Sacred Healers and Second Chances: A Conversation with Joel Kimmel

On being vs doing, the voice that guides us, and what happens when you die and come back - twice

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Sometimes the universe introduces you to exactly the person you need at exactly the right moment. When a mutual friend and colleague, Charlene Wilson, sent a one-line email saying "The universe told me I need to introduce the two of you," Joel Kimmel and I immediately arranged to meet for coffee. From that first conversation, there was this bonding of recognition. Like, oh, I know you. You were sent at exactly the right time with exactly the medicine I needed.

Joel is a long-time mentor, friend, colleague, and well-respected executive coach and facilitator who works with some incredible people doing incredible work in the world. But what makes Joel truly extraordinary isn't just his decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and families. 

It's that he's died twice and come back with messages about how we're meant to live.

The first time was in the Alps at age 26, preparing for a downhill race. He fell, fractured his skull, broke his neck and back, was paralyzed, and was dead on arrival. They had to start his heart three times on the way down the mountain. The medical reports said he was in a coma for seven days.

"My experience is I was on the other side for seven days with the spirits and the energy sources," Joel told me. "And on the morning of the seventh day they said, Joel, you need to choose to stay or go back."

Three Things You Should Know

As Joel looked down at his broken body, he said he was staying. Why would he want to go back to that?

"They said, well, you have a contribution to make. You should go back," Joel explained. "And I said, so tell me three things I should know that will allow me to make the contribution you see I should make."

The first thing: people were put on the planet because it's paradise, and it's paradise every day.

The second thing: everything you'll ever need is everywhere, always.

The third thing: all you have to do is ask and see how it's given. Not ask and it's given, but ask and see how it's given.

Joel uses a story to illustrate this. A man runs a food bank that's getting really busy and he wants a new pickup truck to deliver more food. The next day, someone leaves him three wheelbarrows. "So what he was really asking for was the ability to give away more food," Joel said. "And we all seemed to be stuck on the pickup truck."

After receiving these three messages, Joel kept saying he wanted to go back. Finally he said, "Let me go back and make the contribution you see I could make." And all of a sudden, his awareness slid into his feet, melted into his body.

"I was completely wrecked physically, mentally," he said. "And I said to the spirits and the guys on the other side, I said, boy, you got a real sense of humor. Here I am, now start the game."

And it just so happened that on a Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock in a hospital on a holiday, the best neurosurgeon in Munich was visiting because he wanted to see their state-of-the-art facility. He'd been skiing all day and was walking out when they pushed Joel in. He looked at Joel and said, "Get me an operating room."

Fourteen hours later, they told his 22-year-old newly married wife Judy, "We're not sure he's going to live, but if he lives, he probably won't move anything or be able to walk."

Joel walked. He's been married to Judy for 55 years now.

Who You're Being, Not What You're Doing

"I'm a strong believer in who we're being determines the quality of our life, not what we're doing," Joel told me. "So if we can get this who we're being sort of tuned in and in focus, all of a sudden our life is a different life and actually life becomes a privilege to be in."

When Joel works with teams, he focuses on who the team members are being about the team rather than what they are doing for the team.

"The doing side is what they get paid for," he explained. "And the being side is what keeps the team together and productive. You only need one person that's not being aligned in the team that affects the production of the entire team over and over again."

He gave me an example of what he means. "Who I'm being for you, Laura, is in admiration of your work that you do to make the world a greater place for everyone to live in. The courage that you take to go into meetings with people that have flown to the moon and come back as if they were your next door neighbor."

As he was saying that, I felt very seen. Very validated. Very acknowledged in who I'm being.

"I think most human beings have fallen into the trap of thinking what they do is what makes a difference," Joel said. "Listen to the things we say. Well, don't do that. Do more of that. No, keep that to yourself. And so when the body hears what to do, it's doing its best to fulfill whatever the request is. The body gets confused about what to do next."

But on the being side, everything shifts. "When you ask a being question, their eyes go above the horizon line and all of a sudden you can see the sparkle in their eyes that they're starting to invent a new vision that they can see themselves being," he said. "As that vision starts to be revealed, their body goes into relaxation because it can see itself doing those actions, not because they have to, but as a contribution to being part of the team of humanity on the planet."

Let Me See vs Let Me Think

Joel uses a particular phrase that caught my attention: "Let me see" instead of "Let me think."

"Let me see is a being side of the world," he explained. "All of a sudden my awareness can open up."

But where is this seeing coming from?

"I think what I'm seeing from is the void," Joel said. "A void that when called upon generates possibilities from the being side of our interpretation rather than the doing side. When I say, let me see, that's a request of being able to see. I usually don't say, well, let me see what to do. I just say, let me see."

When you say "let me think," you go right to your brain. That assumes there's some answer inside your brain. But when you say "let me see," you're reaching outside yourself to this void, this source that can give you information from a grander view, bigger perspective, unlimited horizon.

"And then your body gets connected to it because it's never happened before and it can already see the vision unfolding," Joel said. "So it gets on the horse with you and off you go."

To Have Happen Lists, Not To Do Lists

Instead of writing to-do lists, Joel writes ‘to have happen’ lists.

"Rather than writing to-do lists, I would suggest it's better to write a what-to-have-happen list that would allow, create a context to allow what's wanting to happen to happen," he explained.

At two o'clock in the morning before our conversation, Joel woke up and wrote: "What I'd like to have happen during our podcast with Laura is to have the listeners see new ways of being and observing their everyday life, and perceive new ways of being as it unfolds, discovering new ways of being opens up new possibilities that will allow me to make the contribution I have come here to make."

Joel shared stories of people who wrote ‘have happen’ lists. A man who'd been trying to buy the company lot next to his for years. His neighbor had been threatening lawsuits. Three days after writing his ‘have happen’, the neighbor came to him and said he'd sell it for less than the asking price.

An insurance person wrote: "What I'd like to have happen is to have two billion dollar clients that will allow me to make the contribution giving them insurance that protects the family in a healthy way." He got them.

A woman who'd been trying to get pregnant for three years wrote: "What I'd like to have happen is to have a relationship with a young person in a way that they experience being loved and cared for, and that can live in a world of peace." She got pregnant.

"Notice she didn't write 'I want to have a baby happen,'" Joel pointed out. "It was the being part. And you take want out. That's a doing word. Take all the doing words out."

Doing Words vs Being Words

Joel has a whole document on this. Doing words: forcing, searching, concentrating, rushing, making, controlling, getting, looking. Being words: allowing, discovering, observing, lingering, unfolding, emerging, having, seeing.

"Did you feel any difference in your body as I was going back and forth?" Joel asked me.

I did. Because I'm often rushing. I have to-do lists. A lot of to-do lists.

The Second Time He Died

Last year, Joel had another near-death experience. He was home alone on a Sunday morning, getting ready to go for a walk. He started to put on his dress watch.

"And the little voice in his head says, Joel, put on your Apple watch," he told me. "I said, no, no, no, it's alright. I've done this walk a thousand times. And it says, "please, put on your Apple watch."

He listened.

An hour later, he was backing down some stairs and the little voice said, "Joel, turn around and go down frontward." He didn't listen this time. "I said, no, I've counted the stairs." He miscounted. He stepped down and landed on his knee. It pushed his femur right up through his pelvis and destroyed his entire pelvis on that side.

The Apple Watch went off. "Are you all right?" After a series of questions, the Apple watch said, "The firemen will be there in five minutes and the ambulance will be there in 15 minutes. Don't move."

Through another series of miraculous coincidences — a woman his wife Judy rows with whose son was skiing with one of the top five surgeons in the world who does this exact work — was able to make a few calls and Joel got into UCSF for surgery.

Five hours into the seven-hour operation, Joel's heart stopped. They couldn't get it going again for six minutes.

"I heard this deep voice that said to me, Joel, we might not be coming back this time," he told me. "And I just woke up like, “what? They're playing for keeps on this one.” And so I think there was a shift in my awareness or consciousness - better pay attention, Joel, or we aren't coming back."

At one point, Joel's screen - "you know, the screen we all have in our head, the black screen that's full of pictures" - went completely black. "It's done.." Then it flashed for just a second and lit up again.

A nurse came in and just touched his chest. And his heart started.

"I experienced really being gone again and coming back again," Joel said. "And what flashed is all that I would never see again if I didn't come back."

When the doctors came in three days later to show him what they did in the surgery, Joel was in a rig sort of hung up so it could look like he was standing. His head was looking down between his feet and he had a flashback to Germany when they said he might never walk again.

"I started to weep," he said. "And then the physical therapists said, "Don't worry, Joel, you just need to work hard.” And my body stood straight up and I said, no, wait a second. My body's going to take me on a journey. My journey is doing exactly what the doctors tell me to do. And my body's job is to do everything exactly like the physical therapists tell it to do. And all of a sudden somewhere, our bodies will come together again."

They did. Joel had just gotten back from physical therapy at the rowing club the morning we spoke.

"I think the punchline is that we are a lot more powerful than we give ourselves credit to be," Joel said. "And the one promise I made to myself in this situation, I promised I would never make myself wrong for having the fall. And I promised I'd never make my body wrong for not getting better."

Every night, Joel writes down his “to have happen.” "What I'd like to have happen tonight is to have my body find a way to sleep in a position that would allow it to wake up in the morning with no pain." He'd wake up the next morning with no pain.

"They're powerful," he said. "They're very powerful. And we should listen to what we say to ourselves because our body's doing its best to have it be true, even the bad stuff."

The Voice That Guides Us

I asked Joel about that voice. Not the Apple Watch voice, but the other voice that was guiding him.

"I actually think that voice that guides us is our being as an entity in our awareness that we can always count on to tell us the truth," he said. "I think it's our being voice, and it's doing its best to be heard, probably more than ever because a lot more is at risk."

Joel also talked about the little nattering voice in our head, the one that bothers us and doubts us. "That little voice I suggest is in a closed system," he explained. "It's using the closed system to fix the closed system."

His suggestion? Acknowledge it. "I acknowledge it for keeping an eye out on what I'm doing. Like, thanks for keeping an eye out while I'm doing that. You enroll it in doing what it's doing, and then you say, and over here I'm working on this, and I'll keep you posted. And eventually, they disappear. They come to one voice."

I've been doing that lately, acknowledging myself by name. "Good job, Laura." It really is positive reinforcement versus all that negativity we do.

"I suggest anybody listening to this starts that practice," Joel said. "Acknowledge your little voice for doing the job it's doing, and then let it know that you're just going to be over here doing that which might be different. The voice is honored and taken care of, and then all of a sudden it becomes the observer of what you're doing on the being side."

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My Thoughts

Joel and I have this thing we do where we talk, and somehow we both feel better and we both leave more enlightened than when we started. And we don't really know what we're doing. 

We're not following a script. We're just talking and seeing what emerges. Listening to Joel reminds me about being versus doing, I realized I've been in this place where some things are ending and new things are probably beginning, but I'm more with the endings than the beginnings.

And I've been trying to think, what do I do? What do I do? Versus, well, who do I want to be for the world? Joel reminded me that I'm already being it. When he asked me about who I see myself being, I noticed my eyes were looking up at the ceiling and there was this huge smile on my face.

When we're in that being space, something opens up. Something becomes possible that wasn't there before. Joel has died twice and come back with these messages: we live in paradise, everything we need is everywhere always, and all we have to do is ask and see how it's given. Not control it, not force it, but see how it's given.

I'm going to start writing to-have-happen lists instead of to-do lists. I'm going to practice saying "let me see" instead of "let me think." 

And I'm going to acknowledge my body for keeping me alive, for hydrating me, for doing its best to please my awareness. Because Joel's right - we are a lot more powerful than we give ourselves credit to be.

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Listen to the full conversation to hear more about Joel's book "Self: The Vast World Behind Our Words," his work with families and teams, doing vs being words, and the time we both worked with the same sacred healer in Peru without knowing it.

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Find Joel at https://kimmelandcompany.com/