Meet Paul R. Williams III

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul R. Williams III a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Paul R., thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I would say that it has been something that has been developing continuously since childhood. I often questioned authority, and it became very clear early on that some of my ideas and perspectives about myself and the world around me were not easily accepted or understood. It very much created this sense of isolation and otherness that I struggled with in my developing years. I would easily question my own thinking, and my decision-making skills and defer major life decisions to what others deemed appropriate for me. With always feeling like an outsider, all I wanted to do was fit in and be accepted so by the time I reached my early 20’s, I found myself working in the corporate world going from banking to education all while being completely unfulfilled. Then one day I had to just sit with myself, my thoughts, and my choices in silence. Within that silence, I discovered that I was living for other peoples expectations and approval rather than living for myself, and it had left me feeling like I was a complete shell of myself. Deep down I had always considered myself to be an Artist and Creative, and I realized my biggest fear in life wasn’t death, but the fact that I could be in my 80’s one day and have never pursued any of my own goals and dreams. That was the day my life changed. I would have to take the biggest gamble of my life and bet on myself, bet on my persistence, and trust that I could be successful doing things that no one around me was pursuing. I quit everything, sold all my belongings, and drove across the country to LA to be an Artist. It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but the more I dedicated my life to my happiness, the more successful I became. That’s what really built my resilience. Knowing that anything big I wanted to achieve in my life would start with me taking a trust fall with myself and the universe, and to remember that when I made mistakes or failed, that they were lessons to prepare me for the next big thing rather than a measure of my skills or capabilities. It’s been a decade since I made that long drive, and I learned that betting on myself even against the craziest of odds would always expand me, center me, and lead to even greater successes in my life.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

When I left my entire life behind 10 years ago, and drove 3,000 miles from DC to LA to become an actor, I had no idea what I was getting myself into but for the first time ever I actually felt excited about life, and that was worth it in itself. I was stepping out into the unknown, and finally taking control of my life and I was committed to being successful. There was this quote that I held onto by Will Smith that said, “There’s no room for a Plan B if you’re focused on Plan A,” and that became my life mantra. I was going to have to forget about any possible backup plans and decide that this was it. I remember living in my car for months at a time on 3 different occasions just to pay for acting programs, but I didn’t care at all. I was completely happy, even in the struggle. I had a serving job, I showered and worked out at the gym every morning, and at night I would try to find a safe neighborhood to get the best sleep I possibly could. During my studies as I was trying to build my imagination muscle, I stumbled across a book by Neville Goddard called Awakened Imagination. It was that book alone that caused my first spiritual awakening where I felt this explosion of energy from within, where it felt like every cell of my body was tingling with energy, and then that energy expanded beyond me to the environment outside of me, and for the first time I felt connected and one with everything. After that, whenever I would meditate I would receive downloads of information about spirituality, consciousness, and how they all connected to the physical reality that surrounds us. I fell in love with learning about it all, and it started to not only heal my mind, but also make a huge impact in the success of my career as well. I’ve had the privilege of being on some great tv shows, I’ve done a ton of films, and I even just got done working on a project with Idris Elba a couple weeks ago, and that was a really beautiful experience. So based on my own provable successes, I began sharing the knowledge I was learning with the people around me, and I noticed their lives started to improve with these new ideas, tools, and techniques too. That’s when I discovered my love and passion for teaching and I’ve been doing it every since. It brings me great joy to help others turn within themselves to discover more of who they are beyond the mind, and everyday thought patterns that can loop within us endlessly. I’ve extended my teachings to social media now, and I’m currently writing my first book with all the notes I’ve been taking on this journey as well. It’s been very exciting and fulfilling to say the least.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

This is a really great question actually. I would say that learning self-love and harnessing your authentic energy is the master key to your success in any industry, as opposed to trying to conform to old paradigms or replicate what others have done before you. I’ve found that meditation, practicing mindfulness, embodying the observer state with your thoughts, and seeking new knowledge and beliefs all help to heal the mind, and allows space for us to unconditionally love all of our imperfections, and that then leads to a deep inner acceptance of self. Secondly, would be that fear can be your best friend and something that is destined to propel your forward, rather than something that stifles you, terrifies you, or keeps you stuck and stagnant. To truly understand that fear is just an emotion, and that emotions don’t necessarily equal reality can change everything for you. That truth alone, can potentially allow you to ease your mind on a regular basis, and heal your nervous system at the exact same time. I like to think of fear as the catalyst to simply remind us of an area that we’ve been avoiding that we need to put some focus and attention into. If we fail, fall, or make a mistake, it’s all a part of the learning process, and it’s the lessons and striving to get back on our feet that will serve us the most. I always try to keep that front of mind when it comes to tackling any of my own fears, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the journey is always easy by any means, but it is always absolutely worth it. Lastly, don’t be so hyper-independent in your endeavors to the point where you feel like the weight of every burden must be carried on your shoulders alone, or that you need to refuse help from people or resources outside of you. You might be surprised at how many people care about you, and want to assist you in making your dreams a reality. A lot of times our hyper-independence can be a trauma response from childhood of feeling like no one was ever there to support us, have our back, love us in a way we truly needed, or to just depend on others to do things the right way the first time. In that sense, it’s very easy for us to develop control issues, and feel like we must do everything ourselves to get things perfect, but to find a way to heal that mentality, and drop some of the mental, physical, and emotional weights down within ourselves really does make room for miracles and synchronicities that you can’t even fathom yet. It can be a gamble to trust others in that way, but the risk is definitely worth the reward.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

This last year of my life, I’ve taken on some major goals and tasks that have seemed nearly impossible to achieve to many closest to me. To be fair, their questions and concerns have all been valid in regards to strategies, and I’ve always made sure to take into account their feelings and opinions as I take on these even bigger manifestations for myself. I would say that over the years, my spirituality and my studies have built a deep trust in my intuitive hits, along with knowing who to listen to and when in regards to these endeavors. The biggest challenge when you’re pursuing something that hasn’t been done before, is that you quickly discover that there is no roadmap for you. There are no guidelines, nor any directions to show you the way. The really important things require taking a leap of faith, and stepping out into the unknown. For me personally, that meant learning how to surrender along the journey. Consistently giving up the need to control how things were supposed to work out in order to come back to the present moment again and again, and allow. The present moment is the only place we truly exist, and it’s where all of our deepest inner power lies. I had to learn to take life one day at a time, and one moment at a time. It completely goes against our sense of safety when it comes to trying to plan for the best, or even preparing for the worst. To turn off the mind, and enter the flow state as often as you can as a strategy for success was something I wasn’t previously used to, but it’s where I was intuitively guided to follow and so I had to give myself permission to listen, trust, and go for it. It took a lot of internal work this year, but I was finally able get to a state of flow and surrender in my work, and the payoff was actually more than I could’ve imagined. To surrender is to trust yourself, trust divine timing, and trust your physical reality all in unison. In doing so, I’ve experienced successes this year I would’ve never planned for and that understanding has definitely been my biggest area of growth this year. 10/10, I would highly recommend learning how to surrender in your daily lives without expectation, and allowing the universe to gift you experiences that uplift you, empower you, and expand you beyond your wildest dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tiktok.com/@paulrwilliams3
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulrwilliams3
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7981402/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk