Plant-Based Icon Russell Simmons Shares His 5 Tips to Success
Russell Simmons is a powerful reminder that all change comes from within. It’s not every day you hear of a success story that begins with “former heroin addict turned multi-millionaire” – but that’s the power that comes from taking responsibility for your actions. Russell is an expert at filling space – whether it’s through ideas, music, diet, philanthropy or spiritual enlightenment – he’s never afraid to innovate and carve his own path. He is also the author of The Happy Vegan, where he shares how meditation and diet can be used as powerful tools to access potential in all aspects of life. He is a well-known advocate of plant-based eating. Russell made a guest appearance on Inside Quest, where he dishes about the evolution of his mindset and his new book, “Happy Vegan.” Watch the episode here.
ABOUT INSIDE QUEST
Aiming to wake viewers up and change lives, host Tom Bilyeu – Co-Founder and President of the 2nd fastest growing company in the US (named by Inc. 5000) – dives deep into the mindset of guests to unlock human potential and inspire change.
I’m happy to share Russell’s 5 Tips for Success with you on my blog today.
1. Live in the moment
We evolve from the present moment on, but if we don’t live in the present moment enough, we can’t change. We are not trapped or bound by our past and we reinvent ourselves every second if we choose to. So when you meditate, you practice being present. When you do your physical Asanas practice, you practice smiling and breathing and adding pose. So that’s moving meditation. And when you do good comic work, you get the burden of the noise off your head. You do all these things so that your brain can function in the present, and in the present you can change. From this second on, you can be somebody new.
2. Get addicted to evolving
There’s inspiration that can remind you anything is possible, but you have to make choices on your own. Every step should be one step towards your dreams. If you get up at 8:30 in the morning and go to a hot yoga class, you sweat like a slave, you take a shower, and you put your clothes back on, you’re a different guy, than you were before you went to class. You go in sluggish, you’re doing all these “Smile and breathe” exercises. But you’re like, “Fuck it’s hot.” You’re sweating, and then you shower and you get dressed. Then it’s, “Wow, I’m a different person.” You get addicted to being a person who is evolving, who is different. Keep moving forward, keep doing what is healthy and happy. You have that stuff inside you.
3. Be fully awake
The idea of being fully awake, where you’d drive your car and never miss a flower, that’s the thing that we’re all striving for. Evolve more and more towards that consciousness. That’s why we live, to go through experiences.
4. Make your goals a full time job
I would like to say to a young entrepreneur that you have to stay focused. They ask me, “why do you have 80 businesses?” I answer, “because I went hard, hard, hard on an idea that no one understood. And then one day, smarter people than me understood it and helped me to take it to the next level.” One day, I walked into our office and I felt less relevant than I needed to, so I could go do something else. But I stayed on because no ideas evolved unless I was there. For most people it’s less likely to happen if you have an idea and you walk away from it. You have to be there front and center, invested, and focused. Somebody else may be in the same space as you, and that’s all they do all day. You think you can do it part time? You can’t.
5. A quiet mind is an awakened mind
Finding the higher self is a lifelong journey. The prophets gave us tons of road maps that all run parallel. Whether it’s Christ Consciousness or Nirvana, or Samadhi, or Taqwa, or whatever you call it. They’re all looking for this awakened state. And all these tools they give you, meditation, physical asana, running, it clears your mind. You want to quiet your mind. A quiet mind is the awakened mind. The fully awakened mind is quiet always and sees the world in slow motion. Like a car accident, all the time, it’s the speed the world is moving at that’s slow. You see it, in its infinite beauty. This is God Consciousness. Follow what the prophets told you. And you can’t do it without some experiences that are not quite the good ones. A lot of us have to learn and experience, it’s through experience. Some can read about it, but know better. Some can instinctually know. Inside of all of us is scripture on how to act. We have to do the work to evolve, or have bad experiences to evolve. But you are evolving, like it or not.