Jon Gabriel’s Narrow Escape

Here in Australia, it's actually September 11th. I know for the US listeners it's only September 10th. But it's actually September 11th, and obviously that's a very important day for everyone. For me personally, it was a really significant day because, as I talk about in my book, that was a day that I was actually — came very, very close to being on one of the planes, on United Airlines flight 93 that crash landed in Pennsylvania. I think we have Kelly, my assistant, is here, my co-host, Kelly, are you here?

I'm here. What an amazing story. Please go on.

Yeah. I was — a lot of listeners don't know. I came very close to being on one of the flights. That was a huge turning point for me. What happened was I was scheduled to fly to San Francisco for a business trip. I was living outside of New York, in River Edge, New Jersey, and whenever I fly to San Francisco I always fly out of Newark airport because when you live in New York, Newark is a much easier airport to get to because you don't have to go through all kinds of traffic and the parking is much cheaper. And usually the flights are much cheaper, too.

So I never flew out of La Guardia or JFK or any of those other airports, and I always flew nonstop. There were only two nonstop flights. There was a morning United Airlines flight and an evening United Airlines flight. And the evening United Airlines flight got in at 12:00 at night which was the equivalent to 3:00 in the morning for New York time. So I always flew the morning United Airlines flight.

Now it just so happened that for this particular trip, I didn't make the booking, my partner did. I was away on a seminar — Chi Kung for Weight Loss it was called. I was learning how to do Chi Kung for weight loss. I was always at one weight loss seminar or another. He found a cheaper flight that flew out of La Guardia and connected out of Cincinnati. There was a three hour stop over in Cincinnati, and I remember I was really mad at him because he was able to save about $150, but it would have cost me about $200 more in parking. I would have had the stopover in Cincinnati, I would have been exhausted.

It was the only time in my life where I have ever been mad at this guy. He has been my friend since I was 20 years old. He has just always been there for me. I always sort of considered him sort of like a guardian angel in a sense. It was the only time in my life that I was mad at him, and it just so happened that he saved my life because if I had booked the flight, I would have been in the United Airlines flight 93 that was hijacked by terrorists. And that would have been the end of it.

That had a really profound impact on me because here I was, I was over 400 pounds or 186 kilos, and I was kind of killing myself. I was living a life I wasn't happy with. My heart wasn't in it, and I was just killing myself. And here I was and the universe gave me a second chance.

My heart skipped a beat listening to that.

Yeah, that's really what it was, and I decided it was time to start making my dreams come true, my real dreams, rather than just living a life that made sense but that was full of struggle, and I booked two one-way tickets for me and my wife to travel to Western Australia which was our dream, and we had already become residents of Western Australia or of Australia.

Did you have anything set up here, Jon?

Yeah, we bought a house, and it was just always our dream to come here, but I kept saying, “Well, six months, and six months, and six months,” and we just never did it. Then I just decided you know what, now I'm going to do it. And what was really interesting is we had been trying to have a baby for about 18 months and we weren't able — it wasn't happening, and then like two days after I booked those tickets it turned out that my wife was pregnant, which was really interesting, too, because I think if that had happened — if I had found out that she was pregnant before I booked the tickets, I don't think I could have booked the tickets because it just would have been too much. Going to a whole new other side of the world, not knowing what I was going to do, and expecting a baby on the way would have been too much for me.

But it almost seemed like she was waiting for us to make our move, and I think of how different her life would be. We live in a beautiful, pristine rural town in Western Australia, and I just think of how different our lives would be if we were still living in New York and how different her life would be. So I think she was sort of waiting for us.

So that was it. And then I moved over here, and I started writing, and I started researching, and I started losing the weight, and that's when everything happened, and I lost the 200 pounds. I wrote the book, and it's all gone on from there. It was a scary, confusing time for me, but I have to say, making that decision was probably the best thing I have ever done in my life. That's why I tell people so many times that when you've got a dream, no matter how crazy it may be to really take a chance and follow your heart because sometimes that’s really life telling you, communicating to you, that it has a plan for you.

And the plan never makes sense. How could I know what would have happened in my life? How could I know that I would have lost all that weight, that I would have written a book, that I would have something that touched a cord, and is spreading all over the world? How could I possibly have known that? And I resisted and I resisted for so long until it was just so obvious that time was running out, and I had to let go.

Yeah, there was an expiration date.

Yeah. So I try to tell people so many times that when you've got something that you're longing to do, that's your heart. That's another part of you telling you that there's a plan for you, and when you resist that, sometimes your life — there's so much stress in your life and things aren't working out, and that's really kind of the universe telling you that you're not where you need to be.

And I think of all the stress in my life — and my life was just riddled with stress. Nonstop, constantly, 24 hours a day stress. And I think that was there to just push me, and push me, and push me in the right direction. And so sometimes you have to take a chance, no matter how crazy it is, and your heart will really tell you things that even though they are illogical, if you follow your heart, you'll end up being in the right place. It's a little bit like your heart, or your intuition, or whatever you want to call it; it knows what your life's plan is. It knows the future for you. Whereas your logical mind doesn't know. It only can make sense of what's happening logically for you right here and now.

So you can be walking down the street, and you always go left. There's something inside of you saying turn right this time. Turn right. You don't want to do it, and maybe you listen and maybe you don’t. It doesn't make sense because if you turn right you have to walk further, but you listen and it turns out that if you turn left maybe a piano would have fallen on your head, but you don't know that. But your heart knows that. Your intuition is there. And if you turn right maybe you meet the person of your dreams.

So you always have to follow your heart. And the more you listen to your heart, the deeper your connection is to your heart and the more you're able to communicate and the closer you are to living your true life's path and the less stressful your life is, the more flow it is. Even though it's scary, because things are always scary and confusing, it's always worth it to take a chance and follow your heart.

So that was an important lesson that I learned and to this day now — it's eight years later, I just always follow my heart. I always listen. Every morning I do my meditation and my visualization, and I just open myself to guidance from my heart. What am I going to do today? And I can't really plan the day. I usually have an idea of what I'm going to do, but I always allow the day to kind of have its — it's kind of organic.

It sounds to me like you position yourself to receive.

Yeah. Exactly.

You actually position yourself to receive the messages you need to know, the way to go. It's amazing how everything unfolded, and when I read the book over and over, I can just see you there buying these tickets and going to this new place. And you had no — it's amazing. It's just astounding

Yeah. It was…

Sometimes it's kind of hard to remain where you are, don't you think?

Well, it's harder, but it's safer. Until it becomes unbearable. See for me, I was living a life that was safe. And you know what's interesting is that — I guess I sort of learned it from my father. My father was a brilliant artist as a kid, but he was really discouraged from pursuing a life of art because it's tough to make a living out of it.

So he became a dentist, and he was a great dentist. And the reason he was a great dentist was because he had that art foundation, so he could really make teeth — he would do cosmetic teeth for people, and you couldn't tell that they were not real teeth. He was really gifted that way. So he was a great dentist, and he was really good at what he did, but you could see he had so much stress.

And what happened was when he was a kid he was a child prodigy artist, and he had 100's of paintings that he had done, and then when he graduated from dental school, he went away to the Army. He went to Germany to serve in the Army, and his mother threw away all the paintings.

Oh my goodness.

And she had — in her defense, she lived a really hard life. When she was 10 years old, her family escaped from Russia, and they had to sleep during the day and travel during night, and there were times when there wasn't enough to eat, and people were always chasing them. So really it was all about stress for her. It was all about safety for her.

And so her position is art is all well and good, but we're here, we've got a new start, you've got to make a living. So he learned this lesson, and he told me, “You do in life what you're good at, what you can bear, that you can make a living at, and that you're good at.” And that's what he told me. And I was good with numbers and I was good with people, and so it was natural for me to go to Wall Street and do all these things, and I was good at it and made a living out of it, but it wasn't what my heart was into. It was really killing me. So it wasn't until I really surrendered to that and took a chance.

I just remembered Joseph Campbell, “Following your bliss.”

“Following your bliss,” exactly. And it's never — I let go of a lot of safety. I let go of a predictable source of income. Everything I knew — my family, everything. I let go of all the safety and went into the unknown, and that was a really scary thing to do.

I bet it was.

It turned out it was right. It turned out it was what I needed to do, and my life, I feel very strongly, is on a path right now. I think it's a really important lesson for people that we all have a reason why we are here. We all have a destiny. We all have a path, and the more we can listen to that, the closer we are to living that path, and then everything is flowing more.

But the resistance to change is legendary. People will stay in unbearable, unbelievable conditions under the guise of, “I'm safe here”. Many times they are the most unsafe right there.

Well that's the thing is that you — for me I was safe, but at the same time I was killing myself. And believe me — what's that?

It's an illusion that you were safe.

And even if I wasn't taken out by 9/11 which I almost was, I don't think I had more than six months left in me in the lifestyle I was living. I really don't.

People, they see you now, and it's so difficult to sometimes imagine the type — in my own meditations, in my own prayers for you, I think of you in that time. I think of just the pain of carrying all of that around. It was like you were carrying your pain around all the time.

I was holding on is what I was doing. Holding on. I was holding on to weight. I was holding on to a life. I was just holding on. I wasn't letting go.

So you were hoarding in a way.

Sort of. Yeah.

And when you decided to put it down…

Let go.

It's a scary thing for most people. It must be some hardwiring in our brain that doesn't want change.

Well, I just think your logical mind — you know what it is, it's that our logical mind is always about safety and keeping us safe. And your heart is really about — your heart, you see, knows the future for you. It knows the reason why you're here. Your mind doesn't know that. It can only deal with the logical situation of what's here right now. How are we going to pay the bills?

Jon, you have to say that again. That makes me cry. That is so beautiful what you just said. Please say it again.

What I'm saying is your heart knows why you are here. It knows your life's plan and your logical mind can only deal with the facts right here and now of how are we going to make ends meet? How are we going to pay the bills? And these are really important considerations. I'm not denying that, but your heart knows the future. It knows why you are here. And so the more you can surrender to that, the more you can communicate with your heart, and develop an open communication, the more you are really going to be safe because there's nothing — no matter how smart you are, you don't know the future from your logical mind and there's just only so far you can go with that type of intelligence, but intuition — following your heart's guidance, that's different. That will always keep you safe. That will always keep you in the right place at the right time, and the more you can relax and surrender into that, the more safe you are.