Why I Created Next Level Soul (and What It Is Not)

After recording almost 600 podcast episodes, I kept wanting to ask the bigger questions. The deeper questions about life. So in 2021 I started something new. I called it Next Level Soul, and I have been trying to explain it in plain words ever since.

Here is the short version. It is a podcast, a place to watch films and series called Next Level Soul TV, and Mastery courses with some of the greatest spiritual teachers working today, with a community around it. Its tagline is Spirituality for the Rest of Us. Here is the longer version, including what it is not.

Why it exists

I wrote on the podcast’s start page that it is my soul’s mission to help you find your path. I built it for people at a crossroads in their lives. I mean it. After thirty years of making films, everything I make points to the same purpose: helping awaken humanity.

The belief underneath all of it is simple. The power lives within you. The answers live within you. We are all one, and we are all connected.

What it is not: the Four Nots

People ask me what makes Next Level Soul different from the rest of the spiritual world. I answer with the Four Nots.

• It is not a lecture. The invitation is to listen as a fellow traveler, not as someone being lectured.
• It is not a place that points outward. Every teacher, book and course is a guide to help you remember who you already are. None of them is the source of your power.
• It is not built on fear. No one here is telling you that you are not enough. You are enough, and that is the whole point.
• It is not floating woo. Ground the profound. Take the big idea and land it on something you can do on a real Tuesday.

A guest said it better than I could. Panache Desai, on an episode, contrasts false power, which depends on impermanent things we pile up outside ourselves, with the infinite power within. He also says,

“The moment you become aware of the fact that you’re in it, you’re free of it.”

What it looks like today

The podcast has more than 720 episodes, with new ones every week, and conversations that bridge science, spirituality and self-discovery. Next Level Soul TV launched in 2024 and Mastery in 2026. I film those courses myself, so thirty years of filmmaking goes into every class.

None of this replaces your own work. It is a set of doorways. You still have to walk through one.

Lesson and next step

If you are curious, start with one conversation on the Next Level Soul podcast. The skeptic’s version of this story is in I was a skeptic. See also what it means that the power lives within you and who I am. And for the story that started the questions, read Shooting for the Mob.