I am an avid student of history and anthropology; I’m fascinated by the universe and how we have evolved within it. I love admiring people, understanding their choices, what they care about, how they love, their emotions and their journeys. I model what resonates with me. My own journey has been incredible and challenging, due in large part to the flow of knowledge, money, support, family, opportunities, and more that I have received throughout my life.
I had never really thought about it too hard, or named it, “Receiving,” though I had been living by these beliefs for years, until a close friend of mine, the main author of this book, in fact, was able to name it. Jolie Dawn and I were video chatting on a beautiful day while I lounged in my Airbnb beach house in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. We were playfully laughing the way we always do, discussing this very book, and I shared some of my favorite moments and life lessons that I’ve learned over this 34 year magic carpet ride.
Jolie and I were interrupted by a call from my real estate broker, who has become a close friend. Justin Braune was giving me good news about closing on a building I was buying in Los Angeles with my childhood best friend Jeff Smith to produce more equity and passive income.
A smile pursed my lips as I took a moment to be grateful, turned my head from my perch in my hammock and looked over at the surf with admiration, and when I turnback up to Jolie, she was laughing at me. “Nadav, you are the best receiver I’ve ever seen!” In her wise goddess way that always seems to spark just the right something at just the right moment in me, she continued, “Through your way of being, your smiling generosity, open-hearted love towards others and yourself, you are receiving from others at a level that would make most other people uncomfortable.”
It was my lightbulb moment, finally being able to define the very thing that I had long ago accepted and taught to others. I had been living a life of Receiving, and one of Gratitude. As I like to say, “Eating from the delicious buffet of life.”
We bought the building in LA and were splitting the profits because he offered it to me. Jeff had just sold his company earlier in the year and, as a sign of appreciation for the impact I’d made in his life and business, he quite generously offered to make an investment of my choosing and give me half. Jeff and I bought the building in LA and we were reinvesting the profits. I was excited about managing the property virtually, from my home in the jungle, and Justin graciously offered to manage and flip the property with us. This is just one of so many examples in my life of friends who have become family, and the beautiful receiving that I am allowing, and very grateful for.
The work that I do enables me to touch so many people and be impacted by them as well. In fact, that very day I had been in back-to-back meetings with people from around the world, supporting them in launching their own incentive challenges on HeroX.com, a crowdsourcing platform I helped launch. I’m so delighted to be able to be involved and make an impact in areas like education, environment, health, and energy through connecting these organizations to a global community of innovators.
Getting to where I am now, working with HeroX has been a path full of challenges and joys, triumphs and tribulations, and ultimately, I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Let me backup to 2007. I’d been living in San Diego, pretty much hand-to-mouth at the time, and almost 5 years into an advertising tech startup, Matrix Media Technologies. We were finally getting to the point where we had broken a million dollars in revenue, and things were starting to feel like they were getting smoother and easier. Next thing we knew, the market dropped out in 2008 and all hell broke loose.
I was 27, suddenly $400,000 in debt, and felt like I wanted to run home to my mommy. The company’s board was telling me to do one thing, and they were brilliant, but my heart told me to focus on continuing to build out the core business of Search Engine Optimization. At that point, each client contract was minimum $5,000 per month for 12 months ($60,000 total), and as the CEO, I was completely focused on bringing in profit. Long story short, we ended up pulling off the biggest turnaround in my entrepreneurial life and the business became profitable again. It wasn’t overnight, in fact, it took 4 months; however, it was smooth and in flow. This is one of my proudest achievements.
During our most challenging months of 2008, we decided that the smartest thing to do would be to build revenue up while simultaneously trying to sell the business. We needed to sell it for $400,000 or more to cover the debt that we owed. We were tired of the struggle and had spent 5 years on this business. I was ready to move on to the next chapter in my life and breathe a little bit. After 6 long months, we weren’t having any luck selling MMT, until one night, I was browsing LinkedIn for customers. At the top right side of the page, LinkedIn had a note: “We recommend you connect with Andreas Roell, CEO of Geary Interactive.” And I said, “You know what LinkedIn, don’t mind if I do! And thanks for the recommendation.” And with the click of a button, my life changed forever.
A few months later in 2009, Andreas and I signed a 7-figure acquisition deal for MMT. I went from having just enough to get by, to moving into a penthouse in downtown San Diego, throwing confetti at bottle service tables in nightclubs, leasing a sexy new Audi A5, and jet-setting around the world wherever, whenever and however I felt like it. Life was great because I listened to the subtle whisper of the universe, I accepted the suggestions I received, and I continued going in the direction of what I thought I wanted.
In 2011, I sold another company, DiscoverSD.com, a lifestyle city guide, to UT San Diego newspaper. Life was great, but something was missing. One morning, I woke up and walked out onto my 28th floor balcony, which overlooked the ocean from Mexico to North San Diego, and I realized what was missing. I wasn’t fulfilled. I was happy, and joyful. I loved my life, but I wasn’t feeling personally fulfilled with what I was doing. I wanted to feel passionate. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up with my soul ready to express itself. I knew I wanted to make a positive impact, fulfill my creative side, and after much thinking and through receiving ideas and feedback, I decided to leave my cushy 6-figure corporate job at UT San Diego and create Enlightened.org, which focused on integrating philanthropy into everyday life.
I went all in, I moved to a small one bedroom in Hollywood and invested all the money I had into the startup. I went on a fundraising adventure to fill out a seed round from strategic investors. And raise I did! I traveled the world meeting people like Richard Branson, the chairman of Orbitz, the owners of the Wall Street Journal, and many more. Before I knew it, we had raised $1 million! And all to make the world a better place. It was an incredible experience, right up until the end. After a year, we were out of money, really out of money, and out of food.
This was all amazing and I’ll always remember the day that my experience of life transformed forever. It was September 2013 when I got up from my desk in the den we had turned into an office for Enlightened.org in my WeHo apartment to get some food. I walked to the kitchen in my flowy pants, shirtless as usual (I’m now called the Shirtless Wonder), with a big grin on my face, even when I opened the cupboard and realized all I had were condiments, no real food. All of a sudden it really hit me, I was $80,000 in debt, I had no money for food, I had no money to pay my rent, and I had no more money to pay my amazing employees, it was over. Now in some cases, this would lead an entrepreneur into a downward spiral of unwanted emotions, however, instead of being scared or stressed, I checked into my body and my feelings and realized I was calm, hopeful, and fulfilled. Why did I feel so good with this realization? Well, I was living my passion. Even though I’d hit a roadblock with this failure, I knew I was going in the right direction in life, and that I was going to continue living my best life, listening to the universe; my heart and mind were open and I could only receive. I could tell my vibrational frequency was on point. My positive attitude allowed me to be grateful and realize that I was living in my purpose, my passion. I was having a blast. I’d been given so much, and I was more alive than I had ever been.
I chose to channel this hope, flow and fulfillment into continuing my search for living my passion while making money. I continued to ask and put it out into the world, and even though I lost $1 million, my life only got better. I asked the universe and people in my life, “How can I contribute to something I’m passionate about?”
I shared this desire with everyone who cared to and didn’t care to listen! From the lovely lady at the smoothie counter to the man in line with me at the DMV, as well as my friends and mentors. I was asking myself this daily with an aura of wonder and exploration. Just 3 days later, I was with my dear friend, the legend Jordan Brown, and when he asked me how things were going in life, I told him about winding down my startup and now being incredibly focused on contributing to something I am passionate about. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Peter is looking for someone.” My jaw dropped, Peter Diamandis is one of my heroes, and I’d been listening to his book Abundance on audio every day. He is all about mindset and focusing on what we want, being positive, and the leader in the world having the future of thriving we all want. Diamandis is the father of privatized space travel as founder of X Prize Foundation, he focused on creating companies that impact the lives of a billion people as the founder of Singularity University, he was lassoing asteroids for minerals with Planetary Resources, and the list goes on. The possibility of working with Peter Diamandis was like meeting Justin Bieber for teenage girls or you, it’s ok, don’t be shy about being a Belieber.
Now, the fanboy in me had some insecurities about working with Peter. In the back of my mind ,I heard a voice saying that I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, and I didn’t deserve this opportunity. My childhood was filled with those feelings. My parents loved me and are amazing, however, in their way of supporting me in being the best student I could be they focused on what I wasn’t doing right and rarely complimented me or said they were proud of my good grades. Everything was focused on what could be improved. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself and didn’t feel worthy, but I was always able to be confident in my professional skill set, which is what led me down the path of receiving. Even what we perceive as “negative things” are gifts, it’s a matter of perspective and what we learn from them.
I honored my insecurities and created new feeling and beliefs using visualizations and my mantras, reminding myself that I am worthy, I do deserve all the good things I was receiving, and that I love who I am. Self-love is so important in life and in learning how to receive.
It all came together beautifully. A week later, Peter made me the Director of Possibilities on his skunkworks team, and the magic was in the air immediately. The first day on the job Peter asked me to meet him at the Santa Monica airport and we hopped on a private plane to go to the Goldman Sachs Summit to interview Elon Musk. I sat in a lounge with Jimmy Iovine from Beats, Elon Musk, Drew Houston from DropBox, and many more amazing founders. I was learning from this master, making $20,000 a month with my commissions, and meeting people I admired. It was all so surreal, yet it was my life, and I was and still am grateful and fulfilled with what I’m doing. Since that time, Peter asked me to join HeroX, an incentive prize platform where anyone can launch a prize, a spin-off of the X Prize Foundation.
I have been so extremely blessed in my life. The falls have always been an opportunity to learn and to get back up, maintain my positive attitude and mindset, and recognize all that I have received from life and from others, and be gracious. I have been able to give back to others on a massive scale, teach others what I have learned, and live my passions. I am genuinely fulfilled, satisfied, and happy every single day.
My focus now is Lifestyle Perfected a lifestyling company focused around supporting us to love our journey. I coined the phrase: “True wealth is living the dream by feeling good on the way to living our dreams.” It’s full self-expression, taking all the highs and lows, the wins and challenges, the methodologies I’ve learned being a CEO, and taking this moment to join people on their adventures.
In the process of building Lifestyle Perfected, I am now receiving at the largest magnitude and at the same time in the most present way than ever in my life. The program came to me one day in a divine download from Source or the universe, however, you prefer to call it. I received it. I wrote it out in just a couple days with it all flowing from my mind and heart to my fingertips, and it has allowed me to impact people’s lives in beautiful ways. It also allowed me to have the courage to leave my dream position at HeroX to focus on my next dream, this is an amazing position to be in. I have the gift of impacting people’s personal lives in relationships, wealth, spiritual health, physical health, and living their purpose. Receiving the love that’s showered on me from coaching clients, as well as the accolades of being a master in this area, has continued to help me grow and receive in the best possible way.
Throughout my journey, I’ve been able to put together a system and ways to implement the Art of Receiving. Here are 4 steps that will have you loving receiving in no time at all.
The 4 Steps to Receiving
- Shift Limiting Beliefs & Create Empowering New Ones
- Integrate these Beliefs into Your Core Being to Begin Receiving
- Recognizing the Receiving & Being Grateful
- Teaching Others to Receive & Doing What You Love
Step 1: Shift Limiting Beliefs & Create Empowering New Ones
The first step is realizing that your current belief system isn’t giving you what you want. For example your beliefs about what you deserve, what you can have based on what you have had or not had in the past, and what you can expect.
So, first, you must be completely open to the idea that there is a whole different way to live your life. It’s isn’t about “HOW do I have what I want?” It’s about putting your wants and desires out into the universe, focusing on maintaining a feeling, a good vibration, being surprised, delighted and discovering the how, doing what you want to do, and receiving what’s coming to you.
Start by identifying and letting go of false premises. These are the beliefs you currently hold that limit you and make it impossible to get what’s coming to you. In my experience, being willing to let these go is half the challenge.
Here are a few examples of false but long-held premises:
- The struggle is real.
- Life is difficult.
- It takes “hard work” to succeed.
- Rise and grind!
- Being an adult is a negative experience.
- You can’t have everything you want.
- Nothing is free in life
- I am not deserving of getting things.
- When I receive something, I must pay it back. Receiving something puts me in debt.
Do you want to believe these things? If so, enjoy that, if not then be willing to let them go. Once you are able to put these types of false beliefs aside and accept that there is another way to think and live your life, you will open your heart and mind up to receiving. It’s so easy to hold on to them, because everyone says they must be true, however, creating new beliefs makes life so much more delicious!
Here are some examples of new, more empowering beliefs:
- My purpose is to feel good and watch what happens.
- I am free and peaceful, and money shows up in abundance.
- I am thriving in love and in money, in my purpose, family, health, relationships, and spiritually.
- We are pure aligned universe and one with the frequency of what we desire.
- I am a generous giver and an excellent receiver.
- Life pampers and spoils us in endless ways.
- I deserve this!
Learning to receive revolves around the concept of feeling good, feeling deserving, and focusing on positivity in life instead of negativity (What you want instead of what you don’t want).
Step 2: Integrate these Beliefs into Your Core Being to Begin Receiving
Have you ever played a sport or an instrument? How did you excel at this? Practice and repetition the best way to integrate and master something. It’s building new habits through creating new neural pathways. Biologically what’s happening is you are feeding your brain and body the chemicals you want, while depriving it of the chemicals you don’t want.
Here are some of the best techniques for incorporating these beliefs into your daily life:
- Write them all down: I created a document called “My Daily Adventure.” I have all the feelings, beliefs, and possibilities I’m creating in my life in this document. It’s delicious and having this down on paper (I actually use Google Docs so I can access it from my phone or computer) allows me to reference it daily.
- Morning Practice: When I wake up, the first thing I look at is My Daily Adventure. This allows me to generate how I want to feel and what I want to create each day, instead of allowing things that could potentially take me into other feelings and situations create my day for me. It’s simple, right? When we create time for ourselves to tap into who we really are as a creation, we get what we want. Every day, review and repeat your new beliefs in front of a mirror, on the commute to work, while you are on the toilet, waiting for an appointment, I don’t care. Just make sure you are integrating them into your every day. This is especially useful in re-centering ourselves when something doesn’t go our way.
- Visualization Meditation: Close your eyes and meditate on your new beliefs and possibilities for 5-20 minutes a day.
This step allows you to find love, peace, and balance internally and then put it out into the world. This also builds your confidence and allows you to accept the things you receive and know you deserve them. Being confident is a large part of happiness and of feeling positively about life.
Step 3: Recognizing the Receiving & Being Grateful
Receiving is giving and giving is receiving. When you receive gifts from others, you are giving them the gift of being able to give. Understand that what you are getting in life, what you are receiving, is beautiful and that you are special. Take the opportunity to recognize the gifts you get throughout your life and appreciate them, such as when someone goes out of their way to hold open a door for you, or pick up a dropped item, or give you helpful advice. Gratitude for receiving is so powerful. If you are grateful and appreciative of what you are receiving, you have correctly aligned your beliefs.
Recognizing a compliment and being able to be gracious, and say “Thank you!” and receive the energy that’s been given to you is very important. It strengthens you and builds your foundation of self-love. It also creates a space for someone else to give which can feel challenging.
If you notice, people will often have the knee-jerk projective reactions to compliments, which are one of the most beautiful presents you can give someone. It’s very easy to ignore a compliment. Think about it. If someone says, “You’re really pretty!” people will often respond, “No, I’m not!” Address your beliefs and realize that you are worthy of compliments. Self-love and confidence are a part of you, so stop yourself from reacting in a way that doesn’t align with your beliefs, and instead simply be gracious in receiving the compliments. Master this and you’ll be receiving fully and making a difference for the giver.
Asking for what you want is a learned skill. Most people are afraid to simply ask for what they want. After all, what if the answer is no?
You are worthy. You deserve respect, admiration, compliments, and all that life can offer. Respect yourself, and appreciate and be gracious for all that you receive.
Daily journaling to write down what you’ve received, how it affected you, and what you are giving is a great way to recognize and be grateful for what you are receiving.
Step 4: Doing What You Love & Teaching Others to Receive
Do what you want, do what you love, and your vibrational frequency will attract more of what you want. It really is that simple.
What you love can be many things. In this case, instead of sitting like a mindless drone in an office full of cubicles, maybe what you love is being a business consultant and working with entrepreneurs, or maybe it’s making pottery near a beach somewhere, or writing. Whatever it is, it’s time to do that! I’m not saying walk out of the office this moment giving the finger to that life, however, you can start bringing what you love more and more into your experience right now.
When you do what you love to do and become truly good at, you will create a flow to receive in bigger ways. You will inspire people to do this in their own lives as well. When you help people and share with them, you continue to be rewarded.
You must continue your own journey of self-love and confidence, and continue putting what you want out in the universe, and keep asking until the right person, place, and situation are all in alignment for you to receive what you’ve been asking for.
In your mission to make the world a more giving, receiving, and caring place, your journey will lead you to share your new beliefs and lifestyle with others. Share what you’ve learned and your results, and spread positivity, confidence, and the art of receiving out in the world.
One way to do that is to point out when someone is dismissive of a receiving opportunity, instead appreciating them and showing them another way to react in that moment. Share your story of receiving and positivity with people, and help them understand your beliefs and how your life has changed because of them.
When someone is with me and they’re sharing, they feel like they can be themselves without being judged. I’m coming from an open and loving place. I hear people and I let it be. The fact that I love myself fully allows me to love others freely. I do not judge others, nor do I judge myself negatively. I love myself, and I love those I surround myself with.
I give to others because it’s what I love to do, and sometimes that takes the form of business consulting, sometimes coaching, and sometimes it’s surfing with a friend. I receive so much in life, and giving back to the world is the best feeling.
It’s been truly an honor to share with you how I’ve learned to receive and continue to live a more fulfilling life. I hope this has made a difference for you.
Much love.
