I'm not really listening to you anymore, right? I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Oh, let me throw this in at you and let me throw that at you. And I was like, that's not being in service to others. That's about being in service to myself. I wanted to change that dynamic because I I lived that other life for long enough. I was like, I'm no longer tolerating them. I got to that place where I became so aware that that behavior didn't get me where I wanted to go this lifetime. So I swished, I shifted it and I created and replaced it. I love that you used that word earlier. I didn't want, I didn't want to get rid of it. I replaced it with something new. And the replacement was being in service of others, which causes me to work on me even more so I can be in service of you.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I love that. I love how all your emails end off with in service.

Closing Reflections And Community Invite

SPEAKER_01 28:30

What I'm hearing is that we need some kind of truth that we can hold to in the deepest part of ourselves that then becomes that foundation for everything we do. So in yours, in your case, it's about the samurai spirit. So each of us then needs to find that own our own personal ethos in and it's like an identity, like an archetype that you can take on, you can call on, and that becomes, I suppose, your inner guide. Maybe one of your masters that you're referring to. Some something, somebody that is there with you, is bigger than you, that you have access to, and you can become more and more like that. It's something you aspire to. And it's a progressive journey. It's not about getting there quickly, it's not about shortcuts, it's about having that discipline and that focus to become more and more like that. In your case, like the samurai, and in my case, like the quiet warrior. So then I think when we change our identity, everything around us changes as well. Because you are talking about how you didn't like to read, and then now you've, you know, reading has become one of the things you love doing and one of the things you are very intentional about doing because it's aligned with the samurai that you're aspiring to become. So then if we each have got this higher or elevated version of ourselves that we are working towards, then all our daily choices, you know, whether to exercise more, what kind of food we eat, what kind of people we hang out with, all those things change as well.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

At bast. When you set that personal ethos, I love that you use that word, those principles, those rituals.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

If they're not centered on your self-created identity, then they're going to fall away. It's like building a foundation of this giant castle you want to build of your life, and you're building it on sand. Once you understand that your identity is the cornerstone of this foundation you're lying everything else on, then once you understand who that is, there's two real paths here. One is your identity has been created by other people, and you're gonna have a feeling if that's been done this way. You're actually going to feel as if you're living someone else's life. If you've ever felt that, here's what's happened. By the time you're seven years old, the programming from all very well-minding people around you or not so nice meaning people around you, have influenced your programming to live their life. This is the way you should do things. When this happens, this is what should happen. Whenever you have money, this is what you should do with it. All this information that you've gotten by the time you're seven years old, you have pre-programmed into your response, reactionary state, and those are other people's belief systems. You are literally living someone else's life, and you feel that internally, and it will create one emotional pattern called suffering. So when you feel that, you now know something's out of alignment, and that alignment, Serena, is so important because let's talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Once you have an identity about who you are, and you consistent consistently I heard you say something about consistently.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

All right, so we're talking about being realigned and the importance of alignment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

So once you have that identity in in space, then you have created a self-discovered identity, a self-created identity, then consistently being that then allows you to then move into this thing called congruency. Congruency over time creates this thing called coherence. And coherence is the focal point of your attractor factor. So the very nature of you identifying who you are, or someone else identifying who you are, it this identity statement is actually creating your destiny. And this is what's so fascinating about this connection. Your identity drives your entire ability to attract things in your lives and the opportunities you're going to have. So spending time with that, from my perspective, is absolutely essential to being successful.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Yes. And this goes back to the attractive factor you mentioned earlier on, that we we don't know why we are attracted to certain people or why certain opportunities come to us. But what you're saying is that's that congruence. If I'm on the similar frequency to someone, then it makes sense for us to cross each other's paths. And when we see each other for the first time, it's almost like we recognize each other, even though we may never have met.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yes. And that also explains why we may actively ask for something to come into our lives, but we struggle to actually manifest it. It's almost like something inside us is pushing it away. Maybe it's that hesitation, self-doubt, imposter syndrome. I don't really want this. You know, if I want this, everything is going to change. My life is going to change, I might lose some friendships. And so perhaps that then becomes the dominant frequency. That idea of subconsciously pushing it away becomes stronger than what we say we actually want. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 34:33

So beautifully said.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

And let's take it to another level that is that in your subconscious programming, we're not always conscious what's in our subconscious programming. And a lot of the things that push things away from us is actually an element called your worthiness, how worthy you actually are internally, subconsciously, about attracting a certain thing to you. The universe knows you so well that you can't lie to it. So your subconscious programming is manifesting 95% of all the events that are happening in your life. And if subconsciously you don't even know this, that by the time you're seven years old, you don't feel you're worthy of anything more than$70,000 or$80,000 or$50,000 a lie in your life, then you will not attract the opportunity to start making$100,000 or$200,000. And all that is being manifested by something you actually influence and control, and you can change it. That's the good news.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

That is the good news indeed. Now tell us about your book, Swords of Illumination. What is it about? Who is it for?

SPEAKER_02 35:37

So Swords of Illumination is oh wow. Swords Illumination is what is the subconscious programming? So over the last 30 years, I've been asking that question a lot, talking to so many people, interviewing some of the best masters I could find on the planet. And there were these 12 themes that kept showing up for me over and over again. Every single time I talk to them, they keep showing up. And so in the first book is the first six of those themes. And those themes had to do with identity, role distinctions, your outcomes, the way you make decisions, and those behaviors that go along with that. And those real items are the book about how to change that programming. So that's the first book. The second book is the uh exchange of both those for six, and then the other six. So all 12 elements are then sharecased with you, showcased with you, so that you understand what this programming elements are really all about. It's like, what is this stuff? Here it is, all written in two different books. The reason I wrote this book was incredibly selfish, Serena. I wrote this book for me because I know this is gonna sound a bit strange, but I don't know why I have this inkling that I've been here before. Have you ever had that sense about, you know, something is like deja vu over and over again? You just have this sense of things where it's like keeps showing up. I know I've been here before, and I know that I'm probably going to return. I actually had a fear about that. It was like, well, I'm gonna get to come back here and I'm gonna have to relearn all this stuff. It's like, ah, I don't want to have to wait so long. So selfishly, I wrote those books so that it could be in one place. So by the time I got back here, I didn't have to go searching for 30 years bringing this stuff out again. I could go to two books and find out how the subconscious programming really works and how I actually influence the world and make choices within it.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

So you're recording something for the future.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

A love letter to myself. Here's what's fun about that. I I will tell you that the people we've looked listened to, people from all over the world now who've reached out to us after reading the book, and they have just said, you wrote that book for me. I was like, I don't know you. I'm sorry. I don't, I can't relate to that. I was like, everything in this book is what I'm going through. And I was like, that's amazing. We're having this shared experience. And this is what I think about this divinity humanity thing is that we've gotten involved in all these different conversations about how we're in in contrast with each other. This, these two books are about sharing about how we're spectacular together, how we actually collaborate together and how we can really make change in my own personal life first, because that's what this book is about. It isn't about me changing the world out here, it's me changing my experience of this world. And that is the first level of real change.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

What I'm hearing is that everything that is universal is also personal. And I think that's why when we listen to a speaker, when we read a book, we think, oh, they're talking about me. And that's because there's all these souls, billions of souls out there, and we're all interconnected, aren't we? Energetically. And so we share thoughts, we share experiences, we share divine downloads. And so we know things that we think we can't possibly know consciously based on what we know we've been through, but then we have all we have access to something more. And I think that's really quite magical.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

That's the miracle that you and I were talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

That well, from my own personal experience, why I have so much faith in what there is something bigger than me going on here, right? Kind of stuff. And I have connections to that because some of the things that are written in that book, the majority of that book wasn't written from me, even though I was the you know dictator of that, it came through me. And I will tell you dictator, yeah, I think that's right. Dictation of that, right? Um, that that stuff just came through me because I will tell you, I've read that book over 35 times from editing and you know, going through the publishing process and everything. Serena, I'm telling you without a shadow of a doubt, I've read that book, and every single time I get a new insight from it. Dave, you wrote the book. That's not accurate. That book came through me. And because I was able to get the hell out of my own way and really channel that information, I believe that you and I, from divinity standpoint, we all have this ability. It's just practicing enough to be able to learn how to get the hell out of the way, get my ego out of the way, so I could start using my soul again to download information that really can change this place. And I will tell you, if there's one thing that human beings want to do this thing, they want to solve problems. If we keep solving it from our ego, then we're going to keep creating the conflict we see on this planet, this things we say we want to change. If we're going to really change something, I have to change me. I have to change where I'm getting my source of solution from. I can't keep using my ego to do that. I've got to reach out to something bigger than me. And that's that's the journey that I want to be on this lifetime and share with others.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

That's the journey and that's the joy and that's the anticipation. Because it's not all about us, it doesn't all rely on us. Our job is just to keep that channel clear so that we can download, we can become, you know, useful vessels, I guess, for that information to pour through. So, what is one thing you want people to take away from our conversation today, David? I know we've talked a lot about so many different things.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

I'm so happy about this conversation today, and thank you for everything you've created with your community and allowing and sharing that with me. I truly am blessed by it. I will tell you that probably the most meaningful gift I've been given this lifetime is the remembrance of this. See how it resonates with you. You are not here to discover who you are. You're not here to listen to other people to tell you about who you are. You are here for one single purpose, to create who you say you are so that you can experience that. That's the whole reason I believe our souls come to this magnificent place so that it can have an experience of that which you say you are. Because in the other dimension where your soul thrives and exists, there is no place of contrast. And contrast exist, the law of polarity exists so that there's these contrasting viewpoints. Because without those contrasting viewpoints, you can't experience anything. Without tall, there is no short, without heavy, there's no light, without the quiet warrior, there's no loud warrior. There's got to be these contrasting standpoints so that you and I can have experiences. Yet we're fighting those contrasts, even though the masters said, Love thy enemy, your enemies in your life. I know I've had a lot of powerful ones in mine, but those powerful enemies in my life only prove one thing. How powerful I am. And when you remember that, you're going to start changing the entire dynamic of this place. All those things that happen in your life where you go, oh, that really hurt, or you have regret or sadness or grief, or whatever those traumas have been, you can actually turn them around and realize that without those things, you could not experience yourself as that which you say you are. And that will totally change your experience of this lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

That's a beautiful and very powerful and liberating way to finish our conversation, David. You're saying that it's not about discovering who we are, because that's that's the methodology that's that's the approach that a lot of the experts tell us that we have to discover who we are. But actually, maybe it's about remembering who we are. And it's about creating, recreating who we are from that place of remembering and that place of connection with our divinity. Because when you know you are divine, when you know you're here for something bigger than yourself, when you know you're here for a purpose, then your mission is different. You walk differently, you breathe differently, you carry yourself differently. You reject differently. We've talked about so many things that I did not think I would be talking about after our last conversation. It's quite a, I think we've deviated from the script quite a bit in a very good way, because that is an example of I think how when frequency is aligned and we're not serving from ego, but serving from something bigger. And there is that curiosity and that openness. That's how conversations, true conversations, I think, can emerge. So I really appreciate you very much, David Olcott, coming on the Quiet Warrior podcast and sharing your samurai ethos, sharing your work, sharing your perspective of what we are meant to be doing with our lives. I feel illuminated.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Back at you.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

If you are ready to be seen without having to perform extraversion, join our visible introvert community at serenaloe.com.au. This is where I share the skills on how to be memorable and impactful without diluting the essence of who you are. See you on the next episode. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together we can help more introverts thrive. To receive more uplifting content like this, connect with me on Instagram at Serenalo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.