The Shift

Summer 2009 | This is a gem of a spiritual movie, an interesting blend and balance of interviewing Wayne Dyer and the illustrative lives of two families and various characters, including the film crew filming Dyer and being filmed themselves by the various characters in the movie. Quinn and Jason are a married couple with two young children. But Quinn feels lack in her life because she was a budding artist in college and has misplaced her ability to draw in the mix of marriage and young kids. Chad and Denise are another married couple, sans kids. Chad is at the top of the type A pyramid, an overachiever in all things except his marriage.

All achieve an “ah-ha” moment in a plot and script under the direction of Michael Goorjian that makes it all seem flawless and genuine. You are drawn into the characters and the plot and the individual stories blend well, but never overlap. The characters of the multiple sub-plots never meet. The character development is more subtle and understated than your usual Hollywood product. The actors act out their dramas rather than just blatantly speaking them, so that no one could possibly miss the point. Goorjian treats his audience as intelligent and sensitive to the message of the film, and I appreciate that subtlety and I believe you will as well.

As a teacher, I know that what we see has a much higher retention rate than what we just hear, so this film will have more lasting value to the viewer. This is also a movie that most people will want to see more than once precisely because the message isn’t hammered into us by repetition.

Filmed with the backdrop of stunning Asilomar, the family of characters provides a more interesting method to illustrate Dyer’s message than “talking heads.” Dyer discusses how to find your purpose, how to know when you have found it, ego, separation, the shift towards spirituality, and other topics which are then played out by the characters. His story of his personal miracle experience at Assisi is especially powerful.

The casting is interesting because everyone looks “normal, ”just like us, avoiding the Hollywood beautiful people cast (Portia De Rossi was deglammed), even though it was filmed in California. The theme music provides an appropriately understated balanced tone, as do the nature views for a proper introspective backdrop.

Wayne Dyer and Michael Goorjian should make more movies. A memorable experience that sets the tone for future efforts in this developing genre.

A memorable experience that sets the tone for future efforts in this developing genre.

February 12, 2009 | When Louise Lewis got laid off, her thoughts were frantic.

“Oh my God, I don’t have a job,” she recalls in her book, No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You! (iUniverse). “I have a mortgage! With everyone getting laid off, where will I find a job?”

Sitting in the airport, waiting to go home from a business trip that ended with a pink slip, Lewis hung her head and felt herself falling. Then hands seemed to catch her while speaking these words, “You’re going to be OK, Louise. I’ll take care of you.”

Looking back, the Louisiana native calls being laid off, “being set free.”

“I immediately interpreted being set free from my job as something positive from which I could later benefit, rather than something negative that I would be challenged to overcome,” she writes in the book that resulted from her career interruption. In No Experts Needed, Lewis realizes she is meant to collect stories of what life means to people and includes chapters on different people she meets during her time “set free.” It’s an uplifting testimony of the unbroken spirit.

Finding your purpose

Best-selling author of 35 books, Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about finding a purpose in life in his DVD Ambition to Meaning: Finding Your Life’s Purpose (Hay House). The movie features Dyer being interviewed by a film crew at a rustic resort on the Monterey Peninsula while fictional stories revolve around him, all interconnected and providing similar morals. So while Dyer explains how people, especially in the “afternoon” of their lives, are searching for spiritual meaning and explains how they can discover this, we watch others travel a similar road in a beautiful, captivating film. In the film, Dyer explains how people identify their lives by their jobs, their possessions and what people think of them.

“Before you know it, we begin to identify ourselves with the possessions we have,” Dyer explains. “The dilemma here is that if you are what you have, and things go away, then who you are also goes away in the process.”

This can be especially harmful during a recession when many people lose their jobs and find their identities missing.

“The real purpose of life is just to be happy, to enjoy your life, to get to a place where you’re not always trying to get to someplace else,” Dyer said. “People spend their lives struggling, trying to be someplace that they’re not. They never get to arrive.” Both Lewis and Dyer speak of “spirit,” what many people call God, as a way of connecting to who we really are. Dyer suggests letting go of the “ego” and returning to one’s true nature. Dyer believes we all come from a source and that this source is everywhere. If we align to this source we will find what is missing in our lives and our true purpose, he said.

Lewis is originally from Houma, but moved to Southern California to work in marketing and advertising sales in the high-tech industry. She now spends her time writing and volunteering at a local children’s hospital. To read Lewis’s book free — her way of “giving back” — visit www.noexpertsneeded.com.

Dyer’s first book, Your Erroneous Zones, spent 64 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after debuting in 1976. It has gone on to sell 35 million copies worldwide, followed by more than 30 books, 18 of which have been best sellers. He is now an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development. For information on the DVD, visit www.dyermovie.com.

March/April 2009 | Miro Lipinski interviews Wayne Dyer.

Miro: How did you get involved in this film, The Shift?

Dyer: I was contacted by Hay House, my publisher, and they wanted to do a film with me, and I said, “I’d love to do a film but I have certain stipulations.” I wanted it to be a very professional job. I wanted it to be of exceptionally high quality, with the best actors and actresses one can get. And I don’t want it to look like so many of these movies coming out of the spiritual genre of somebody who has written a book and looks like an amateur actor trying to be a professional actor. I’m not a professional actor, but I can play myself and be myself, and can take direction. Those were my criteria. And they said absolutely. I knew the director, Michael Goorjian, from the movie he did with Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life, and I really respect him as a director. So they gave me the script, or the potential for the script, and the setting and all that. And I said I’ll do it. I’m sixty-eight years old and I’ll take on a new career, and suspend all of my concerns, my fears, and I just turned myself over to these highly skilled people. I think we created a really beautiful film.

Miro: Did you work on the screenplay with Kristen Lazarian, the scriptwriter? Your words are so well integrated into the screenplay and the dialogue. Did you work that out with her?

Dyer: No, not at all. She wrote the screenplay. Michael and his crew came up to Maui, and they interviewed me for a whole day and taped the entire thing. Kristen was familiar with my work, and she listened to the tapes of what I wanted to do about making the shift from ego to meaning. I was a therapist for years, and this was the biggest issue that most people confront when they are going into counseling and therapy or trying to make changes: How do I get away from this whole idea of who I am is what I collect and what I accomplish and what other people think of me? And she put the screenplay together. Now we didn’t follow the script word for word, especially in the scenes that I was in. There was a lot of improvisation. The scenes where I am being actually interviewed—we only shot those once. Any scene that I have some dialogue with people, that’s movie time. That’s fifteen takes or so. For twenty seconds on the screen you might work six, seven hours. So they put a lot effort into it.

Miro: I was impressed with how natural all the actors were. Some of the spiritual genre films have a certain artificiality to them, but everyone here was very natural—and you were particularly so. How did you approach this film from an acting point of view?

Dyer: I was scared to death. I approached it with a lot of fear and total surrender, just letting go. When I took on this project, I said to myself and the executive producer, Reid Tracy, I’ve never done acting, aside from something I did in the eighth grade when I did a play. And it wasn’t until the fifth or sixth day that I finally began to realize that I could stop thinking about what we were suppose to say and what the scene was and all of that. There’s a lot of technicality involved in everything. Normally when I speak in front of an audience, I take the microphone and I just let go. I allow it all to come out. I always repeat what it says in A Course in Miracles – That if you knew who walks beside you at all times in this path you’ve chosen then you would never experience doubt or fear. But films aren’t made that way. There was a scene where it was almost dark, and I was with Michael DeLuise, and it finally hit me that I didn’t have to memorize words. That if I just understood the context of what they were doing here, I could just let go and stop worrying about the words. And from that moment on, I was at peace. The very first day I was filming, Michael pulled me aside and gave me one acting lesson. He came over and spent two hours with me. He said I’m going to give you the only acting lesson you are going to ever have because you’re a natural before the cameras, you just have to be yourself. And he went through it, and we just created the scene, and we went through the dialogue, and after that two hours, I knew that I could pull it off. Did you see the film on the big screen?

Miro: I saw it on a DVD.

Dyer: When you see it on the big screen, in a theater, it’s really astonishing to see. To see the closeups, to hear the sound and the music. We went to all the premieres. Chicago, New York, LA. Every time I watch the film, I get something new out of it. And I’m more impressed with Michael’s vision of taking words that I was speaking and being able to put those words exactly onto somebody. For example, the guy who had the wine thrown at him—

Miro: Yes, the businessman.

Dyer: Well, I’m telling the story of Ivan Ilych and when I come to the punchline of that story, which is off camera and a voice-over, it says what if my whole life is wrong, and then they focus on this guy. That was Michael’s vision to pull that off and do that. So I give an enormous amount of credit to him. And to the actors. These are very accomplished people.

Miro: Could you tell our readership about the meaning of “the shift” and how it relates to this film?

Dyer: I think there’s a major shift taking place on the planet, and at the completion of it there’s going to be a lot of talk about the Mayan Calendar and 2012. There’s a major shift taking place in the world politically, religiously, spiritually. Even the election of Obama is a very significant thing taking place. When Colin Powell said that he is a transformational figure, he is right. You can already see in a couple of weeks very, very different ways in which our country is going to be governed and seen. Here’s a man who has a black father and a white mother, and who do you hate when you grow up like that? Who was raised in a Moslem country with a Moslem name, but was raised as a Christian. Who do you hate? Worked in the inner city of Chicago, but was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He really brings together a lot of what previously was divisiveness. The fact that he went on Al-Jazeera and spoke to the Moslem world—I mean, can you imagine George Bush doing something like this? That’s a shift, a real shift, away from ego, away from ambition, away from the way that we are going to solve the problems of this planet, which is through power, and bombs, and war, which has been the way, especially for the last eight years, into a way of cooperation and reaching out. I think the line in Obama’s inaugural address, in which he said we will extend a hand to you if you’ll unclench your fist, I think that’ll be the line he will be remembered for. Not only that, but it’s being done. We are talking about moving to a place where we can leave this planet secure for our children and our grandchildren. I think the shift is going to be happening all over.

Miro: What are the plans for this film?

Dyer: I would like ten million people to see this film. Not to buy it necessarily. You make one film and a hundred people can see it. That’s the beauty of a film. It’s not like a book. But I think if ten million people, that represents three percent of the population of this country, if ten million can view it by 2012 I think we’ll reach what is called in quantum physics “phase transition.” It’s like the 100th monkey, once you hit that number, once you reach that critical mass, then the alignment begins to take place. All the predictions in the spiritual literature, particularly those familiar with the Mayan calendar, think that this is the end of the twenty-six thousand year cycle in 2012. Not only are we going to shift in our own lives—away from always trying to identify ourselves on the basis of what we have, what we do, and who we are better than, and so on—but shift into more reaching out, more service, more kindness, more living the virtues that Lao Tzu spoke about twenty-five hundred years ago.

Miro: We’re in an interesting time now, where people are revaluating everything. Though anxiety provoking, it’s an exciting time.

Dyer: Yes, it is. And it’s a cleaning out process. This is the toxicity that’s left over from eight years of losing our way. We lost our way in the last eight years, we really did, so this is like a cleansing process. But when I see the news, it’s Starbucks has lost seven thousand people, Macy’s has lost twenty thousand, but you never hear about anything positive. If you are working at Caterpillar and you lose your job, you don’t just go jump off a cliff. A job is going to change. You’ll do something else. We don’t talk about the found jobs, the opportunities. Everybody who works in the computer industry is in an industry that didn’t exist twenty-five years ago. We are talking on cell phones, and there were no such things. All the people who work for Nextel and so on, those are lost jobs that became found jobs. We are in a constant state of changing, and there are numerous opportunities in a time like this, but people are still going back to the fear.

Miro: What about the people who may not be receptive to change or who are not presented with opportunities to hear the message? Is it necessary for them to change or will things change when we get to the number where things will dramatically shift?

Dyer: It’s like when you go into an atom and start to artificially align the electrons and you get to a certain number, all the ones that don’t want to align, when you hit that phase transition, when you hit that critical mass, the rest of them automatically come along. That kind of thing will take place. That’s the beauty. That’s why doing a film was so enticing to me. Because at the same time when I was offered an opportunity to do this film, I was also offered an opportunity to have my own television daily talk show. It was not something I was willing to do, but it was an opportunity to get on television on a regular basis, like a Dr. Phil or an Oprah. But I turned that down in favor of the film. Only ten percent of the population ever buy a book when they become adults, whereas they all go to movies. And that’s what’s happening with this film. A lot of people who were skeptical change their view. Wives will have their husbands sit down, and the reaction is they stay with the film, they see that this is not a lot of bullshit, it’s not just about some tree huggers out there. That this has something to do with me, that I am the guy on the cellphone, I am the guy who is inconsiderate, and my life is passing me by in the name of stuff. And they begin to see that. A movie can make that happen.

Miro: Movies are a very powerful medium.

Dyer: They are. And they reach people who don’t read and people who wouldn’t go to a seminar or listen to tapes. That’s the beauty of it. That’s why my goal is to get ten million people to watch this film. I’ve seen this work before. I saw it happen with a book I wrote in 1976 called Your Erroneous Zones, and I saw it when I started with PBS ten years ago. You just go out there, and you don’t worry about how much you sell or what it costs, and you get off the ambition and goals; you just detach from outcome. I’m not doing this because of anything that’s going to come to me, I’m doing this to create the 100th monkey phase transition. And I think this kind of a thing can create a shift. First in individual lives, and then if enough individuals really get this, it’ll be effective in their communities and their businesses, and ultimately in politics and in our world.

3/10/09 | This month our friends at Hay House have provided us with three copies of the powerful new film, starring Dr. Wayne Dyer, titled Ambition to Meaning: Finding Your Life's Purposes.

You probably know author Wayne Dyer from his PBS specials including The Power Of Intention, 10 Secrets For Success And Inner Peace, or his latest, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life. Well, Dr. Dyer now has a movie that’s playing at select locations across the country titled, Ambition To Meaning: Finding Your Life’s Purpose.

I had the pleasure of watching the movie last weekend and was pleasantly surprised with every aspect of it from its inspiring content and message, the high level of acting, and even the quality filming. And I use the word “surprising” only because the movie didn’t have the big budget of today’s feature films, yet every aspect of the film was top shelf.

I, personally, loved how the film mixed fiction with reality by depicting fictional stories (a couple facing a major change in their relationship, a woman realizing she has lost herself in her role as caretaker, and a film director unhappy with his career) all set around a fictional film shoot of Wayne Dyer being himself. As viewers learn the challenges each character is experiencing (including those of the film crew working with Dr. Dyer), Wayne Dyer talks about the importance of moving from “an emphasis on achievement and accumulation...to a life of meaning and purpose.” I found the movie to be very inspiring and an excellent integration of all that Dyer has been teaching over the years.

The always inspiriting Dr. Wayne Dyer explores the shift from ambition to meaning in life and on film.

“Don’t go with your music still inside you,” says Dr. Wayne Dyer, looking intently into my eyes...

Spring 2009 | “Would you like an apple?” Dyer casually offers as he relaxes into a cozy armchair. “Take your shoes off; make yourself at home.” His gentle demeanor exudes warmth, peace and, well, a confident knowingness of life.

This wisdom is the result of more than a half century of research, prayer, study, meditation and exploration on his well known path to living a life of purpose and meaning—a journey on which he invites us to join him, in the form of books he authors, speeches he gives, television and radio shows he hosts, and now a compelling new movie he stars in, The Shift—Finding Your Life’s Purpose.

The premise of the movie and purpose he sees in life are so intricately interwoven that it is virtually impossible to separate the two. Both explore the natural evolution from what we want early in life to understanding why we are here.

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life,” Dyer reads from Carl Jung’s Stages of Life. “Worse yet, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideas will serve us hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of our life according to life’s morning. For what was great in the morning will be little in the evening. And what in the morning was true, in the evening, will become a lie.”

Dyer agrees that there are two phases in life. “Jung called this the morning of our life and the afternoon of our life. The morning of our life is focused on ambition. The afternoon is focused on meaning,” he says.

The Shift, Dyer’s first-ever movie, delves into the spiritual journey of the second half of life, when we long to find a more purposeful, soul-directed existence. “The powerful shift from the ego constructs we are taught early in life by parents and society, which promote an emphasis on achievement and accumulation, are shown in contrast to a life of meaning, focused on giving back,” Dyer explains.

“I’ve just completed one of my life’s great experiences. Making my first movie at age 68 was an unexpected gift from the Universe that filled me with wonder and amazement. This movie has given me the opportunity to marvel at the limitless power of the human spirit to discover and rediscover all that we can be,” he says.

The transformational film explores this shift from ambition to meaning through the carefully intertwined stories of an overachieving businessman, a mother of two seeking her own expression in the world, and a director trying to make a name for himself. It is an inspiring portrayal of three lives in search of new direction. The film both motivates and teaches viewers to create a life of meaning and purpose.

The movie was shot at Asilomar—which means “refuge by the sea”—a retreat on the breathtaking Monterey Peninsula of California’s central coast. It is a convergence of winding pathways, enormous pine trees, hovering seagulls, alluring mist and pounding surf. “Never underestimate the power of great, natural beauty to bring you inspiration, peace of mind and clarity of thought,” says Dyer. “In nature, you find yourself.”

“We all have a nature and most of us ignore it. Our nature is perfect and faultless and that’s what life is. But we take on a counterfeit nature when we take on an ego,” says Dyer, as he begins to reflect on his earlier days...

Flashback to the Past

“I lived in an orphanage and a series of foster homes. My mother reunited us all when I was 10, when she remarried. He was a very bad alcoholic, just like my father, and so there was a divorce when I was 15. There was a lot of turmoil at home. But I never looked upon those things as anything but a gift, just an opportunity to learn to rely upon myself. I was very lucky in many ways,” reflects Dyer.

From an early age, Dyer knew he had a gift to share with others.

“When I was very little, and bad things would happen, I was always the one that would tell people not to worry about it and to get up and laugh it off. I would tell other kids, ‘This isn’t a bad place. There are no parents here. There are lots of advantages.’ I always say I was the richest kid in the orphanage. I think I’ve been doing that for my entire life,” he says.

When Dyer was 19 years old, he boarded a ship to Japan during his days with the Navy. His uncle had given him a collection of writings by Leo Tolstoy for the trip. The first story he read was The Death of Ivan Ilych, about a man who was programmed to do everything he was “supposed to do” in life and pursue goals set out by society and his wife. In the end, as he lay dying, he takes hold of his wife’s hand and asks, “What if my whole life has been wrong?” And then he dies.

The story made an indelible impression on Dyer. “I took out a little notebook and I made a note: ‘Wayne, don’t die…with your music still in you,’” he remembers.

It was a defining moment in clarifying his purpose and becoming part of something bigger than himself. He has since spent his life working away from the ego (“Edge God Out,” he calls it), and focusing on a soulful path.

The Morning of Life

Dyer teaches that—contrary to the misconceptions of the ego—who you are is just a divine piece of God. “Like in the first nine months of life, you just surrender, you don’t need to do anything, you just let go. You just allow,” he explains. “It’s almost as if you say, ‘Good work God. Now we’ll take over from here.’ The minute we start taking over, we let go of the surrendering process that we were able to do in the first nine months in the womb. After we’re born, however, the ego teaches us that our identity is based upon six constructs.” These are:

1. I am what I have. “The ego is just a belief; it’s just an idea. It doesn’t exist in the world and it’s why all the great spiritual teachers tell us that it’s the false self. It’s an illusion, it isn’t real but we let this illusion guide our lives,” Dyer says. “The illusion is that, ‘I am what I have,’ so we spend the morning of our life learning techniques and strategies to chase after what [we] have and we’re constantly pursuing more stuff and our inner mantra becomes ‘more, more, more.’ Because ‘the more I have, the more valuable I am, the more I am worth.’”
2. I am what I accomplish. “Then, not only do we have to accumulate, but we have to achieve and so we put our kids in school and we train them to become achievers,” says Dyer. “Then, when you no longer can accomplish something, your value goes out the window. That’s why so many people struggle when they retire or if there is an economic slowdown.”
3. I am my reputation. “We’ve put our kids into schools and into situations where they believe that getting everybody to like them is the most important thing [they] can do,” Dyer explains. “We talk about peer pressure and everybody compares themselves. I’ve always told my children that what other people think of you is none of your business.”
4. I am separate from everybody else. “You and I are separate beings and I identify myself on the basis of what I look like and what my body says,” explains Dyer. “The ego believes that we’re all separate instead of understanding that we’re all one. But the truth is that we all come from the same place and we’re all going to return to the same place.”
5. I am separate from what’s missing in my life, so I have to chase it. “We all come from God, from Source, from the Divine Mind—whatever you want to call it—and that [energy is everywhere] because it’s always creating, so it must be in you,” says Dyer with a sparkle in his eye. “So all you have to learn to do is to align yourself spiritually with what it is you’d like to attract and then you’ll begin to manifest it and show up.”
6. I am separate from God. “God becomes this thing outside of us that’s watching over us and has the power to heal us, but withholds that power from some people and gives it to others,” says Dyer. “God is like a cosmic bellboy in the sky who you ask questions of when you’re missing things, when you’d like to be healed, or whatever, instead of understanding that if you came from God then you must be a piece of God.”

Shift to Meaning
Letting Go of Ego

There comes a point in life, Dyer believes, at which we make a shift and begin to realize that ambition isn’t getting us anywhere. “‘All I’m doing is chasing; I never get to arrive; I’m really not happy; I’m not content; I’m sick all the time; my relationships are falling apart and so on...’ You begin to say, ‘I want to have meaning in my life,’” he explains.

According to Dyer, this shift from the morning to the afternoon of life is typically preceded by a quantum moment. “We live in a world in which all things are possible,” he says. “There are no accidents. There is a divine, organizing intelligence that supports all things.”

This shift in life can happen in many ways: a comment, an experience or even through a dream. But no matter how it shows up, the result is the same. “It is the realization that ‘I am more than my ego needs. I am not here to be reaching and struggling. There is a peace and a knowing that I am connected to Divinity. I am what I came from,’” says Dyer.

When the shift occurs it is vivid, surprising, benevolent and enduring. “You feel good, as if you’re in the arms of God,” says Dyer. “This shift usually signifies that a person is returning back to the Tao [an ancient collection of Chinese verses authored by Lao Tzu about living and applying the great way], returning to Source. This is living heaven on earth, here within yourself. It’s reconnecting with the field of intention.”

Dyer reflects on the importance of allowing life to just happen. “If you could just allow yourself to be done, instead of doing,” he says. “It’s letting go. Nothing will be left undone. Isn’t it interesting that you had everything you needed in the first nine months? Why isn’t that true for the next 90 years? We interfere.”

So is it possible to be ambitious about seeking meaning in the afternoon of your life?

“You can become ambitious about meaning but you can’t go about doing it by focusing on yourself,” Dyer responds. “I will not find meaning in my life if this movie makes me millions of dollars and I get an Academy Award for it, ridiculous things like that. What will give me meaning is when people come up to me with tears in their eyes and tell me that what I wrote turned their life around.”

Dyer reminds us to surrender and trust, and we can stop letting ourselves be guided by the rules of the morning of our life—the rules that tell us we have to accumulate, to win, to beat somebody else, to be better than somebody else. “You use different indicators of what success means to you,” Dyer says about the afternoon of life.

“Do you feel good about yourself? Are you happy? Are you content? Are you filled with love? As [you] shift into the meaning phase of life, it’s not as though you lose your ambition and you move into meaning. You’re ambitious about other things.”

As we enter this meaning phase of life, Dyer explains, we are guided by something much larger than ourselves and we can trust in it completely. “You can prepare and let go. It will all be perfect and it is,” he says.

“When great thinkers talk about union with God, there is this theme that comes through,” Dyer continues. “It’s about being in silence, when everyone else is asleep and there are no distractions, when you feel yourself alone with Source. This is the time when you are closest to Source. It’s about a new awareness of your own divinity and what it’s capable of achieving.”

Dyer teaches that we are all the co-creators of our own lives and that we have divine, infinite potentiality. We must not ask “What’s in it for me?” but, “How can I offer this to someone else? How can I provide that which I want to someone else?”

As for his own calling in life, Dyer says, “It’s just to be happy, to be content, to feel and express love and to teach other people to do that. I always know that I came here to play that music and I play it. I won’t get to the end of my life and say, ‘What if my life has been wrong?’ That will never happen. That’s why I live my life the way I want to. I do yoga. I swim. I walk. I have children. I’m in love with [my girlfriend] Tiffany... I want to be with the people I love, do the things I love and also I want to write and make a difference.”

Finding Meaning
In Life and Film

“Nobody needs to ask the question ‘What is my purpose?’ It will always be found in service,” states Dyer. “Put your attention on making life better for someone else—you’ll find your purpose.”

He believes that, to uncover meaning in your life, you must identify what Source energy looks like to you. “It looks like serving,” he says. “It wants nothing back. It doesn’t restrict. It offers without judging. It offers kindness. Likewise, you open doors when you live the virtues of the Tao Te Ching.”

The Tao Te Ching reflects on four virtues: reverence for life, natural sincerity, simplicity, and faithfulness or service. “When people ask me how to attract into their life what they want, I always tell them to want it more for someone else than [for themselves]. Think about how much joy that would give you,” Dyer says. “One of the things I profoundly believe is you do not attract what you want, you attract what you are.”

Most people seek their purpose—something meaningful that can help define their lives and fulfill their inner longing to express themselves in the world. Dyer has spent a lifetime exploring that idea and sharing his own path with others. The Shift is his latest study on the subject, and perhaps his most profound.

The movie strives to help people create their own life of meaning—at any stage. It inspires renewed feelings of hope, understanding and passion. It is a personal exploration, shared through the eyes of a master, that encourages viewers to embark on their own journey to essence.

“There is a place inside of us that wants to feel fulfilled,” Dyer believes. “To make this place a better place...To know that, when we die someone in this world is in a better place because of [our] life. It’s not about age or about finding yourself. Wherever you are, at whatever age, you’re only a thought away from changing your life.”