264: How to Lead with Love and Prosper Like a Spiritual Millionaire with Preston Smiles

In this episode, Light Watkins sits down with Preston Smiles, a spiritual teacher, abundance coach, and bestselling author of Love Louder and Spiritual Millionaire. Preston shares his incredible story of transformation, starting with a challenging childhood in Compton, California. By age seven, he was placed in special education, and by age 11, he joined a gang. But a pivotal decision at 15 set him on a completely different path—one that would eventually lead to profound spiritual and personal growth.

Preston opens up about how a heart condition at age 25 forced him to take a hard look at his lifestyle and priorities. That moment became the turning point that sparked a journey of healing, self-discovery, and service. He went from surviving trauma to thriving as one of the first creators of viral spiritual content on YouTube, building a global movement to help others heal and live abundantly.

Light and Preston dive into practical lessons on facing life’s deepest wounds and turning them into sources of wisdom. They discuss how spiritual practices combined with intentional action can lead to true success. Along the way, Preston shares relatable stories of resilience, the influence of his family, and how a relationship with his wife helped him unlock new levels of abundance and purpose.

Whether you’re seeking personal growth, financial clarity, or inspiration to follow your path, this conversation is packed with insights and heart. Tune in to hear how Preston overcame the odds and learn how his tools and mindset can empower you to do the same.

Transcript

PS: “When I was 11, my dad caught me smoking weed and he sat me down and instead of giving me a whooping or punishing me, he just asked me to think about whether I wanted the life of the other people that I knew who smoke weed. And 24 hours goes by and he asked me, he says, do you want their life? And I said, no, I don't want their life. And he said, fantastic. You told me you want to be like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. So they don't smoke weed. The boys on the corner smoke weed, but here's what I know about you. And this is an important thing cause my dad said this at 11 and he came back at 15. So he said, you are a leader and you're such a leader that if everybody else is going left, but something in you says, go right. You'll go anyway. And he just poured into me in that moment and he let me go. So now 15 years old, my buddy Scott calls says, yo, let's go out, let's go drink. And something said, don't go. And then my dad's voice popped in. You're a leader. And I said, no man, I'ma chill. I'ma chill. So I hang up the phone, and within one hour of me hanging up that phone, every single friend that was in that van was shot. And my best friend was shot in the head, and he died. As you can imagine at 15 years old, I've already been through so many traumas, so much shame, so many things that I'm working through prior to that. And now we just stacked on top of it, your best friend being shot in the head and killed on a night that you said no to.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Today's guest is Preston smiles, a renowned spiritual teacher, abundance + money coach and bestselling author of Love Louder. And most recently, Spiritual Millionaire. 

Preston's journey began in Compton, California, where he was placed in special education at age seven. He joined a gang by age 11. He had a life changing moment at age 15, when he chose not to join his friends one night that ended in tragedy and that set him on a completely different path. 

And then years later, a heart condition at age 25 led him to completely transform his life, becoming one of the first creators of viral spiritual content on YouTube and building a global movement, which helps others heal and thrive.

And in our conversation, we explore how facing our deepest wounds can become our greatest source of wisdom and how true success comes from merging spiritual practice with practical action. 

Let's listen in…

[00:02:28] LW: Preston Smiles. This has been a long time coming for me, man. I started my podcast 2020 and you have been one of those people who I envisioned having on and now we're finally making it happen. And you and I are obviously friends. We know each other outside of this. And it's funny because sometimes it's your friends that take the longest time to come around and connect outside of the friendship circle. So I'm really thrilled to be having you on here and going deeper into your story.

[00:03:00] PS: Absolutely, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we go way back, man. There's so many layers to our friendship that I appreciate having this moment to just, yes to the audience and catching up and that, but it's also just. Opportunity for you and I to drop in and see where we are in consciousness, where we are in our understandings. I've shared your books and all the things that you've done over the years. It's a beautiful thing to be able to, sit in one of your spaces and share.

[00:03:31] LW: Yeah. I sent you a message the other day just because I woke up one morning, I was reflecting on the love mob days and I was actually, I had Beckwith on and I remember that one love mob event in Pan Pacific Park. I've came to several of them, but that was the one I think Beckwith came and spoke and I just, I was just there as a participant, right?

And I just was thinking how much. Went into that movement and how inspiring it was. And yeah, it was just a beautiful moment in time. And, you could have really just that could have been what you were known for. Right? 

[00:04:07] PS: Correct. 

[00:04:07] LW: To see you continue to evolve. Beyond that, it's just been incredible to witness and you're definitely one of my, inspirations in that way.

So, so anyway, I just want to thank you formally for that. I give you your flowers for that. And we're going to talk about how that came to be, but I always like to start off rewinding the tape back to the early days and you know, someone met you today, they would never imagine a million years you were from, Compton, from what we kind of project onto what that means.

[00:04:38] PS: Yep. 

[00:04:39] LW: So talk a little bit about that. Your family moved around a little bit to try to give you guys the best environment possible. Talk a little bit about the early days and what were the philosophies and ideologies that your dad and your mom used to say to you guys when you were, yep. When you were little, man,

[00:04:56] PS: of you who are unfamiliar with me and my journey yes, my name is Preston Smiles. I was actually born Preston Davis and I was born in Compton. And raised in the South Bay of Los Angeles, which included Carson Harbor City Lomita, San Pedro. I went to, I think, seven different high schools three different junior high schools, and I had a pretty colorful upbringing. 

By the time I was 11, I joined a gang, started smoking weed and just was operating from a different space than I am now. A lot different. But one of the stories I do want to share about my upbringing there's a few things to understand as to why and how I got here and why even the love mob was created, right?

Because all at some level, the same thread, which is there's this part of me that's that understands what it feels like to be a throwaway human. There's a part of me that feels like, that understands how important it is for people to feel like they belong and they are included. And that came from a deep wound.

And the wound was when I was about five years old, my mom and dad started arguing with each other about whether I was special needs or not. And I think that went on for about a year and they eventually got me tested. And at seven years old, I was placed in special education. With the mentally challenged kids.

And when I say that, I mean, I literally was in class with children with Asperger's down syndrome and different, what you would call, at that time, how I saw it this is late eighties. I saw it as I'm in class with the retarded kids. And because of that, I made up a lot of stories about myself.

One of them being that I was dumb. The overall energy in my family structure was that I was a burden. Because I was not smart like my sister. And because I had to be in these classes, and all my friends got to be in regular classes. I, one, did this thing that we do as children where we adapt to get love.

And so I adapted and how I got love was by being perfect and not having any needs. So I became an out of the way kid. A good little, nice Christian boy. And the problem with that is none of us can beat our biology. And so at some point my biology keeps moving and I have testosterone and this urge to merge and girls and all this stuff comes forward, but I'm wearing this mask, trying to be this perfect little boy for my mom and dad.

Now, fast forward

at home. I played the role, but outside I needed an outlet. So outside I was a lot, I was rough. I was aggressive. I was I would fight, I would spray paint, I would steal a lot. I, like I said, by the time I was 11, I joined a gang, started smoking weed. I, I was like moonlighting between perfect little boy, angel, basketball player at home and killer outside.

And at 13, I found out that my dad had been smoking crack cocaine because some of the boys at my school were selling it to my dad. And so there was this whole thing of making fun of me and the humiliation of your dad being a crack addict when you're at that time was so heavy that again, I just internalized everything.

Fast forward to 15 my best friend, Scott called me to go out and do these things called runouts where we go into a liquor store, take a bunch of alcohol, and then we run out before paying for it. And when I was 11, my dad caught me smoking weed and he sat me down and instead of giving me a whooping or punishing me, he just asked me to think about whether I wanted the life of the other people that I knew who smoke weed.

And 24 hours goes by and he asked me, he says, do you want their life? And I said, no, I don't want their life. And he said, fantastic. You told me you want to be like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. So they don't smoke weed. The boys on the corner smoke weed, but here's what I know about you. And this is an important thing cause my dad said this at 11 and he came back at 15. So he said, you are a leader and you're such a leader that if everybody else is going left, but something in you says, go right. You'll go anyway. And he just poured into me in that moment and he let me go. So now 15 years old, my buddy Scott calls says, yo, let's go out, let's go drink.

And something said, don't go. And then my dad's voice popped in. You're a leader. And I said, no man, I'ma chill. I'ma chill. So I hang up the phone, and within one hour of me hanging up that phone, every single friend that was in that van was shot. And my best friend was shot in the head, and he died. And as you can imagine at 15 years old, I've already been through so many traumas, so much shame, so many things that I'm working through prior to that.

And now we just stacked on top of it, your best friend being shot in the head and killed on a night that you said no to. So, I'm going to end this story in a really cool, interesting way in that one and this is not cool, but I did not cry at his funeral because by that time I didn't know how to cry.

Big boys don't cry had already been instilled in me so much that I could not reach those emotions. My dad and mom agreed, even though they were divorced, to send me away from LA. LA was too dangerous. This is the height of gang activity. So they sent me to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I got off of a plane.

There was a sign. There's no social media at this time. So I got off the plane. There's a sign with my name on it. I move in with this woman named Shirley Russell. Shirley becomes my godmom. I go to an all white high school. North Allegheny High. And I instantly, get in with the cool kid crowd.

And maybe a weekend, I'm invited to this party. And I'm in this kid Brad's BMW. And I'm in the backseat. His seat is laying all the way in my lap, basically. And we're all in the car, headed to a party. We all have 40s in our hands. So we're drinking 40s. They're smoking weed. I had already stopped smoking weed by that time.

They're smoking weed. We're drinking forties and outcast Tupac and Biggie. We're going through that and the song, this is the wheels of steel by outcast is playing and I had this moment and I don't know if you've ever had this moment where it's like, like, like all of like the whole world stops. I had this moment where I had this recognition that the kids at my other school, the kids at Carson high.

The kids at Gardena, the kids at Centennial, the kids all in LA that were in this, what we call gang bad high school. All of those kids were doing the exact same thing but these kids were doing it and going to Yale and these kids were doing it and going to jail. And it was as if I like peeked through the matrix.

It was this moment where I was like, Oh my God, this is literally the same, but the expectation is different. And then back from that point forward, I was never the same because I instantly understood that there was a game being played and the game was set up in such a way that I wasn't supposed to be winning.

And so I became pretty strategic from that point forward. I still had a lot of more traumas and things like that occur, but that was a really powerful opportunity for me, and sent me on a trajectory. 

[00:12:56] LW: So much there so, your dad, you find out your dad's on drugs. How did your relationship with him change? Did you, cause he gave you the whole speech, the Michael Jordan speech. It sounds wonderful. Then you turns out he's on drugs. Did you see him as a hypocrite or how did you process that?

[00:13:16] PS: Yes and no. I think because I, my dad was my hero at that time. I took on the role of, oh, now I'm the man at the house. 

So I internalized it and said, okay, well, he's sick. I already knew before that, that something was going on because he would lock himself in the garage and then when he would come out, he would look different and feel different.

But I didn't know that it was crack, right? I didn't know what was happening. Around that same time we had our house taken by the government. So he lost everything. We were at one point we had like seven BMWs and we were like, upper middle class. I was like a rich kid in a not rich neighborhood because I had everything.

And then one by one, all the cars start going away. And he deteriorated. His wife at the time left him, stole all of our stuff, including my basketball cards and stuff like that. And then he would just sit on the couch and I would just go to school. And one day I came back and the house was boarded up and that was it.

So yeah, I took on the role in my mind as the man in the house at that point.

[00:14:26] LW: Did you see yourself at that age becoming a father one day? And were you saying to yourself, I'm going to be different from him or I'm going to be like him in certain ways?

[00:14:36] PS: Both. I always wanted to be a dad. And I feel so grateful for today. Today I dropped my kids off and instead of just dropping them off, I play this game called Nana and Abubu, where I chase all the kids, not just mine, all the kids for like 25 minutes. before school starts. And so now all the kids try to get there early.

They want their parents to drop them off early because they know I'm going to be there playing then and a boo. And so I've literally always wanted to be a dad. And my dad was really dope in that even up till 15 years old. I remember him dropping me off at school and kissing me on the lips. And that wasn't weird to me until my friend said like, yo, did your dad just kiss you?

I'm like, yeah. Oh, that's some faggot stuff. What? Bitch, no it's not. Like, I just have a good dad. What are you talking about? And like, it didn't even occur to me that a dad kissing his son on the lips and hugging him and telling him he's proud of him and all that stuff. I thought everybody got that. But, I grew up in a neighborhood with like a hundred boys.

There was only two of us that had like, dad dads. And I was the only one who had the dad that was the basketball coach and the football coach and drive us to the Movies and to the skating rink and like so it's really a it's an interesting Nuance thing for me because in one breath and especially now i'll be 45 years old man I was the same age as him.

I can look at that now and i'm like, oh, that's crazy This dude could not beat his demons Right that monkey on his back because he didn't have community because he didn't have Self development because he wasn't taking lights meditation classes and putting himself in these spaces This dude just kept reverting back to what he knew based desire stuff But all while he was doing that he was pouring into me, which is crazy and beautiful No matter how down and out that dude got he always treated me Like I suppose because he didn't have a dad You So my dad didn't have a dad.

So his thing was like, even if I'm fucked up, I'm going to have, I'm going to be there for him. Right. And now I take the baton and I say, cool, I'm not going to be fucked up, but I'm going to take, and I'm a one up it. Right. So it's interesting.

[00:16:50] LW: Okay. So then you said you barely got into LSU, but then you and you cheated your way all the way through.

And then you became exceptional in your scholarship. So talk a little bit about that journey. Cause that's also when you adopted the name smiles, right? In

[00:17:05] PS: Correct. Right after. So, as I mentioned, I went to like, I think literally I went to five different high schools and then two extra summer schools. So, yeah. The whole way through high school, I was in special needs classes. And when you're in special needs classes, you can graduate without having to have certain things that regular kids have to have.

So I got like, in some ways a pass for being Dumb, right? And so, I didn't even apply to college at all, except for one place. And that place was where my sister and some of the neighborhood boys went, which was called Southern University, which is all black college in Louisiana. And because my sister was going there and I didn't know what else to do.

I didn't want to just end up being like a little gangbanger on the corner. I just said, I'll try that. And I got in barely. I felt like such an imposter there. And this is again, why it's super important that we do the work that we do, because no matter where you go, there you are. And so here I am in college, but I felt like, ah, they're going to find out that I'm not supposed to be here.

And I had enough insight from that moment in Brad's BMW, that this whole thing was a game. And so my job was to win the game at all costs. Yeah. And so if I'm dumb and I'm not supposed to be here, but life's a game and I need to win at all costs, then I'm just going to cheat. So I would study all the time and then I would cheat.

And that would get me like C and B grades, basically. And I had a beautiful moment with my mom my junior year of college, where she said, if you didn't, if you didn't go to college, because I know you went because of me, but if you didn't, and you were just going to follow your dreams for the rest of your life, what would you do?

And I said, oh, I would act. And she said, well, why don't you do that now, baby? And I said I don't know. we hung up the phone and I walked over to the theater department in that moment. I hung up the phone with my mom and walked straight to the theater department. I met the director, his guy named Dr.

Burger. His son was on Ally McBill. And Dr. Burger said, Oh, we have a play. We're auditioning for next week called Love Letters. You should come try out. Since you are into you, you want to be an actor, come try out for this play. Well, as a non theater major, none of that. I walked in that next week I auditioned and I got the lead role in the big school play college and all the theater nerds were mad at me.

It was like a whole thing. Cause I'm an outsider. I just walked in and scooped up the like thing. Well, that led to me. Dr. Berger said, Hey there's this thing that happens in Chicago every year where graduate schools audition people all together. So, Yale and NY all the big acting schools come to one place in Chicago and then you walk in and you audition in front of them.

He said, I want to send you there. It's like, I don't have the money. He's like, I got you. So he sends me and I get into, I think, 10 schools. Yeah. One of them being LSU and LSU offers me a full scholarship and I decided to go there and Because it was something that I cared about I decided that I was going to do it without cheating and I actually there was only Two of us that graduated with straight A's so I got a 4.

0 through graduate school three years Straight A's the entire time never missed once And I was the star, Colorado Shakespeare Festival did all the big things. I was literally a beast at acting. And that was my whole college career. Then I moved back to LA and almost died of a heart attack. And uh, here I am.

[00:20:58] LW: Before we get to the heart attack you mentioned in, in love louder, you were in a play. about Matthew Shepard or something like that. And you had this moment in the opening night. Can you share that story?

[00:21:09] PS: Yeah, that's crazy, man, that you read that and still remember it. Yes. So one of the things that, wow, that's deep that you went there. 

[00:21:19] LW: One, it ties back to the early days, the joy rides and stuff that you were having with your…

[00:21:23] PS: correct. correct. So, before Scott and that whole crew was killed, we used to go around just doing really stupid stuff. And one of the things we did one night that just felt so off for me, it was so wrong, but I did it anyway, which made me even more feel more shame was we decided to buy a bunch of eggs and throw them in the trash at gay people on Santa Monica Boulevard in L. A. And It was one of those moments where I'm in the backseat and I just, it felt wrong for me the whole time. And when it was time to throw them, I actually didn't throw mine. I like fake through it. But I was still a part of it. And now fast forward to, I'm in college and we get this script and we're going to do this show about Matthew Shepherd a boy who was Brutally murdered for being gay and we drive to Oklahoma and meet some people that were a part of it and talk to them and we come back and the director of the theater company had a friend who was just sodomized and then and killed with a shotgun.

Like a week before, and he said, I want my friend to come talk to you guys about how big this is. And as this friend was sharing, and she was crying and sharing about her friend, it hit me that I had done similar hate crimes. That I had been a part of suppressing and harming gay people. And I broke down, right?

That was there. Okay. Now fast forward to the opening night of this big show. It's packed out. There's probably 400 people in the theater. I have one of the lead star roles and the show opens and then it's time for me to walk out into this light. And I walk out and I go to deliver my first line and I see her in the crowd and I just lose it.

I started crying and then I tried to stop myself from crying which made it worse and all the other actors are Oh Shit, this is not in the script. What's happening and you could just I just got hit with a wave of emotion 

And I eventually needed to just walk off because the gravity and the weight of what I had done and the pain That those families have felt Really just hit me all in one moment.

[00:23:50] LW: was interesting to me. I obviously, when you have friends who have books, they, say, hey, Preston, can you give a blurb for my book or whatever? And you said something to me. With one of the times I asked you that you said, look, man, I don't read very fast. So you have to give me some time to get through this and you were alluding to the dyslexia, right? Which obviously makes it more difficult for you to read and yet you read this book at 21 that really changed you change your perspective.

You read the autobiography of Malcolm X, which is I can relate to that as well. In fact, I hated reading through school Until I read native son. So talk a little bit about how you, how that shaped your journey, reading that book.

[00:24:38] PS: Yeah. Man. You think back and we all have these moments that, that literally change everything for us. And I had watched the movie, Malcolm X. It had come out the Spike Lee one. 

And I was so moved by it. Something just said, you need to actually read this. And you've basically never read a book ever.

You've read theater stuff. You've read, a few things here and there, but you don't read right. Well, I took this book to a cafe in Louisiana and there were so many things in it that challenged how I. What I believed about life. There were so many things in the autobiography of Malcolm X, for instance, he, there's a section where he talks about how you didn't choose your name.

You didn't choose your religion. choose the language you speak. You didn't choose any of those things. And it hit me so hard because at the time I was a pretty devout Christian. And I remember calling my mom from the cafe after reading that and I said, Hey, mommy, can you, why are we Christians?

And she said, Oh because mama mama was. And I said, Oh, okay. Well, why was mama a Christian? And she was like, Oh, cause mama was. And I said, but why was mama a Christian? And she said, well, baby, probably slavery. And I said, got it. That's enough for me. And she said, well, what are you, what's coming up for you?

And I said, I don't want to. Take on something. That someone else took on because they feared for their life. I don't want to follow this religious dogma that was used to enslave and rape and kill and harm our people. And so at that moment I let go of my religion and just became a follower of of Jesus and not Christianity.

And it was in pretty epic process. But another piece of it was the name Preston Davis.

[00:26:46] PS: sat with him, like, well, where does Davis come from? Cause I wouldn't be Davis. My bloodline is Nigerian. I would not be Davis in Nigeria. So whose name is Davis? And again, when it came down to is a rapist, a killer, that's whose name it is.

And. I didn't want to carry the energy of that at that time. And so, that began the process of going, well, who am I then? Who do I choose to be? And what is this going to mean for not just me, but my kids and my family, and this is unborn kids, this is, I didn't have a wife at that time, but I understood that I was making a declaration that I was putting a line in the sand and it, did it help that my dad had the same exact name?

Yeah, it helped. Cause I looked at that and I went, nope, something's got to change here. I'm not going to carry the same lineage in that way. And it again, sent me off on his other trajectory where it's like every step of the way, every step of my journey is like, I was a little more aware of the social programming and conditioning that had been living in my body as an up course.

Well, of course you're Christian. Of course, your name is Preston Davis. Of course you do life like this. Of course you eat like this. Of course you walk like this. Of course you read this kind of stuff and watch this kind of stuff. And all the, of course, as I just started just one by one going but do I choose that or is this just overlaid onto who I'm supposed to be? No. 

[00:28:16] LW: And you're, it's interesting because your dad pushed back a little bit on that. He wasn't that into the whole smiles thing, but you're arriving now at this sort of inflection point. Right where you have an experience at Abercrombie and Fitch and it reminds me of I was actually around 25, 26 when I also radically changed my diet. And then that led to all these other insights, which then led to the thing that I'm, doing today. And you're now known as a spiritual guy, right? This wellness thought leader coach deeply spiritual. Just before that moment, though, what was your idea for success? Like, when you're standing out there with no shirt on welcoming people into Abercrombie and Fitch, what were you thinking the pinnacle of success would be for Preston Davis/Smiles at that time.

[00:29:05] PS: Yeah, for me, it was, the pinnacle was make it as an actor. I also, so it's interesting, right? Because most of our limitations are self imposed. And because there's so many bits of information happening, we delete, we distort, and we generalize. And I've, I know that me being in special needs classes, my sister being a straight a student and such a good person and all the things, my dad dealing with his drug stuff, my mom being extremely stressed out.

All of these things were factors in, Hey, you only have one option here. And that option is to make it and something that isn't intellectual. I did not see myself. I did not hide the identity as a person who would be considered smart. I never thought I was smart. And so for me, it's like, ah, you entertain you do this acting thing.

Cause you like it a lot. You don't overly love it, but you like it. You do. So you do that and that's your only out. Otherwise you're screwed and nobody's coming to save you. And so for me, it was about making it as an actor period to save my dad. You, if you asked me to finish the sentence, make it as an actor to save my dad, save my mom.

That's it. Because I was afraid my dad would overdose and that we couldn't afford to send him to some Malibu treatment center or X, Y and Z like none of that. So you got one option and that's to make it as fast as possible.

[00:30:33] LW: So talk about that transformation that occurred after you got that crazy news.

[00:30:38] PS: Yeah. So, one day I'm in front of Abercrombie doing my thing and my heart starts going extremely fast. Then extremely slow, then extremely fast, then extremely slow. And I'm like, I looked to one of the women I was working with and I was like, feel this. And I had her put her hand on my chest. She was like, wow, that's crazy. I know. She was like… 

[00:31:00] LW: You remember if it was the left side or the right side of your heart? Cause

they say the left side is heart problems. The right side could be something else. Okay. You don't know. Okay.

[00:31:07] PS: No, it was hard because I ended up going to a cardiologist. So long story short, she asked me, Hey, if you're going to a doctor and I'm like, nah, I don't really do doctors. Right. But it got bad enough where I was like, you know what, let me check. So I go to my doctor and the doctor immediately, she checks, same, puts a little stethoscope thing.

She's like, yo, you got to go and you got to go today. This could be bad especially given your family history. There's people who've died from heart attacks and heart disease. Like you have to go. I'm 25 years old and I'm like, wait, this feels like an emergency. I was just checking in. Like now you're making it a thing.

I go to the cardiologist, I'm sitting in the office, there's 75 year olds, 80 year olds, 65 year olds, and then me. And I'm having this moment where I'm like, I'm not supposed to be here. What you don't know, but I do mention in my new book, spiritual millionaire is that at 17, when I first got to Southern University, I was 17 years old.

I developed a skin disease where anywhere the sun touched my skin, it would turn into hives and rash and I would itch it. And that meant my entire face. There was a two years where I took no pictures. I have one single picture that somebody caught that I have in a notebook here in my house. One single picture in two years.

Because I had scabs all over my face. Just imagine my entire face like pussy scabs because wherever the sun hit, it could be right there on my finger and it would be blisters. And I had to put which I still have, I even have it here with me now. I had to put steroids on my entire body, right? And I'd wear hats and just cover up.

So that's 17, 18, my body's knocking at my door. Yo, something's off. So their thing was, we'll just give you drugs and wear hats and gloves.

[00:33:01] LW: Yeah. The doctor told you were allergic to the sun, right?

[00:33:03] PS: Correct. Right. He called it…

[00:33:05] LW: Crazy. Okay.

[00:33:06] PS: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Because no, they couldn't figure it out. Right. And this is most Americans. This is most people, the stuff they come in for. Is to me, most of us have one issue and that's unprocessed trauma and stress response in the body that hasn't completed itself.

And so I had 20 something years of unprocessed trauma living in my body. And so long story short, I go to the cardiologist, he's, he runs some tests. He sends me home with a little machine that's monitoring my heart. I come back. He says, listen, we don't really have an answer. You shouldn't be here. But as a doctor, I'm gonna give you these pills and you take them for the rest of your life and they'll regulate your heartbeat will monitor to you.

You'll come in every 5 months X, Y and Z. But as a concerned citizen, you should look into your diet and your stress levels. And that those that to those 2 questions and that moment is why I'm sitting here today because I would have been, I would have nothing would have changed. Unless it was that. If it was my liver, if it was my elbow, if it was anything else, I probably would have been the same person.

But because it was my heart, the one thing you just cannot, the heart can't turn off. Everything else can just be like, Oh, maybe it's on, maybe it's off. That thing turns off, you're done. So because it was my heart, I went cold turkey that day. I went from eating McDonald's and Burger King and Popeyes and all that stuff to literally a vegan.

That day, I went straight up, down the rabbit hole, Olivia, who you knew, and is still a friend of mine, my ex girlfriend, her mom, Jamie, rest her beautiful soul in wherever she is Jamie said, hey Preston, I know you're dyslexic, but I got this book by Jerry and Esther Hicks called Asking It Is Given, I think you should watch read it.

I was like, I'll read anything right now. And I read that book and it said, your thoughts become things. You create your own reality. Now this is 2005. 2005. Like this is not what this is. There's no Instagram. This is not popular. There's no tick tock. This is before all of that. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

My thoughts become things. And I create my own reality. What? Then somebody said, hey, have you watched this zeitgeist the movie? And I was like, what's that? They're like watch it. I watch zeitgeist now I'm going down the conspiracy hole and i'm like everywhere at this point, right at some point I realize You know, I start juicing.

Really taking care of my body. i'm surfing more I realize that I have something just for me like everybody's like yo, you just bro. You're happy Like you're lit up. You're levitating. What, like, what are you on? Just, I was still going to auditions, still doing my thing, but I was so full. I think I booked 20 commercials in a year.

I was just pumping, right? I was in ads and Target and Levi's and all the other things. I just was pumping. You could not stop me. And people started asking me for coaching before I knew what that word meant. And at some point I said, you know what, I'm going to start this thing called questions with Preston and I'm going to put it on this thing called YouTube, which is new and I'm going to help people.

And literally that became an entire career. And here I am today.

[00:36:28] LW: So let's just talk a little bit about that moment of early questions with Preston videos, because remember looking at those videos and just being impressed by the production value of them. Obviously you had somebody who was a professional shooting them and editing them. That's not free, right?

So for people who are out here listening to this, and they're thinking similar thoughts around, Hey, I have other gifts that I want to express. I want to help people, maybe I've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel or whatever. Talk a little bit about the on ramp to, I consider that to be like the on ramp to Preston smiles becoming Preston smiles. What were some of your scarcity considerations around that? Yeah. Not enough time, not enough budget, whatever.

And how did you navigate that? And what insights do you have for people listening who also wanna find their on ramp?

[00:37:21] PS: Yeah. So one of the things I teach in the bridge experience, which is a somatic based nervous system workshop that I do with my wife is something called the intention formula. And it's simply intention. The thing you want, minus reasons. You can't disown that which you've never owned.

So we start with owning what are going to be my bullshit reasons and excuses for why this can't happen. So I write my intention out, I write minus, and then I write top three excuses, reasons why I can't do that in my ego mind. And then next to each one of those reasons, not enough time, I disprove, I fact check that.

Is it true? Like a fact, like a capital T that I don't have enough time. Well, technically, if I stopped watching love is blind, and if technically, if I just got up one hour earlier and technically, if I just, well, okay, then that's not true. Perfect. That one's done. Go to the next one. Not enough money. Is it true that you have to have money in order to help and serve people?

Well, technically no, I could volunteer here and I could do this and I could do that. And technically my dad is a millionaire and I could get a loan from him and okay, bullshit. That's also a lie, right? So you go through each one and you disprove the excuse before you even start then. So that's, I, Minus R intention minus reasons, plus aligned committed action, A C A aligned committed action equals results. Now aligned committed action is the difference between running in place and running.

I could be staring at the mountain, but running in place and I'm spending a lot of energy, but nothing's actually happening, but to run up the mountain, that would mean that I would have to take a step that would move the needle, take a step that would be consequential to the thing that I desire. Most people do action, but they do stupid action.

They do running in place action. They do busy work action. And so for me, it's. Okay. What's going to get me the most leverage? What's the fastest way from point A to point B? Who has what I want? Like, what books, what podcasts, what workshops what communities would I need to put myself in?

So that, that mountain becomes ten times easier. Now, the last part is equals results. Now, it doesn't say good results, it doesn't say bad results, it's just results. We put value judgment on that. I look at LeBron James. I look at Michael Jordan. I look at, Messi. I look at, um, people like Oprah and Elon Musk, even though I don't like his politics.

There, there's a lot of people who have attempted great things and they don't always turn out well. Jordan didn't get a championship. Every run Kobe didn't win every time Jordan got six rings, but he was in the league for what? 18 years. That's six of 18. So he got results sometimes as a result, equal to championship.

And sometimes they equaled learning and growing. And I think that people in their journeys, they get so attached to the outcome that they don't understand that in an unhappy journey, we'll never produce a happy ending. Happy endings are by products side effects from enjoying the journey in the process.

so for me, Just to give you a little story. I remember when it first hit me, it was like, Oh, this is the thing I'm supposed to be doing. I met a dude who introduced me to another dude. He said, Oh yeah, I got this homie named billionaire PA who speaks at, he does this wealthy Wednesdays at his house and he gets booked to speak all over LA.

And I said, Oh, dope. Can you bring me there and introduce me? Right. So I go meet billionaire. And I basically be hit it off and I say, Hey, can I just follow you? Can I just like tag along and like support, I'll carry your bags. And if they let me open up for you at the YMCA I'll speak first. And I went all over LA speaking at junior high schools.

There's pictures of me talking to seven kids in a, Alhambra junior high school. Like I was willing to do whatever it takes. And here's the beautiful thing. I'm gonna give you one more story. On top of that, while I was in the process of doing whatever it takes I was still researching, right? Because knowledge and skillset is super important when it comes when we talk about the road to mastery. Right. I have this book that I wrote called Spiritual Millionaire. And one of the things I talk about in this book is how the road to millions one, it starts with having consciousness now, right?

I wasn't doing any of that as an apology. I was doing it as a gift. 

I was doing it as a contribution to the planet. I was not doing it because I was broken and need to be fixed. I was doing it to level myself up. So inside of that one of the first things we get to really hone in on is, do I have the proper knowledge and the proper skillset to match What I'm desiring.

And if I do not, then that's where I'm starting knowledge skill set. Right? So, okay, I'm learning by way of opening up for billionaire PA. I'm going to his house. I'm hanging out with these dudes. I understand that elevation requires separation. So I've separated from some of my best friends like Brown and Bartolo and Judah and all these dudes who are Doing their thing, but they're more in the Hollywood space and partying.

Now I find this dude, Light Watkins, and I'm paying to be a part of his meditation thing. And we're competing on meditating twice a day through Transcendental Meditation, the whole thing, right? Like you were a part of this journey. And all of you all for me were like teachers, you guys were like the dad I didn't get and the big brother I never got.

And so billionaire you and now add on to it. I've researched, you know how to become a billionaire. A really good speaker and this dude James Malincheck pops up on like a search 

and I I find out he's coming to LA to like the Hilton downtown and I don't have money. I don't have the money, but I go anyway and I say, well, I'm just going to go network in the lobby.

And so I drive myself to the Hilton with no money, no ticket. And I'm meeting people and talking and one of the last guys I meet said, man, you are awesome, Preston. I said, thank you so much. He's like, yeah, I'll see you inside. We'll sit next to each other. And I said, Oh brother no, no, no, no. I'm,

I'm not coming in. And he says, what do you mean you're not coming in? I said, Oh no, I was just coming to like, network and talk and stuff like that. And he was like, you don't have a ticket. And I'm like, no, I just, it's all good, man. And he's like, no, wait. And he goes in and he talks to the people and he gets me a scholarship and I go in.

Now here's where it gets crazy. I go in and at the very end of the thing. One of his speakers is a dude named Jonathan Sprinkles. He says, Jonathan Sprinkles teaching how to open doing openings for a speech. And we're going to do a contest. I'm going to take five people up here and whoever wins gets a free ticket to Houston, Texas for my event.

Catch it, right? So who wants to volunteer? I throw my hand up. You. Five of us go up on the stage. There's a thousand people in this crowd. Each person goes. They do their opening. I'm the last one. I get up. I rip it. Then the whole crowd has to judge who won. Of course I win. Now I'm going to Houston.

Free ticket. Now all of that happened because I was willing to push my own car. Now let me give you a side note on that. Chris Rock tells a story that when he first moved to LA, his car would break down on the 10 freeway and he would just sit there waiting and nobody would come. And then he realized nobody was going to come so he would get out of his own car and start to push it down the road.

And every single time he pushed that car down the road, other cars would pull up, jump out, And help him get to the gas station.

I was willing to push my own car. I was willing to drive to the lobby to talk, to find out I was willing to scrape what money I could to do transcendental meditation in your living room in Venice beach.

I was willing right now, all this is happening on the side of, I go to burning man and have this moment where I'm like, this is beautiful. Why can't we do this in LA? I'm going to create something called the love mob. Right? We're going to do what happens at Burning Man here. We're going to serve humanity.

We're going to love on people. Now, all of this is all happening at the exact same time, and none of it is producing money. None of it. It's all out, but today I sit on a four acre piece of property with three houses on this one. I own seven. I got a 200, 000 car out there. Another 100,000 car over there. All of this, people look at it and they go, ah, yeah, you're so lucky bitch.

I've been at this a long time. I've been in the pocket from 2005 to 2013. I made nothing. 05, 2013, nothing. Who's willing to sit for that long and make zero?

[00:46:23] LW: But going hard in the paint.

Right. But let me ask you something. Um, going back to the early days, the questions with press and days, because I just want to, I want to today. People look at you, they hear you, they watch your reels, and they may think, I'll just speak for myself. This guy is so brilliant.

The inspiration, the profound insights that just appear to be flowing through him. Like, that's also not new. That's something that you have been channeling for a long time. And I remember back watching your early YouTube videos, oftentimes you would start them by saying, This is something's coming through right now, and I said I had to record this. Is that what was actually happening? A B. are the mechanics behind creating the space within yourself to allow that to come through? Because again, I want to ask for someone listening to this who may think, Look at you and think that you're some alien or you have some special talent or gift. How can they tap into that source of wisdom so that it can come through them through their filter, through their life experience so that they can have the impact on others.

[00:47:33] PS: So, my book is called Spiritual Millionaire Unlocking the Seven Inner Laws of Abundance and Money. Law number one. Law number one is the law of yes. That's what I'm working with. The law of yes. And what that essentially states is the universe, God, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus source, divine intelligence, whatever you want to call it, is always in always saying, yes, it's like electricity literally says, yo, if you got the infrastructure, I got the power, right?

Whether you understand it or not, you plug up that iPhone and you got the right infrastructure. Your iPhone is going to charge. You got the infrastructure to plug up a Tesla. You're good to go. You've got the infrastructure to plug up a city. You're good to go. It's infrastructure. So, the law of yes is basically, if you have the infrastructure, game on.

Hitler used the power. Gandhi used the power. Martin Luther King used the power. There's only one power. Not two, not three, not seven. Once I understood this, and like, got it, unstoppable. Meaning, I used to think, and I grew up this way. I grew up in special needs classes. With children with down syndrome. I used to think that there was a Santa Claus in the sky that said, these people are good and these people are bad.

These people are smart and these people are not. And I happened to be in the ones of the not smart and the bad and the ugly and the dirty and all the other stuff. I used to think I was a throwaway person. Now, maybe next time I'll come, as a white person, maybe next time I'll come as something else, but I'm not in this lifetime.

And once I got that the, that God at some level is a neutral power ready to be used in whatever way we would like to, and then I understood what that actually, like the mechanism to make that occur. Game on. And I started doing it in those videos where I would hear something because we're all, we all listening.

We all have all the Claire's clairvoyance, Marie Claire, all the Claire's right. Claire is here. The question is how attuned to you are you to that Claire? When my friend said, let's go out and hang and something in my body said, don't do it. Then my dad's voice popped into my head.

Now, this is, that's, listen to that. The body said, no, the body has his own intelligence. Three centers. Three centers of intelligence. Head, heart, gut. Right? We now know in science that the heart emits a frequency. It has its own intelligence. And the body remembers what the mind forgets. The body knows.

So my body said, don't do it. Then the mind said, oh yeah, your dad told you were a leader. And my soul was like, got it bro, we always knew. Those three lined up. Bang. Now I was 15 at that point. Now I'm, this is years down the line and I'm starting to catch, ah, that voice is always there. It's there.

If I make a video and not only do so here's what people do in general is they get a they conceive of a thing conception happens, right? I want to do this. I'm going to bring this forward. They want to birth something conception. Then that conception goes into the law of mind, which includes the law of opposites.

It's all together, right? So, so my idea to make videos that support humanity by way, but me standing up and doing it different than other people that goes into the law of mind and law of opposites to create a contextual field. So we'll know that it'll happen or not. So again, if I say, Hey universe. I'd like to go up then the law of mind and the law of opposite says, cool I'll show you down so you know that you went up.

If I say, Hey, universe, I wanna go left, it goes done, I'm gonna show you, right? So you understand that there's a left. If I 

say I wanna go in, it says, I'll show you out. So you know when in is happening, right? So conception happens, it goes into the law of mind. And what happens for most people is they believe that the resistance means it's not supposed to happen. So it becomes deception, right? It goes into the…

[00:51:39] LW: one more time, man, because I think I want people to really hear that. That's so profound.

[00:51:44] PS: Conception happens, goes into the law, which then feeds into our perception. 

And because of how we've been programmed socially and historically programmed, it becomes deception. And now, so now we've watered down the original conception. We've taken the original conception and we've watered it down with the deception from our reception.

And from our perception and now how we receive it, reception becomes like that much. And so what I do, not always, but I practice this a lot is I catch that moment. I expect the contrast people go, ah, I declared, like, for instance, I recently decided I'm going to get the strongest, healthiest I've ever been in my entire life.

Right. I'm like, yo, this is the time I put all the energy and all the other things. Now I'm about to put it into my body, into my muscles, into my health, like big dog. Right. The moment I did that, we go to pizza party for the kids, like the next day, I see that pizza and I'm like, but this is the law of mind and law of opposites.

This is to give me contrast. Right. So I can eat the pizza and get short term pleasure. Or I can stick with my original conception and not water it down with, well, I can have a few pieces of pizza here and there, right? Like I stopped drinking recently after Ibiza, we went to Ibiza in August and we come back home and there's all these holidays and cool stuff.

And like, ah even my wife, right? She was like, Hey, you know, this would be a day where you have a margarita. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna stick to my original conception, which is healthiest, strongest version of myself. Now you don't get punished for this. The punishment is you water down the thing that you bring forward.

And so to come back to your original question, The answer is yes. I literally would say this is all my heart and then I would do three takes. The first one was, okay, let me mentally try to say what I want to say. Second take, I would mentally go, okay, here's what I missed in that first one. The third take, which is the one on YouTube almost always, literally, my most viral videos, every single one of them is the third take, every single one.

The third take is the God take. That's the one where I say, okay, we got it in the first two. Now I'm just going to speak straight from the heart. God use me. I'm going to move out of the way and you move through me. What do you want to say? How do you want my body to, to animate? I am here as a divine gift. Use me. And that third take is literally, if you look at any of the videos that have ever went anywhere, that's the one. So now we're at the point where, and this is years later, I have practice. I have so much practice getting out of the way. I only do one take ever. You could go look at the last hundred videos of mine. Those are only one tape. You could look at the last 400. It would be one tape.

[00:54:46] LW: I heard Jerry Seinfeld in an interview talk about how he was so hands on in his, in every aspect of the process. And I was wondering how hands on were you in the editing because your editing was meticulous. It was perfect.

Were you sitting right there next to the guy like I want the words to be swirling around me and da…

[00:55:04] PS: And then once we got it and he got it right, we got a style. We got a, an energy and it's like, ah, this is it. Then even while I was shooting, I would be imagining the editing. So I would go like, we'd get to a place and I'd be like, okay, we're going to do it right here. And the camera is going to circle me and we'll see what happens.

And when I would be talking and channeling. Like I would say, there's one and I'd put my hand out like this, knowing that the editor was going to put a one right there or whatever I was saying. And I'd be like two. Right. And I'm like, I know he gonna put it right there. And then three. And so then we, it became this symbiotic thing where two artists.

We're in motion with each other. But yes the first really probably 50 videos are me every inch of it next to him saying, cut that out, move that over, pull this out, actually start with the end, pull this piece from the end and start it here in the beginning, then do a little remix thing and then start the video, pull this part out.

I say too many times right here. This pause is way too long. Move that up. I was a monster when it came to that stuff.

[00:56:09] LW: Were you channeling that or were you watching those kind of, what's that guy's name? Jason.

[00:56:14] PS: No, he wasn't out then. He wasn't out then.

[00:56:17] LW: so were you modeling it after something you've seen or was this all just like divinely inspired?

[00:56:22] PS: Literally divinely inspired. 

[00:56:24] LW: Cause I'd never seen anything like that until I saw your videos.

[00:56:27] PS: one was doing it. I literally made it up. Like, it was kids. We were kids figuring it out. So the videographer, Justin, myself, and Pavel, all, and then Alexi, because then now Alexi's in the mix, and she's filming for me, I'm filming for her, and it literally just became this thing where like, yo, let's fuck, let's just see.

What happens if I just go apeshit right here? Like we got a camera, let's just do it.

[00:56:53] LW: So I think it would be a crime for us. Not, I know we've reached the time, but I want to talk about Lexi's impact on you and your business. Because you mentioned that you were broke when you met her and you've, I've heard you say just, in our personal interactions that she taught you things that helped you to expand your idea of abundance.

And I would love if you would like to, Expand upon that. Just talk about that transition, that inflection point, because it sounds like you were on your purpose, but you weren't really seeing the reward, the financial rewards of that. So what changed? What happened?

[00:57:30] PS: So here it is and it's happening right now. And we are that for someone right now. And that is when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Right. When it's, when the student is ready. Now I'm going to add another quote here. Success occurs when preparation meets opportunity. Okay. So. If success occurs from preparation meets opportunity and all those years I'm spending doing ayahuasca ceremonies, meditation, fucking volunteering, speaking here and there. I'm preparing my somatic body, my consciousness for something

[00:58:03] LW: The infrastructure…

[00:58:05] PS: correct. And then I meet the last piece. Which comes in the form of this person who is also sexy and I want to marry her and all that stuff. And remember, I had been dating Katrina who left me and blocked me on everything. And it was like a whole whirlwind of things that occurred.

But the universe understood it speaks. It doesn't speak English. It speaks frequency and it understood exactly what I desired. And it lined up the perfect person. My wife.

[00:58:31] LW: and you were celibate for six months before you actually connected with her. You intentionally said, I'm going to go into my version of monk mode to prepare myself.

[00:58:40] PS: That part. I literally said I'm… 

[00:58:43] LW: Oh my God, I'm getting chills just thinking about all of this, man.

[00:58:46] PS: Crazy, right? Especially because you were a part of it. You can see like, this is crazy. Like some people I tell them and they're like, how is, and this is this much of the story, right? We have boatloads of things that have occurred.

And my big thing with all of it is I'm being obedient. So the thing that's never changed, like, and I'm gonna go back to Alexi. The thing that's never changed is. I don't make any of this stuff my god. Any of it. Like, I like it. I appreciate it. It's really cool. It's better to be rich than it is poor. And I was always rich in consciousness.

I fucking loved my life back then. When me and Josh were surfing every day in Malibu and waking up and like, you know what I'm saying? I, when I was meditating with you and like mobbing the streets of Venice and hanging with Brian, the homeless dude. And like, when I was that guy, I was rich bro. And I knew it. I knew it then and I knew it now. 

[00:59:40] LW: And you were paying your bills from teaching surfing.

[00:59:43] PS: correct. Correct. So for me, all of this is extra is cherry on top stuff, man. I've been to the bottom, so I'm, and I've been in, in the middle of India and I've been deep in the bush in Africa and I understand what really matters. Right. And so now all this is extra, but, and hear this, my wife grew up straight a student, top achiever, X, Y, and Z whole family entrepreneurs.

Nobody in my family was an entrepreneur. Nobody was top achievers. Everybody worked for somebody. We were a regular ass, just above poor black family. And so I meet this girl who has an, of course, living in her body. She already owned a house at 25 in New York. She already had made hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time she was 22 and it's an of course for her, but guess what she had stuff that wasn't an of course for her.

That was for me stuff that I was like, oh, yes, this is where we go. This is where we speak from. And so we lifted each other. I hacked her consciousness. I followed what she did. I understand. I started to see how she thought about stuff. I remember our, one of our first dates, we went to Cafe Gratitude and she ordered like a strawberry lemonade and it got to the table and she drank it fast.

And then the person came back and said, do you want a refill? And she said, yeah. And then she drank it fast. And now I'm adding up all of this. I'm like, yo, that's another 8, 8. Right? I'm like, yo, I'm like, what? I haven't got this kind of money. She about to break me, man. Like 

[01:01:12] LW: heard you say that about the toothpaste too. She uses up, use a lot of toothpaste.

[01:01:16] PS: Yes. I'm in straight scarcity.

Right. And then she, but she's teaching me. She's like, no, no money's everywhere. We'll just call him more. Yes. I'll take that. Right. And I let her influence me. That's the piece. I want everybody to hear. Let people influence you, especially good people. Right. When you tune into someone's heart, right. Invest. 

I paid my way into spaces. Right. Even with you, I paid my way into your space. That wasn't free. Then we became friends and all the other stuff I wanted to learn and it's paid. The best investment you could ever make is in yourself and in your skillset. And so, as I kept lifting myself up, like they say in the Bible, as I am lifted up, I draw all unto me I'm eating, I'm letting her influence me.

I'm learning from her. And then I took that baton and I took it 30 steps further. It's beautiful, man.

[01:02:06] LW: What are like one or two things that she influenced you or impacted you with business wise as an influencer to scale what you were doing?

[01:02:15] PS: Work ethic, I was this surfing, skating, school work hard is hard kind of deal. And she had this part of her that was like, no, we keep going until it's done. And we do it in excellence and we do it at the highest heights. And for me, that was like I didn't grow up like that.

My dad cut corners. My dad cheated on my mom and on his taxes and on everything. Right. My dad, I grew up hearing all women are bitches. Your mom's a bitch. Your sister's a bitch. You're all bitches. Like I didn't have this, like, wait, so you don't, you're not clocked in. You're just an entrepreneur.

Like you just do this often. Right. And you charge for it and you don't like feel pain about that or like, Oh, I'm stealing from people. She didn't have that in her. And so when we, we launched the bridge method on Easter Sunday, 2014, 2014, Easter Sunday. And we launched it that morning. And then we went and hung out and did all kinds of stuff.

This is before like real smartphone type stuff. So we weren't checking it every 40 seconds. And we're out, we're at the family's house. X, Y, and Z. We come home, we go to sleep, we wake up the next morning and there's 50, 000 in our account. And I was like, Oh shit. And it was surprising, but not because she like, for instance, she built my website.

She understood copy. She understood like technical stuff that I didn't understand. And it like leveled me up. I entered a world where I'm like, wait, so people will pay you for the knowledge and it could be 50, 000 in a day. Like what? I didn't make that in a year. I didn't make that in two years sometimes.

And so 50,000 in a day for me, it was like, Oh my God. Now, since then, I've done, 150, 000 days. And it's You continue to be in right relation with money and money will flow like all the other stuff that flows in the planet. And that's been some of my biggest work is why, it's why I wrote Spiritual Millionaire.

It's why I have Spiritual Millionaire Academy, where I teach people every single week how to level up in their abundance mentality. And move through the stuff that's blocking them, which oftentimes is, invisible opponents like their cousin or the bullies or the people who molested them or raped them or all that stuff that those people have their power in those moments and I help people move through that so that their channel is clearer.

[01:04:49] LW: And last but not least I think this is important to talk about because people may hear you talk about Alexi and go, oh, my God, they're in the perfect union. They're the perfect couple. You guys have 4 kids, 2 year old twins, 4 year old, 6 year, 6 years old. And you got divorced and then remarried recently.

So talk a little bit about that. And what are a couple of learnings that you guys have come to. In your own evolution as a couple,

[01:05:15] PS: Yes. I think we all grow up hearing. Relationships take work, but all of us are pretty naive. And we think that's not going to be true for us. And especially marriage and marriage with kids, man, marriage with kids and business, right? We had all these things intertwined. And one of the things that I never really worked on and, but I desired to break through was the part of me that was an out of the way type person.

So. As a kid, because I felt like a burden, I was an out of the way kid. I had no needs. Remember I said that at the beginning. So, okay. I have this Virgo mother. Who's very stressed out and powerful. This dad, who's like a, in some ways a walking apology and like a screw up, I'll just have no needs.

And that, that got me rewarded. I got rewarded for a wound for being the type of person that's easy to be around.

[01:06:14] LW: you're independent, you figure things out.

[01:06:17] PS: Yes. Well, I met Alexi with that wound and 

[01:06:21] LW: and, that's what you, that's what people mean by blind spot, right? Like you probably didn't even know you had that.

[01:06:26] PS: I did not. I did not. I didn't know what I had it in that way. And so, we got married and things were amazing and good.

As we're climbing and we're building businesses and leading workshops and we're traveling the world And you know at some point all of that stuff slows down and the reality of that relationship comes crashing in and down and I had Needs and desires that I was not willing to share with her I wanted her to read my mind and the way that I thought I would get those needs and desires met would be to do more dishes and to You And be more of a good guy.

And I built up resentments and she built up resentments and both of those were just missing each other for quite a long time to the point where we had this big blow up moment a few years back. And it was do or die for us. And we both realized that marriage and the way that it was constructed was over.

And so that was, okay, we're getting a divorce. Now the question is, are we getting divorced and are we getting remarried? Or are we getting divorced and we're splitting up? And both of us realized that, and I'll speak for myself, I realized that I had not loved her like I wanted to love her. And I used to tell my students all the time, if you're going to leave, leave at the top, not the bottom.

Right? Leave when it's really good. And then look at each other and say it's done. But don't leave in the wound. Don't leave in the anger. Don't leave in the resentment. And so, okay, we looked at each other and said, cool, let's get to the top and see what we choose. And we went to work and we got support, a lot of support, coaches, therapists, workshops, all of the above.

And creating a culture of celebration, a culture of apology, a culture of learning how to talk to each other. We're two big A type personalities. I would withhold withhold, and then explode on her, which was extremely unhealthy. And so at some point we realized, yep, this is it. And this is good and we want to be with each other. And so I bought new rings. We burned the other rings at burning man. Like 20, 000 down the drain. And I bought new rings and I re proposed to her with new vows and all that stuff in Australia two years ago. And we've been riding the wave ever since. Yep. Yep.

[01:08:50] LW: say one framework that has helped you all with conflict resolution, which obviously is a natural part of relationships as a conscious couple, because look, I hear you. Yeah. I fucked up. I broke up with my ex at the bottom. We did. I wish I had, I wish I had that awareness to say that to her when I heard you say that when I was doing research. That was a regret that I immediately felt like fuck. So anyway, what's the framework? Like, let's say I'm at the bottom and I'm with my partner and it's hard. And I just, and they say, look, I don't think this is working. And everything in me just says, I wanted to say, okay, fine. I don't need this shit. What's a framework to get from there back to the top in the moment.

[01:09:37] PS: let me just frame it by saying this goes for relationships, but it goes for health. It goes for abundance and money. I give people the metaphor analogy, whatever this is let's say you're on a boat out in the ocean and you're about two miles out and your boat capsizes and now you're in the water.

And you can see the land, you can see it. But you're doggy paddling. And like, something's gotta happen. What most people do is in that moment, they declare it's over! It's over! And what I say…

[01:10:07] LW: Ego. 

[01:10:08] PS: yes, what I say is, okay. You two, link arms. Grab a piece of wood and start kicking together to get back to shore.

Now, each of you back to shore is something different for each of you.

[01:10:22] LW: All want to be respected. She wants to feel safe.

[01:10:25] PS: Yes. However, she has to self source and you have to self source. That's one of the biggest problems is we abdicate. We give our power to the person. When the person doesn't fulfill the thing we say, okay, it's you and I'm out. You can't fulfill my needs. Fuck you. I'm out. So, okay, we're both in the water.

I got to take care of me. And get myself back to shore. Now I'm gonna watch you. I'm gonna talk to you. We going to swim together at some level, but I got to take care of me. I got to kick my own legs. I got to move my own arms. So we, what does that mean for me? That means, okay. One, get some help outside of your relationship.

So I, I had a men's group. I got a lot of support from them. I got a trauma informed somatic coach a therapist. I just started doing my own work. I started focusing on things that made my heart smile and really pouring into those things just to get back to equilibrium because I was so in a deficit.

And my bank accounts are so empty. My emotional bank account was so empty that the conversation we were having was from an empty place. So my job was to fill my cup back up, get back to shore. And then from there, she gets back to shore. And how we even start this process is I lead us. I lead us by saying, Hey baby.

This doesn't feel good for me. It looks like it doesn't feel good for you. And I want it to feel good for both of us. So here's what we're going to do. Can you just look at me for a moment? Do you get this? I want this to feel really good for you. Even if it's over, I want it to feel really good over.

So I'm gonna go do my own work. I'm gonna go fucking swim and do my pushups and do my own work. Cause we're gonna get over there. And once we're over there, once we're over there, we can make a decision. I'm just, I'm gonna need this moment. And I'm challenging, begging you to take this moment too.

I'm not going to be swimming over here blaming you and resenting you and talking shit about you. I'm going to work on me. I'm going to fill my cup. Please, you do the same. When we get over there, I'm going to open up. Let's go. So,

[01:12:21] LW: hearing is you cannot be in that. I'm right. You're wrong space. You have to get out of that first in order to be able to have the awareness that I need to work on myself.

[01:12:30] PS: correct. Correct. Because the thing is you are right and you're also wrong at the exact same time. Your feelings and needs and desires are absolutely valid and the way that you are trying to get those needs met is wrong as fuck. So, it's both. Right? The strategy I used? Was terrible. So I cannot blame her for that strategy.

I wasn't even being straightforward. I was doing backdoor little boy stuff. So she was partially in a relationship with me, not fully, not the man. So I can't leave a breakup seven, 10 years in, and she never got the man. Like we got to at least have the man in the room to figure out what the other side looks like.So that's one. 

Two, I learned this from one of our therapists, the least amount of words And history possible when speaking to supporting each other, just like, because what we, the loop we got into was one of us would go to apologize, but we talk a lot. Yeah. I just want to say, I'm sorry for like the moment where you were being an asshole and then I stopped being an asshole, but then I was an asshole.

And then in 1947, you walked down the street and you said this. And then what I do is I didn't say that. And she's like, yes, you did. Well, I know I didn't say that. Well, you 

said this. And then, And now we're off to the races again, because we're speaking about history and we're talking too much. So for us, what works well with us is keep it short.

Keep it in the heart. Keep it with like, I love you. 

[01:13:59] LW: Keep it now in the moment

[01:14:01] PS: I'm not leaving you. I'm right here. We're gonna figure this out. Reassure. Enroll. Because the thing is if you come in a masculine body, you don't know what it feels like for her to be in her luteal cycle, and then this part of the cycle, and then this part of the cycle.

And so we think that women are just like, you're like, what the fuck? Like, well, that's every month. Right since 13 and that's a lot to deal with. And there needs to be a level of compassion that I didn't have at first. I didn't have that kind of compassion I'm, like you're crazy like you're responsible for yourself.

I used to say that I used to write it down I used to say it on interviews. She's responsible for her. I'm responsible for me. Well, that's partially true. Our nervous systems are intertwined. I'm actually am responsible for her. She is in my care, right? And As a first responder, how do I want to respond to her being in my care?

[01:14:52] LW: as a first responder. Do you think that is a role of the masculine in the relationship to be the first responder?

[01:14:58] PS: Partially, yes, I do. I think it is our duty to hold, right? It's like the least we could do. Again, if you came back as a little girl, and then you're in junior high, or you're in the end of elementary and you're 13 or 14, and you start bleeding down your leg, And you all of a sudden hate your parents and you think you're ugly and all these stuff happens and it happens every single month your entirety of your childhood into adulthood.

Also, you can have a baby that this man can look at and go. Oh, right. The least that man can do is hold. Those feminine storms because you've been holding it since she's been holding it since 13 and then not only does that happen Then she comes out of it and goes right into pre menopause perimenopausal premenopausal all that stuff and now she's off to the races again So this is like a lifetime little those little girls get to a certain stage and then for the rest of their lives They're having hormones up down left right the least we could do Is be able to calm the nervous system enough to just 

hold 

[01:16:06] LW: I interviewed a jujitsu one of the Gracie members of the Gracie family, it's the first woman to open an all female studio in the world for

Jiu Jitsu for women and she grew up in Brazil with the family and she left home at 17 and moved to London and she said, I didn't realize how prevalent harassment was for women, sexual harassment, and she got her first taste of that. And now she helps women navigate that. And that's a whole other element that I think men don't appreciate

is that most women, and this is what my, the guest says, Elena said, most women have had direct experience with sexual harassment or their friends have had. And so they're bringing all of that as well into the relationship, which puts the honest on us to make them, to create a safe space for them to be able to You know, move through that in addition to reconnecting with us.

[01:17:06] PS: Yep.

[01:17:07] LW: man, this is a powerful conversation. It gave so much value. You've got a few books out now. You got love louder, 33 ways to amplify your life.

Now or never your epic life in five steps, which you wrote with your wife. And now most recently spiritual millionaire, which will be out by the time this conversation is released.

What's the subtitle on Spiritual Millionaire?

[01:17:28] PS: Unlock the seven inner laws of abundance and money.

[01:17:33] LW: Beautiful. So what's the, you've got so many on ramps to your ecosystem. You've got books, you've got the podcast, you've got social media, YouTube you got your workshops. What would you say? Give us what's the best way. Someone's listening to this guy. Oh, my God. I want to meet this guy.

I want to study with this guy. What's the best way to start that process.

[01:17:53] PS: Yeah, I would say Prestonsmiles. com. You can find everything there. If you want the book, it's Prestonsmiles. com forward slash book. If you want to join the Spiritual Millionaire Academy, it's Prestonsmiles. com forward slash SMA. You can find me on basically anywhere. And I don't do these for that, but I do, we do some really powerful work.

So anybody who's feeling called to go to a place that is not light, it's not it won't be comfortable, but it will be beautiful. And then I'm your man. We go a little bit further than most people feel comfortable, but they always, this is why our stuff is always packed out.

It's always booked is they always feel grateful, for that push and that support.

[01:18:36] LW: Beautiful man. I've done, 250 something conversations. This is one of my top three so far. I haven't gotten so many goosebumps to someone as I did in this conversation. So I just want to thank you again. for coming on and being so generous in your share and with your time. And and I know it's going to, it's going to create positive ripples throughout the world indefinitely.

And that's the beauty of knowing Preston Smiles personally, and also getting a chance to have a conversation with him publicly. So thank you, man.

[END]

Thank you for tuning into today's episode with Preston smiles for more of Preston, spiritual teachings and transformational work.

You can find him at Preston smiles. com or on the socials at Preston smiles. If you enjoyed hearing. From someone who turned personal wounds into wisdom. You'll also love episode 258 with Dr. Frank Anderson, who shares how confronting his own trauma led him to become a world renowned trauma expert and healer.

And don't miss episode 159 with Marianne Williamson, who like Preston shows us how spiritual principles can create practical transformation in both our personal lives, as well as in society. And if you know of anyone who's out there making the world a better place through conscious leadership, please send me your guest suggestions at light at light Watkins.

com. Also please take a few seconds to rate and review this show. It really does help. And I hope to see you next week for another inspiring story about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things until then. Keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart and keep taking those leaps of faith.

And remember if no one's told you recently that they believe in you. I believe in you. Thank you. Have a fantastic day. And I'll see you for the next plot twist this Friday.