Episode 620 · Jul 19, 2022

Living in the Present Moment: Lessons from The Power of Now

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In this episode of The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III walks you through chapter three of Eckhart Tolle's landmark book, "The Power of Now." George has returned to this book many times and wanted to share the ideas that struck him most deeply, believing the concepts are especially valuable for anyone wrestling with mindset challenges, stress, or the sense that life is just passing by.

This is part one of a three-part series. George focuses on a single, foundational idea: that living trapped in memories of the past or anticipation of the future is the core source of human suffering, and that the path out runs directly through the present moment.

What Enlightenment Actually Means

George opens with a reframe on the word enlightenment. Many people picture it as some elevated, mystical state reserved for monks or spiritual masters. But as George points out, the Buddha defined it far more simply: the end of suffering.

"Enlightenment, in my opinion, and in the opinion of this book and the Buddha and many others, is just the ending of suffering and having more happiness and fulfillment in your life."

That reframe matters because it takes a lofty goal and makes it practical. You are not chasing a superpower. You are working toward less pain, more peace, and a life that actually feels like yours.

Why You Are Not Your Mind

One of Tolle's central arguments, and one George returns to repeatedly, is the idea that you are not your mind. This is harder to accept than it sounds. Most people treat their thoughts as the core of their identity. Their internal narrative, their memories, their worries, all of it feels like "me."

Tolle pushes back on this directly. The mind is a tool, and a powerful one. But it becomes dysfunctional when your entire sense of self is fused with it. George explains that studying the mind more deeply does not solve the problem, because the problem of the mind cannot be solved by the mind. That kind of analysis only feeds the ego, which thrives on complexity and self-examination.

The practical shift is simpler than more study: step back, observe your thoughts rather than becoming them, and reconnect with the present moment.

How Time Traps You

The reason the mind causes so much suffering comes down to one word: time. The mind is almost always somewhere other than now. It replays the past, rehearsing old hurts or reliving better days. It races toward the future, either dreading what might go wrong or placing all hope for happiness somewhere ahead of the current moment.

"Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops."

George reads this line directly from Tolle because it captures something precise. When you are fully present, the mental noise quiets. The anxiety about tomorrow and the regret about yesterday have nowhere to live in the now. Most people sense this during moments of deep focus or genuine joy, but they do not realize they can cultivate it deliberately.

What the Now Actually Is

Tolle draws a sharp distinction between time as a concept and the present moment as the only thing that is actually real. George highlights the passage where Tolle asks: have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the now? The answer is no. Everything that has ever happened in your life happened in a present moment. The past was the now. The future, when it arrives, will be the now.

This sounds simple, even obvious. But George emphasizes that really grasping it, not just understanding it intellectually but feeling its truth, is what shifts your consciousness. When you stop treating the present as just a stepping stone toward some future payoff, you start to show up differently, with more energy, more attention, and more genuine engagement with your own life.

Why the Present Moment Is Where Results Live

George connects Tolle's philosophy directly to performance and results. Creativity, focus, and emotional resilience all come from being grounded in the present. When your attention is split between regret and anticipation, you are only partially available for the work, the relationship, or the conversation in front of you.

He notes that this is not about abandoning goals or ignoring lessons from the past. Planning for the future still happens in the present moment. Learning from past experience still happens in the present moment. The difference is that neither the past nor the future should hijack your awareness of what is actually happening right now.

Action Steps

Notice when your mind drifts to the past or future during ordinary tasks; gently return your attention to what is in front of you.
Practice the question Tolle poses: "Have I ever experienced anything outside the now?" Let the answer settle before moving on.
Observe your thoughts as an outside witness rather than identifying with them; remind yourself that you are not your mind.
When you feel stress or anxiety, ask yourself whether the problem exists right now, in this actual moment, or only in your projection of future or past.
Pick up "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle and read chapter three with a highlighter. George recommends it as one of the most practical books on presence and inner peace available.

A Final Word on the Only Moment That Exists

George plans to continue this series over the next two episodes, moving into how to access the grounded energy that comes from presence and then into how negativity is rooted in time. But he leaves you with the core idea today: there has never been a moment in your life that was not the now, and there never will be. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live, and that life begins in the only moment you ever actually have.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, everyone. My name is George Wright III. I hope that you are having an amazing week. If this is your first time on the podcast, I'd like to welcome you. Our goal here is to always be able to provide you with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. Today what I want to do, I want to do something a little bit different. I've been reading a book lately by Eckhart Tolle, and it's called The Power of Now. Now, I know that I talk a lot about personal development. I talk about business, and we do all kinds of different financial education type pieces. But today, I want to talk to you a little bit more about being present. I really love this book. It's a New York Times bestseller. If you haven't gotten it, I highly recommend it. But I was reading chapter, boy, let's see, what was it? Chapter three, and I got some really great content out of it. And I really wanted to highlight that content for a couple of episodes. So I'm going to do that today, tomorrow on Thursday, maybe even Friday, because I really feel like with all of the struggle that people are having right now, the struggles with mindset and the struggles with different challenges and situations and circumstances, I think it could be a huge, huge value to you. So I really hope it is. And I want to share with you some of the things that I highlighted. you know unfortunately in chapter three i highlighted most of the most of the chapter so we'll see what we can do here i'm going to split it up over a couple of episodes and hopefully we'll be able to get you some really really good content to be able to use the real concept behind this book that i that i like and he talks about it right in the beginning is in order to accomplish enlightenment you know what is enlightenment enlightenment um actually the Dalai Lama, oh no, the Buddha simply defined enlightenment as the end of suffering, which I loved because so many times we think of enlightenment as this like huge superpower type thing you're going to put together to transcend your life. And really enlightenment, in my opinion, and in the opinion of this book and the Buddha and many others, is just the ending of suffering and having more happiness and fulfillment in your life. And Eckhart says in this book, he says, the greatest obstacle to enlightenment, which I completely agree with, is your mind. That's the greatest obstacle because in order for you to create enlightenment, happiness, fulfillment, whatever it is, success in your life, one of the things you have to realize and recognize is that you are not your mind. You are not your mind. And in chapter three, what he talks about, This whole chapter is around the concept of moving deeply into the present. The chapter is actually called Moving Deeply Into The Now But in order to become present that really the key right You have to find ways in your life to become more present He really breaks down a lot of examples and I want to kind of go through a few of these with you. I think they're strategies, they're ideas that can help you. The first section that I want to highlight is one where he says, don't seek yourself in the mind. In this book, he kind of brings up really good points, and then he speaks to those points. So one of the points he brings up is he would say something like, I feel that there's still a great deal of things I need to learn about my mind in order to get anywhere towards enlightenment or to be able to do more about it. And he really says pretty directly that no, you don't. Many of us think we have to learn more about our mind and conscious and subconscious thinking and meditation. And really, I think the point that he emphasizes really brilliantly is that you don't need to understand because the problem of the mind can't be solved with the mind. Studying how complex the mind is or the pieces of the mind are not going to help you study the problem anymore. And it's not going to help you understand anymore because that's all tied to the ego. And the ego loves to identify itself. In fact, that's why so many people are caught up in their problems because their mind really gives them their sense of self. And so you have to get free of that. You have to recognize that the root is to be able to separate from the mind and step away from it and just become present because the mind itself is not the problem. Your mind is actually not the problem. The problem is that you're too connected. Your identity is too connected with your mind itself. And you have to step away from that and you have to just become more present in your life and recognize that, look, the mind is an amazing tool. It's just a dysfunctional tool because the mind is constantly caught up with time. And that's the highlight that we're really going to talk a lot about is time. The mind is always, always caught up with past and future. You know, you're connected to your past. You're worried about your future. And this dysfunction, this idea that your mind is constantly caught up with time is something that you have to disconnect from. So not only do you have to step back and realize that you're not your mind, but you have to step back and realize that the best strategy is to become present. And so he talks about the idea that you need to end the delusion of time. It seems almost possible, he says, to sort of disidentify from your mind itself, right? You know, I am not my mind. That's really hard to do. And he talks and he says, I'll just read to you. Here's a key. The key is ending the delusion of time because time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops. If you think about that, that's so true. To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time. The compulsiveness to live almost exclusively from your memories of the past or anticipation of the future This creates this endless preoccupation with the future and the past And this constantly gives you your source of identity, unfortunately. And the future, you know, because your past is what you use really to identify yourself. And the future is really this constant promise and hope of something better, the salvation or fulfillment you're looking for. And he goes on to say, without a sense of time, and I hope you can relate to this, how would we even function, right? We set goals to strive towards the future, and the past sort of makes us who we are. And he addresses this specifically by saying, time isn't precious at all. Time is just an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time, but one point that is out of time, the now. And this is the point he's trying to make, is that the more we're focused on time, the past and the future, the more you're actually missing the present, the now. And the now is the only thing that exists. It's the most important thing. And it's something that we're trying to really hone in on, right? There's never going to be a time when your life wasn't actually a now. And there never will be. And that's the point that you've got to understand is that the only time that really exists is the now. And, you know, he kind of brings up another point. He says, aren't the past and future just as real? I mean, sometimes even more real than the present. After all, the past defines who we are as well as how we perceive and behave in the present. And our future goals determine what actions we're going to take, right? And he says, you haven't really grasped the essence of what he's trying to say. The mind just can't understand this. Only you can. So please listen. And I want to read you this. So I want you to listen to this. Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the now? Do you ever think you will? Is it possible for anything to happen outside the now? And the answer is obviously no. Nothing's ever going to happen in the past because in the past it was the now. and nothing's going to ever happen in the future because in the future, it's going to be the now. And the essence of what he's saying here is it just can't, and it's something that you really can't understand unless you really think about it. But the moment you grasp it, this is when you're going to shift your consciousness and your awareness and everything towards what's most important. And that's the point that I really want to make from this book is that so many of us are living in the past and so many of us are looking towards the future that we're missing the now and the now is the only thing that really exists for us and we're going to talk a little bit more tomorrow about how to access the power of being present and then probably have to cut it off until the day after that because I want to respect your time of about 10 minutes a day But then I going to talk to you a little bit about how all of our negative emotions all of our challenges all of our problems are all rooted in this idea of the past and the future and how disconnecting with this concept of time, of the past and the future, can allow us to be more present, have more energy, be more productive, have more success. And this is a concept that you may have to sit back and really think about, because I've read this book many times and many, many times I breezed over it and I thought, okay, great, yeah, that makes sense. Don't connect to your past or your future too much because worry and fear and all those things and also the stories we tell ourselves are from the past. But there's a deeper meaning that I really want you to try to get from this. And the meaning I'm trying to get here is a conscious awareness that you are not your mind and that your mind is also connected so much to time that that's what keeps grabbing you back to these areas. And until you really become aware of that, you're not going to be able to empower yourself to make change. And so we're going to talk a little bit more about this because the idea is how do you move more deeply into the present moment? And it begins by these concepts I've talked to you about today. It begins by understanding that you're not your mind and how your mind is connected to time. And then tomorrow what we'll do is we'll talk a little bit more about the power of being grounded in the present and how that can give you additional energy, additional creativity, and also empower you and help you to disconnect from all these things. And then the day after that, probably Thursday, we'll talk a little bit more about how things like negativity and suffering are all rooted in time and how to eliminate negative emotions from your life and live in the present moment. I think it's something that you're going to get a lot of value out of. So once again, this is the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. and I really highly recommend that you get it but we're going to go through chapter three and I'm going to give you a few more concepts tomorrow and the day after that and then we'll tie it all up by Friday and really help you to put some strategies in place in your life that'll help you to really access the present moment which I think will 10x and just give you a quantum leap towards happiness and success and results in your life. Anyway, that's our message for today. Hit me up on the Daily Mastermind on Facebook or Instagram. Let me know what you think. Let me know if you're getting some value from this. and also just want to recommend you download that Daily Mastermind mobile app. We're going to start sending out quite a bit of information with that. We have new e-books and audio books dropping as well as some amazing interviews. So go get that app because it's free. No charges for that at all. There's nothing for sale on the Daily Mastermind mobile app. So that's our message for today. I hope you have an amazing day and I will talk with you soon. This is George Wright III and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Thank you.