E267: Coaching with Michael. Who am I? | CPTSD and Trauma Coach

On the very first live Tuesday coaching I’m actually gonna be streaming this to a couple different platforms but if you are not a part of our Discord what you wanna do is check out and pop over to our Discord at thinkunbroken.com/discord boom we're gonna add that and see if anybody has watching live, so i'm very excited to be here with you guys.

So the theme for tonight's conversation is very simple, it's kind of  the baseline to everything that I think, it's what I believe to be at the really the crux of the entirety of why I created Think Unbroken and it's more so than anything this, how to be the hero of your own story.

So many people ask me all the time they're like where do I start? Where do I begin this process of healing of becoming the hero of my story and ultimately creating the life that I want to have. And I always think about education being most paramount in this process, I think about education over everything because if you are not educating yourself then you are setting yourself up for failure, I know that's not what people always wanna hear but my as your coach is to always be honest with you and I'm gonna be honest with you right now. If you don't educate yourself you are setting yourself up for failure in life and business and relationships and careers and  literally everything that you do. And I don't want you to be set up for a failure, I want you to be successful that's why I created Think Unbroken, that's why we do all this.

And so I thought to myself what if every Tuesday night, five o'clock Mountain time, whatever time you are in the other part of the world that we came together and I spent half an hour with you coaching, educating, teaching, trying to help give you some baseline tools into what is next in your life and  this is about community.

The biggest reason I wanna do this so if you don't know my mission mission is very simple i want to end generational trauma in my lifetime through education and information. And since this is our first session together what I’m going to do is tell you a little bit about myself and how I got to where I am today.

So my background and you know for the sake of this conversation is pretty dark, so I just wanna fore warn you, I’m gonna keep it real, I’m gonna keep it honest with you and in this honesty I’m gonna share some dark truths because I think it's really important. So many people want to just show the glamour and how great life is today but I can tell you that for myself, life was not always good in fact for a very long time life was a fucking nightmare and I found myself at rock bottom a few times and someone asked me recently they're like how many times did you hit rock bottom before you change your life? And I was like every day for ten years, you know, every day for ten years. And that was part of this journey of just trying to figure this whole thing out.

So guys, I want you just so you know if you are over in the Discord right now there is a channel if you go down, it is live coaching channel and you're able to come in there and have conversations with each other as we go through this and I hope that you'll do that. So if you go to the tab it's community chat and then if you go down the live coaching you guys can have back and forth so I’m gonna just kinda say hello to everyone and here again, feel free to chat here if you are watching on social media on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, I don't know wherever you might be watching come and hang out with us over on Discord. Just go to thinkunbroken.com/discord and you can join the channel because we're gonna be doing a lot more live coaching, a lot of fun events and a lot of really cool things over there and actually one of the things i'm gonna do right now is I’m actually gonna go live over on instagram just one more platform. So bear with me a second while I go live over there and then we'll get in next time this will be a little more simplified the first time is always rough so hang with me. Gonna go live, should have my camera, I’m just completely not prepared, I’ll be honest with you guys coming back from being sick for the last few days everything is just a little bit off but that is okay because you know what we said that we're doing live coaching on Tuesday nights and damn we're doing live coaching on Tuesday nights guys for sure.

So, welcome everyone wherever you are in the world today. Very excited to be here with you. And with this what I want you to know and to think about here as a you're so if you're over in the Discord (just one more time just raise your hand if you can hear me? I’ll make sure you guys can hear me? Okay, cool! Yeah, so everybody can hear)

So I’m gonna tell you a little bit about my backstory story about how I got to where I am, if you're on instagram just hello my friends, if you're on any other social platforms thank you for being here. Michael over on facebook, what's up my friend! Gabriel, what's up? Polly pocket what's up? And we got Jennifer and Kevin and Terry and all kinds of people watching right now so thank you guys for being here.

So my backstory story first and foremost we're gonna be going live every Tuesday night, 5 P.M. Mountain Time, going forward this my commitment much like the commitment I made to do three hundred and sixty five episodes of the podcast. I'm going to do weekly coaching here on social. So I’m very excited to be here with you guys and thank you to everybody who's hanging out who's watching, I hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today my friends and excuse me if i'm a little bit off if my voice is a little horse I spent the weekend being sick so I’m happy to be back and no longer be sick.

So the theme for tonight and you guys are welcome to ask questions if you're in Discord you can raise your hand, if you're on social just type it in the comments and and we'll get to questions here at the end this evening.

How to be the hero of your own story?

You know this is this the number one thing, how do you get to this place in your life where you're living life on your terms where you're not letting trauma hold you back or you're not letting the pass hold you back or you're not letting fucking hate naysayer and haters and people who wanna bring you down hold you back. Like that's a thing and then most importantly how do you keep yourself from holding yourself back which if you're like me you probably have had a lit you of those experiences of being like, wow, I totally let myself down today. And you know what? Often we beat ourselves up about that. But let me tell you it's actually not that bad unless you must you like really destroyed your life or someone else's life which you probably didn’t. The thing that I want you to think about as we go into this conversation today is how can you kinda simply just let go? How can you just kinda let go of the things that have kept you stuck? How can you let go of what it is that you have in your limited false beliefs and these ideas that you don't deserve the life that you want to have? Because so many people get caught up in this and like man my life was so bad, I fucked it up so badly, I’ve ruined everything and so why should I get what i want in life? And my argument for that is has and always will be I’m really glad that you fucked up and I know that sounds weird and people kind like what why would you say that?

The reason that I’m glad is because now you get to learn and life is a series of iteration, life is a series of taking small bits and pieces of experiences and trying to make meaning of them in a way that becomes long term beneficial for you. And what happens all too often is people get stuck in this idea of like oh, I made one mistake like if you've ever made a mistake just comment yes , if you've ever made a mistake in your life just comment you yes be like I made a mistake everyone here is gonna comment yes, right? And so in that what I want you to think about is are you going to let those mistakes be the very thing that holds you back? Because if you are willing let me phrase it this way, if you make a fucking decision about being willing to not let your past be what dictates your future you can have everything that you want in life, all of it, and so many people are so stuck in the past that they cannot find the future.

And so how do you be the hero of your story?

How do you be this person in your own life that is going to propel you; yourself into what's next? Because guess what little insider secret very ain't no Disney moment and nobody is coming to save you. And so if you're here and you're looking at your life and you're like man, I wish somebody would come and fucking rescue me, I’m just telling you right now it's just not going to work, they're not coming like, I hate to break it to you I’m sorry hate to be the bearer of bad news but whatever you think is gonna happen where your life is gonna be magically rescued by somebody it's just ain't going down, I promise you it's not. But what you can do is take the tools, the learnings, the understanding, the iterations, the samples and all the lessons of your life and bring them into your playbook. And so when I think about this journey, about being the hero it starts with acknowledgment, it starts with looking at your life and being willing to say you know what? Yeah, I can know how i got to where I am, that's always step one. And so as we get into this since this is our first Tuesday night coaching and thank you guys for being here. Amelia thank you for being here. Munchies, thank you. Tabby, thank you. Michael over here thank you Kevin, Terry all of you guys thank you for being here. My goal my hope is we're a small group today on all the social channels, I’m hoping we get hundreds and hundreds of people here to be a part of this with us because I want to really really solidify this movement and this movement is ending generational trauma like to me I think about this I’m like I never wanna have this conversation again, so let's do what it takes today to make these kind of conversations up a lead in the future.

So, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about my backstory story, if you guys don't know me I’m gonna share this with you because I think it's important. So, I grew up in Indianapolis in Indiana, in America in the middle of America used called a fly over city and I grew up in the eighties. My mother who was a drug addict and alcoholic, she actually cut off my right index finger when I was only four years old and people will always say well how could your mother do that, that's like the most terrible thing ever? And the thing I wanna remind you of that I think is important as we step into this conversation is recognizing the truth that hurt people, hurt people you've probably heard this old adage before, right? Hurt people, hurt people. Well you know what guys healed people heal people as well and I’ve seen tremendous amount of change happened in the world. And so four years old my mother cuts off my right index finger, she's a drug addict and alcoholic, she marry my step father when I’m six heading in the seven, he's super abusive like he's the kind of step father you pray never your step by, he'd kick the shit out my brothers and I put me in the hospital multiple times and I lived in constant fear as a kid like the one thing that I know that many people have had traumatic experience as share in common is that our home was the most dangerous place that we could be and because of that the one thing that I always thought as a kid I was like man, I just wanna be a grown up because when I’m a grown up I won't have to deal with this anymore. And when I was eight years old we got evicted for the first that I really remember now, I knew a little bit my grandmother had always been like yeah, you guys were living with us when you were like three and four but the first time I really remember is when I was eight and we live with thirty (30) different families between eight to twelve years old, getting bounced around the stranger houses, getting bounced around with friends, with family, with church members, sometimes we'd be in vans, sometimes we'd be in church like it was crazy some of the places that we lived. And all this time when I’m getting bounced around I’m looking at the world and I’m thinking to myself something about my home is off because I see these people in these other homes being kind to each other and that struck me as super strange, I was like interesting. Why would they be kind to each other but at my house if I even ask for something I need I get my head slammed into a wall.

And one of the greatest discoveries that I had in that phase like between eight to twelve living with all these strangers was that there are incredibly amazing people in the world. I what demystify that people are bad because I just don't think it's true and apparently I don't think people are bad, I think people make mistakes, I think we screw up, I think we're not educated, I think that a lot of different things occur in our life but I don't think people are inherently bad; what I do think is that people make mistakes. And so because of this I’m exploring, I’m looking at the world. My grandmother adopt me when I’m twelve. Now you'd be like oh that's a Gods, right? Except I’m bi-racial black and white and my grandmother is an old racist white lady from a town in Tennessee you have never heard of.

So now it's like I’m starting to step into this identity crisis so not only do I have all the abuse as a kid but now I can't be me. The thing that I’ve come to understand to be most true about childhood trauma and abuse is that it's not the scar like, it's not the finger getting cut off you know what I mean, it's not the burns, it's not the cut, it's none of those things. The thing that childhood trauma does is it takes your identity. It strips away who you are it takes everything that you know about yourself and it breaks it down. And what happens is your brain; here's what you have to understand about the human brain serves one purpose. Do you know what that purpose is? Survival.

The human brain only cares about one thing making sure that you survive that you live long enough to procreate, to watch your procreations to procreate, and that's it; that's the only service of the brain. And so what happens is when you're in these abusive situations your brain starts to make meaning of them and it looks at them and it goes wait a second hold on, if I’m me that's dangerous, so I’m not gonna be me anymore because every time I’m me, there's pain, they're suffering, there's hurt and since the brain's only service is survival it says okay well, I need to live so I’m gonna stop being me, I’m gonna stop showing up because when I stop showing up I’m safe. And if you are safe in that context then you'll spend like I did your entire life trying to be a chameleon so that you fit in. Bending yourself, placating yourself, pretending to be someone else because the more that you are not you, the safer you are in the world. I really fucked up, juxtaposition, right? You're like damn, you mean every time I’m trying to be me I get hurt, so I’m not gonna be me anymore, yes that's exactly what I’m saying. And so by the time that I was thirteen, I got high for the first time, drunk and by a time I was fifteen I was expelled from school because I was selling drugs, breaking in a house, stealing in cars, getting shot at by the police like it was crazy some of the shit I was doing and like I was keeping it under wraps because like the weird the aspect of is like I was just trying to do whatever it took to survive even though everyone around me; my teachers, my grandmother, my some of my friends are like you're running with the wrong people. But those wrong people for me were like brothers, I felt brotherhood in that, I felt community in that and that's the thing that so many of us seek it's like we need human connection, we wanna be a part of something with people. Unfortunately sometimes for many of us that connection is traumatic and toxic people so we find ourselves in this position where you're like our friends are not people who want to see us succeed and that's not their fault like sometimes it is but generally speaking especially when you're young they're trying to do the same damn thing. You are only trying to be a part of something because in your home it's dangerous and you can't be you and in the streets it feels like this is where you're supposed to be until you realize the truth that it's not. And so, I guess I’m at this point sixteen and I get put into a last chance program and I get this opportunity to graduate high school to get a diploma, I was going to be in a position to actually be successful. So I get into this last chance program which is actually sponsored by goodwill so if you guys know goodwill like go support those people because they're absolutely incredible for what they do for communities and so I get sponsored by goodwill, I get put into this last chance program and at this time I actually also put a restraining order on my mother and my step father and my report card I posted it a couple of months ago on Instagram. When I put her a restraining order on my mother and my step father, I had straight A’s because the toxicity was removed from my life, the pain, the suffering was removed from my life for a Burberry period. But I still did not graduate high school on time and in fact three days before graduation my girlfriend calls me, I’m at home, I’m stoned, I’m playing video games and she's like by the way you're not graduating and I was like fuck, I’m gonna be for one to not graduate, I’m gonna be the guy in all the schools and all of the places that it's almost impossible not to graduate from I’m about to be that guy. So, get to my car, I drive to school, I go upstairs, Mister Bush's classroom upstairs left corner to the building, northwest high school which is now no longer high school it's been funded unfortunately a stand outside of away from. He comes out and I go how dare you fail me? He says to me; ‘I didn't fail you; you fail yourself’ and then he said the most important thing that anyone has ever said to me in my life. He goes what you need to understand about life is that you cannot get goodbye on your charms and your good looks if you want something you have to earn it and that changed my life forever.

And it wasn't him failing me that hit so hard it was him saying you have got to take personal responsibility. He was the first teacher who believed in me and the other was Mister Halingworth who was this amazing human being. So I had these two men in my life who believed in me, who I’ll tell you right now I would not be here without them and it was through the suffering of the experiences, of the ramifications of my choices that have led me down the path to recognize, you know what? Maybe I could be successful.

So I have to go to summer school that summer and I’m super embarrassed. I’m embarrassed because I’m ostracize for my community and my friends, I got uninvited from every graduation party everyone told me, I was a loser, I was the biggest loser literally, I was the biggest loser in the whole fucking school it was so incredibly embarrassing because just a few months prior you know I had been on the football team, captain of the wrestling team, I was dating it cheerleader like all the things high school kids want. I had a job, I had a car, I was making money and was also illegally making money but i still was making money and I found myself in this position of like holy shit I am the biggest embarrassment of school. But I started thinking about like man everyone had told me this was gonna happen because all my mom and my step dad always told me like you're not good enough, you're never gonna mount anything, you're a loser and it was coming true. So, I’m in summer school and my summer school teacher comes up to me one afternoon it was a Tuesday and Thursday night class at short rich high school and he goes we're done with you, we're just gonna pass you we want you the hell out of here here's your diploma. And I remember being like wow, the juxtaposition of this is insane because I’m pretty sure that mister Bush just changed my life forever and then this dude is just letting me scape by, I was like oh fuck, this is weird. So they up give me diploma and it's later into that summer. I’m working a warehouse job and I’m taking microchip chips and I’m putting them into motherboard all day long for twelve hours, microchip-motherboard, microchip-motherboard it was awful, it was the worst job literally the worst job did this day I’ve ever had. And I got fired a month in and we were working these crazy like twelve hour shifts, four days a week, I got fired. And see what happened? And I’m sitting my car, I’m thinking to myself what is the solution for poverty? What is the solution for abuse? What is the solution for homelessness? Like what is the solution for all this chaos in my life? And I thought to myself oh, it must be money, it's gotta be money, right? It's a very thing that we didn't have growing up, it's the very thing that everyone argued and fought about it's a very thing that I hustle my ass off to get and I was like it's money and so as I’m sitting in the car, I made a declaration of myself I said by the time that I’m twenty one I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars a year legally. And that legal part was super important because I have family and prison for life, I’ve been in handcuffs multiple times and as of today my three childhood best friends have been murdered. And so I knew the path I was going guys, I knew if I didn't change it I was screwed and so because of that I thought to myself, alright I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars a year legally, I don't wanna go to prison, I also need to make sure that I can do something that's gonna make my life better. 

And so, I started learning skills and at eighteen and a half I ended up getting a job with a fast food restaurant with fifty two people under me. Learning leadership skills, loss, shrink, inventory, ordering, how to read P&L, I mean, I like a baby reading P&L and doing like really intense business stuff and leadership and I started just making every mistake that you could possibly imagine. And if you remember where I started this a few minutes ago, I said life is about iteration and in those mistakes I kept learning and learning and learning and eventually I was in a position where I was prepared to go to the next level.

One day, I was chatting with a friend on myspace space so old age myself a little bit here and he's like I just got a brand new tahoe and this is like two thousand and five. I’m like how the hell did you get a tahoe because you're dumb as I am, you went to my high school, you got stoned with me every single day, you're bullshit or like wait how did you get a tahoe? And he's like dude I’m working for an insurance company and my mind was completely blown because I didn't know that was possible, I didn't know that was a thing because I’d never seen that before, I’ve never seen people working these corporate jobs and I was like oh, that's it; that's my path to a hundred thousand dollars a year legally. And so I started writing resumes, I started writing cover letters, I started doing all the things that it takes and this whole time I’m thinking of myself like I’m gonna make this happen, I’m gonna make this happen and make this happen. I’ve massive clarity on this goal, massive. And the one thing that I teach my clients whenever they come into coaching with me is like you've gotta get clear about what you want. Why are you in the programs? Why are you reading the books? Why are you taking the courses? Why are you doing all these things? Because if you don't have massive clarity in your life you're gonna go nowhere.

So clarity about this I was like I make a hundred thousand dollars a year legally, don't wanna go to prison, I don't wanna get murdered like my friends I’ve done the work and boom Atlanta  job with a fortune ten company, no high school diploma, no college education and I start making that six figures. And that thing happens to me that happened to people when you get money for the first time and it totally destroyed my life and I found myself in this weird position we're like twenty six years old and in the theme of tonight's session trying to figure out how to be the hero of my own story, right? If you've ever struggled, if you ever tried to figure out how to be the hero of your own story just know that you're not alone we all go through this because the only thing I had in my head was all these limiting beliefs and I thought money was gonna be the solution. If you've ever thought money was gonna be the solution your problems just just say yes, type yes in the comments, share yes, raise your hand, comment just say yes if you ever thought money was gonna be the solution to your problem. Yeah, I can see some yes coming in because we're told that we're like convinced that that's true. People are like yow, you're gonna make money and your life gonna be better, your life's gonna be everything you ever thought it was gonna be and so here I am having that idea in my head and I’m twenty six years old and some of my friends who knew me at that age are on here right now, I was three hundred and fifty pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, my life was fucking chaos because I was like oh, I’m gonna chase this money, I’m gonna get this nice cadillac, I’m gonna date all these women, my life's gonna be awesome and I could not have been more miserable, could not have been more miserable. It was a disaster, it was an absolute disaster and I remember having this moment where it was after a concert; me and my friends we all use to go to these concerts and I just got in this huge fight with the woman I was dating at the time and it's right around my birthday I’m going back home and I’m like irate and I’m drunk and I’m pissed off at the world and I’m mad at everybody I’m like see they were right. I’m never gonna have love, I’m never gonna have happiness, I’m never gonna have any of these things and so instead of like I don't know fucking go into therapy or having a conversation about it or journal or meditating or any of those things I just drank and got stoned and smoke cigarettes and ate more food and drink and got stoned and they smoke more cigarettes and ate more food and my life was miserable because of the choices that I was making.

You see part of the equation that is missing that people don't understand about creating the life that they want to have is that you have to take massive action every single day to create that life, massive action like you've gotta be willing to do shit you never dreamed you would do and you have to commit, you have to follow through and you have to be willing to say who am I? What do I want? How do I get it? Because until you do that nothing in your life is gonna be different. And so, heading into twenty six years old, I put a gun in my mouth, I was just done, I was like I thought money was gonna solve these problems, right? Like so many of you in the chat you wrote yes, you raised your hand you said yes. I thought money was gonna solve my problems, you're never going to be able to solve your problems with money. Money is an asset, money as a tool, money is something that will help you along your journey but it will not be the solution, it will just be a resource to find the solution. And I’m laying in bed the next day, it's eleven o'clock in the morning. Now keep in mind, I’m like three fifty, I’m big, I’m in bed, I’m smoking a joint, eating chocolate cake and watching the CrossFit games like if that's not rock bottom guys I have no idea what is. And I had this moment where I got up and I went and I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and I remembered being eight years old and the water company had come and turned our water off it's like this blistering hot Indiana summer day and like they turned off the water before, they turned off the electricity, we've been evicted more times than I can count and on this one particular day a ago in the backyard, I grabbed this little blue bucket, a walk across the street to our neighbor's house and for the first time I stole water and in that moment I remember being like when I’m a grown up this will not be my life. And as I looked at myself in that mirror that day I realized that I’d broken the promise I’d made to myself as a child. I realized I was not holding true to who I knew I could be. And in that as I looked in the mirror and I’ll never understand why I did this, I asked myself what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? And the answer was No excuses, Just results. And that started to change everything because I realized that if you wanna be the hero of your own story, you're going to have to get the fuck out of your own way.

Type, yes if you agree with that, if you're like I gotta get out of my own way to be the hero of my story type yes just put it in there because this is affirming the truth for you if you write yes right now, you are affirming the truth that you know that if you wanna be the hero of your own story you have to get out of your own way.

And that's everything and in that moment that's what I realized and what it turned what I understood in that moment is it was actually me choosing to no longer negotiate with myself because all my friends, all my family, all the people in my life they didn't understand that I was letting myself down every single day. I was placating myself to the world every single day, why? Because again think about this when we're young and we go through abuse it's not the abuse that changes us, it's the theft of our identity and my identity was thing I ever tried to do was be like everybody else because when I was like everybody else I was safe and when I was like everybody else I’ve been and what I was like everybody else I didn't have to worry about being me.

It's really funny because I mentioned this on a podcast recently. You know, we learn how to be other people because when we're other people it gives us the community that we seek because we're so terrified to be ostracize, I know some people are gonna not like this but I’m gonna tell you the truth. I hate country music like I hate country music in away that like I cannot even explain to you and I used to go to country music concerts with my friends because I thought that if I went with them that they would care about me, that they would like me, that they would love me, that they would see me as someone of character, without recognizing like the irony in that was like I was going to do this thing that I absolutely hate for love and it didn't make sense. And today if you called me if you're like hey, man I got front row tickets for I don't know country guy I like sorry I’m out, I’m not coming . Have fun, enjoy it. Want you to take a moment and think about the times in your life where you have bent who you are, where you have not been you for the sake of placating people around you to fit in, is it drinking, is it smoking, is it like what is that thing that you do, is it football, right? I mean there's so many different things I’m not saying those things are good or bad I’m just saying like ask yourself this question like are you bending who you are for the sake of fitting in because if you are bending who you are for the sake of fitting in you have to understand that there is causation and correlation in that.

You have to understand that there's a rhyme in reason, there's a purpose behind your brain saying I have to fit in because I need safety, because when I was young if I didn't do everything it took to fit in I was in danger, does that make sense to you guys? Like you guys connecting the dots on this, I really hope that you are know that ton of you guys are watching here on social media on Discord, here in Instagram as well. I just wanna make sure that this makes sense to you because the reality is that we will bend ourselves and you can no longer do that if you wanna go to what's next.

So as I’m sitting I’m looking at my life from twenty six years to make this declaration what are you willing to do to be the hero of your story? What are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? The answer being no excuses, just results it led me down this path. I want you guys to think about these pivotal moments these turning points in your life in which you have started to head down the path. For me it was alright, I’m gonna quit smoking, I’m gonna quit drinking, I’m gonna quit partying all night, I’m gonna take care of my physical body, I’m gonna stop eating Mcdonald's every single day they're gonna sue me one day guys. Mark this Mcdonald's are gonna sue me because of always shitting on them because their food is poison keep it real, don't eat it, I’m just saying and I just started taking these little steps doing these little things making these little shifts day by day by day by day and what happened which was really interesting is I noticed that it was really, really, really, really, really fucking hard, it was really hard. And for the next three years, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine years old  it was like atlas pushing this step boulder, it was just this crazy experience of like just trying to like manipulate myself into creating who I thought I could be and it was push and push and push and I would fall down, god I would fall down so many times. And guys you're gonna fall down, you're going to fall down and it's the greatest thing that can happen. So many people are terrified of falling, so many people get stuck in this idea that if they fall they have lost and I want you to take the very first thing from this conversation from our first Tuesday night coaching together I want you to take this with you, if you have a pen I want you to write this down burn it into your brain, tattoo it on your arm, I don't give a shit where you put it.

You need to understand the truth about failure. It is the greatness on planet earth because without failure you cannot iterate, without failure you cannot course correct, without failure you cannot make adjustments, if you continue to only ever win you are not pushing yourself. And failure will teach you things about yourself that will change your life forever.

And so in this three years I’m just failing and failing and failed it's like good lord, I was like dude what are you do and you said no excuses just results and I was just like keep going, keep going, keep going, just trying shit because that's what it was that became the differentiating factor, that's the thing I think people need to truly understand about this journey is if you are willing to not give up on a long enough timeline you can have everything that you want in your life. But we're so quick to give up the moment things don't go our way.

Guys nothing has ever been easy the first time you; not a single one of you have been successful at trying something the first time; nobody is. And the thing I kept thinking to myself like man I’ve been smoking since I was thirteen what if I quit? I’ve been drinking since I was thirteen, what if I quit? I’ve been doing all this chaos, this monstrous shit for years, what if I just switch it up? You see, the thing is we get so tied into certainty. The thing that I hate that trauma survivors say all the time and I’ve been guilty of this too is we say oh, I thrive in chaos, that's fucking crazy, you should not be equipped to thrive and cast yes of course you should be able to but that should not be your default setting. And so what happens is we're really good at thriving in chaos because we're certain in it but when uncertainty comes up, it's terrifying. And for some of us uncertainty could be compassion, love, grace, happiness, joy, community, right? Uncertainty can be so many different things, it could be a good relationship, it could be removing yourself from a job that you hate, it could be all these things but we are so good in chaos and in the certainty of chaos we don't choose to step into what's next for us. And as I was looking to my life I made a decision, I said I’m choosing to step into what's next for me, I’m going to do this for me not for anybody else.

So the thing that you need to understand is as you begin to step onto the path for what's next, you've gotta be willing to choose you, you've gotta be willing to bet yourself, you've gotta to be willing to go all in on you because I’m gonna tell you a secret about life if you don't believe in yourself who will?

So as I started getting deeper into this, I started doing the work. I know a lot of you guys have done the work, I know there's many of you right now who have been my clients who I’ve coached, who have helped through this journey and I’m super proud of you for being here and it's such a great emphasis on the thing that I always teach you guys that this is a forever process just because you do a coaching session, just because you read a book, just because you go to conference does not mean that the work is done. And in fact often it means the work is just beginning so congratulate yourself for being here because that matters, because it's important it's incredible that you are here.

So as I was in my early thirties I’m doing all the work, I’m going to coaching, I’m going to personal development, I’m reading the books, podcast, diving deep into all the information, I’m in therapy like fucking seventeen times a week it's crazy, I’m going men's therapy, men's group therapy, men's group trauma therapy, CBT, EMDR and NLP, I’m doing all of the things I’m literally doing everything trying to figure out the pathway to healing, to be the hero. I was try to figure out how to be the hero? How do you do this? How do you create the life that you want to have when everyone's only told you; you're not going to have it and it's by iteration, it's by the willingness to fail, it's by showing up again and again and again and investing in yourself.

And look, what the truth about this is I wish you could just listen to this and that your life would be great, I’m really true, I do I wish that you could just be oh, I listen to Michael one time and my life is perfect, I never have to do this again fuck I’d be a billionaire because I just charge everyone a hundred thousand dollars you'd be fixed overnight it'd be great but doesn’t how life works. And the one thing I know to be true about how this works is you have to be willing to fail and so as I was in all this therapy, all this coaching, all this education learning and learning and learning I just kept making more mistakes and I realized like wow, if I’m willing to show up and I’m willing to make these mistakes then I’m learning, I’m learning and that became one of the most powerful understanding of this journey for me, is that if i was willing to fail that I would learn. And now heading into thirty seven years almost a decade over a decade of doing this work, daily day in and day out, learning, educating myself, coaching traveling, speaking the whole nine I still fail, I still make mistakes, I still have to learn, I still am an iteration, I’m still taking samples, I’m still gathering data, I’m still in that rich stream of information about fucking up. But I found more than ever the willingness to do that because when you are willing to fail my friends, I cannot express this enough. When you are willing to fail you will discover more about who you are than if you do not try. And so many of us get stuck in the fear of trying. Again guys this is causation and correlation there's always a rhyme and reason, right? We get stuck and not wanting to fail so desperately that we don't ever create change in our life and for the first twenty six years of my life that was true. And now the only thing that I do is be willing to fail.

There's a great great book by John Maxwell called Failing Forward and it really surmise us in a way that I can’t, it's beautifully written. And the idea is just kind of what I laid out the willingness to fill will you to where you want to go. But that thing about trauma gets in the way, that thing about abuse gets in the way holds us back it's that little whisper in your ear, right? It goes are you sure? you sure you wanna do this? are you sure you wanna try this? are you sure you think you can handle it? Or you know what I don't think you are, I don't think you should. You should quit now, you should give up and that little voice pops in my head every damn day.

You know what I do? I turn it off.

You see, you turn off that voice that limiting belief in your head that thing that holds you back you know how you get rid of it. It's not therapy, it's not coaching, it's not journal, it's not meditation, it's not walking in the park, it's none of those things. The way that you turn off that stupid ass voice in your head that says nope you're not good enough, you're not strong enough, you're not capable enough is you go and do the thing that you know you need to do anyway. You have the courage like many of you in this room right now, many of you listening to this the people who show up that as we head into the future, as we build this thing together it is the courage to face the unknown despite being terrified that will shut that voice up. It is the courage to do that that will quiet the voice that tells you can't because the only way you're gonna discover that you can is by doing it.

And I wish there was an easier way, I wish that it was just like oh, yeah go sit down write your journal and your life will be better, but it doesn't work that way. At least I haven't discovered that and you know perhaps there are people that are arguing with me and tell me I’m wrong when fine so bad I accept that, I’m gonna tell you right now everything that I’ve ever built in my life this journey of healing, writing best selling books, having a top fifty podcast, coaching thousands of people around the world, helping people change their lives like literally it's crazy to me to get messages from people who are like hey, that thing changed my life, that book changed my life, that coaching session changed my life is unbelievable but it started because I was willing to do it for myself first. You see the thing about this journey is you have to be willing to put yourself first. There's so much about this that I want you to take away but the one thing about this you put yourself first and you say you know what? Today is about me and about what I need and about challenging the narrative that other people have embedded and groomed and enmeshed into me that I’m not good enough. You challenge that shit, you be courageous and addressing it, you look at it and go what is the pathway? What do I need to do, is it coaching, is it therapy, is it books, is that podcast, it's all of those things but more importantly it's doing the thing that you know you need to do. Learning your worth dictating your value and not settling for anything less which at first is terrifying because for many of us we've never done it before, we've never put ourself in a situation to say I’m choosing me and when you choose you, the incredible thing that happens is you start to shift; in that shift is that instead of you bending yourself to the world that you have done for so long that you have no idea who you are it's the shift that happens is the world starts to bend to you. And the way that that works is you start doing the thing, you stop making excuses, you start showing up.

The greatest understanding of healing and I try to teach this to people all time.

The greatest understanding in my opinion of what it means to have healed, to heal, to be healing, to be the hero of your story is to only do what you want to do and to never do what you don't want to do.

Now, it that doesn't mean you don't have to be like mono this shit because I promise you do but it is saying that it's not about placated, it's not about bending, it's not about pretending your someone else, it's about being you unapologetically that inherent experience that you have within you that says this is me being the hero of your own story about owning that and about the willingness to fell your way to who you are.

My friends, I just wanna say thank you for joining me on the very first Tuesday night coaching session. I want to and we will in the future take live questions and you'll be able to raise your hands or leave chats and ask questions and all of those things and I wanna be able to grow this. So if you got any value out of this tonight do me a favor and share this with your friends, tell them to join all the different communities on Discord, on Instagram wherever it is. Ask them to be a part of this and listen to the Think Unbroken Podcast because over there we're creating daily content to help people get unstuck, let go of the past and be the hero of their own story.

And you can also pre-order the new book Unbroken Man which will come out in June. If you just go to men.thinkunbroken.com thought a lot of people ask me if women can read this book too, yeah, absolutely one hundred percent, in fact the beginning of the book is dedicated to women. So you can go to men.thinkunbroken.com it's called Unbroken Man A Man's Guide To Being The Hero Of Their Own Story and I want you guys to share this. I want you to invite people because here's the truth…

My mission and my goal is to end generational trauma in our lifetime through education and information and this is not hubris and I’m not trying to be facetious but I believe that I am one of the best trauma coaches on planet fucking earth. And I need your help to spread this to other people because I’m only one person and even though I can push and I can push and I can push this is about community and I believe in this community, I believe in the Unbroken Nation, I believe in all of us and our ability to create massive change in the world, and that's why do this.

You know the clients that I’ve coached, the people have come through my programs like they have seen massive and radical changes in their life. So, I’m not blowing smoke up your ass when I say this because I’ve seen it time and time again but most importantly I’m a person that knows the truth, that you can be the hero of your own story.

And so with that said, my friends, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for being a part of the Unbroken Nation.

Thank you for showing up. We'll be back here on Tuesday night next week 5 P.M. Mountain Time or whatever time that is, wherever you are in the world and we're gonna go deep again and we're gonna set it up in advance we'll get some questions I know we've got off to a little bit of a rocky start today but I’m proud of you.

Thank you all for the courage of being here today.

And Until Next Time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

I’ll see you.