Hi, I am here with Daniel bruce Levin. He ​walked away from a huge opportunity (to work his way up from pushing a broom to running a billion dollar business), to hitchhike around the world to find happiness and inner peace. His life has been dedicated to finding the peace and contentment that comes from truly knowing yourself. His mission has become holding the space for others to find that peace too.

Ari Gronich 0:07  

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow I am Ari Gronich your host and I have with me, Daniel Bruce Levin, this is a man I'm gonna let him tell you about himself. But he basically turned away walked away from a billion running a billion dollar company. And in exchange for that, decided to hitchhike around the world, find inner peace and happiness. Live is a monk in a monastery, I mean, this guy or being a rabbi, you know, he's got the beard. So, you know, he's got that that Rabbi ask, you know, frame around him, if you if I was able to show you on my wall here I've got I've got a great Rabbi got the same beard, you know? So anyway, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how, how you became this sought after person who could choose to walk away from running a billion dollar opportunity.

Daniel Bruce Levin 1:16  

I've lived a really interesting life. I think a little different than most people, although everybody's life is different. So I don't mean to make mine better or worse. It isn't a compare. It isn't a comparison. It's just I've lived a different life. And I think the most compelling thing that brought me my why was losing my parents two years apart on the same day. My dad died when I was 13. And he was my hero. I looked up to him, and I couldn't understand why my hero would be taken from me for no apparent reason. My mum died two years later on exactly the same day at exactly the same time. And so I was a naive little kid very protected in a very protected neighborhood in Philadelphia. I remember when john F. Kennedy was running for president, he came down one of the side streets that we did by the house where we lived in a parade, you know, sort of just she's just getting votes, I guess. And the big talk was that he was the first Catholic ever running for president. And I remember walking back to my mom and saying, Mom, I can't believe it. So all the presidents have been Jewish there. Since they've Adam. That's how sheltered and protected I was. And she said, No, Danny, that's not there hasn't ever been a Jewish president. But I was a naive kid in a sheltered environment. And my parents just loved and adored me in a way that I've never, I always wanted to be loved and adored. And when they were gone, I wondered, why would that taken? Not only why, where did they go? But why was that taken from me? Where was I ever going to find that love again. And it was only in writing the book that's over my left shoulder. For anybody who's watching this one video that I realized what happened is, when my parents passed away, I asked the adults who were the wisest people that I knew where my parents go. And they told me, they went to a place called heaven. So as a kid, I set out on a search for heaven.

Ari Gronich 3:23  

We talked about this in our pre interview. And, you know, my first response is, I wish that could have happened to me, right?

Unknown Speaker 3:32  

Yes,

Ari Gronich 3:33  

I wish that somebody back then at that level, would have said to me, I see something in you. And I want to take you under my wing, and I want to mentor you into becoming the best and the greatest that you can be. Yeah, however, you had a different outcome. So we'll just get into that. But I just wanted to interject my my own thought of No, but, you know, that was like, Holy moly. What, what? What would have stopped me from doing that?

Daniel Bruce Levin 4:13  

Yes. And you are like, probably 99.9% of the people in the world, which my uncle pointed out to me when I said to him, I would like you watch me for a month and a half. And you're, you're brilliant man. Look what you've created. You've created this international conglomerate of business that in your household name. I'm just a kid. I can't make a decision like that. Right now. I would like to watch you for one year to see if what you're offering me is what I want. Of course, it sounds beautiful. From a financial point of view, who doesn't want to be a bit or doesn't want to run a billion dollar corporation and have more money then God. But I want to see if if what it brings with it is something that I can live with.

Ari Gronich 5:08  

Right, but and so, so So before you go on. So how did you get to that place? At? How old were you at the time? 17 1515 Okay, so you're a 15 year old kid that's been sheltered. just lost his mom and dad. And yet you're telling your uncle who's a billionaire. You know, I want to watch you and see if who you are is who I want to be. Yeah, I mean, that takes some Kahunas as well as, amid some stupidity. A level will stupid. Yeah, but a level of maturity. Yes. Same time. That is crazy. So how did you, you know, like backstep? yourself? Yep. Analyze who you are before this. Right. Yeah. How did you become a person? What was the what were the things that made that be something that you would say?

Daniel Bruce Levin 6:15  

Yeah, beautiful question. Remember, what I discovered through the Mosaic, and what I discovered, after only five or six years ago, five years ago, writing the Mosaic, I didn't know the answers to that question then. But in looking back, in retrospect, I realized that I was looking for that place called heaven. And for a lot of people that have been would have been having a billion dollar company here, because having money is what people think will buy them happiness. But what I ended up seeing was the happiness that I was looking for wasn't a result of that money. There were people that had that money that were happy, there were people that had that money that were miserable. And one of the things that kept me from doing it, because I said, I'd like a year to see how who you are. A year to the day, he took me out to lunch again. And in the end, he said, I'd like an answer to my question. And I said, you have to be in the permanent, you know, punk that I was. I said, you got to ask a question before I can give you an answer. He said, Oh, so you forgot what you promised me a year ago? I said, No, I didn't forget. I just forgot that today was one year. And I'll never forget that again. I see how exactly you're

Ari Gronich 7:33  

What year is this?

Daniel Bruce Levin 7:34  

This was I was born in 55. So it was 1971. Okay, so you're 1970? Actually,

Ari Gronich 7:43  

you're 16. This is the beginning of the 70s. We've got the hippie movement. Right. And crossing over to the disco world, right. This is what's happening in the world. We've got gas shortages, we've got Nixon we've got right, this is what's happening in the world. And you're telling your billionaire Uncle, I am looking to be happy within myself. Yeah, again, I'm just I'm repeating this because I think it's important that people realize the mindset that comes along with whatever success you're you're partaking in, and how important it is to feel honoring within yourself. And, you know, I like you watch a lot of the people who appear to be in power. And because I've had the opportunity to be hands on, so to speak with them. I know whether they're happy or not I know whether they're fulfilled or not. And I know, kind of the the pieces of where they're fulfilled and where they're not. But I'm also an adult, at this point who's had a lot of years of experience, right? So you're 16 you're in the 70s. It's the beginning of this movement of turning over for the Age of Aquarius, right? So everybody's preparing. And you're telling your uncle that you'd rather be happy than be a billionaire?

Daniel Bruce Levin 9:27  

Yeah. Well, it wasn't that I'd rather be happy than be a billionaire. But I wanted the ability to be myself. And I honestly when I look at the world around me today, one of the things that I see is that there are a lot of people that have a lot of money. But there are not a lot of people that know themselves very well. It doesn't mean that people that have money don't know themselves or people that are poor don't know themselves. I don't find anybody. I don't find many people in any of Those stratas fears that actually know who they are and feel comfortable in their own self. And when you find somebody like that, that person can be Richard before, can be ugly, can be fat can be can be old can be young. But when that person walks into a room with a with the presence of knowing themselves, and feeling that presence, people are drawn to it like bees to honey. And, and that was what I was looking for I was looking for that unconditional love that my parents gave me, I wanted to be that I wanted to feel that and as, as much as that business would have given me so much joy, so much ability to have to have things that nobody in this world could have. I didn't see the possibility for me at that point for it to give me the ability to have what I wanted.

Ari Gronich 10:54  

So I just I keep going back to that you're 18 years old, your age at the time and the level of maturity. But also, where did you learn the value of questions? Because obviously, obviously, you had them at an earlier age, and I would imagine that you had them before your parents passed. But where did you learn that value of curiosity, the value of of questioning and being curious?

Daniel Bruce Levin 11:35  

Well, I mean, even when john kennedy went down the street, outside our, by the border, our neighborhood, I said, Does that mean all the other presidents were Jewish? You know, I mean, a questions like I was always I tested it in, in preschool in preschool and elementary school, with an IQ of a genius. And I never really said much about it or cared much about it. But I think the genius mind is a mind that's inquisitive. I think, you know, part of the curse of having a genius mind, is it's so easy to think that I know something that I don't know. And, and somewhere along the line, I realize the curse of the genius mind is the arrogance that comes with it, of knowing things that other people don't know. And I realized that I can ask questions to find out what people do know, rather than assume that I know what they they know. Oftentimes, what they told me was exactly what I thought. But sometimes it wasn't. And I I always, even to this day, about 1015 years ago, a company by the name of Vistage, they train CEOs, they hire people to train CEOs, how to better their business. And they recruited me at one point in time to see if I could be one of their people. And I ended up not going with them. But they have a slogan and a saying that goes along with their company that I wish to God I had come up with, but I didn't. So I give credit to them for it because it's exactly what I do. They said when people come to us, they think that we're going to answer their questions. But in truth, what we do is we question their answers. I thought that was brilliant. And it's really the practice that I do. I question. All through my life, I've been a disrupter. Even as a kid, I questioned the answers that people gave me because I didn't see the same way they saw. I always saw things differently. And in seeing things differently, what they thought was just cut and dry, easy answer. When I questioned them, I realized they didn't really know the answers to the questions of their answers. They just said their answers because they were the answers.

Ari Gronich 13:55  

Yeah, you know, it's funny. On that note, I'm gonna you know, and the call but my men's weekend with Justin Sterling. He used to say, it's not what we're saying. That means anything during this weekend, this was at the beginning his opening monologue. It's how we are when we're together. Yeah, that makes all the difference in the world. And I've always remembered that as a good place to start. Yeah, you know, it's not so much the words. It's not so much the ideas, the concepts, the thoughts. Those are all subjective. It's how we are when we're together and how we make each other feel. And so you have an livened. I've enjoyed your presence here. accompany your words of wisdom, and all the ticks, you know, tips, tricks, techniques and things that will help my audience, create a new tomorrow today and activate their vision for a better world. So, thank you so much, Danny. I really appreciate you. And we're going to end this call. But remember to like, subscribe, comment, review, do all those things that allow us to communicate with you so that we can have conversations that matter. And I look forward to engaging in in conversations about this conversation. So thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.

Unknown Speaker 15:48  

Thanks for having me.