Daniel Gefen is the founder of Gefen Media Group and host of the top rated podcast show ‘Can I Pick Your Brain?’ where he has picked the brains of over 100 thought leaders, billionaires and celebrities. He was named the top 25 most influential influencers of 2017 and has been featured in Forbes, Inc and Influencive. Most recently he is the author of the transformational book called "The Self Help Addict - Turn an Overdose of Information Into a Life of Transformation."
Contact Info
Website: www.DanielGefen.com
Book: The Self Help Addict by Daniel Gefen
Podcast: Can I Pick Your Brain?
What is Spirituality to You?
I’m going to start by saying that the minute you say spirituality to me, it doesn’t mean anything.
I’m an orthodox Jew, I’m a practicing orthodox Jew and yet the word spirituality doesn’t mean anything to me because for me, it’s just another word people throw around. You have words like entrepreneur and influencer and all these different words people throw around. Spirituality is one of them. For me, it’s tough. How do you define something that’s undefinable?
I’ll give you an example. How do you define love? How do you explain it to someone who’s never felt love before? If you’ve loved anyone before, it’s easy to explain it.
If you’ve never felt love before, where do you begin to tell what love feels like? If you have not experience a spiritual moment or you haven’t experienced spirituality in your life, then I cannot describe spirituality to you because it’s an experience. It is out of the realm of comparison.
What belief led you to write ‘The Self Help Addict’?
That belief evolved over time. I had to rewrite a lot of things along the way. I would read something I wrote a couple of years ago and I’d say; holy crap, you wrote like that? That’s so wrong. Then I’d edit it out.
About a month before I went to publish, I almost scrapped the whole book. I almost had to rewrite the entire book.
I had an awakening where I realized that everything I’m writing about in this book is all about how to go from being a consumer to a creator. It’s all about how to go from this self-help cycle of constantly taking in more and more information and actually going and doing something with it. It’s actually taking that energy and creating something out of it. Taking all the inspiration and putting it into action; making it real.
What is the Missing Piece of the Puzzle?
You are at the proverbial bottom of the mountain. You keep looking up and you keep saying, ‘wow, it’s so amazing’. But I’m just too scared to go up there. I’m afraid of what people will think of me if I try to climb that mountain. I’m going to make a fool of myself.
You see some people up there already. You have the Oprah Winfrey’s and Tony Robbins and all these amazing people up there and you’re looking up at them like they’re idols.
You’re saying, ‘wow, wouldn’t it be great to stand on top?’ But I can’t do that because I’m not like that. Imagine I came along and I held you hand and I said, Bruce, let’s climb that mountain. I’m going to help you to climb up.
And we start climbing. You actually start taking action and you start climbing and you go higher and higher and higher and you get to the top, so to speak. You get to that point where you’ve been dreaming so much to get to, whether it’s that you’ve become a millionaire. You’ve got your wife and children and you’ve got your nice big house. You’re living the American dream. It’s your mountain.
When you get to the top, you suddenly feel very depressed because you’ve achieved it all and yet you still feel that emptiness inside. That’s worse than when you were at the bottom of the mountain. Why? Because when you were at the bottom of the mountain, at least you had hope.
People who don’t take much action at least they have in the back of their minds that, if I ever do accomplish ‘X’, I’ll be happy. So at least they have that to live for.
The people who make it to the top, the celebrities, the athletes, the movie celebrities; w