E282: Think Like Kings & Queens with Karl Sona | Trauma Healing Podcast

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Very excited be back with you with another episode with my guest and friend Karl Sona, who is a synergist between minority owned businesses and corporations and the host of Dear Black CEO Podcast. Man, what is going on, what is happening in your world?

Karl: What is up, Michael and Unbroken Nation! It is amazing to be here man, this feeling blessed and privileged, see another beautiful day here man in sunny Colorado.

Michael: Dude, same. I'm so excited to have you on. Before we jump into the show can you tell a little bit about how you got to where you are today?

Karl: Yeah, thank you for the question, man. So, I mean, I gotta give it back you know to my parent’s man, huge shout out to Jerry and Martinez Sona, they literally are my heroes and I say that because my parents are immigrants of this country. They came here in the late eighties you know, not being that much younger than myself right now, really with not much to their name, no guidance really, no road map right on how to navigate a foreign land. And it's a huge accomplishment man, because considering from where they come from, many people make it out, right? A lot of people are just sort of born into sort of a current status in life and that's where they're at for the duration of life. But parents are able to make it here man shortly after landing in the late eighties they had me and I was really riding shotgun for a lot of their early and initial experiences trying to figure out how to create a living and how to ultimately create a legacy for their family which was really, really challenging man because I saw them at their worst, I saw them at their best and I was really exposed to a ton. But what it taught me from a very early age is that the opportunities are endless and we really all have to put ourself in the position to capitalize on them which is what drives me so much to do a lot of the things that I'm doing right now. I remember one time when I was about six or seven years old, Michael and this is really a transformational pivot in my life where I heard my parents talking in the other room to some relatives back home and they were talking loudly because these are in the days of international pay cards, where this just a lot of static and things aren't really coming across clearly. And they're essentially saying that they didn't have enough money to send for one of my cousin’s tuition fees for that upcoming semester. I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, it's about eight thirty a night before I'm getting ready for my prayers and I'm hearing this and I'm looking at my clothes that are laid up for school tomorrow and I'm thinking to myself how is it that I'm in this blessed enforcement position yet one of my relatives that's literally my age is not. And that right their man, just really ran sack me with a tremendous amount of guilt and I made a pledge to myself that I would do everything that I could in my power to capitalize on the opportunities of being here, so that my cup would run it over so much that it could ultimately run into others and provide for others. And so that has really carried me to a lot of what I'm doing today man because about four or five years ago, I was in a place in my corporate career where I was really being gladness man, I was doing all the things that society sells you as success. I had the beautiful penthouse in the Sky, my neighbors were some of the top professional athletes in town, I'm running around with all these guys and girls just trying to flex. And one Saturday just like this, I had a moment where I was sat my couch and I was looking at into the distance because I had these beautiful three sixty views and I was like what the hell are you doing with your life, man? You know, here you are, you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, you're pissing it all the way, trying to act as if and I was brought back to that moment in my room as a young child where I had made that commitment and that was really a key driver to just take an honest and open look at myself and I think about how I could get more no alignment in terms of my life going forward with that promise. So, that's what really changed the game in and fast forward, I moved to Denver and I've been able to get out of corporate America and really put a path on this mission of helping underrepresented businesses get access to opportunities and contacts that help them scale, to do the great things within their communities. So, that's kind of a skinny man but you know I'm just a guy that's really looking to answer the assignment and the call as to why I'm here and to live with intention and purpose.

Michael: I love that and I relate to that so much because I look at my life now and it's very much in the same guys where I think to myself every day, I'm just trying to live my purpose and fulfill the obligation, honestly do that I made to myself and I think the flex is dangerous. And I actually wanna go back to that for a minute because when I was young, I was corporate I did really well and to have come from nothing thing and to be doing well was kind of like oh, I guess, I'll have the nicest car, the nicest clothes, you know, everything. I came to realize like, that's just not it what about like, I wanna go a little bit deeper into that because I think people misalign success and they think it's attributed to money into possessions into chalk on the bed post and it's like that's just not the thing. What was really happening in that moment for you that kinda of brought you back down to zero? I wanna get to is what was it like thinking about letting yourself down, was it recognizing you weren't holding your truth, like, go a little bit more into depth about why the flex actually wasn't bringing you success in your life?

Karl: Yeah, great question, man. So, yeah it really goes back to this idea of letting myself down and letting the people that ultimately help me get to this position down, and so let me drill it on this, right? My dad coming up man never had stable employment, was always in and out of different opportunities kinda hustling right to really give us a leg up. And I remember when I got to high school he literally would give me seven thousand dollar checks to go pay my tuition, so out of all my siblings, I am the only one after for whatever reason my parents decided they would send to a private dress with high school, my parents did that because they obviously saw something in me and they wanted to make that investment in the me to help me ultimately improve my future and then help me be the best that I could be. And so, when I got to that stage of corporate around being twenty-six or twenty-seven years old and I'm making five six hundred a year but none of that is really being utilized to help my parents with their retirement or to help my siblings with their school work, I'm like man, I'm really just living for myself and that's the issue with the flex man. The flex for me was just keeping up with the jones is and when we're keeping up with the jones system and you're using all of your disposable income to create this lifestyle that helps you bullshit people into what people want them to believe of about you; you end up really neglecting the things that matter most. And I saw where that trajectory was going man, I saw that I had to go make more money in order to continue to carry about the lifestyle and I was like dude, if I don't change something up here very quickly, I'm not gonna be in a position to help the people that I care about most. Because my parents are still struggling, right? I mean like they're doing our right comparatively speaking to where they were coming to America but like they're still hustle, getting older like, I'm watching them still stress about money and I'm making all of this but I don't have that much left over to actually help alleviate your pains. What does that do to me knowing that you know what I'm saying, you guys pushed your ceiling in order to help me establish a floor that could catapult me to new levels and I'm not finding a way to pay that forward to you, guys. And so, that was a huge I guess you could say misalignment in terms of how I felt internally but how I was living externally and I literally looked at myself in the mirror for like twenty minutes and had a conversation and was very uncomfortable because who wants to look at their own shit, who wants to acknowledge that they are out of integrity and out of alignment. But for me that was really the defining moment that's sort of part of the seas and that gave me an opportunity to choose something different. So, very, very just happy that I was willing to do, I think that's the other challenge you know a lot of people are just not willing to look at themselves.

Michael: True and even if it's not the financial aspect of it which you know, I look at my life and I go had, I've been rich, I've been poor, I've ever world between the financial aspect of it really isn't a catalyst it's more about that how do you feel about yourself. And I think one of the biggest struggles is especially when we're young and even today is we're trying to create our identity, we're trying to figure out who we are and seek purpose and figure out what it is that we want, who we wanna become. And there is that part of it where I think unfortunately because life is an iterative process, you're just gonna make huge and massive mistakes but the willingness to not only acknowledge but assess those mistakes because without doing that you're not going to be able to confront the truth; you find yourself in this really weird position where you're basically in limbo and that's where I found myself in my twenties where like, I'm making all this money, I'm not taking care of my brothers who come from the same background as me, I'm not taking care of my community, my friends, myself and I had this moment of reflection much like, you looking in the mirror and coming to realize I've been letting myself down. And I think that's the most difficult thing that we have to acknowledge because in that is truth and we can lie to ourselves as much as we want but the moment you go and look in that mirror like you know what's up, you know the truth and like, for me, I knew it wasn't the Cadillac, it wasn't the JBrand jeans today, those things weren't value and what I needed to do which has done thus come to pass spending time with family, building relationships with friends, contributing to society, being charitable and ultimately raising myself. And people will go well, you found your purpose, you guys are so lucky but I don't know that that's necessarily true, I think that there's been a lot of like faith in myself in God's, Spirit, Universe,I don't know what the hell you wanna call it but that has led me to this. And so, I'm wondering here, talk to me about the power of faith and finding your purpose in this journey?

Karl: Yeah, man. Faith has been everything in more man, it literally is the field that propel me every single day.

Michael: And define faith for us too.

Karl: Yeah. So, I wanna start with how I was introduced to faith. I was introduced to faith from a religious contact and I'm not an overly religious person today. So, my entire life I've gotten a catholic school that was just something that my parents prioritize education is the key and that's what really introduced me to believing in God and believing in the whole story of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior you know, both of which I still hold near and dear to my heart today. But the issue that I had with religion was that it felt overly, I guess you could say secular and what I mean by that was, we would go to church, we would listen to this priests you know that would sort of walk us through what it meant to be a God like individual and then you would find out that like the priest had some sort of crazy going scandal on, man dude, here you are, preaching this stuff to us day and then day out and we just found out that you got kitty poured on your lap or that you're actually having a fair with men out of the church so that really started to like make me question you know religion in general not to mention going a bit further I would see how some of the most God like people in the church would conduct themselves out of church and I was like, I don't wanna be like that. Like in church you seem like the north star that I'm trying to aim for but I see what you're doing outside of this and so that's kinda one of the things that made me spin away from the legend. But I'll tell you what man when I was religious, I never had an intimate connection with God you know, I never would really bring myself to him and have deep conversations about what his plans were for my life and to ask him for I would say you know the power and the courage required to go out and be who it is he intended me to be. And so, when you ask me about the role that faith has specifically played as of late, bro, man, I wouldn't be doing all the things that I'm doing right now, if I didn't have the faith component because quite frankly every single day when I wake up the first thing that happens is I thank God for a new day but the second thing that happens is all the problems and all the challenges that my physical being with sort of assimilate as challenges and hurdles that they immediately rushed to me, right? And I start feeling fear and I start feeling just worry about whether or not I'm gonna be enough to show up in to actually overcome those challenges. So, my faith is really liking to I would say just a container that I've got with God where I'm able to say, you know what, it's not on me to be this strong and powerful guy that I previous life would be myself on believe for me to actually surrender some of these things that I feel could be difficult or might be bigger than me and say, hey you got that, right? I'm supported, all I have to do is continue to respond to the call, all I have to do is continue to take one step forward, to move towards some of the things that you've outlined for me. And so, it's this element of surrender and as human beings especially the way that I'm wired you know, I'm kinda of alpha, if you wanna put a label on it, I tend to say there's nothing that I can't go out and conquer. I've always lived my life with this notion that I could bend reality into what it is I want to create but at a certain point man. And I think we've all seen this with the pandemic you realize that you're not actually in control of everything, you realize that it's are gonna come up that are gonna knock you out of balance, things are gonna come up, they're gonna challenge you from a mental, wellness perspective or a holistic wellness perspective and it's those opportunities that I see faith really being the catalyst to get the feel that you need to continue to get over those speed bumps with those challenges. So, it's really been about surrender and also realizing that at the end of the day I'm not in control, I'm here to be a vessel for what God wants to do and that's what it's been for being, man.

Michael: How much of that additionally is putting a faith in yourself?

Karl: Yeah. So, you know faith in myself. The faith component is recognizing that I don't have to have all of the answers right now in order to move forward, I just have to have a clear channel a clear understanding of what it is I need to do and trust that if I move forward even though I may tell myself I don't have the resources or know how or the power that it will figure itself out. And so, the beautiful thing is that as you continue to really exercise that faith muscle, you're able to actually have historical evidence of all the times in the past it's worked out. And I think about like my former career in corporate America, now I'm in the entrepreneurship space and I'm moving forward on some things that I never quite frankly done before but I think about where I got too corporate, I was the youngest person at the time in the organization that was literally the top sales rep and stepping into that, I was scared, I doubted it myself. There was one time where I literally considered the fact that I was only there because I was a quota, a diversity quota for the company, I was like, the only black person there. I really struggled through that but I use that as field to say, you know what man, I'm gonna demonstrate my value into this organization, I'm gonna do everything, I can to level up the knowledge and the skill set so I can go produce and that's what I did, right? So, there's an element of faith at that time of my life.

Now moving forward into this new phase of entrepreneurship.

I'm able to look back at those days and say, hey man, at one point you started from the bottom, you didn't have anything figured out, you didn't have the security, you were very insecure and broken but look what you're able to do, why can't you do that again in this new lane? Right? And so, to answer a question, I think that it's a confidence builder if you're willing to respond to the call and if you're willing to remind yourself of times in the past it's worked out for you. You see what I'm saying?

Michael: Yeah, totally. I leverage that all the time because you know, I'm always doing something new, I'm in a new room, I'm trying new things, I'm building a new vertical in the business, I'm coaching in a new way, I'm writing a new book, like, there's always the next thing and I've come to realize that often the places that I have gotten stuck along this journey have been in which I thought too small where I've been like oh, man, I don't know, you know that seems awful big and the more that I go big, it's like the world starts to bend itself to me as opposed to the other way around. And in that I think there's so much confidence that I've built in not only loving myself but discovering who I am through the willingness to for lack a better term suffer through the discovery and in that discovery like thinking about this idea, if I can go huge, I do things bigger than I've ever done before then the whole way up is just this learning experience and I always tell people. My goals are thirty-seven years away, in five years they'll be thirty-seven years away, it's like this mind trick I play with myself, I listening to a mutual mentor of hours Grant Cardone and he goes, you know everybody always says, go big or go bigger. And I was like oh, my god, that's such a great point because why would you stop? Why would you limit yourself? And so, what I wanna know here is like, when you have this ability to think huge, when thinking is free, talk to me about that like, talk to me about; because there's a transition here for where your mindset had shifted and I want hold onto this because this was an experience that I had as well that changed everything.

Karl: Yeah. Like what we're going with this because I came across a quote once and it literally mirrored what you just said and that is thinking is free, right? So, why not think big. Think about anything that has been positioned as free to us as consumers, right? Free and unlimited, why wouldn't you like do your best to grab armed pulls of whatever that product is in order to be a glut, in order to leverage the fact that it's free. So, when you apply that same perspective to this idea of thinking and more importantly imagination, this sky the limit man. And for me, where I really started to had that shift was getting into new rooms for so long; you know, I mentioned the time in Nashville where I was just with the flexers and all they were doing were thinking about what they're gonna wear for next weekend's event, right? As far as like their thoughts and their creativity went, even being in the corporate space, so much of the talk and so much of the focus there is just getting to next month's numbers. But for me when I had that moment in the penthouse and I said alright, I am greater than the title or the roles and responsibilities of my job. Let me figure out how I see myself leaving a positive impact in this world. I started go into conferences, I started of going to seminars because I started coming across other people who work like, minded and had also had you know a similar wakeup call if you will, and when you start hearing about what people have been through before and you start finding that there are elements of their story that awaken something within you like, Tim story says, man it creates a glimpse that you know however tiny once you see it you can't unsee it. And you mentioned Grant Cardone, I remember going to 10X in 2017 by myself, very nervous, very scared because the energy of those conferences meant people feel and appear bigger than life and it's almost like some of these folks are literally floating man because they just mastered themselves and they understand their craft and what their craft offers to people on a greater scale. I was hooked and I saw what was possible and then and that's where really shift things for me man, I mean all of us have an opportunity to be great but so many of us are pigeon whole buyer environments and our limited mindset and our limited ways of thinking. So, I always encourage people you know to reach for the next rung, to find somebody that they aspire to be like and typically the way that I've been able to find folks that I aspire be like, is something that I see within them that ignites me. I would say inspiration is really just a mirror looking right back at you, if I'm able to see you Michael and I'm able to see what you're doing with your platform and how you're encouraging people and then a week something within me, well that to me is an indicator that I have something similar within me that I can also unlock and tap into to be that other people.

So, I can't stress man, just be importance so of getting in the new rooms and having the temperature of those rooms, almost sort of force you give you a with kick in the ass to claim your own greatness because it's out there for all of us.

Michael: I appreciate that so much because as I'm sitting here reflecting, I think to myself you know had I not put myself in those rooms we would not be having this conversation. And in the beginning, it was scary you know because they'd be like it's four ninety-seven, to go and I’m like, four hundred dollars, what the fuck talking about man, right? I don't have four dollars. The very first conference, I ever went to I put it on a credit card and it's said, I was like, I gotta do something here that feels different, I've gotta be willing to take the risk and I think that's the thing that being in those rooms I have learned the most about myself is understanding like, if someone has done it; it can be done. And that's the thing that I think so many people myself included on growing up, especially in America like, this might be the land of the free and the home of the brave in the home of capitalism and wealth and possibility but most of us don't see that, most of them don't witness and bear witness to it and especially where I came from and I know so many of the Unbroken Nation where we're like, I was never exposed to this thing called money, wealth, success, happiness, community, friendship, companionship, growth and enforcing like, dude, I would never forget the first time I went to personal development conference, I was so fucking uncomfortable. The only thing I was thinking myself was like, fuck these people, I didn't get it, right? But I force myself into that room because I thought to myself, well, they must know something I don't know because when I was walking through that damn parking lot there were Lamborghini and Gwagon and it's not about that because anybody can make money to afford that but it was about just bearing witness to it and then being in the room and being around these credible people who are impacting the world, changing the world. And we having this moment of reflection and thinking like, what am I actually doing here? What am I'm actually doing with this time? And I hope and I encourage people who are listening right now to join a conference, join a group, get a coach, be a part of something that you're uncomfortable in because that's where you're gonna grow. And I also think like, you build diverse relationships in that. What kind of relationships have you built over the years, so your willingness to think bigger?

Karl: Oh, my god, I mean one of the things that I'm most proud about is the fact that every single day I get to build this incredible company that we call streamline podcast with three other cofounder and then very dear friends of mine and that came about as a result of really moving on this person development journey, right? So, I discovered the podcast platform in my corporate career, being a sales rep, there's a lot of windshield chill time and one day I was like, alright there's only so much rap music it was always so much of this future mixtape, I can continue to listen to like, let me try to expand upon the possibilities out there, to try to get some knowledge while I'm driving all over the country inside discovered podcast and I was consuming and consuming and consuming.

I learned about what success really means and I define success based upon how many people you can serve and coincidentally man, I became recognized within the organization at that time as somebody that you know was doing well and I was given opportunities to train some of my colleagues and counterparts in sales because I was just consuming all this information. And so, I got to a place one day where I was like, man I can only do so many of these one-on-one calls, why not launch a podcast and start to put some of this information out there just to make it more readily available and accessible. The problem was I didn't really know how to do my own podcast. So, what I did was I went and found a coach who had a mastermind and brought people together that also aspire to learn how to podcast in order to learn some of these intangible that probably just take me exponentially that much more time and so, boom! Dropped into a new room, I'm feeling the discomfort, I'm feeling the impostor syndrome, all the things that you just talked about. But I'm sticking with it because I see this vision of what a greater version of Karl Sona could be. And just being myself and staying plugged in, I met a couple of that I just really hit it off with man that were also trying to figure it out and we started to support each other, we started having more and more conversations, you know, this goes back to my previous point of changing your circle, getting this in new rooms of folks that are also wired the same way that you are because what happens is momentum starts to really sort of accelerate and we started to figure out oh, wow, like, we're having some similar type challenges around launching podcasts, we're having similar challenges around actually getting them produced and edited in a quality manner. I wonder if there's something we can do together to create a solution that helps other people like ourselves and that's where streamlined media was birthed and I always tell my partners that if we are all weren't willing to put ourselves out there in terms of finding other people that were interested in the things that we were we wouldn't be able to serve all of the incredible creators and business owners that we now do today. I mean here's a more practical example Michael; you and I were introduced through our mutual friend Jerome Myers, (shout to him) I met Jerome because he was a client referred to us for back end post production work of this podcast and so again if I didn't take the leap of faith for myself to try to figure this thing out the company would have never been formed because I wouldn't have ever met my partners, I wanna ever met Jerome who's has not become literally one of my best friends, he's literally standing up in my wedding, right? And I wouldn't have been in introduced to you and all the other incredible people that are now part of my network. So, I say that story because it's all about one domino that sets off this chain effect, we all know the domino effects sort of analogy. But you don't ever get to see how the chain creates real significant value that sets you up if you're not willing to lean into the fear or lean into you know what it is you need to do to position yourself or something different, and it goes back to that conversation that I had with myself in the mirror Nashville. So, that's just one quick example know I could talk your ear off but hope that straight it.

Michael: Yeah. And I think in real-time too you don't realize it's happening, your kind of like, alright well you know, whatever, your brain's all over the place and then you slowly start to notice like, wait a second there's synchronicity here, there's something. And then behold like, you know if I reverse engineer this moment you know, I go all the way back to ten years ago and being like, who do I wanna be? What am I willing to do to have the life that I want to have? Coming to the conclusion of no excuses just results and then paying the price like, you know it's funny because I used to haven't said this on this show in a very long time. I used to call like, the things that I had to do paying the taxes, I'd be like, I gotta pay the taxes because here's this thing that I want but there's a fee, there's a price of entry, there's time effort, energy, money, probably all four you've gotta show up, you've gotta put in the work but you've gotta be willing to pay the tax like, it's not gonna be easy it's gonna take longer than you think it's gonna take and you're gonna learn a lot about yourself in that process because like, realistically and I don't know if this holds is true for you or not but I've always walked in the situations thinking I know who I am and walk out them being like, damn I'm reflecting on really amazing people scenario, situations that make me question like, what am I really doing? Even today, I'm like, am I going hard enough? Am I trying hard enough? Am I learning enough? Am I creating enough? Am I taking care of myself enough? Like the whole thing and I think that's kind of the most interesting part about this journey is you should always be asking yourself hard questions. And so, I'm curious what kind of hard questions are you asking yourself? How are you setting yourself up for success in your life? 

Karl: Yeah. I mean, I think what you just said there really speaks to awareness. So many of us walk around for the most part largely unaware or unconscious of who we are, relative to who we could be and what our lives really mean. So, for me, dude during the pandemic when it first popped off 2020 the difficult conversations, I was having myself was if I was willing to give up this superficial level of success that I had attained in the medical device world? You know, the company I was with was pending a sale which was a great thing that was always our goal but it left me sort of at this proverbial fork in the road where I was like, alright Karl, you've been doing this corporate thing and you've been going to the seminars and building the podcast business you know one foot in but kinda one foot out like,what do you really wanna do here? Do you wanna continue to be this guy that's sort of half in – half out, or are you actually willing to place a bet on yourself and jump both feed in order to really see what life has in store for you up ahead? And it was really challenging man because so many people get to a place where they're like oh, man if I could just make this amount of money or if I could just get that next promotion like, it's all gonna be great, right? And they feel to realize that that next level can actually be the thing that tracks you into a life of mediocrity and while things were going so well for me, I didn't want to find myself on the back end of life and again, I have no idea how long I'm gonna be here but I didn't wanna find myself at some put in the future wondering what could have been. So, I had to really ask myself some difficult questions around what I need to do in order to I guess allow that old version of myself to die and in order to actually move forward with a new sort of awareness that really keeps me available to the things that are out there waiting. And I tell you man, it's been a challenging process man because in order for there to be a rebirth, in order for there to be a birth needs to be sort of like a death self, right? I've really been challenged; I've really been frustrated trying to navigate sort of this new space in this new season that I'm moving into in order to allow myself to grow and evolve and so all that I can be but it's been so worthwhile on so many different levels. I think the thing that keeps me going is the progress, so every single day to quantify some of the shifts that I'm making; I have five things, five doable but also challenging things that I need to knock off in order to win the day for lack of a better term and what I've been getting to notice is that as I take action on these things is as I get them down, these are very sort of distilled tasks that helped me achieve my bigger goal. I started to see huge things happen, I started to see doors start to open up and it's kinda become this sort of gamification system that now gives me, I guess a little pleasure sensor that I'm able to tap into that says, you know what Karl? You're on the right path like, you are making a meaningful stride towards some of these bigger goals. And so, it's not a simple or straightforward process but I think the thing that I wanna leave with the audience is if you do feel like you're not really leveraging all of what you can do start small, start simple and figure out how you start to get more comfortable with just doing small uncomfortable things and low and behold new opportunity start to really provide themselves to you; they such to show up in your life and you have to go oh, wow like, that's what happened for Grant Cardone, like that's what began to happen for whoever it is that she aspire it be and again like they always say successfully just clues, right? As you become more aware of that you start to actually see how your life is changing for the better right in front of you. So, that's been a nice little hack that's really helped me with that process.

Michael: Yeah, that's so true and there's the leap of faith if you will in entrepreneurship is one that I think applies to everything and you've gotta be willing to go all in on yourself, you've got be willing to bet on yourself, I love that you use that terminology. The one thing that I've noticed to hold true about the people that I have been mentored by, the people that I look up to by, many, many of the people who have been on this show is the willingness to go all in on themselves. So many people fear worst case and I'm like, well really worst cases death, anything shy of that there's always a way to turn it around, there's always a way to go what's next and yeah scary and people will say well, I don't enough money saved or I don't have all this or all that I'm like, you gotta commit, you've gotta be to commit to your life, you have to be willing to set yourself up for success. Because look, you're going to fail along the way it's like, John Maxwell wrote the book Failing Forward which is probably my favorite leadership book of all time and you've gotta be willing to fail forward meaning learning lessons, learning the iterate, learning hey guess what, I made a mistake, great. Now I have data to not do that again. That's the same thing I teach my clients, I'm coaching them about recovering from trauma or healing or relationships or money or whatever it is because ultimately that's what it is; it's a course of life learned every single day in and day out that lead you to where you want to be.

Karl: Yeah. And going back to the analogy that you spoke about earlier in terms of paying your tax. I encourage people listening you think about what's a greater tax? You know, the tax of finding yourself at the end of life and being able to I guess have some sort of perspective on what it could have been but realizing that you just ever take that chance or bet on yourself or the tax of playing it safe and getting the secure job that pays you every week on the week or whatever the case may be right and it's playing small, right? In order to sort of just get by, in order just have that security. So, it's all a perspective shift, and I just think that there's so much upside and the better years are up ahead. So, it's really just down to how you look at it you know.

Michael: Yeah, I agree. And it's all scary, I mean getting in your car is scary, eating is scary, taking a walk you could die doing all of these things. I'm like you might as well die in your terms. Karl, my friend this has been an amazing conversation, before I ask you my last question can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Karl: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much man. So, karlsona.com is the website and then you can find this on all the different social platforms but we just revamped that and that's a great way to stay connected.

Michael: Amazing! And of course, we'll put the links in the show notes for the Unbroken Nation. Karl my friend, my last question for you what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Karl: Wow! To be unbroken is to respond to the call that you really feel is compelling you in life and to have complete confidence and peace of mind that as you begin to take those steps to figure out who it is you're really meant to be that even if you fall in your face which in the beginning you might but again that's that process of failing forward that you will be able to get up again and learn something that actually serves you and helps you get closer to that ideal objective state. You know, so many of us feel as though that first fall is going to be the end of us as you just mentioned Michael but being unbroken is recognizing that we are all nimble and we're all lot of flexible beings that are able to wake up again, get back to path and ultimately achieve and realize self-mastery and who it is we're supposed to be.

Michael: Brilliantly said my friend, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening.

Please like, subscribe, comment, share.

Tell a friend.

And Until Next Time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll see you.