Ralph Zuranski: What is your definition of heroism?
John Assaraf: I think heroism is when somebody really goes above and beyond the call of duty and does something outstanding for either themselves or somebody else.
John Assaraf: Somebody that really just gets out of their own ways and is just infallible in their pursuit to make someone else’s life a masterpiece. Somebody who really gives up themselves to others. Not just firefighters but anybody who really steps up and makes a difference in humanity is a hero for me.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you ever create a secret hero in your mind that helped you deal with life’s difficulties?
John Assaraf: No I have never had a secret hero in my mind but I have kept a lot of mentors in my mind that are heroes. Gandhi, Jesus, Moses, Martin Luther King they were all secret heroes in my mind because they stood for what they wanted, what they believed in.
John Assaraf: They had the conviction and belief in themselves what matter what anybody said and they were going to pursue that belief and that love in their heart.
John Assaraf: Those are guys that really set examples for me not to believe what other people think about me. To pursue what I believe and follow my heart.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
John Assaraf: My perspective is that there is a lack of it. There are a lot of people who pretend to have moral ethics and they talk from both sides of their mouth.
John Assaraf: There is a Greek word that is called “Praxis” and that means the integration of your beliefs with your behavior.
John Assaraf: That to me is where your moral ethics come from, where your values come from and I think there is a lack of it. It is not a matter of being right or wrong.
John Assaraf: I think it is time that people say here is what I stand for, here’s what my values are, here’s what my beliefs are and just start doing things that way from now on and stick to it.
Ralph Zuranski: What principles are you willing to sacrifice your life for?
John Assaraf: Freedom. Absolute freedom for myself, for my country, freedom some someone harming my children.
John Assaraf: Absolutely.
Ralph Zuranski: When was the lowest point in your life and how did you change your life path to one of victory over all obstacles?
John Assaraf: One of the lowest points in my life was when I was diagnosed and combated with severe ulcerative colitis which is severe ulcers in you colon that bleed.
John Assaraf: I was twenty one years old and I thought, “here I am my health is at risk, my life is going to go down hill from here and I really had to have a look in the mirror to see what the cause was of that and the cause of that was me.
John Assaraf: I was putting too much stress on my body and not living a healthy life style, I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was able to turn that around by having a belief in myself and trusting God and then doing what it took to get healthy again.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have a dream or vision that sets the course of your life?
John Assaraf: Number one is my children, to make sure that I am the best father possible for them. The next one is that whenever my dream is over, my time is out and I come out of this bodysuit is to make sure that I have done the best possible, that I have given to myself and humanity, that I have contributed and I am leaving this place in a better place then when I found it and I have contributed to peoples lives and I have loved as much as I can.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you take a positive view of setbacks, misfortunes and mistakes?
John Assaraf: Absolutely.
John Assaraf: One of my core beliefs is that everything happens for a reason and some things just aren’t to my taste. All the things that happen in my life are divinely inspired and they happen for a purpose.
John Assaraf: Sometimes we forget that the top of the wave, the top of the crest is always the bottom, there is no inside without an outside, and there is no up without a down.
John Assaraf: Your life can not be all about stuff that you love or even like. Your life is going to be about ups and downs and that is just part of the journey.
John Assaraf: We go through these metamorphous just like a caterpillar does before becoming a butterfly and the middle of that metamorphosis it always feels uncomfortable.
John Assaraf: It always feels icky and sticky and just terrible but that is part of how we grow, that is part of how nature works and we are part of nature. I think everything in my life I am thankful for.
John Assaraf: Some things aren’t to my taste and I wish they wouldn’t have happened but they have been some of the best experiences to learn and grow from so I am grateful for every moment.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have the courage to pursue new ideas?
John Assaraf: It takes a lot of courage. I think people are afraid of either failing or succeeding. It takes courage to feel the fear and feel the risk.
John Assaraf: It takes courage to look like an idiot possibly and fall and fail but that’s what it takes to learn to succeed so you have to be willing to practice or rehearse to work your risk muscle.
John Assaraf: Practice to look stupid, practice to look like you are not good enough or smart enough where you couldn’t do things right and get over it anyway. The truth of the matter is we are all going to feel that way.
John Assaraf: I don’t care whether you are me or Michael Jordan, it makes no difference we are all going to feel that way but it is what we do about what we feel that isn’t comfortable that separates the people who do really well verses the people who just meek out existence.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you believe your dreams would eventually become reality?
John Assaraf: Absolutely.
John Assaraf: I absolutely learned, lets see I am forty-three now and when I was nineteen I started studying the mind and the brain and perception of behavior.
John Assaraf: And I started studying successful people a lot of successful people and the first thing they told me, I can remember this twenty-five years ago, you first have to believe it in here before you see it out here.
John Assaraf: What happens is when you start to believe it in here your brain starts to believe it out here in our physical world so you have to understand it is a reverse of what we have been taught. “When I see it I will believe it”.
John Assaraf: The truth is you have to believe it first, that is an absolute peal for whoever is listening to this and you better understand what that means. I totally believe that I everything I choose, everything I set my dreams out to achieve I will achieve.
Ralph Zuranski: How were you able to overcome your doubts and fears?
John Assaraf: First we have to understand what doubts and fears are, how anxiety and doubts and fears come about. They are a psychic disease.
John Assaraf: When the brain isn’t working properly and we don’t understand how to calibrate the brain for optimal performance we are going to feel these doubts, fears and anxieties and most people when this happens they don’t understand why and they let that paralyze them.
John Assaraf: The people that do understand how the brain works and how the chemicals are released in the brain when they feel uncomfortable, uncertain or doubtful they do it anyway. They overcome the biological and neurological releases by understanding what’s causing them and moving forward anyway.
Ralph Zuranski: Who helped give you the willpower to change things in you life for the better?
John Assaraf: The first is God, having the Creator in my life, having the spiritual connection to the divine intelligence that created me.
John Assaraf: I have had phenomenal support from my family, my sweetheart Maria and today being the dad of two spectacular boys, Keenan and Noah, looking at them gives me so much inspiration and so much desire to do the best I can do and to overcome anything that comes my way.
John Assaraf: So absolutely.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you readily forgive those who upset, offend and oppose you?
John Assaraf: I think forgiveness is absolutely mandatory. When you don’t forgive the only person you are hurting is yourself because you are still harboring the anger and the mental anguish.
John Assaraf: I think forgiveness is a release of emotions, a release to say “No I let go”. I think it is critical for our mental health being and our physical health being and I think it is critical for our universal being as well to forgive each other.
John Assaraf: I don’t know of anybody including me that has not made errors in judgment, that hasn’t done things I shouldn’t do, that hasn’t lied, that hasn’t done things I am not proud of but I hope I am forgiven.
John Assaraf: And I will continue to make mistakes and hope to be forgiven so I have to treat people the same way I want to be treated. I am human and so are you and we are on this journey together and we both have to go on our way and say “You know what?
John Assaraf: We are going to screw up, so what, let’s move on.”
Ralph Zuranski: Do you experience service to others as a source of joy?
John Assaraf: Absolute joy.
John Assaraf: What I do today is really helping people in maximizing their income and to live the lives they want to live. I effect they’re families, I effect their beliefs about themselves and it gives me so much joy
John Assaraf: It validates who I am and it validates the work that I do. I drive a lot of joy from being able to help others and helping put them on the path that they want.
Ralph Zuranski: What place does the power of prayer have in your life?
John Assaraf: I pray everyday, all the time. Prayer is when you are actually experiencing a conversation with divine intelligence.
John Assaraf: Don’t look at prayer as me asking God to give me something, like some type of cosmic bell captain, look at prayer as my communication with the quantum intelligence, the divine intelligence that we have out there and that is how things are manifested.
John Assaraf: When we pray with our hearts and our souls I think we are being heard.
John Assaraf: Absolutely.
John Assaraf: What I think is critically important is that there are lots of studies on how prayer effects people that are ill, lots of studies, and I know in my life my prayers have been answered.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you maintain your sense of humor in the face of serious problems?
John Assaraf: In the face of serious problems I think it’s a hard to be serious but if you look beyond the problem and understand that for every problem there has to be a solution of equal magnitude.
John Assaraf: So, I don’t know if humor has a place for it but being light hearted does and not to take it too seriously.
John Assaraf: Think of death for example, that could be a very traumatic experience but death is but one event in a person’s lifetime.
John Assaraf: There is a multitude of things that happen in between life and death so what is more critical?
John Assaraf: If you have your health and the ability to do what you love to do then I think we are all blessed and so keeping a light heart is really important.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the HEROES in your life?
John Assaraf: The heroes in my life right now are my kids and Maria, my fiancée, my family and as I mentioned this amazing Creation that we have.
John Assaraf: I don’t have individuals that are heroes per say but I will suggest that teachers are heroes for me, our firefighters are heroes for me, our police departments are heroes for me and our leaders are heroes for me.
John Assaraf: People who are serving us, serving our country, serving other people these people are heroes. People that are really doing the best they can to serve one another are heroes to me.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are HEROES so important in the lives of young people?
John Assaraf: I think heroes are important in the lives of kids because it shows a child what to become, it shows a child what’s possible; it shows a child not just by theory but by active example.
John Assaraf: It’s easy to talk about what you’re going to do but your actions speak words. There is a study called mirror neurons in the brain and the thing that mirror neurons do is they actually mirror what they see and that’s how children learn.
John Assaraf: Children have a ton of mirror neurons when they are babies and kids and they mimic what they see and so heroes are important because we are watching these heroes make a difference in these peoples lives and sacrificing their lives in some cases and I think it is really important to know that it is not just about us but about the community.
John Assaraf: Humanity is a community, I don’t care if your black, your white, your Christian, your Jewish, your Muslim. We are all one community and heroes really make us see what’s possible at any given time.
Ralph Zuranski: How do people become heroes?
John Assaraf: You don’t become a hero by choosing to become a hero. You become a hero by becoming an example, by being an example for what’s possible, for being an example for one person.
John Assaraf: Your child, your friend your neighbor, somebody looks up and says “You know what? I am going to move my life towards that type of goodness, doing that type of goodness, being that type of goodness and kindness. I think that is how someone becomes a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to be recognized as an Internet HERO?
John Assaraf: I don’t look at myself as a hero I look at myself as just another person who’s on the path. I have got a light in front of me shining and I have got other people in front of me with their light shinning for me, I have got people behind me with their light shinning for me.
John Assaraf: I don’t look at myself as a hero, I look at myself as somebody who has taken life with a lot of fun and I take it very seriously, I know it s a very short journey and so I want to grow, I want to develop, I want to be as good as I can be so I can share what all my talents and gifts allow me to share with other individuals to make their lives better.
John Assaraf: And by that I mean living healthy, balanced lives with the income that they want so they can live the lifestyle that they want. So if that constitutes as a hero then I thank you and I accept. I feel like a normal guy who is on the path of life like everybody else.
Ralph Zuranski: How are you making the world a better place?
John Assaraf: I am loving a lot. I am just loving and loving and loving. A lot of people around me really see a love in me and a love in themselves.
John Assaraf: I think that if we look at what created us, the divine intelligence that created every one of us all He can see is that beauty and love and care so if we could just show people how spectacular they are and how much potential they have.
John Assaraf: And that they don’t need anything else other than just to dig inside themselves and say “You know what?
John Assaraf: I am a genius, I am brilliant, I am outstanding and I can achieve whatever I choose to achieve with a … given by my Creator.” That is how I am helping people.
John Assaraf: I am helping people maybe scrape off some of the old stuff that has been put upon us that has taken us from being genius’s to not feeling great about ourselves by having doubts, fears and anxieties.
John Assaraf: To having no self esteem to feeling wonderful about yourself doing what you love to do and making the money that you want to be making. That is my contribution to humanity.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have any good solutions to the problems facing society, especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence among young people?
John Assaraf: We could talk on that for quite a while. The advice I have on that is only going to be through education that we have changed up.
John Assaraf: If you think about a child that is born and how it’s born, if it has racism in his genes, every child that is raised up to hit or beat someone up with anger and resentments.
John Assaraf: We don’t have that for the most part it is learned behavior and so the first part is we have to understand why people are behaving the way they are. Behavior is a result so we have to understand that before there is a result something is going on in here in the brain.
John Assaraf: That’s why I have studied for so long is I have been looking at the results in my life and other peoples lives and I have found the behaviors aren’t really what’s responsible for the results it is the thoughts that occur before the behaviors.
John Assaraf: We can help educate the individuals who are doing the things they shouldn’t be doing in my opinion by understanding that there is a way to achieve their goals and desires whether it’s communication skills so they stop hitting and using their anger as oppose to their intelligence.
John Assaraf: Racism is nothing more than ignorance, we are in the dessert together at one time in our lives, we got segregated by peoples beliefs of what was true of what we have to have and don’t have to have so for me it is all about education.
John Assaraf: It is about reeducating ourselves with the skills and module that we have today as oppose to going back six hundred years when superstition rules our religions. I think there is a lot more information, we have grown as a species, our brain is evolving and we are much smarter than we use to be so for me it is a function of really educating people from kindergarten on and parents who have kids.
John Assaraf: If you had three wishes for your life and the world, that would instantly come true, what would they be?
John Assaraf: That my life mattered, that I remain healthy and that I have the power to continue what I am doing with love and compassion and kindness.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think about the “In Search Of Heroes” Program and its impact on youth, parents and business people?
John Assaraf: It is about time someone takes them serious and does something for the youth. We have got to start with our younger children.
John Assaraf: See, you and I get to change our mind, with our children we have to help them make up their mind and so when we can give them the information no matter what backgrounds they come from, no matter how much schooling they have had, no matter what kind of errors they have made in the past, no matter what kind of hurt they have got in their hearts or in their minds.
John Assaraf: They can overcome them and they can do something worthwhile and meaningful, caring and spectacular starting with their life right now.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the things parents can do that will help their children realize they too can be HEROES and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
John Assaraf: The number one thing in my opinion parents can do is be the way you would like your child to be. Don’t tell them one thing and do something different. Be congruent with what you would like them to be by showing them how to be that way.
John Assaraf: Again, we are going to learn more by what we see than by what we hear. Our actions speak so loudly that we don’t have to say a word.. Words only account for about seven percent of our communication.
John Assaraf: If you can show your child what its like to be charming and giving, show your child what love is really all about and show your child unconditional love, show your child caring and compassion and understanding the nonjudgmental and that is what your child will become.
John Assaraf: They won’t become anything but that.
Ralph Zuranski: What is your parting thought?
John Assaraf: It is all about love. It is all about caring. We are all in this game together, we are all connected. You may not be able to see it with your eyes but if you go to the Quantum Universe, some of the physics of nature, we are all connected.
John Assaraf: There is nothing that separates us except our belief that we are separate and so everything I do that is good in the world you benefit from you benefit from and everything I do that is not good in the world you lose from, and visa versa.
John Assaraf: We all need to be compassionate and know that its is a game for all of us to win, we have to be on the same page and raise our level of awareness of what’s possible and the awareness of how powerful we are and how good we need to be to each other.
John Assaraf is an entrepreneur, researcher and explorer of consciousness and human behavior. His love and passion for Discovering and teaching people how to release the internal mental blockages that holds them back from achieving their fullest potential is what drives him and gives his life purpose and meaning.
In the last 25 years he has grown 5 multimillion dollar companies and written 2 New York Times Best Selling books. John’s current company, PraxisNow is a Research and Development Company that creates some of the most powerful evidence based brain retraining tools and programs in the world.
Thousands of companies, entrepreneurs and individuals worldwide are currently using PraxisNow Programs to develop unstoppable confidence and certainly in achieving their vision, business goals and personal best.
John has been a frequent guest on Larry King live, appeared on every major TV network and was featured in the blockbuster movie and book “The Secret” and in the special documentary “Quest for Success” with the Dali Lama and Sir Richard Branson.
Today John lectures extensively around the world on The Neuroscience of Success and achieving Peak Personal Performance and results.
– See more at: http://johnassaraf.com/about-me#sthash.tuux1wuY.dpuf