Human Connection with Daniel Bruce Levin

Daniel Levin  0:00 
Most of the world has forgotten who they are. Most of the world has built silos around themselves walls that protect themselves from being hurt because we've all experienced so much pain.

Lady Grey  0:19 
Hello, you lovely humans. Welcome to the live outrageously with Lady gray podcast. I'm your hostess lady gray. And I have had the great honor to interview a number of super inspiring world changers about how they live outrageously. So we're going to share about how they push boundaries. They fight for change, and how they seriously shake up the status quo.

Today we are talking with visionary and author Daniel Bruce Levin, about human connection, the search for heaven and the outrageous power of listening to each other. Danny walked away from an opportunity to run a billion dollar business to hitchhike around the world. He studied in a seminary and left one day before becoming a rabbi. He has lived as a monk in a monastery for 10 years, he served as Director of Business Development at Hay House, and is a rare blend of businessman and mystic who sees what others do not see. He is the author of the Mosaic, a life changing fable that invites people to listen. And we are so lucky to have him here today. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, Danny.

Daniel Levin
Thank you so much, Lady Grey.

Lady Grey
So I just got done with your book, the Mosaic, and we're gonna talk about that in a little bit. But before we kind of dive into that, I would love to give you the opportunity, you've had a very outrageous journey. I certainly think that has been outrageous. And I would love to give you the opportunity to tell us what you feel some of the highlights or the most important moments on that journey have been to you? Well, you know, that's normally a pretty easy question to answer for most people, but my life would have been a life of incredible highs and tumultuous lows. And so every single moment has been a turning point and a an important part of my life. But let me see if I can sum it up as quickly as I can. The biggest turning point I think in my life, if I look back, was the death of my parents two years apart on the same day, my dad died when I was 13. In my mom, when I was 15, two years apart on the same day, at exactly the same time of day, they were completely connected to each other. That shook me to the core. I was a naive little kid pletely protected by the love of my parents, when I wanted to find was that feeling of unconditional love. So I asked the adults where my parents went. And they told me they went to this place called heaven.

So I set out in search of the place called heaven. So for 45 years, I never realized that the reason I had come and gone to so many different things in my life, is because that heaven I was looking for was not the places I was, I had the chance to run a billion dollar corporation, it was being given to me by my uncle who said, I'm gonna train you and make sure you can't fail. But that wasn't the heaven I was looking for. So I walked away from it, I had the chance to work with a man who started organizational psychology. He said, I want you to be my protege. And I'm getting older and when I leave this will be yours to run the whole of psychology before that was one on one people to people. He said we can do what that for organizations. And we'll make a massive impact in the world. And I see you have the ability to do this. I looked at him and I had hair down to my waist. I said there's nothing organizational about me. Like how are you getting that picture from this image. But I was short sighted and I was arrogant. And I thought I knew more about the world than I did.

I had a chance to hitchhike around the world and see the world and sit on street corners. With some of the most beautiful people in the world. Some of them I could understand. And some of them I couldn't because we often didn't speak the same language. But the language of Love knows no language. And I would sit on a street corner and draw pictures and I suck at drawing. I'm not very good. But I didn't want to take a camera with me. So I took a pad and some charcoal pencils. And I would sit and I would draw what I was seeing somehow people would start to gather around me and then they bring food. And we would sit and have this incredible picnic in the middle of a downtown street where we just laughed and played with each other without even understanding what anybody was saying.

I had the chance to go to a seminary and study in Jerusalem Israel on Mount Zion right back over right in King David's Tomb, and studied to be a rabbi and one day before I was ordained, I left there because it was no longer the heaven I was looking for. In fact, it never was. I was just told that I should go there because I was Jewish. I had the opportunity to meet a saint, a holy man who told me that what I see would prevent me from seeing everything else because he said you don't know how to see. I live 10 years in a monastery and meditating sometimes 16-18 hours a day.

I had the opportunity to still go to Hay House and work with them. They were a $3 million company. When I came 10 years later, when I left they were we were doing $100 million a year in sales. And I was the Director of Business Development, we grew that company, because we were a lot of beautiful ordinary people coming together. And my definition of extraordinary is not people in capes and superpowers, it's when ordinary people come together with other ordinary people where we have extra ordinaries, we create extraordinary things. And by working together, we can do things we can never do on our own.

The beauty of mosaic is it's made up of broken pieces, all different colors, all different sizes, all different shapes, some are whole, some are broken, some are shattered, but you put them all together. And together, they create this artistry that is just absolutely magnificent. We don't see our similarities anymore, we find fault with the differences we have, I believe I've been putting this place now to just do one thing only for love and accept people to listen to them and hear them and to acknowledge and validate them for who they are. And Lady Grey, when I do that, for people with something amazing happens when they feel safe and the walls around them start to come down. And when the walls around them start to come down who they are emerges. And sometimes they see themselves for the very first time. Because they haven't ever let their walls down because they feel so unsafe, and they feel the need to protect themselves.

Lady Grey  6:30 
Oh, like I said, you have had an outrageous journey. And all of that has brought you to a place that I feel is so relevant. And we are so deeply in need of that message right now, globally, not just our country, but globally. I love the imagery, I just love you talking about walls coming down. And the idea that people emerge and who they really are is revealed. A lot of the work that I'm doing is helping people deconstruct those boxes. But beyond that, even just seeing out just being able to see past the walls to possibility and to begin to explore the idea of those walls coming down at all. I think that love and acceptance and listening all those things you mentioned are the keys and being connected to one another definitely allows people that safety. So I'm super curious about your monastic journey, and potentially any mentors or other individuals along the way that you feel like you had spiritually,

Daniel Levin  7:42 
oh, gosh, I went from having individual mentors, which I had many of the rabbit in there in the seminary there another rebbi that taught me how to see Swami in a yoga group a, you know, self help people from a house or were or mentors to me, I had so many mentors. And what switched over time is that now the common ordinary people are my mentors. What I see in front of me every moment of every day are the stories of people that can really change my life, and can really help me to see them differently. What I found in the heaven that I was looking for was that moment where perception suddenly changes. There's an old line drawing that I often I often reference, where one way you see it as an old hag. And the other way you see it as a young socialite. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Lady Grey  8:33 
Absolutely.

Daniel Levin  8:34 
And when I first saw that, I saw an old hag, and I kept looking at it and nothing changed. And then all of a sudden, something changed. And I saw the beautiful young socialite. And when I saw the young socialite, I could no longer see the old hag, the importance of that drawing to me goes beyond anything I ever realized. Because what happens is, it showed me that what we see actually blocks us from seeing everything else that's there. And until we're able to perceptually shift what we see, we only see what we see. And we think what we see is reality. But what we see as as far away from reality, as reality is from what we see, what we see is simply what we see. It may be real, it may not be real. And one of the underlying themes of the mosaic the book I wrote is nothing is as it seems. And if you just take those few words, and you sit with them a little bit, if you have courage to do that, what happens is when we start to see that nothing is as it seems, what is it then, if it isn't what it sees what's behind what we believe, and in my book, the mosaic when I realized that, from sitting with numerous people, common ordinary people that I met, and wondered why I was meeting these people, and I saw they were different, every single one of them. The longer I sat with them, the more I got to know them were completely different than the person I sat down with. I looked over to my right and I saw a monkey zipping the sky. And he invited me into a parallel reality, where I met the wise one who was the keeper of the mosaic. And he was arranging all the pieces of the mosaic for all the people that were parts of the Mosaic, bringing them exactly the situations they need, putting the things that they wanted one connection piece away from them. So the pieces that surround us, either prevent us and become a wall that doesn't let anybody in and doesn't let us out. Or they become doorways to go into new realities where the rest of the mosaic becomes available to us in a moment, things do not have to take a long time. They have to take simply a change of perception.

Lady Grey  10:38 
One of the key messages of your book, at least from my perspective, I think everybody has a different takeaway, depending on their own life, but I feel like it was that we ultimately must go within. Yeah, and I'm a big fan of Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, whose book, interior castle also has a similar message of finding unity, finding enlightenment, all of that at the center of who you are. I'm curious, because of my own journey, how you came to maybe realize that clarity or enlightenment, however you want to phrase it heaven was inside that concept of go within, and not something external to find. Yeah,

Daniel Levin  11:25 
well, I looked for it outside too. But again, the death of my parents changed my life. I was a little kid while all my friends were out playing sports and chasing girls, which I did also, by the way, I had a question underneath it, of why in the world with the people that I love the most be taken from me for no reason. How does that happen? And so it started me asking questions where other people were just happy go lucky living their life, I started to ask questions. I said, What is this? Why am I here? What happened? Why would my dad who was my hero be taken from me for no apparent reason he died making love to my mom and my mom died of heartbreak, because the barrier of death, couldn't separate them. She felt them as much as she felt them alive. And she just wanted to be with them. And so two years later, the exact day the exact time, she willed her death and died of a cancer that nobody had even told her was cancer. Because in those days, it was 50. Some years ago, cancer was a death sentence, we thought so the adults told us we can't even tell her she has cancer, because she'll she'll just die. But she figured it out you. She didn't care whether it was a death sentence or not, she was ready to be with her husband.

And so that filter that came over me at that point was there must be something more than what we're seeing outside here. And so my search was for everything. I went into business and searched if it was in business, I went into psychology and searched if it was in psychology, I went into people and went to see if it was in the relationships with people. I went into the seminary and wanted to see if it was there. I went into a monastery and wanted to see if it was there. Right. I looked everywhere for it. But it was it was in all of those places, and none of those places,

Lady Grey  13:07 
the four corners of the earth.

Daniel Levin  13:10 
Exactly. And truth be told, what I realized only five years ago, is if had I changed my perception, I would have seen it in every one of those places. But I didn't have that change of perception. So I didn't see it anywhere. And so I kept searching and searching and searching for it. And the only place that I felt my peace was in the process of meditation. So for the last 45 years, I've meditated every single day. And sometimes that was for 18 hours a day. Sometimes it was for 10 seconds. But I haven't missed a day. Every day I make contact to the touch point inside of me that place like the first part of listening. We can listen to other people without listening to ourselves. But why steal ourselves the pleasure of healing that soft, gentle voice that is our own inner voice. Most of us spend so much time filling ourselves up with noise that we don't give that voice a chance to be heard. And when you give that voice a chance to be heard amazing things happen.

Because you mentioned St. Teresa of Avila, can I tell you a little story of her, please. You might know this story. At a certain point she was going through a lot of suffering and she prayed and lo and behold Jesus came there. And he said what what's so important St. Teresa, what do you want to know? And she said, I want to know why you make people suffer like this. Like I love you. I've given my whole life to you. Why do you cause me so much suffering? And he said, Teresa, I do that to all my close friends. And she without missing a beat said No wonder you have so few my lord

Lady Grey  14:36 
fully in character, absolutely. 100%. She's so fascinatingly self deprecating when she writes and, and always

Daniel Levin  14:48 
she's a good Catholic after all, so you know, well, you know, and a probably a Jew too.

Lady Grey  14:51 
Her work has definitely inspired me in many ways. different phases of my life, I keep coming back to her book. And now I'm excited to add the mosaic to that very small pile. So kind of

Daniel Levin  15:09 
even be in the same lifetime. Have a mention with St. Teresa of Avila. But to have the name of my book mentioned in the same sentence, you have no idea how much honor and humility I feel to that. And I thank you so much for that,

Lady Grey  15:23 
like interior castle, I feel like there are parts of the book where you're definitely going to see yourself reflected back on the page and things will resonate. And probably at different points in your life, different sections of this work will also speak to you. So this is not a book review, really. But I do have so many things that are just friends of mine, because I've just finished reading this book, please do use the phrase, the unbearable disappointment of duality. Yes. And I feel like there's a lot for me to kind of unpack there. I know you've mentioned a call to adventure. And having a mystic perspective, I'll call it those concepts seem to kind of fight one another one being sort of wild and free, and the other sort of contemplative and disciplined. And so I really would love to hear what you think the word adventure means.

Daniel Levin  16:16 
So I don't think they're complement contradictory at all those two experiences, because the greatest adventure we could ever take is the one that goes inside. The Adventure of actually getting to know ourselves the adventure of sitting through the courageous battles that we have to ensue to actually allow ourselves to change the perspective of how we view this being that's called Danny Levin. For me what happened is, when Moe walked through the sky with the with the monk and met the keeper of the Mosaic, the Wise One, the Wise One gave him a tap on the forehead, and he wanted him to experience what the real of life was more no longer knew which body he was in, or which persona he was occupying, or what time he was at or what space he was at. He was one with everything. He was completely absorbed in the unity of all things. They he woke up moments later on a street corner next to a street artist who was putting together pieces of mosaic. And the street artists asked Moe, when you come here and you see all this, what do you see, oftentimes, people only see broken pieces, and no not having the courage to know what to say or not what or what not to say, said to him, I'm afraid I see blood broken pieces too. And the street artists set them really after where you've just come from, that's your answer. And we are all together. We are a completely beautiful mosaic, no pieces, just a whole artwork. But it's our brokenness that makes us see that. And when I say that about the unbearable pain, of duality, it's because when you come from that place where you are completely connected to everything in the world, where nothing is separate from you to come back into the place where there's good and bad, where there's right or wrong, where there's people that like you and people that hate you, or they're people that hurt you and people that love you. It's unbearable. It's absolutely unbearable, because you know, that's not the reality. You know, the reality is that we are all the same. We are all connected, what you inhale, I exhale the next moment. So anyway, I hope I answered your question.

Lady Grey  18:23 
Yes, absolutely. Taking that concept of connection. I think you spoke to this earlier, this idea of listening to people and loving and accepting them. But I really feel like connection is the key. What does that journey look like for people in today's society? Obviously, there's a journey of self, right? There's a self exploration and journeying inside, but how do we connect? How do we restore that?

Daniel Levin  18:53 
Most people if you were asked him what connection was without the preamble, let's say what we're having right now is connection. And it's a beautiful connection. Right? We feel close to one another. We're asking questions. We're talking openly and honestly to each other. But there are stages that have to go on before this connection can happen. The first stage is connection to self, most of the world has forgotten who they are. Most of the world has built silos around themselves walls that protect themselves from being hurt, because we've all experienced so much pain, you know, there's only so many times that I can punch myself in the face before I put up something to stop my fist from hitting my face. Right? And it isn't so much that you're gonna punch me or hate me or hurt me. It's I do it to myself. I sabotage myself so often and put myself down so often and tell myself I'm not able to do simple things that I'm able to do all the time. I live in fear so often of not getting it right are doing it wrong. I've built these walls and because I don't know if I'm going to punch myself in the face or in the gesture in the groin, or in the knees or in the feet. My silo goes from head to toe, all the way down. Yep, right? And, and the distance that the silo is from me, has to be so close that it actually stops my own assault on myself. So it's like millimeters from my body, we are people walking in silos that limit every capability we have to the space between them in the silo. So what's the way to get out of those silos, when I'm kind of myself and I promised myself, I'm not going to add myself. There's no need for me to put that wall up. So that wall comes crumbling down through kindness to self. So the first connection, his connection to self, the first practice in that connection is to practice kindness. Does that make sense?

Lady Grey
Absolutely.

Daniel Levin
Okay. Suddenly, when my walls come down, I go, Whoa, look at this place out here. I beg scott, my world grew from two centimeters to some distance. And I might look in the distance and I might go, Oh, my God, I'm so there's, there's Lady Grey, I'm scared to death of her because I don't know what she'll do to me. But there's distance there. And I also learned something else about the way this distance can work, is through kindness, I can melt some of those walls down, I'm living in a world that's much bigger than me. At first, I'm only concerned with myself. Now I have to have a connection to something bigger than myself. So some people call that God some people call that universe some people call that the environment around us. Some people call it their work, doesn't matter what you call it, suddenly, you've grown your your ability to connect from just yourself to something bigger than yourself.

And in order to connect to something bigger than yourself, we need to have vulnerability. We need to know that we're in this with somebody with something else. So many people think the world is against us, and life is against us. And we need to defend ourselves. If we defend ourselves, we're going to put up those walls again. But if we practice kindness, and we believe in in a benevolent force that's here to help us, then we become vulnerable. And we allow that force to take control of our life, or at least co create our life with us, we might not be ready to give up complete control. But we're ready to open up ourselves to say, wow, there's something here that created all this, I wonder what they want. Mm hmm. So the second connection is connection to source. And the practice of that is vulnerability.

Once we're connected to self and source, then suddenly somewhere along the line, we say, Wow, now I know who I am. Now I see I'm a part of this whole big, larger scheme. So what the heck am I doing here anyway? Like, like, what, why me? What's my purpose here? Why was I brought into this big environment? What am I supposed to do? And so the third connection that happens is connection to purpose. And all too often, we're told we've come here to be copycats of somebody else. People say, well, this, you know, follow the follow the leaders that are doing the things you want to do, and do what they're doing. And you'll have success like they have, well, yeah, maybe you'll have financial success. But guaranteed 100%, you won't find fulfillment, because you can't find fulfillment being somebody else, living the world to somebody else, because you can't be them. The only person you have a chance to be as ourselves. And throughout all of creation, if who we were was already done, God would have needed to create us. And because we're going to do what we're doing here, God will never create another one to do what we're doing. So don't you think it might be pretty important for us to get a sense of what we're doing here on this little spot in time, and the practice of connection to purpose is to do what you came here to do? Make sense so far?

Lady Grey  23:38 
I'm with you. 100%. Yeah,

Daniel Levin  23:42 
it's when people are connected to purpose, when they're kind when they're vulnerable, when they're connected to when they do what they came here to do. Those are the people that Margaret Mead was talking about when she said throughout all of time, it's been a small group of people that have that have changed the course of humanity, and civilization. If that doesn't take a lot of people, we need a small group of people. And the purpose of each person doesn't have to be the same. They just have to be committed to helping people serve their purpose at that stage. And only at that stage Can you have really deep connection with others. And that's when you build your mosaic. When you find those other pieces. They're not only like minded people, they're unlike minded people.

We live in a world where we're scared to death of unlike minds now. We're so strong in this thought that we that we found our like minded community, and we brag about it and revel in it. But our like minded community keeps us limited. Because as long as we continue to be with people who see the world, the way we see the world, we're never going to see any alternatives. Business shows us the model. innovation comes when we do something we've never done before. So I believe that innovation of the human spirit comes when we can mix with people who look at the exact same thing we look at, yet see it entirely different or see it somehow differently. And instead of standing up defending our way and saying No, you're wrong, how can you see it that way, this is the way I see it this way, and you're wrong to suddenly become so curious to say to them, I'm like, amazed, share with me the what you see, because I've looked at it all this time, and I've seen only this, I would love to see what you see that change of perspective is happen.

So the more I talk to people who see the world differently than I see it, the possibility becomes greater. That the way they see it might be just the thing I was looking for, to make what I thought was impossible suddenly possible, and how beautiful that miracle of life becomes, when we realize Together, we can make everything possible in this world, just by seeing what each other sees, just by understanding the way we all see it. And bringing it together into the mosaic. That makes us one again,

Lady Grey  25:53 
you were talking about these in order, right? These these sort of four steps and purpose. I work with a lot of clients who are trying to figure out their life purpose. But I feel like that's step three, not step one. And if they haven't done that exploration, jumping into why am I here? What's my purpose? Yeah, becomes a really difficult exercise. And one that ends up pinging between Well, is it this is it this, oh, I don't feel fulfilled, I can't quite figure out why. And ultimately, they don't get to that step four, of authentic connection, really true connection and helping other people find their purpose, because they're so stuck back at step one or two, not realizing that three is sort of irrelevant. Still,

Daniel Levin  26:43 
we're not the only ones in control of this. And when it's time for it to happen, whether we're ready for it or not, it will happen. It doesn't matter. Day doesn't ask night, if it can stay a few more minutes and, and stay day when it's time for night to happen. They just takes over. In the same way. The world doesn't really care if you're ready to see our purpose or not, it will come to us. If we can't bring it to ourselves in the time that we have. It'll come to us no matter what. So I think we feel a little too important in our search for everything. We feel like we have to change this world or become agents of change for this world. Why? Can I tell one more story? Do I have time?

Lady Grey  27:20 
 Yeah, plenty of time.

Daniel Levin  27:22 
Okay, great. All right. One of the people, that's the most important person in my life, and I try and say this in every podcast that I go on, I have a 31 year old daughter that I've never been able to have a conversation with. She's not able to speak like you and I speak she can never have this conversation. When she speaks. People don't understand what she's saying. But because I love and adore her so much, because she's so close to me. Because we're so connected somehow we find a way to understand each other sometimes. But most of the time, I don't understand her. And can you imagine living in a body where you're trying to communicate to someone and they don't understand you all the time, or most of the time, or very seldom. Eventually, what happens over time is that she gets frustrated. And she's and she wants to say it. So what she does when she speaks and she doesn't get her and she yells now she's yelling, and I don't understand what she's saying, then she'll start to throw a tantrum. And when she tantrums and I don't understand her, she'll go into attack. She wants me to understand so much that she comes running at me to rip my shirt or bite me because she's so disappointed in me that I haven't understood her. It went on for about 15 years. And sometimes that happened 234 times a day, one day.

Finally I said, Enough is enough. She came running at me in this in this rage. And I just looked her dead in the eyes. She was coming towards me and I said, Alisa, this isn't working you know it. You know I love you more than anything in the whole world. You know, I'd give anything to understand what you're saying right now. I just can't understand your words. Can you please try and talk to me in a way that doesn't use words her rampage stopped dead in her tracks. Her look of rage turned into a smile that just completely melted my hand from that place. She said for the first time in perfect English. "I am, Daddy".

And I saw and I did what you did. I but I put a few expletives deleted in there. And I said, What the heck are you talking about? How are you doing that? And she took her forefinger and she pointed it to the side of her head. And what I thought I understood from that as she was putting thoughts into my head. And so I said to her, you little son of a gun. Have you been putting thoughts in my head all this time? And she said Yes, Daddy and started the left is uncontrollable, contagious laugh that caught me in that laugh as well. And suddenly we were laughing a contagious uncontrollable laugh for 15 or 20 minutes. That's a long time the left, right. And I looked at her finally. And I said oh my god. And what I realized is I can now hear my daughter and her thoughts. Lady Grey, do you know from that moment forward, she never yelled at me again. She never tantrums and she never attacked because she had found a way be heard, I was so happy that I had a relationship with my daughter.

That could have easily been the end of the story. But I got greedy. I wonder if the way of my daughter was the way of everybody if it was the way of business relationship, family, if government medicine, our education system, our penal codes, and I started to look at every organization that I was working with, and I wanted to see, do they follow the same formula they did. When people speak and they don't get hurt, they yell, when they yell, and they don't get hurt, they create chaos, they try and disrupt the situation, to make it almost impossible to function. And when they create chaos, and they don't get hurt, they attack. All you have to do for a clear case in point is look at our political system in America right now. You will see it acting out in front of your eyes in four part harmony with for orchestration, and I realized a 31 year old developmentally delayed kid how the secret because if we were to learn how to listen, you don't have to yell or scream or tantrum or attack. You know, you've been heard being heard doesn't mean that I agree with you. I have the right to think whatever I think. But when you know, I've heard you when I know when you know, I still love and accept you, when I still acknowledge you for what you say and validate that that's what you believe. You may not agree with me, but you'll respect me, in our respect you and there have been dear friends of mine who I wouldn't be caught dead believing what they believe. And yet if they were in harm's way, I would take a bullet for him, because my love for them doesn't depend on what they believe. I love them because I love them. Diversity is what makes us better. Diversity is what allows us to see the world differently. Seeing the world differently is what makes the impossible possible. Why are we so afraid of something different?

Lady Grey  31:40 
I feel like that was a mic drop moment. I'm just gonna pause.

Daniel Levin  31:50 
What's happening right now actually, I would love to know what you're feeling right now.

Lady Grey  31:53 
I'm just joyful that your daughter is in your life and that you're in hers. And that that was the connection for you. Because I i understand not in the same way. But I understand the difficulty, the heartache, the path to getting to connection and understanding and still feeling just unbelievable love. But that makes it all that much more frustrating on that path.

Daniel Levin  32:21 
1,000%. And believe me, I've seen the other side of it. And I don't want to pollyannish it by saying there's been that this has been so beautiful. But in those situations where the frustrations of just not being able to be heard, they showed me whether a person's developmentally delayed or not the same things exists when people don't get heard. They end up blowing up buildings or shooting people in a Time Square, or taking sides and fighting each other or standing in opposition to their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers who ideologically believe differently than them politically. What are we crazy what's happened to us? Like, let's just listen to each other. And it's part of why I want to create a revolution of listening.

Do I have time to tell you one more story?

Lady Grey
Sure.

Daniel Levin
One of the people that changed me the most one of the people who redefined my purpose in my life was a homeless man on the streets of San Diego. Somehow I felt drawn to just call up and talk them. And when I came to him, he said no, no, no, this is not this is not okay. This is my cornered, please go away. You can't sit here. This is my corner. I don't have anything in life except this corner, please leave me alone. And I said, I'm sorry, my friend. I don't I want no harm for you. I want nothing from you. I just want to know about you. I want you to tell me who you are. He said I don't want to tell you who I am. I have nothing I need to make money here. If I'm here talking to you, people won't give me money. I said, Well, how much money will you make in the next half an hour. He said I make $5 half an hour $10 an hour. And I need to make that every hour. I sit out here 17 hours a day and I need to take care of other homeless people who don't have we don't have the courage to do what I do. I said, Okay, I took the $50 bill out of my wallet, I gave it to him. And I said, Well, this at least get me half an hour. He said you're strange. And then he said, What's so doggone important to you that you want to give me $50 for half an hour of my time. I said nothing. I just want to get to know you, my friend.

And we talked for a little bit. But finally I looked at him and I said, Cory, you sit on this corner and watch 1000s of people a day pass you if you could congregate them in a room and say something to them. What would you say to him? What would you ask them? He said, Danny, I would like to ask them to take 10 minutes out of the course of their life and just go up to someone they don't know. And ask them how they're doing. And I said Cory out of all the things you could ask for all the things you could say, that's beautiful, but why would you want that?

He said I want you to know how ashamed and embarrassed I am to be a homeless person. I have no idea how life turned on me that I got this way but what makes me feel even worse is people when they pass me by some people are nice, don't get me wrong, they're nice. And they try and help out but so many of them treat me not even like an animal. They treat me like a thing. They'll spit at me or yell at me. People come by and they yell obscenities at me and and throw stuff at me. They come and take my money and one night I was sleeping And I was woken up by a man urinated on me. And finally, I thought, enough is enough. Like, I hate my life. I hate what I'm doing. I'm not doing anything for anybody else. The street behind this is a dark street. Nobody goes on it because everybody travels the road this way. So I decided that evening, when it got dark, I was going to go to the street, and I was going to take my life. And I was going to kill myself that night, not two minutes after I had that thought, a man in a three piece suit came up and put his hand on my shoulder and said, how you doing brother? He just sat down next to me. And he said, Tell me what's going on. And I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the fact that he was in a three piece suit by clothes were torn and shattered and dirty. But I looked at him and I just started crying on his shoulder. He said, it's okay that your tears come out, tell me what's going on. He said, Danny, you know what, in 10 minutes, I felt better. And I said to myself, I can't kill myself tonight. He didn't try and fix me. He didn't try and change me. He didn't try and convert me. He didn't try and tell me what to do. He didn't try and feed me he didn't try and give me a job. He just listened to me. And that's why it's important for me that if people would just take 10 minutes out of the course of their life, to listen to someone they don't know, you have no idea what would happen.

You know, there's something called the butterfly effect, where some butterfly flaps his wings in a little place. And somehow miles and miles away continents away, even the wind blows and something happens. Well, that story touched me so much. But I'd like to ask the people listening today, can you take 10 minutes out of the course of your lifetime? AYnd go up to someone you don't know. And just spend time with them? asking them how they're doing and care enough about them to listen to their response. Just listen, don't fix them. Don't change them. Don't try and help them. Just listen to him. Who knows? It may feel so good to do that. You might do it to the person who makes your coffee and you might do it to the person that drives you to work. Who knows what would happen if we took 10 minutes out of the course of our lifetime? Can you do that? Try it.

Lady Grey  36:54 
Danny, that's a beautiful story, and really poignant advice. Normally I do a little segment of the show where I ask my guests to give their outrageous advice, but I feel like you just gave it. Oh, that was it. That was the moment. Unless there's anything else you really feel like you need to tell people?

Daniel Levin  37:14 
No, I think I've overstayed my welcome. I'm watching the clock.

Lady Grey  37:16 
You're quite alright, you're quite alright. So in the name of connection? How can people who are not familiar with you and would like to follow you or find you online? Where can they hunt you down?

Daniel Levin  37:31 
The easiest place to do it. And I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes is my website, www.DanielBruceLevin.com. To get my book, the easiest place to get it is on Amazon. But if you go to www.DanielBruceLevin.com, there'll be a link to that. all of my social media, there'll be links to that. So there's really just one place to go

Of the people that are listening, if you feel alone, or you feel not listened to if you haven't felt heard for some time, if you feel that you're easy to get into rage, or if you are if you scream or yell or tantrum or want to attack because no one's there for you. And if you're somebody who wants to learn how to listen, reach out also, we'll find a way to train to work to do it together. You just have to focus and change the perspective of what you're doing. So that what's important to you is not fixing people, but just holding people. If you look at a mosaic, there's no piece that's bigger than all the pieces are doing is holding each other, embracing each other surrounding each other. If artwork can do it, certainly human beings can do it.

Lady Grey 38:28 
Amen to that.

Well, Danny, thank you so so much. It has been such a huge honor to sit and talk about connection and listening and all of the the beautiful concepts that the mosaic holds. You are always welcome back on this show. So just say the word.

Daniel Levin  38:48 
Thank you so much. It's so kind of thank you for holding the space for me to be able to share my message. So clearly,

Lady Grey  38:55 
it was my pleasure. Thank you for joining us. And thanks for teaching us to live a little more outrageously.

Well, outrageous friends. It has been my honor and my pleasure to have you here today. I hope that you took away some outrageous ideas for your own life.

If you enjoyed yourself, make sure that you're subscribed to Live Outrageously with Lady Grey on whatever your podcast app is. You can also connect with me personally on facebook facebook.com/outrageousladygrey , or on Instagram at @lady.grey. Also, be sure to check out the website at www.liveoutrageously.com for additional content and more information about our guests. 

Once again, this is Lady Grey, encouraging you to go out and live outrageously.