Cheer for Yourself | Mental Health Coach

What is up, Unbroken Nation, Happy Monday! Hope you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. And this really interesting thought last night, and it's one that I've shared before, but I haven't been able to probably articulate it as well as I would like to. And I've been thinking about this concept and this idea about self-motivation, right? About this idea of building resiliency, about having grit, about being antifragile, about all the things that it takes to ultimately do that thing and become the hero of own story. And it dawned on me last night, I was like, Oh my God, of course.

One of the biggest problems that people have is that they are not cheering loud enough for themselves, man. Some of y'all right now are not cheering for yourself. You are not celebrating yourself. You are not putting yourself on a pedestal. And the stuff came to me last night because I was flipping through the channels and football games on yesterday afternoon, and I was like, Man, you know what? When I was in my teens, when I was in my twenties, man, I cheered for the football teams louder than I ever cheered for myself. And some of y'all out here cheering so loud for these football teams, but whispering for yourself and that just doesn't make sense man, it just doesn't make any sense. And I put together some math rough because I was like, Man, how much time have I spent dedicating my life to this thing, not making my life better? Now, I grew up playing ball like I did, I played football in middle school. I played football in high school. I played defensive end, at one point I was captain of the football team, well, co-captain. And you know, I started getting into it more and more fantasy, football, fantasy drafts, hanging out with my boys, drinking beer all day on Sunday, eating wings all day, hanging out the whole day. And then it was Monday night, and then it was Thursday night, and then it was Saturday college football. And if you wanna really mess yourself up, what you do is you add up all the hours. You add up all the hours that you spend watching football, add up all the hours that you spend watching other sports. Add up all the hours that you spend watching Netflix, hour. Add up all the hours about all the things that you were doing in your life except living your life and it will blow your freaking mind.

And so, I did that and I added up all the hours. How many years have I played football? How many years have I watched it? How many times I've been at a fantasy football draft? How many times have I been drunk on a Sunday at 11 o'clock in the morning cheering for those guys and whispering for myself? And that's the thing my friends. You have to be willing to cheer louder for you than you do for them. Cuz guess what? Those people don't live your life. And I get it. I get the comradery, I get the community, I get the spirit of it ‘cause I played the damn game forever. And it's not just about football. I don't want you to sit here and think I'm just like poo pooing on football, ‘cuz that's not what's happening. What I'm saying is I want you to think about the way that you're putting your energy into the universe. We cheer so loudly, we wave the banners, we put 'em on our cars, we get it tattooed on ourself. Like that's my team. Ah, right. And we're whispering for ourself. Yeah. I guess I did a good job. Yeah. You know, it's just what I am, it's all good, not getting loud, not celebrating, not pushing yourself, not saying, this is my life.

So, I wanna challenge you this week, my friends, as you're going through this, I'm challenging you. I want you to think about this. I want you to really, really put some energy into this thought process. Are you cheering louder for other people than you're cheering for yourself? Are you blaming yourself? Are you playing the victim role? Are you playing the loser? Are you being what everyone else told you you were gonna be? And look, I get it because I've been there, like I've been 350 pounds, I've been smoking two packs a day, I've been waking up at 11 o'clock in the morning, I've been been told from so many people that I was a piece of shit, right? And I told myself that and I was weak. And look, you gotta understand like I get it. There is so much suffering in the world.

You guys know my story. My mom cut my finger off when I was four years old, my stepdad put me in the hospital. I was homeless as a kid. I was a drug addict when I was 12 years old. Like I get it. And I'm not just trying to be like motivational speaker guy like there's practical stuff that you can do to change your life.

You can actually make decision right now today to not allow that weakness of playing the victim to be in your life. When I played the victim, my life was a victim. Like it was crazy. Like when I go back and I look at when I allowed this idea that I wasn't enough, right? When I played the victim to exist in my life, that reflected everything else in my life, my health, my relationships, my money, my community, my family. Like, because when I was out here just being the victim, I gotta be the victim. And I'm not saying it's not hard, cuz let me tell you this, and you guys know this, pulling yourself out of this is the hardest thing that you'll ever do, period. It is. But it's also the thing that is most worth it in your life because if you're willing to be like, you know what? Today, is the day that I am gonna cheer louder for me. Today is the day I'm gonna stop being average for me. Today is the day I'm gonna stop doing what other people want me to do for me, and that's how this starts. And every single day, you just choose you. You choose to cheer for yourself. You choose to show up for yourself. You choose to push yourself into incredibly uncomfortable scenario so that you can build your confidence, so that you can build your self-esteem, so that you can build yourself in the person that you know you're capable of being. But it's not going to happen if you're focused on everybody else all the time.

I think about this all the time, like I've never met my father, right? And obviously I wasn't important enough for him, for him to come and find me, and I used to let that make me be a victim, that used to make me want to hate myself, hate the world, hate people, hate women, hate everybody, because I'd be like, fuck everybody. If my own dad doesn't love me, then why would I care? And I realized that's the ultimate victim mode, that's the ultimate victim mentality, that's his thing to deal with, that is not my thing to deal with. So, I made a decision. I'm gonna go out here and I'm gonna get it anyway. I'm gonna find myself, I'm gonna build my life. I'm going to become the person that I'm capable of being. I'm gonna be unbroken. I'm gonna choose this life. I'm gonna choose to cheer for myself louder than they do. My dad ain't never cheered for me. My mom used to get drunk in the stands at the games. Like literally they would call 911 to come and take my mom out of the stands at the games. She wasn't cheering for me, right? Sometimes my sisters show up. Sometimes my brothers show up. My grandma never showed up. My friends never showed up. But guess what? When I played the victim and I let that be the thing, and it'd be like, woe is me, then I was living a victim life.

You're doing something amazing today that you are not giving yourself enough credit for. There is something in some way that you are showing up today in this life, in this world, that you need to give yourself more credit for, that you need to give yourself a tap on the back that you need to say, I did this and celebrate it. Guys, this whole thing, this whole concept about cheering for yourself is about celebrating yourself. It is okay to be great. You do not have to be humble all the time like it kills me people are always like, Be humble. Be humble, be humble. I'm like, what if you just celebrated? What if you just said, I did something great? What if you said, I pushed and I tried and I figured it out. And even though it was hard and it was difficult and tumultuous and I failed, like I just kept going. I figured out how to start that business. I figured out how to be honest in therapy. I figured out how to lose that 50 pounds. I figured out how to quit smoking. I figured out how to do all these things. We'll, celebrate it. Cheer for yourself. Tell the world. See, one of the things that's fucking crazy to me, crazy to me that breaks my heart, is we're so quick to talk about the negative. We're so quick to talk about how our life sucks, how we're not good enough, how we're not capable enough, how nobody cares about, nobody loves us, and we forget, like you gotta cheer for yourself first, you gotta come in here, you gotta start here with you first ‘cuz if you ain't starting with you first, like nobody's going to.

Guys, you know this as well as I do. Nobody out here is cheering for your dreams. Nobody out here is celebrating your accomplishments the way that you can. It's not that people don't support you. Fuck, I hope that people support you. I pray I support you. You guys know it's created email me and I will respond to you. People email me, DM me all the time, they're like, I can't believe you respond to me. I'm like, I'm a human. I'm connecting with you. I will cheer for you too, but you gotta cheer louder than me cuz I'm cheering loudest for me. Nobody's cheering louder than I'm cheering for myself. And you've gotta give that to yourself. You've gotta allow that for yourself. You've gotta show up for yourself. These stadiums are packed with people screaming at the top of their lungs for everyone but themselves. And they're out here whispering for themselves. You like, Great job. I did it. I'm so proud of myself. But yet you scream for those guys. Like there's a disconnect there, my friend. You gotta scream. You gotta get in here and be like, I did this. This is my life. I made the decision. I took control. This is who I am. And the more that you do that, the more that you will build confidence. It's okay to not be great yet.

I posted this the other day, it's like you don't have to be great to start, but you gotta start to be great. You do. You do. And if you don't start, it's never gonna happen. And I know that you're scared. I get it. Good. Do it anyway. I know that you're worried. Good. Do it anyway. I know that you don't know what you're doing yet. Good. Do it anyway. Invest in yourself. Make the decision. Show up. Get in the course. Hire the coach. Go to do what it. Do what it takes, because I'm telling you right now, if you don't, if you don't do what it takes, you are gonna keep playing the victim and you're gonna wind up looking like me, where my life at 25 years old was a complete disaster or you can just take one little small step today. That's all it takes.

One little small step. One little celebration for yourself today because you did the thing, and when I started this, no bullshit the hardest thing that I would do some days was get outta bed and brush my damn teeth because that's how low I was, that's how depressed I was. I didn't yet understand neuroplasticity. I did not understand the central nervous system. I did not understand how malleable and plastic the brain is. I didn't understand how to bring tools into my life. I didn't understand all of those things. Right? And that's why I teach it to so many people because now that I get it, like I can get up at 5:30 in the morning and go after and chase my dreams. I can stay up all night and continue to push forward. I can go to the gym and eat healthy and not smoke cigarettes and not get drunk, and not be all of the things that I don't want to be because I made a decision to learn how to heal, to learn how to love myself, how to learn, how to grow and you've gotta be willing to do that. You've gotta be willing to show up for you. And that often just starts with like celebrating where you are.

You know, especially like, and I'm gonna call some of you guys out. Like if you live in America, like, I know you have to hear this, right? This is a country that if you live in anything is possible. I was a homeless drug addict at 12 years old who got adopted by a racist grandmother, who didn't graduate high school, who got a diploma, literally handed to him and kicked out of school who at 20 years old landed a job with a Fortune 10 company making a hundred thousand dollars a year, who then hit rock bottom at 26 when I was 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, who now, almost 12 years later, I have coached thousands of people around the world. I have had some of the biggest stages you can imagine. I've interviewed some of the greatest minds on planet Earth. I've learned to love myself most importantly, and the biggest aspect of all of this is knowing that you have a possibility and a potential in you if you're willing to start cheering for yourself.

If you are willing to start cheering for yourself or you're willing to start showing up. Right now. Stop waiting cuz you keep waiting and guess what? Nothing's gonna be different, but people don't want to hear that. And people will email me and be like, oh man, you shouldn't say that. You should be more gentle. You should be more kind. I'm like, Guys, kindness is one of my values. It would be a lie if I told you a lie. I could tell you anything here. I know some of you guys are watching me right now, some of you guys are listening this on the podcast. I could sit up here into the 55,000, 75,000 hundred thousand 200,000 people a month who consume this content through Think Unbroken. I could lie to y'all. I could tell you exactly what you want to hear. Nah, it'll be okay. You know, you'll figure it out one day, blah, blah, blah. No. Make a decision. Decide today, do something today that's gonna change your life. And it's one thing, it's not all the things, cuz the things will start to accumulate and in time they'll come together. But today it's one decision, it's one choice, it's one action. And the one action I'm gonna push you to make today to start cheering for yourself. Start being the loudest person in the room for yourself. Start believing that you have the ability to do it. And even if you're scared, do it anyway even if you're worried, do it anyway. Even if you don't know what the fuck you're doing, do it anyway. And cheer for yourself for showing up in your life, because if you don't, my friend who will?