The Secret to Living Life With Zero Limits – An Interview with Dr. Joe Vitale

What if discovering your life’s true purpose wasn’t just about achieving success, but about awakening the divine within you?

Joe Vitale is one of those people who seems to do it all—and does it with passion. He’s written over 90 books (yes, you read that right), starred in The Secret, and even became the world’s first self-help singer-songwriter at 60. His mission? To inspire people in every way possible, whether through writing, music, or standing on a stage in front of thousands. But his story didn’t start all shiny and perfect. Joe’s journey took him from homelessness and self-doubt to becoming a global thought leader who’s changing lives every day.

In this episode, Joe gets real about what it means to find your purpose and let it evolve over time. From discovering his divine assignment as a teenager to embracing gratitude as the ultimate key to awakening, Joe drops wisdom you didn’t know you needed. He’s here to remind you that the inside creates the outside and that your thoughts and energy are shaping your reality—whether you realize it or not. Trust us, you’ll want to stick around for this one. To enjoy the conversation, keep reading or listen and subscribe for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

What is your divine assignment on earth, and has it changed over the course of your life?

Joe Vitale: I think the first thing to say is I believe everybody has a divine assignment. It’s different for everybody. So when I’m answering about myself, I want people to reflect and go, I wonder what mine is, because if they don’t know, they could find out.

I decided early on that my assignment was to be an author, and I was to write things that would awaken people, that would help them be happier. And I decided that as a teenager, mostly because I was so much in love with books, and I looked around and I saw unhappy people. Now, of course, at that time, I didn’t know it was really me that was unhappy, but I thought, I’m going to be the guy, the missionary, the evangelist, and I’m going to awaken the world. I’m going to do it through my writing. And so that became the primary mission: be an author. I was no overnight success—went through homelessness, went through poverty, but kept plugging away and finally, of course, got published, and I have 90-some books out now.

But the life mission got tweaked a little bit because I thought it was for me just to be a writer and to inspire people through my writing. But then I got invited to be in things like the movie The Secret, and then on stages around the world as a speaker. And, believe me, I was immature, insecure, shy, traumatized by being in front of more than two people. And when I got on stages and did the movies and thought, Oh, I can actually inspire people here, then I thought, Oh, it’s not just writing.

I think the mission is inspiration, and however that takes form, because I also became a musician 12 years ago, when I turned 60 years old. It was on my bucket list, and I started calling myself the world’s first self-help singer-songwriter, but I was writing inspirational music.

So again, I think the life mission has always been to inspire people. But how it changed was, in the beginning, I thought it was just through books. Over time, I found out it’s through music, it’s through movies, it’s through speaking engagements, and probably other things that I haven’t even discovered yet. But inspiration, that’s the prime directive for me.

How did your journey into consciousness, mindfulness, and spirituality begin? Was faith or religion part of your upbringing, or did it unfold differently?

Joe Vitale: There was the Sunday go-to-Catholic-mass kind of a thing in the home. You’re talking about the 1950s and 1960s, and as a kid who didn’t have too much choice, I just got in line and went to mass like everybody else.

But I will say I was searching. I was reading metaphysical books before I knew what the word was. I was reading the philosophy, psychology, pop psychology. All of that probably in the late 60s, early 70s, probably as a teenager. So a part of me was on a quest to find out. There’s got to be more than what I’m seeing here, and there’s got to be a level of happiness that I’m not finding here.

I went on that spiritual quest. Because of that, I learned meditation, I learned hypnosis, I learned a variety of different ways to do awakening, and awakening became a buzzword, especially during the 70s and early 80s. We had all kinds of human growth movements that were going on, and I was reading about them, and when I could, I would participate.

I was self-exploring and on my own stumbling timeline. Along the way, there were books that gave me clues. The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol was probably the most impactful back then because it taught me that if I could believe it with integrity, I could actually manifest it. I can actually experience it.

There were things like that. And Robert Collier, who I later discovered was a copywriter and would influence me again, was a metaphysical writer of books like The Secret of the Ages and Prayer Works and a lot of little pamphlets, and all of that was taking me inside myself to kind of tap at those inner doors. So slowly I would have—I don’t know that they were awakenings, but they were like mini-satoris where the blinds go up for a second and you get to see, Oh, there’s spirituality here. Oh, there’s something behind the illusion of life itself. There’s something that is spiritual inside the physical.

So, I started getting those clues along the way, and a whole lot of it came from the public library borrowing those books. Thank goodness for those and my own willingness to dive in where I didn’t know where I was going to discover what I would discover.

Can you share one or two breakthrough moments or life experiences that truly woke you up?

Joe Vitale: Yes, there have been numerous ones, and I actually believe we’re all here to awaken. I think all of us are here to awaken. We’re to awaken to our inner divinity and then express our inner divinity through our actions in the material world, in 3D reality.

Along the way, I’ve had these little mini Satoris, these mini awakenings, and a couple of them were jarring than others. There was one in particular where, I don’t know how to describe it, my meditation is kind of a state of reverie, where I’m just kind of going with the flow in the moment. Gratitude is usually the door I walk through. 

In the moment, I’m getting relaxed, I’m going through this experience of gratitude, what I’m grateful for in the moment, including the unseen things in life that we take for granted, like oxygen and gravity and things that are helping us go. And I remember this moment where I was going through that and in the state of reverie, and…how do I describe…the conscious mind almost quit looking and talking so that there was this cosmic energy field that I was suddenly part of. I was part of it enough to be aware of it.

There was some level of consciousness. I didn’t disappear in it, but I was watching it. And this was a turning point because I discovered the witness, and I teach people the witness meditation. I’ve written about the witness in various books, recent books and so forth. Because this was a turning point in my spiritual awakening in my own life.

The witness, just to walk people through it so we’re all on the same page, is to realize we’re having thinking, we’re having thoughts, but we’re not our thoughts. We can be a witness to our thoughts.

Clue number one, we are in a body, but we are in body like an astronaut suit that we’ve put on and we’re looking through our helmet, our head here, and we can report on it. And so we’re a witness to our body. We’re not our body, we’re not our thoughts. We can be a witness to both.

Then we got our emotions. We can be sad, we can be happy, we can be grieving, we can go through all kinds of emotions, but we also know we can kind of report on them, which means we may not be them.

Now, I’m a witness to my thoughts, I’m a witness to my emotions, I’m a witness to my body. The awakening for me is to realize the witness is actually the divine, it’s the divine in me. And to go a step further with this moment of awakening in my own life, when I’m going through the state of reverie, gratitude, becoming a witness to everything here is to realize that witness is the same one in you, that witness is the same one in everybody I meet and talk to and greet. And when we realize that that witness in me is the same witness in you, we start to merge into the awakening of divinity on earth.

That was one of the biggest for me is just to step into that witness awakening and realize I’m the divine, and I don’t mean it in an ego sense. We’ve got to step away from that. I am the divine in this 3D reality.

What was happening in your life professionally and personally when you were asked to participate in The Secret? Did you expect it to become such a big cultural phenomenon and impact your life?

Joe Vitale:  It’s a fun question because way back that’s around 2005 or so I am as busy as can be professionally. Everybody and his brother wants me. I’m an internet marketer. I come out with a course on The Power of Outrageous Marketing. I have written books about how to market on the internet, like Cyber Writing. I wrote a book for the AMA, the American Management Association, on how to do marketing and people were writing to me. They were hiring me. They wanted me to write their copy, their websites. I had written a book called Hypnotic Writing. They wanted me to write their sales letters. I mean the line just backed up. It was so ironic because I had been homeless a short time before it and in poverty a short time before it, and then all of a sudden, I’m this internet superstar and being considered to be the guru to go see on the Internet. That’s professionally.

Personally, I’m exploring myself. I’m very much into spirituality, but I’m afraid to tell the world about it because I think if I step out of the closet they’re going to shun me as an internet marketer and consider me to be a weirdo. But I was still there personally, and I even wrote a book called Spiritual Marketing which was letting people know I’m kind of a spiritual marketing guy. You know I’m blending both of them.

Well, it was because of that very book Spiritual Marketing that was later published and retitled The Attractor Factor. Rhonda Byrne, the producer of the movie The Secret, read that book. She called me up, said she was going to make a movie, and she wanted me in it. I almost said no. I was so busy as an internet marketer and so many people wanted me. I was like I can’t carve away any time to go on a movie. What is this going to be? I didn’t know that the movie would be anything and I didn’t know her at all. She was calling from Australia.

But first of all, one of the secrets to success in life is to say “yes.” Even when you’re scared, even when you don’t have any experience, even when there’s no guarantees, even when you don’t know what’s happening, you say “yes” and you figure it out along the way.

So I said “yes.” The second thing is she sent me the trailer for the movie, which had not been finished. The trailer was just her 5-minute whipped-up idea of what she wanted to do. Oh, it was so compelling. It was dramatic. It was engaging. It was unforgettable. I saw that trailer and I thought, if that movie’s going to be anything like the trailer, it’s going to get the world stand on its hind legs and bark. And so, I told her yeah, I’ll be in the movie, let’s make time, let’s make it happen. So, a whole lot of things were going on, but I did say yes and obviously I ended up in the movie.

What doors have opened for you because of your participation in The Secret?

Joe Vitale: All of them. I mean I thought I was doing pretty good by being an internet marketer and being one of the first hypnotic copywriters in the world. But The Secret comes out and the whole world wants me and all at once. I went on Larry King when he had his famous talk show, twice, twice!! It was unbelievable. Oprah did three episodes on The Secret which were virtually like infomercials for the movie. I mean, you couldn’t ask for much better marketing footage than to have Oprah do it, and she had run footage of me from the movie on her show. Speaking engagements from all over the world where I was doing a little bit of speaking, mostly about marketing.

Now they wanted me to speak about The Secret, The Law of Attraction, spirituality, awakening, and they’re from countries I never heard of. I got to go to places all over the world and as I mentioned, I was already a reluctant speaker. And so I would tell these speaking people, as they were offering me these gigs, I just kept raising my rates, and they just kept saying, okay, we’ll pay it. And then, of course, more movies. I think there’s like 30 movies I may be in now as a direct result of being in The Secret.

Everybody thought they could make a movie after The Secret came out. Everybody with a camera and a credit card all filed. Let’s go get people. Let’s get Joe and let’s get the rest of them. And of course, none of them have done as well. Some have done very well, but none of them have done as well as The Secret.

I can go on. The book deals kept coming. There was one year around 2008 where I was the book of the month guy, because the publisher was releasing a new book by me virtually every month because of the demand for it. And all of this demand came from The Secret. It came from me being fortunate enough to be invited and smart enough to say yes. So all the doors opened.

What do you think was unique or different about The Secret that caught fire in our culture?

Joe Vitale: I’ve been asked that, including by Larry King, when I was on his show the first or second time, I don’t remember which, and he asked me to explain it. And you know, I don’t think I can. I can look at it from the marketing side of it and say, well, Rhonda had 26 experts, and they all had followings. I had a following. Jack Canfield, Bob Proctor, John Assaraf, we all had mailing lists. 

We obviously went to our list and said, hey, I’m in a movie. That’s a lot of marketing from the movie right there. But I don’t think that’s enough to explain why this thing is still talked about now, 20 years later, and I still get recognized walking down the street 20 years later and I’m completely older and different and physically changed and hair and everything is different. They still recognize me.

I actually believe it’s more of the divine working through all of us. I think this is part of the planetary awakening. I think the timing was right for a movie to come out to tell the masses about the law of attraction and the power of their mind and positive thinking and positive action. All of that, as you and I know, have been out there in the world for centuries and very popular in the 1800s and early 1900s, but it was in book form. The masses don’t tend to read books, but they do sit in front of their TV and they do play with their computer.

When something that was approachable and hopeful, like The Secret, shows up and all you have to do is play, click on your remote and there it is playing, I think a lot of forces came into being, but most of it because of a divine hand that wanted us to awaken.

At the time, I was a pastor, and The Secret was off-limits in that Christian culture. It was often seen as “new-age” or even “of the devil.” But what I found fascinating was how much people gravitated toward it. I think it spoke to a deep longing—both for abundance in life and for a genuine connection to the divine.

The Secret resonated because it addressed that longing in people’s hearts, offering something not confined by man-made structures or rules requiring you to jump through hoops to access it. It felt like an open invitation to generosity and abundance—a beautiful expression of what truly is.

Joe Vitale: Let me say a couple things about that. I love your explanation and that’s part of why the whole movie worked, but you talked about the Christian part of it.

Now I’ve heard probably every criticism and skepticism about The Secret since it came out. I’ve heard them firsthand from people and I’ve been in Russia and confronted by die-hard atheists and skeptics and critics and I mean all over the world, not just there.

The first thing I want people to realize is the law of attraction is what the movie is about, and all it is is an introduction to an idea. It’s not the course, it’s not the be all and end all. It’s just saying, hey, here’s a way to use your mind and you can get results.

That law of attraction is a gift from God, and so the people that were saying this is of the devil and so forth, it’s like you were given the ability to use this. You can use it to think it’s of darkness, or you can use it to think of it as from light, and you can use it to benefit yourself, your family, your friends, your community, blah, blah, blah.

I try to point out to people that we’re pointing out a gift that you already have and you’ve been using when you worry. You’re actually using the law of attraction. You’re just focused on something you don’t want and not smart enough or alert enough because you haven’t been told that you’re actually going to attract more of it.

I also tell people forget all the metaphysics around The Secret. This is basic psychology. Basic psychology is the human mind. It’s like when you buy a new car and suddenly it looks like the same new car you just bought is all over the city. Your mind is now looking for it because you made it aware of it and you have an emotional attachment to it. So all the movie The Secret is doing is making you aware of a psychological principle and it happens to also be a metaphysical principle that you already have in your heart. It’s already in your brain and it’s enabling you to use it. So I will forever be grateful for the movie and very fortunate to have been in it, always telling Rhonda thank you.

The other thing I would say is that, besides teaching people how to use their mind here, this is actually something that people forget.

The other criticism I get about The Secret is that it doesn’t talk about taking action. I’m in the movie saying you have to take action. I actually say it’s your job. This is another example of how we self-sabotage and self-delusion. We actually fog out. If we don’t want to take action, we fog out. Or go to the bathroom or go get popcorn, during Dr. Joe’s session when he says take action. So you can come back and say, oh, they didn’t say take action. All I have to do is sit in a chair and visualize and the car, the romance or whatever it is that I want will show up.

The third thing that I hear that is often a criticism is that the movie is focused on the material, and I love that it’s focused on the material because so many people are struggling. I know what it’s like. I mentioned homelessness, I mentioned poverty. It’s like teach me how to manifest, teach me how to feed myself, teach me how to bring money in, attract money. It’s a good thing and if we’re going to survive in 3D reality, it’s part of what you need in order to do business in the world. So I defend the movie The Secret and a lot of the people who poke at it are actually just keeping themselves victims and finding ways to rationalize their victimness.

With such a large following, how do you handle criticism, both emotionally and practically?

Joe Vitale: When the movie The Secret came out, some of my dearest, longest friends turned on me and it was the most baffling, hurtful, grieving experience. Because here I am, being acknowledged and being promoted and being publicized and you would think, people that are the closest to you, who you thought were rooting for you all along, they are turning against you. I mean, some of them became arch enemies. 

Some of them did their best to counter the positive by putting out all the negative that they could, some of which or most of which they just made up, because there’s so much of the negativity that goes out there, especially with social media today, that nothing needs to be fact-checked. As long as somebody said it, that must be true. And then it gets broadcast and keeps going.

The very first thing that happened for me was profound despair and confusion. I was like, oh my God, even now I can feel a darkness descend on me if I start to go in that direction and reflect on it.

I had a friend at the time who said success breeds contempt. Success breeds contempt and I really didn’t want to take that on. I thought, oh, that’s a limiting belief I don’t want to take that belief on, but it looked like I was living the experience of it and I started to think, well, maybe that’s true.

As time went on I was invited to do a lot of things, to be in other movies. I met A-list celebrities. I had some B-list celebrities when we had my own TV show. So, I got in the inner world in Hollywood to use that term and I started to hear about all these people who get criticism I mean harsh criticism, and some of it just like nail you to the cross kind of horrible criticism. And I was asking how are you handling this? How are you getting through this? And at first, they are bothered. I mean, we’re humans here. We have human emotion and we want to be liked, we want to be loved, we want to be applauded, and when that isn’t happening, you feel it. So, the first thing I heard was, don’t look, don’t pay any attention to it, certainly don’t go looking for it, and so you kind of abstain from seeing any of the harsh criticism.

The other thing and this might be more of an awakening kind of an insight. I hardly ever come across it anymore and I haven’t in years. I think part of it was healing the wound in me. Part of it was turning my eyes away from where it might be. I’m not looking for it. And part of it was that inner creates the outer. I made an inner peace with myself, knowing I’m living my life mission. I’m doing what the divine wants me to do. I won’t go out and believe, I’m protected and that’s how I live my life. 

So almost never. Right now I can’t even think of a time when I saw something negative. I’ve written 90 books. I’ve got 15 albums. I’m in 20 or 30 movies. I’ve got hundreds of products. I got a coaching program. There’s a lot of stuff that people can take a shot at, but I don’t think I’ve been hearing it.

You recently turned 71 and released The Science of Manifestation, sharing a scanned download online and inviting people to donate $71 to a charity of their choice. Can you share a charity you’re excited about? Also, tell us more about The Science of Manifestation and why people should watch the video.

Joe Vitale: Well, first of all, yes, I turned 71. I’m in my 70s now. I can’t believe I got here. I’m not sure how I got here, but I’m here, 71, and I’m not done.

I was in Thailand several years ago and I was surprised to hear that on their birthdays in Thailand, they don’t receive gifts. They give gifts. Now, being a Christmas baby—I’m born four days after Christmas—I always resented that people would hand me something and say, here’s your Christmas present, oh, and, by the way, it’s your birthday present. It’s like just get it over with; you just don’t want to deal with my birthday. And I resented it for 60-some years. And then a few years ago, when I’m in Thailand and I discovered this, I thought, you know what, I love that idea.

From now on, I tell people, don’t give me a thing, give it to somebody else. And then I went and found some organizations. I love Habitat for Humanity, and I was involved with Jimmy Carter on three different occasions and helped do a fundraising that I got a letter from him and a photo from him because of the fundraising we did for Habitat for Humanity. So that was one of them.

The other one, that is less known, is a company called a non-profit organization, payaway.org, and what Pay Away does is pay off layaways for people, usually parents, who put away toys and stuff at a store, thinking they’ll come back and pay it off later. They put it on layaway. But they didn’t get the money, they didn’t raise it in time for the holiday, and so they didn’t have the Christmas presents show up. The payaway.org people go and pay off those layaways and then call the folks and say, hey, come pick up your toys. I love the idea. I absolutely love the idea, and so over the last few years, I’ve been saying on my birthday, go give to payaway.org.

What I did most recently is because I had this awakening. I had this experience of a download of a new product that I ended up calling The Science of Manifestation. I thought, I’m going to give away The Science of Manifestation to anybody who gives my age—most recently $71—to Pay Away. They can give it to any organization they want—Habitat for Humanity or anything that comes to mind—but I recommended Pay Away as a suggestion from me.

What is the Science of Manifestation? What is this piece of paper that you’re sharing with us?

Joe Vitale: I actually went and made sure I have it. I don’t know that people are watching on audio or video or what, but this is the paper, and I wrote this. You can see how scribbled it is with my little doodles. It’s like a little mind map.

In 2019,I have the date on the back, when I was in Kish Island, Iran. This is another example of, because of The Secret, I’m invited to countries I didn’t think I’d ever be going to. I’m in Iran, and I’m a key speaker there. I am the speaker there at the Kish Island, Iran event.

They were very kind to me. They’re some of the most generous people in the world. They had given me everything. They knew I smoked cigars. Everything from cigars to other gifts. And I’m just in my state of reverie that I recommended and described a little earlier, where I’m relaxing. I’m letting go. I’m in this environment where I’m in a beautiful hotel, very luxurious. I’m looking out over the water—Kish Island. There’s water all around it.

So I’m just letting go. This is when the conscious mind kind of—either it doesn’t go off duty, but it kind of takes a little nap, it takes a little siesta, and it allows the subconscious to come in and very often allows the divine, sometimes called infinite intelligence, to come in. And I was ready to receive, and I received this idea about an inside-out approach to creating reality. I jotted it all down on this piece of paper, which I’ve been carrying since 2019. It’s been right here in my desk to anchor the moment.

I never got around to making a video or making a course or explaining it. Occasionally, I would mention it happened to me. But then, as my 71st birthday was approaching and I was thinking about Pay Away, and I was going to ask people to give, I thought, what can I give to encourage their giving? And I thought, oh, let me bring this to life. Let me bring this Kish Island Iranian awakening download about creating the outside from the inside, and let me give it away. And that’s what I’ve done. 

One of the things that you wrote on that paper is that the inside creates the outside. Can you explain that to us?

Joe Vitale: I think that’s the secret of the universe right there. If anybody’s looking for awakening, that’s where they need to go. You go to the inside to create the outside. I’m not even sure where to begin to explain this. Almost all of us are looking to the outside for everything. We’re looking for the outside for the results, we’re looking for the approval, we’re looking for love. We’re looking for the manifestation of things we desire. We’re looking for the burning bush. We’re looking for everything on the outside. But it all is an inside experience.

Let me just start with this top-level view of it. Anything you’re experiencing right now is inside you. If somebody is enjoying our conversation right now, they might look at our photos or the videos and go, oh, that’s cool. Look at those guys, and they’re having a great time and they’re being articulate. Where do you experience that? You only experience it inside of yourself, inside!

Let’s then talk about doing something like creating. You want to create a new business. You want to get more money coming in. You want to find the love of your life. You want to create a healing in your life. You want a new car. You want a house. You want whatever it happens to be. Where does that desire begin? It’s inside. If it occurs to you to take some sort of inspired action to move in the direction of creating your desire, where does that thought come from? It’s inside.

Then from there, we can talk about beliefs which are also inside, and we can talk about results which are going to be stemming from your beliefs, your thoughts, actions which are co-creating. They’re not just creating, they’re co-creating everything on the outside, but everything on the outside you are perceiving on the inside. Everything on the outside is beginning on the inside. 

Everything on the outside is being judged, received and accepted on the inside and accepted on the inside. To go one more step deeper in all of this, and this goes to the awakening that I was referring to earlier and talking about the witness as a kind of awakening meditation, when we go deeper within ourselves, deeper beyond our desires, our thoughts, our body, our physical, we get into that pool of consciousness, that pool of that energy field. You can create what you want from there, but that’s also inside. It all begins and ends and is experienced inside.

In your video, you mentioned your book The Attractor Factor and its five steps to attract what we want. Could you briefly walk us through them? I’m especially curious about step four, “Nevellize”—how did you come up with that term, and what does it mean? 

Joe Vitale: The Attractor Factor was the reincarnated version of the book I told you I wrote earlier, Spiritual Marketing. People didn’t like the title. I expanded the book, called it The Attractor Factor. Now, it’s a bestseller. Now, it’s what gets me into the movie The Secret. And now, out of all of my 90-some books, that’s the one people talk about and use and recommend and buy for others the most, The Attractor Factor. So, there’s five steps in it. I can go through it real quick.

The very first step is to know what you don’t want. I think that is a great place to start because most people when you say, hey, what do you want, they go, I don’t know what I want. I wish I knew what I want. So, I say, ok, start with what you don’t want. I don’t want to be broke, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be sick. All of those are you don’t wants, great!

Now, we go to step two. Turn it into what you do want. I don’t want to be broke because I want to be financially well off. I don’t want to be alone. I want to be in a relationship, a romantic partner. I don’t want to be sick. I want to be healthy. Now, you’ve got your step two, which is know what you want.

Third step is to get clear. To me, this is the missing secret in all of self-development. This is my greatest contribution, if I have any contribution to the self-help movement, because getting clear means you have to get clear of the counterintentions within your subconscious/unconscious mind. That’s referring to the idea that when you state your intention, and now you’re going to go, okay, I’m going to be healthy and wealthy, and your old voice goes, no, you’re not. You’ve never been healthy. You’re broke. You’re not lovable. You’re not likable. There’s all kinds of things that come up. Those are counter intentions and until you clear them, they can stop you or at least slow you down and prevent you from getting your intention. When you get clear of those, often unseen blocks, then you will accelerate your path to your intention. So, third step is getting clear.

Fourth step is nevelizing, and it’s another great contribution. I love Neville. Nevelizing is based on Neville Goddard’s work. He was usually just called Neville. He was a mystic in the 40s, 50s. I think he left in the early 70s, gave lots of talks. They’re all over the internet. He wrote lots of little books that he self-published at the time. They’re now being re-published and I have been following him. I even re-published his very first book that was lost back in 2005. I published it before The Secret even came out. That’s how much Neville has experienced or influenced me. My experience of him has been profound.

He talked about not just longing for something, but to actually feel as if you already have it. So, I use the phrase “feel it real” meaning when you nevelize something, it’s not saying, oh, I want to be wealthy or I intend to be happy, or any of those phrases that are good intentions. Neville says, what does it feel like to already have it? What does it feel like if you were already wealthy now? What would it feel like if you’re already healthy now? What would it feel like if you already had the love of your life now? What would it feel like if you were driving your car this morning, the one you’ve been longing for, but it’s in your driveway? What would it feel like?

In one of the books I have that he autographed, he had the phrase “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Oh, I so love it. What does it mean? Assume the feeling of your intention manifested. Assume the feeling of your goal already reality. Assume the feeling of the outcome that you’ve been longing for has already been experienced. It’s yours now, in your life. What does that feel like?

I even recorded a song called “Feel it Real” with Grammy-nominated singer Ruthie Foster, because that whole concept of nevelizing and feeling it real is so fantastic and it works metaphysically. It works psychologically because brain science says your brain doesn’t know the difference between reality and imaginary reality. So, when you nevelize what you want, your brain’s going, oh, it must be real. I better hurry up and get it into 3D reality. He already thinks, or she already thinks it’s done. So, that’s the fourth step, nevelizing.

The fifth step is often the toughest for people to at least understand: let go while taking inspired action. Letting go means you let go of your need, your addiction, or your attachment to things working out the way you like. And you take inspired action because we live in a co-creative universe. You have your part to do. It could be a little part, but you’ve got to do something here.

So, you take that action in a spirit of playfulness and a spirit of letting go. It’s a psychological, kind of a Buddhist way of just saying, go enjoy your life and do what is there for you to do, without expecting certain things to happen in a certain way. That is the rundown turbocharged five steps given in two and a half minutes or whatever it was.

You’ve written over 90 books. How have you managed to create so much content, and what’s your secret to staying so productive?

Joe Vitale: I’ll tell you what it is. The very first part of it is it doesn’t all happen at once. I’m in my 70s, so this has happened over time. In fact, my brother had sent me an old video they had found. It was on an 8-millimeter reel that was put on a DVD and then it was sent to me, and I was able to play it. And there was me, 17 years old, at my typewriter. I was in high school, typing a book or a play or an article, whatever I was doing. So I was taking action even in the beginning. I was being persistent and every day going in the direction of what I wanted to do. Over time, you start with zero books, you get to 70, and you stop and turn around and go, oh, they say, I’ve written 90. How in the world did I do that? One book at a time. You just keep going forward. So persistence is one of the biggest things, doing something every day in the direction of your dreams.

The second thing, this goes back to getting clear, getting clear of all of the objections in your own mind. When somebody asks you for a book and they’re saying, oh, I want to write a book, okay, go write it. Why aren’t they writing it? They’re listening to a part of them that is saying, I don’t know what to do, or what if it’s a bomb, or what if it’s a success. Where do I start? There’s all kinds of beliefs, limitations, the lack of education and skill in that area that may stop them from taking action. When you get clear of those negativities, you automatically take the action. The blocks are gone.

The third thing that I would say about that is I tend to follow my passion. In other words, when lightning strikes me, meaning an idea comes to me. I was in the movie The Secret saying the universe loves speed, and I wrote a book called Money Loves Speed. It’s the same idea. When lightning hits me, I know to take action now because I can ride that electric current of enthusiasm for the idea to actually complete the idea, and that’s another thing I would recommend.

Having spent much of your life writing copy and books, what’s your perspective on the introduction of artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, into the world of writing and marketing?

Joe Vitale: Pros and cons. I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s called artificial for a reason. It is not alive in any way, shape, or form and it’s not as brilliant as many people think it happens to be. I have been testing it on different things and, for example, when it comes to writing sales letters, a lot of people know they need a sales letter for their website, for their business, for their book, for their massage service, whatever. They know they need to write some sort of copy, whether it’s an email or a website. And so they rush over to ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, and say write a sales letter for my massage service to get me more clients, and it will write one and it’ll do it in seconds. It’ll be there and you’ll take it and think this is great. Thank you very much.

My view is how do you know it’s any good at all? Without a background in copywriting, which I would bring in this particular example? Without a background in copywriting, I wouldn’t know if it’s a good sales letter or a bad sales letter until you put it out there into the world, and probably if you didn’t know the sales letter was good or not. If you didn’t get good results, you probably wouldn’t even blame it on the sales letter. You’d go oh, people are holding onto their money right now because of the holidays or because of the weather change, or maybe something or other is changing out in the world. It’d be the same thing if I went to ChatGPT and said I need a contract because I am going to go into business with David here and we’re going to come out with our own movie and blah, blah, blah. It’ll come back with a contract. I have no legal experience to know if that will actually hold up in court.

One of the real examples I use is when I went to ChatGPT and I asked it to give me a bunch of references of books around the song Smile. If you remember the famous song Smile, Charlie Chaplin had written the music. 30 decades later Words were added to it. Beautiful song, unforgettable song. I even recorded the song. I loved it so much and I wanted to know more about it. So, I thought, well, let me ask artificial intelligence. And it came back with a lot of references and there was one book in particular. It was Smile by so-and-so. And I went berserk. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I went to Amazon it wasn’t listed. Then, I went to my secret review book site because I collect books. It wasn’t listed. Then, I went back to ChatGPT and I said give me more information. What was the publisher, what was the year? And they gave me more. Then, I went on another wild goose chase looking for this book. Finally, I go back to ChatGPT and I said can you tell me more about this book? You gave me the title, the author, the publisher, and they said, oh, we’re sorry, that book doesn’t actually exist. It made it up.

The good news with ChatGPT and the pro and the positive reason that I would still use it is for brainstorming, for kickstarting ideas. If there is something, for example, when I wanted to write a song for a friend of mine and I wasn’t sure how to begin and I thought, well, why am I working so hard? Let me go to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, please write this song. And it came out with a good song, not a great one, but I had enough experience, still as a beginning songwriter, to know I can use it to build on. And so, I tweaked it and refined it. So, I think we’re going to great places. We need to be aware, alert to what ChatGPT is giving us and don’t blindly accept it as gospel or pure wisdom without fact-checking.

Who are the people in this season of your life who inspire you and help expand your mind, consciousness, awakening, and heart?

Joe Vitale: Thank you so much for that question. I have chills. Throughout my life, I have had mentors that I never met. Most of them were through books and I told you earlier about reading those early books. And then in later years, when I got to meet different people, they became mentors, and I wrote a book called Unexpected Kindness about people like Bob Proctor who had helped me. But your question was specifically about now and I will tell you there are two main sources of wisdom and information and spirituality. Both of them are represented behind me.

I have a statue, a bust of Napoleon Hill. I’m currently president of the Napoleon Hill Institute and I’ve been rereading his material. A lot of his unpublished stuff is being published. I am in awe. I am in awe!! The man who wrote Think and Grow Rich by the time he got into his 80s and was writing one of his final books, Grow Rich with Peace of Mind, was becoming a much more spiritual person, and so he was covering here’s how to get the material, but he was also covering don’t forget the spiritual. So, Napoleon Hill is over my shoulder.

The other one that’s over my shoulder is Yogananda. Yogananda, who wrote an Autobiography of a Yogi which influenced Steve Jobs and so many people. I got chills right now. They’re both over my shoulders like they’re angels guiding me, and I love that. I got this balance of like Napoleon Hill’s kind of the material and Yogananda’s kind of more the spiritual. 

But you put them both together and you have something that’s more awakened. I actually wrote a book long before I got involved with Yogananda, long before I was nominated for the Napoleon Hill Institute as president, called The Awakened Millionaire. And I think the awakened millionaire is kind of the summation of both. You want the spiritual and you want the material, and they’re actually two sides of the very same coin and you want to live and breathe from that combo, that synthesis. And so for me, especially right now, Napoleon Hill and Yogananda, they are so feeding me.

Can you tell us about your Miracles Coaching program and what it entails?

Joe Vitale: I started Miracles Coaching around 2005. I already had a coaching program out at that time, but it was more marketing related. It was more based on internet marketing, me as a copywriter, hypnotic writer, and the company that was running that program. I still remember the moment. It was like this moment of awakening, because the guy turned in the hallway and asked me did you have any other ideas for other coaching programs? And I just looked and said I think the coaching program that would change the world is what I’m calling Miracles Coaching, because Miracles Coaching fulfills that missing secret that I was referring to earlier.

Miracles Coaching is designed to help you find the limiting beliefs, many of which are unknown, many of which are invisible, many of which are blocked. They are sunken in the subconscious and we live out of them. We don’t know that they’re the limiting beliefs. So, Miracles Coaching is designed to help you find and remove limiting beliefs so you can finally have, do, or be what you want.

So I started it around 2005. I trademarked it around 2015, and it’s been brought to the masses around the world. It’s a system that works. It’s been tested, it’s been tried. It is practical. But I would say the number one thing is it focuses on that getting clear. When you get clear, you can have that invention.

You have one more thing above your shoulder that I would love to hear your thoughts on. 

Joe Vitale:  Yeah, I got all kinds of things behind my back so I’m like what’s there?

And it’s a message that we all need to hear, and it says, “You are loved.”

If someone is listening today and perhaps they need to hear that message like a little bit, not just on the surface, but directly into their heart, their soul, what would you say to them?

Joe Vitale: Oh, I’m so grateful that you asked that question. You had asked me earlier about moments of awakening in my life and there was one moment that was just a couple of years ago. And in this case, I was in the hot tub. And the hot tub for anybody who knows my career, reads my books, they know I get in the hot tub almost every night and I’m talking to God and I’m giving thanks and I’m merging with the universe and I’m under the sky. For five decades, it was under the Texas sky.

Now, it’s under the California sky, but I’m looking up there and I’m available. I’m available. I’m available to receive. And I remember asking what’s the message you want me to bring to the masses, to humanity? I said, after all these books and all this time and I’m doing my best to be an obedient spiritual soldier and deliver what I’m told to deliver after I receive it, what is the message you really want everybody to get? What is the message I am to deliver?

David, it came to say “you are loved.” And let me explain that, because the “you are loved” is not from just David and it’s not just from Joe here, it’s “you are loved” from the divine. When we go back to the witness meditation, and we peel back all the layers, the layers of the thinking, we go behind it; the layers of the emotions we go behind it; the layers of the body, we go within it and we get to that watcher, that witness, that observer.

That is the divine and that has intelligence, and that is what loves us. We are loved. We are loved! I put the sign up “you are loved” hoping subliminally people would see it whenever I’m interviewed and part of them go. I don’t know why, but I feel loved and here we are focusing on it. That’s what the divine wants to say. I want to say one more thing about this. Give me one more minute.

I brought Ho’oponopono to the world through the book Zero Limits, and at zero, the fifth phrase, and most recently, Zero Limits Living. And Ho’oponopono is a profound spiritual system based on four key phrases. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.

And I learned it from Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who’s the man who co-authored the first book with me, and he was a therapist who had worked at the hospital for mentally ill criminals and helped heal all of them by doing this inside-out approach we referred to earlier. He was healing the inside of him and as he did with I love you, I’m sorry. Peace for you. Thank you.

The outer reflected his change and that’s where these mentally ill criminals were getting better and being pronounced healthy and being released. I did several events with Dr. Hew Len. I spent a lot of time with Dr. Hew Len and he would often go on walks and he went on one walk by himself and he came back and he was crying and I said what’s going on? And he said the divine. I remember. I cried just to say that he said the divine just wants you to know “you are loved.”

Joe, I know many people tell you this every day, but as the one who is the channel, the conduit of that message to so many, I mirror it back to you and say, “Joe, you are loved. You are loved by the divine, you are whole, you are complete, you are faithfully living out your divine assignment. In the midst of the twists and turns and the hiccups and the challenges and the things that you did not anticipate, the loss that you have experienced in your life. None of it, none of it even compares to the truth that is within you that you are loved by the divine, loved by the universe, loved by your partner, your family, your friends, by even the millions of people who know you. They love you, albeit imperfectly. They love you, appreciate you and thank you.”

Joe, thank you so much for your time and investment in us today. Really appreciate it.

Joe Vitale: Thank you. It’s been my joy, my pleasure, and I am honored and very grateful. Thank you for what you’re doing. You’re doing God’s work and you’re making a difference in the world. I’m pleased to be part of it, thank you.