A Single Day of Peace

Justin Recla:

Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today, we’re going to dive a little bit more towards the center here, and look at the concept of balance, and how you do it all in business. I mean, if you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve been an entrepreneur for a while, you know that it can stretch, you know that it’s going to grow you, whether you like it or not. It’s going to take you somewhere whether you like it or not. And if you really lean towards the woe is me, this is hard, then that’s really what it’s going to be, and I know. I’ve been there. I’ve had those days. I’ve had those experiences. And I think a lot of people in business and in entrepreneurship have had that experience.

And at some point in your business journey, at some point in your spiritual journey, the two are going to meet up. And my guest today is the epitome of that. My guest is Stephen D’Angelo. He’s a best-selling author and a veteran of Silicon Valley. He’s been in the tech industry for 30 some odd years. He’s a mentor. He helps people get organized on how to fundraise for their businesses. And he’s been on that journey himself. And he’s written a book called A Single Day of Peace. It’s a guide for self-empowerment that can help you create success, not only in your business but in your personal life as well. Stephen, welcome to the show.

I love that. I absolutely love that. Now, here’s the question. Because I know that a lot of people out there are like, “Oh, I’m not spiritual at all,” and so forth how, what’s the correlation to success is to the spirituality, that personal development piece? How much of your business success would you say relies on or depends on or draws on your growth, your own personal development? How much of that would you equate to business success?

Stephen D’Angelo:

Yeah. I want to answer that in two ways because you just said something very interesting about people saying I’m not really that spiritual. I want to cover that one in a second because I have an interesting story about that. But for me, there is without any question 99, if not 100%, of my, I’ll call it a success. Although success means ups and downs, ultimately, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve had a great successful career, but it’s all been due to my spirit or my spirituality. But that’s not what I mean by religion. I mean spirituality of what’s the right attitude that I bring to the situation. What are the thoughts I think day in, day out? Do my thoughts really control my destiny? Yes, they do. Is life really a self-fulfilling prophecy? Yes, it is. Do I avoid the woe is me? What did you describe when you did the intro here.

I would say attitude is everything. And that spirituality that I had kept me grounded when I stunk and helped me keep believing in myself when I stunk. And it helped me stay grounded when I was knocking it out of the park and realizing, “Wow, I’m pretty fortunate. Let’s stay grounded.” So spirituality that I talk about in my book, A Single Day Of Peace, it’s really about that voice, that energy, that spirit inside of you, and how to tap into that more frequently and listen to it and use that power of God in you or that energy in you, however, you want to look at it, but it’s there. Utilize that more and more to help you be successful.

Now, to your other point about people listening to this will say, “I’m not that spiritual that doesn’t. I don’t know how to connect with that.” Part of why I wrote this book, A Single Day Of Peace, is through my years in the business world, I worked alongside some very successful people that were happy and some very successful people that were not happy. And people would say, “What do you mean not happy? They have a lot of money and they got things.” Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve worked alongside a lot of people that had what you think was happiness and success, but it didn’t translate to happiness. They were not happy.

And the people that we’re happy, did some things that were spiritually-based. And I would talk to them about it. I said, “You’re pretty spiritual.” And they’d say, “Spiritual me? I don’t believe in religion. I’m not religious. I’m not spiritual.” I said, “Oh, not really? Let me take you through what I just observed.” And I would talk them through maybe how they adjusted their thoughts or how they got quiet for a few minutes and closed their eyes and thought about something. That’s your spirituality taking over. And they’d scratch their heads and say, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am tapping into something there.” And I’m talking about billionaires. I’m talking about professional athletes. I’m talking to venture capitalists. But when I say successful people, I’m talking about great teachers, great homemakers, all walks of life. Success isn’t defined just by money and things. It’s defined by doing whatever it is you want to do and pursuing a worthwhile goal.

Justin Recla:

I love that.

Stephen D’Angelo:

Yeah. So that’s my experience around the spirituality side.

Justin Recla:

I love that. And I love the fact that you hire like that because we need more of that in the business world. You get on social media, you see it and everybody’s selling this or selling that or grinding this, grinding that, and it’s all focused on the dollar, but nobody’s talking about it, “Yeah. But are you happy?” I get it. I know billionaires that are miserable in their relationships. I know billionaires that have all the money in the world, and yet, when they come together to do something, their primary focus is still the money. And there comes a point in time that you have to get good with yourself and recognize that the money’s not going to fill that gap that you have inside yourself if you’re not listening to it. I’m going to ask you, how does your book guide people towards hearing that?

Stephen D’Angelo:

Yes. So let me tell you a little bit about the book, and then I’ll directly answer that. So the book, A Single Day of Peace, is a novel. So it’s a fictional story. And I wrote it this way because I wanted to write a book to help people have a much more successful and happy life. And I often say, “I want to make the world a better place by helping people find their own better place.” And I didn’t want to do it as an instruction guide. I wanted to create a story. I wanted to create a compelling story, an entertaining one, and maybe even somewhat of a controversial story. So here’s.

A bit of a description about the story. It’s about a very successful executive, happens to be in the technology business. Runs a great big business. He’s what I call a spiritual leader. He uses spiritual leadership in his approach, which means he’s there to build great comradery, great company. He’s not an easy leader. He’s tough on people, holds them accountable. All the things that you like about a person when you work for a really great leader. Well, he has a very negative event happen in his life, and comes to a crossroads. He has to decide what he’s going to do next in his life. And before he entered the business world, he actually thought about being a Catholic priest. So now that he comes to the crossroads, he said, “Maybe I should change and bring all my great leadership skills and help people be more spiritual, help them learn what success is. And maybe I could do that as a spiritual man in the Catholic church.” He becomes a Catholic priest. He takes his innovative and progressive views about spirituality.

What we’re talking out here right now, Justin, these kinds of things to his congregation. He gets media attention. He has millions of followers. But the Catholic church may be operating as an old stodgy company, doesn’t accept his way, and they reject him. He makes an interesting and controversial prediction as to what could happen to Jesus Christ if he would return. The church rejects him, and he goes off on a trip in order for him to be in solitude. He travels to Camino de Santiago, and he publishes 50 success principles. If you follow these principles, one at a time, one day at a time, or a single day of peace at a time, you will then have a more fulfilled, happy, and successful life. And that’s how the book instructs how to get into that spirit, how to touch into that silence inside of you, how to set your goals, how to think more positively, how to control your thoughts. So throughout the book and the story, all of the pieces of how to do these things are intertwined, and then they’re all summed up at the end in these 50 principles.

Justin Recla:

That’s absolutely brilliant. And I want to get more into those 50 principles when we get back from the break. Before we go on break, where can people go find more information about you and your book?

Stephen D’Angelo:

Sure. They can go to my website, asingledayofpiece.com. They can certainly go to Amazon and just search A Single Day of Peace. You’ll see reviews there that you could read. I’m very fortunate, great reviews are there. And between those two areas, or they can look me up on LinkedIn, Stephen D’Angelo. You’ll see my business background, but certainly my website. And then, my email address [email protected]. You can email me and I’m happy to communicate.

Justin Recla:

Fantastic. Folks, go take a look at the site, go take a look at the book. And stay tuned because when we get back, we’re going to dive into a little bit more as to what the book’s about and why you should be paying attention to these principles in your business life and your personal life. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.

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