We caught up with Mike for a couple hours last spring at his home in Orlando, Florida - just enough time to ask him a few questions and see how 'the universe' was doing.  Following are some of the highlights from that conversation and we hope you enjoy it!

Inspiration Peak:  How did you get started on the spiritual path Mike?

Mike:  I guess I've always had this burning, yearning desire to figure out life - or to at least try and understand what's going on and why I'm here. I never felt the answers were out of my reach or out of my realm - as long as I kept asking the right questions.

Inspiration Peak: So where did you find the answers?

Mike:  Most of them came from within, by way of my own hunches and intuition, and were later confirmed by a few books. I don't know if you remember the 'Seth Books' - but these blew me away. Everything I had ever speculated on or wondered about was there and 99 times out of 100 my original conclusions were reaffirmed. What remained then was for me to start living the answers... to start incorporating these greater truths and these deeper understandings in spite of being surrounded by a world that tells us we are limited, aging creatures. And to this day, this is where I'm at.

Inspiration Peak: Were there any other authors that influenced you?

Mike: I love Ayn Rand and her “Objectivism”. The clarity with which she saw the world. In most every case, I share her “black and white” views, and though it sometimes seems like a curse, more often it's a blessing that lets me peer through the games we tend to play with ourselves. Too often we want to hide in gray areas that aren’t even real, refusing to face our fears or adjust our perspectives. Of course, when it comes to emotional interpretations, there’s room for infinite subjectivity, but as far as how life works, how we’ve arrived at where we now are and how we can make our dreams come true, these have no gray areas.

Inspiration Peak: If you had one piece of advice for young people who are just starting their search, what would it be?

Mike:  It might sound pretty trite because we've heard it so often - but I would say 'believe in your dreams', no matter how old or young you are. Of course this does little good if that's all they hear and they're not in a family or in an environment that explains properly how and why they should believe in their dreams. So many people think you have to be a good boy and a good girl or you have to do this or that or you have to go to college and follow a very rigid course in order to be happy or successful. They embrace all these rules and limits and stuff that have nothing to do with reality... except that they believe in them!

Inspiration Peak: Has the human race screwed up the world beyond repair Mike?

Mike:  Life is a workshop - it's not something you can really screw up. It's where we come to learn our lessons and play our games, and sometimes, of course, we're going to make mistakes. Sometimes you fall, sometimes you trip, and sometimes you blunder so big, you die earlier than you might have otherwise, but in the greater reality, there is no death, not as we understand it. So although it would be possible that we could blow up the earth or annihilate humankind it would only be the end of this workshop and we'd start over together tomorrow in another one, so to speak. Life is not at all what it appears to be.

Today, things in many ways are not looking very conducive for our living 'happily ever after,' but certainly it's salvageable and certainly there's room for hope. More and more people are waking up everyday and once we get this critical mass of people awakening to their spiritual side then it should be much easier to change our course and fix much of what we've broken.

Inspiration Peak: One hundred years from now, how would you like to be remembered?

Mike: Really and truly, I don't care if 100 years from now anybody knows who I am. But I do like the idea of making a difference, and I would love that perhaps on a bumper sticker somewhere one of my quotes lived on and gave meaning or comfort to someone. I guess an ambition of mine is to write well enough that its worthy of lasting that long, and longer. Actually, much longer than a just a hundred years!... (Smiles...)

Mike Dooley is the founder of the TUT Adventurers Club and author of Infinite Possibilities, The Art Of Living Your Dreams. He also travels the world giving speeches and holding workshops.


 

Mike's Favorites Favorite Movie:   It's A Wonderful Life   Favorite Book:   Atlas Shrugged Favorite Music   Bruce Springsteen   Hip Hop   Favorite Ice Cream:   Chocolate

Infinite Possibilities:
The Art Of Living
Your Dreams