How to Get Unstuck: Proven Strategies for Breaking Free from Limitations | with Steven Cohen

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today, very excited to be back with you with another episode with my homie Steven Cohen. What's up, man? How are you?

Steven: What's up, dude? How's it going, dude, man?

Michael: So good. Thanks for coming out.

Steven: Appreciate you having me, Michael.

Michael: I was on your podcast, Millennial Millionaire. I loved being on there you did your due diligence and such a great interviewer and dude; I love your story. I love what you've been able to do, and I was like, you know, let's have you on the show. Obviously, this isn't an entrepreneurial show, this is a mental health show, but so much of success in life really is from the mental scope. I mean, I think everything that we do, whether you're an entrepreneur or a business owner or a family member, like whatever, really starts with the words that are in your head and the way that you think about yourself. And so, I'm curious, and we'll go down that path a little bit here, but what's something I need to know about your past to understand who you are today?

Steven: Yeah, man. I appreciate you having me on. I think a big thing that has defined my life, because I agree with you a hundred percent, I'm a firm believer that your mental health is a reflection of how your physical life is. And if you don't have your mental health, if you don't have your psyche straight, then things aren't gonna work out the way that you want to. And for me, back in my early growing up, a big reason I am the person I am today. You actually didn't know this before the show, but my dad actually has a mental sickness. So because of that, I used to look at it as something that was very challenging growing up, and we can get into it. But as I grew older and I've matured, and I've had the hindsight to look back at my life, I've realized that because of that, it actually turned into one of my biggest strengths, and there's a big reason of why I am who I am today.

Michael: Why has it become one of your strengths?

Steven: Tony Robbin talks a lot about the moment you can create true freedom in your life is when you can take some of the worst situations and turn 'em into the best situation. So growing up, my dad always had challenges, don't know exactly, he was never diagnosed with an actual mental illness, but he always found himself in pretty bad situations in terms of altercations with other people and was very difficult growing up in that environment. He was always super kind to us. My mom, super loved in the household, but whenever we would go out to actual different places or into social events, a lot of times there would be physical altercations or challenges.

So, growing up that created a lot of trauma in my life because it made me very fearful of going out with my family and fearful of my dad's safety, fearful of my mom's mental conditions in terms of being exposed to certain things and being embarrassed in social situations. So, because of that, I sheltered myself from the world for a period of time where instead of going to baseball games with my dad, I would just stay home because I was scared of certain altercations that could potentially happen. So, as I grew up, I always thought that was a weakness. Hey, I can't play high school baseball because I wasn't as good as the other kids because I never played the little league. But then as I started to realize that a big reason I was attracted to entrepreneurship and attracted to bigger and better things than maybe going the traditional route that most people, it's because of a lot of the choices I made to not go out to certain things, and that created the space for me to have the desire to go ahead and pursue bigger and better things that maybe I didn't when I was younger.

Michael: Yeah. I think one of the really difficult like we're always learning from our parents, we're learning from the environment around us, in our formative years, and that informs everything that we become. And I think unfortunately, one of the really difficult aspects of growing up in volatile situations is that you do become hypervigilant. So, you're always on the lookout for danger, you're always assessing people,you're always in this space of sitting on the edge of fight or flight, and it just continues to carry with you again and again and again. And I mean, I even used to walk around I mean, I'm 6’4, 220, most people on the streets don't bother me. But I used to walk around with my keys in my knuckles just in case that level of vigilance constantly. When you talk about that, it kind of gave you some fuel to step into this challenge of like entrepreneurship, like what does that actually mean? What were you leveraging? Because I think what happens is so many people, they have these experiences and they don't know what to do with them, and then they become crippled like you were at one point by it.

Steven: Yeah. I'll give you an example. So, growing up, you know, I grew up in a 600 square foot condo out here in Las Vegas where we currently at, and we always had challenges around the household because of my dad's you know, mental situation. We were always running into problems because as you know, in a condo, you are so close to other people, there's common areas. Even to go to your car in the parking lot, there is potential situations that you can run into.

So, growing up, my dream, my why, you can call it before I even know what a why was, was Hey, I need to get my parents a house. Combined the most they've made in the years, $30,000, they never made much money, my dad was kind of in and outta jobs because of a situation, my mom was a preschool teacher, so not much income in the household, so I always had the desire to have money, but the real fuel to become successful and to get into entrepreneurship in order to take them out of their current situation was the fear that if I didn't, then my dad could get seriously injured or my mom would be in a mentally abusive situation because of the fear of always running into physical altercations and situations with my dad. You know, it got so bad where I remember waking up one morning and going outside and seeing my dad face full of blood, like screaming at some guy who, uh, he just ran into as a guest in our community, like no idea where the situation come from.

So, growing up with that, I always had massive, massive desire to, Hey, one day I'm gonna get him into a house. One day I'm gonna take him out of a situation where they could have a safe space for my mom one and also for my dad to take him out of the situation. So, as I grew up, that was always a burning desire for me. Get them a house, get them outta their situation, retire them, put them in a situation. And a big reason was because of that specific situation with my dad, because I wanted to make sure that they were in a safe household. Growing up as you know, my story a little bit, Michael, you know, three years ago, finally after, you know, 15 years of having a dream, I was able to buy him a house and now the situation is basically cured because they're in a big house, big acres, big lot, and they have no neighbors. So, to answer your initial question, I turned some of the most challenging situations from my childhood and the trauma that I went through and the fear of my mom not being able to live a good life because her always worrying about my dad and my dad always being in certain situations. I turned that into my biggest desire, motivation. So, as I went through the challenges of entrepreneurship, as I went through all the challenges in life, I always had that as my burning desire and on the forefront of my mind, and I knew as long as I didn't give up on that dream and that goal, because I had massive emotion tied to it, eventually I would get there and we did.

Michael: Why do you feel like it was your responsibility to do that?

Steven: I believe that as a child, I'm an only child, so I don't have any brothers, it was on me. And growing up, like I mentioned, I grew up in a environment of unconditional love where my parents, my dad and my mom, were the best parents in the world, they would gimme everything that I could. You know, they're the type of parents that would buy me the new PlayStation or Nintendo, at the sacrifice of being late on the payment for their condo, for the mortgage. So, growing up, they good, they gave me everything that they could, and they gave me so much love, so much support because I am an only child, I felt like it was my responsibility. The least I could do if they gave everything for me, at least I can do something for them, they didn't have the same resources that I had growing up, you know, they came from New York with low identities, low paradigms and a very sheltered mindset when it comes to money, success, entrepreneurship, and really just living a better life.

You know, I came to the realization that if I didn't do something for them, that was gonna be their life, they've given up on their life in the context of, hey, this is life, we're gonna live paycheck to paycheck. You know, these are the situations we're gonna deal with and there's nothing we can do about it. And as I grew up, I had that fire to do something for them because I almost felt obligated because of everything that they did for me.

Michael: That's interesting. The obligation thing kind of exists over arcing for I think a lot of people. I think one of the difficult parts, and I don't have the same situation as you, but I always view it as if people are stuck like it's on them. And I don't know if you'll find this to be true and it's different, so I don't know. This is why I'm asking you the question. When I think about giving people things, it's kinda like you ever take a free course? You never do anything with it.

Steven: Yeah. Give someone a free book.

Michael: Here's the free book. Great, awesome, whatever it just sits there on the shelf. How do you reconcile like having that thought process but then also like giving this to them? Is that something like how do you navigate that is what I'm trying to understand because I think so many people would hear, you know, having this volatile experience and your background with your father and you worrying about your mother all the time is like, I can see why you would want to give them safety and security. But the obligation of it, I think is the part that strikes me as, I don't wanna say odd, but unfamiliar.

Steven: Yeah, it's a good question. I am a believer that if you give someone for free, they don't value it that's why most people don't value their mind, their identity, their belief in what they can accomplish because it was given the free, they didn't have to work for it. I think the dynamic was a little different with my family because I felt like I was repaying them for everything that they did to me. If I had the potential to go out there and do something great. because I believed in myself because of the unconditional love that they gave me and because of the environment and the support and the upbringing that they poured into me, maybe not from a business level, maybe not from a mentorship level, but how to be an awesome dad, how to be an awesome mom, how to love unconditionally, how to be a good person, how to be kind to other people. My mom is the kindest person that I think I've ever met. And always doing more for people, even though she wouldn't do anything for herself, I felt like I needed to step in there and be the hero for them in order to give them everything that they've always given other people, my mom specifically. So maybe the dynamic was a little bit different because it was my parents, but I believe that in life, you should always support people, you should always give to people that can't give to themselves, especially if it's someone who, based on their current mindset, their current belief, their current paradigm they did everything for me. So at the very least, I felt like as an adult I could do everything for them. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for all the experiences.

I'll share a quick story like I mentioned. One of the biggest reasons that I got into entrepreneurship was because I made a promise to myself in high school. So, my dream was always to be a baseball player it wasn't really my dream. The older I got; it was more my dad's dream. But my dad loves sports and that's always something that we bonded with when we were little. So we always played baseball and you know, out front but the one time we were gonna join Little League, when my dad took me there, there's an altercation with one of the other dads, I guess from when I was little so I ended up not doing it. So when I got to high school, I remember my goal was to be on the high school baseball team like that was my goal, baseball was always something that I really desired. Finally got to high school I never played little league, so that's something I wanted to do. I remember going through the 10 days of conditioning that you needed to do before playoffs, which were challenging iwas difficult. I wasn't super in shape, but I've always had the type of mentality where I commit myself to something and I'm going to stick it through. I went through all 10 days, finally made it to the first day of the actual tryouts, and I ended up not going because I had such a low self-esteem and such low confidence that I didn't think I was as good as the other kids because all the other kids played in Little League. And at that time, I blamed my dad, I blamed my dad because of the situation of him being at that altercation in little league. Therefore, I wasn't able to go, and now I didn't have the confidence to fulfill it through. Couple years later, after I got a little bit older, graduated high school. I remember looking back at that moment, and it was the most regretful moment of my life because I had a dream and I had something I want to accomplish, and I remember feeling that I didn't even give it a shot to see if I would be good enough regardless if I made it or not. At that moment, Michael, I made a decision that no matter what in my life moving forward, whether I believe I can do it, whether it's uncomfortable, whether I have low self-esteem, if I really believe in something in my life, I'm gonna go after it and not worry about it. Fast forward four or five years, invited me to this entrepreneur thing at the time, it was a network marketing experience, and at first, I wasn't going to do it because of the same old paradigms and conversations and limiting beliefs come up. I'm not good enough, it doesn't make sense, it's a scam, what makes you think you could be successful? And then that brought me back to that moment at baseball when I made a promise to myself that these types of situations I'm going to commit and not worry about how, but just commit and figure it out later. Little did I know that one decision led me to my entrepreneur journey I'm on now.

Michael: I'm a full and firm believer in believing like I read this quote recently. I wish I knew who it's from, and it said, sometimes the only thing that gets you through the desert is hope. And I think all the time, like there is something about believing in the capability and the possibility in the reality that you can create and shape and build the life that you want to have is the only way you actually get through this life like just believing you can and with that belief comes commitment. And commitment is really, really hard because in that you have to face discipline, you have to find out who you are, honestly, most times go through hell. And it's like, do you really want the thing on the other side? And I think, unfortunately, a lot of times people are lying to themselves and they're like, I want to have this lifestyle and I wanna have that thing over here. Like people ask me all the time, they're like, do you ever want to be a billionaire? I'm like, absolutely not. I want nothing to do with that. Keep that as far away from me as humanly possible. Do I wanna have a lot of success? Do I wanna help a lot of people? Absolutely. Of course, I do. But I do not want the responsibility that would come with that. And the same way people ask me, you know, do you want to travel the world again. Do you wanna write more books? Do you want to speak on more stages? I'm like, yes, cuz that's the thing I'm driven by. But I think people get in conflict because the work required to find success and success being whatever you determine it is really going to be foundationally the thing that creates the life that you want to have, like showing up and doing the work. But that fear element, right? I mean, you have all the reason in the world to leverage this experience with your dad and being like, I didn't get the same opportunity as everyone else because of someone's decision i.e., your father. Thus, what's the point? And you see people trapped in this constantly. I just coached somebody yesterday on this. I was like, what is the number one where place you think you're stuck right now? And they go, I think that I'm stuck because of this experience I had with my dad when I was like 13. And I'm like, cool. You're 43. What are we gonna do about this? And I recognize the stuckness, obviously, as a coach and someone who has helped thousands of people, I understand that path. But in that moment, you made a decision based on the information and data you had previously where you're like, I'm going to do this anyway, I wanna look at this almost from a practical standpoint, because I know what it's like in my head to do that. What is it like for you when you're like, I have to do this anyway, despite the fear, despite the limitations, despite the thing that your dad did, like how do you actually pull yourself through that moment of stuckness?

Steven: I think it comes down to shifting the relationship to that experience. And I'm grateful because I didn't have that breakthrough moment of realizing, man, the reason that I am the person I am today. The reason that I have the desire that I have, the inspiration that I've been able to live the life and create all the memories and experiences and all the six success that I've been able to create in these last 6, 7, 8 years is because of my dad.

So, I believe that if you're blaming, whether it's your dad in this scenario or anyone, your childhood, your environment, if you're blaming them for all the shit that they created in your life, you also have to blame them for all the good that you've created in your life. You can't just blame someone for all the negative, because in any scenario, there's always duality to a situation.  There's always positive and there's always negative, it's on you. It's up to the individual, what you feed and what you give power to. Sure. There were a lot of challenges that I occurred growing up that if I didn't become aware of, I think awareness is key in anything you do because as you know, Michael, you train about this all the time whatever happens when you're younger typically gets stuck in your unconscious mind and runs rapid in your adult life if it's not addressed. So, I believe the first thing is you need to bring awareness to why am I am? Why am I doing the things I am today? Why am I the person I am today? Why am I timid in situations? Why am I scared to be successful? Why do I continue to attract the same partner, the same business opportunity, the same negative scenario in my life? And when you can trace that back to a certain moment, for me it was my dad in multiple situations, you put awareness on that situation and then you can look at it from an objective standpoint because when you're in the emotion, when you're in the muck, it's very hard to have that objective higher perspective to be able to make moves and shift the relationship. So put awareness on it, delete the power, reduce the power that it has above you, and then shift the relationship that you have with it. For me, it took personal development, it took increasing my identity, it took hindsight in order to realize, man, that situation again, as Tony Robbins says quote unquote, “a really bad time in my life was actually a really good time in my life” because as I looked back, I was able to connect the dots looking backwards, and I realized, man, the reason I am the person I am today is because of that scenario and that decision led me to this decision, led me to this decision, and that eventually led me to the person I am today. So, to answer your question, I believe it comes down to putting awareness on it, shifting the relationship that you have with that, and not just blaming that situation, experience or individual for the bad. You also have to blame them from the good and choose to pull from that, not the negative.

Michael: Yeah. And that's the hardest thing that you do, especially when it comes to our parents, right? Because in our heads, and I think part of it is the world we live in today between not just media, but the propaganda of they're your parents, that's your sister, that's your dad no matter what love them. Dude. I just got into; it went viral where it got shared like a thousand times. I think that's viral, whatever. And I had posted, and I had written about setting this boundary with my mother and removing her from my life when I was 18. I think I've shared this story with you, obviously, Unbroken Nation, you guys have heard this a million times, but it was incredible to watch the comment section of this post where people were so, pitch fork and torch chasing me down in the back alleys like I'm Frankenstein, talking about, that's your mother. How dare you? You should be a grateful son, this and that. And my thought process in that being like, no, no. I shifted my reality with an experience that was not for the betterment of my future and making a decision and saying, I'm actually gonna remove my mother from my life connecting dots, right? If I go back, mother cuts my finger off. Drug addict, alcoholic makes us be homeless, chooses drugs and alcohol over her own children, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? 18 years old attacks me. I go, no more. I'm done. Fast forward 20 years later, here I am sitting with you, impossible for us to have this conversation without connecting those dots. And so, and I agree with you entirely, and this is one of the hardest things that you will ever wrap your head around is how can I assess and acknowledge that the reason that I'm successful is the same reason for a long period that I wasn't? And that's scary. And there's also some responsibility for self-know thyself, I think is the cornerstone of this whole game, all of it. Everything. It's like, can you look at the mirror, acknowledge who you are, and be like, this is who I am because of those experiences and I don't think it's easy to just have these narrative shifts, even with coaches and mentors and you and I share many of the similar coaches in our life and in our experiences, and even still, even at the work that I do, even 13 years into this game, I'm still creating shifts. What I'm curious about now for you is like, as you're looking at your life through a different scope, heading into a, a milestone birthday in your life and looking at some of the success you've been able to create. What are the scenarios in the situations that you're looking at and assessing on a daily basis through the scope of that's who I used to be, this is who I want to be, but this is where I am?

Steven: It's a really good question because I feel like in life you have to continue to evolve. I believe that happiness follows progression. Doesn't matter what you're doing in life, as long as you're progressing in something that you believe in, you are by definition happy. So, you also have to realize that in order to create a new you, In a sense, you have to give up the old you in order to create a new story for your life, you have to let go of the story that you continue to tell yourself on why you can't be X, Y, and Z. So, I use my past, I use my environment that I grew up in as something to continue to fuel me. So, a couple different pieces on this. A lot of people ask me, Hey Steven, how are you so motivated? How do you stay so inspired? How do you stay so focused? Because in my business it's very easy to get complacent. It's very easy to drift. It's very easy to lose purpose and lose fact. A lot of people ask me, Hey Steven, you bought your parents a house. Hey, you did this, you retired. Then, how do you still stay successful or how do you still stay, you know, motivated for me. I have to continue to evolve my why and the reason why I do what I do. If you accomplish a big why for you, Michael, a successful coach, a successful podcaster, I'm sure this was once a dream of yours that you once accomplished. The challenge with most people is once you accomplish a big dream, a big goal, a big why, a lot of people, they fall off their horse because they did the thing that they once imagined that they can never do. So, you have to continue to evolve your why. But for me, I actually still leverage my past and my fear to keep me inspired and motivated because I'm trying to create so much distance from the person that I used to be and today, and I know that if I stop focusing on the things that keep me fired up, if I stop focusing on my progression, my goals becoming a better person. And I'm not talking monetary goals. I'm talking how to be a better son, how to be a better boyfriend, how to be a better communicator, how to be a better contributor to society. If I stop focusing on that, I believe that I am starting to r regress back to the person that I used to be. So, one, I want to create as much distance from my old identity, my old life, the self-conscious, low self-esteem, cared about what everyone thought about him, broken family. I want to create as much distance from that individual as possible and I do that by continuing to focus on the thing that I know is going to progress me into the new version of myself.

Michael: Yeah. I let my old self die and you know, Grant Cardone talks about a lot and it's like, what are you willing to give up to get what you want? And it's like I'm willing to give me up that version of me who was a taker, who was a liar, who was a cheater, who was a backend seller, who was all of the worst parts of what I think a human can be. I mean, basically the only thing I haven't done in my life is kill somebody. You know what I mean? And it's like you look at that and you go, this guy's done some really horrible sh*t. I go back and I trace from basically 12 years old to 26, 27, just living in this super low vibrational energy, taking, hurting, suffering, pain, torment, all of the worst elements of life. And then I look at myself today and I'm like, I don't even recognize that like it is so far removed from me that if I were to face that old version of myself today, I would actually show up with a lot of grace, with a lot of kindness, a lot of empathy, and I'd be like, why are you behaving this way? Why are you sabotaging? Why are you ruining this thing in front of you? Where's the blockage? So much of it being subconscious, right? Especially around success, around love, around family, around commitments, around self-identity. But I do know one thing to be absolutely true, no matter how much of this work I do, whether I'm working with Tony Robbins or David Meltzer or Tom Bilyeu, or I don't know, you name them. No matter how much therapy I go through, how many books I read, whether it's Eckhart Tolle, or it's Jay Shetty or whoever, there's always that moment where I'm faced with being the person that I was versus being the person that I'm choosing to become. And so, what I'm wondering for you when you're in those moments, because I believe they happen for everyone, and I think that anyone who would sit across from me and say otherwise, I'd be like, we're done recording this show. Right. But when you're in that moment and you're like, man, there's part of old Steven that really wants to sabotage, destroy, to run, to coward, to hide, to be on the outside, to keep blaming dad like how do you navigate those moments in your life?

Steven: I believe that every decision we make, we either move closer to comfort or closer to growth. And you can relay that to anything, you know, comfort could be old. Life growth could be new life. So, for me, I just do my best every single day cuz it's a daily battle and I agree with you. You need to give up the old you to become the new you. You can't tell a new story if you're holding onto your old story. But I do believe at the same time, the reason that someone like yourself, who's an awesome coach, an awesome podcaster, an awesome thought leader, the reason that you're able to create that level of vulnerability is because you can still pull on your old self.

For me, I again, shifted the viewpoint that I have with my old identity, my old story, because now when I support other people that maybe are going through similar challenges that I went through or similar self-sabotage or self-beliefs. I can pull on my old life, my old experiences, because I've actually been there. You know, you can always tell these leaders or people running companies or businesses, if they've never went through anything super challenging or hard because the level of empathy they have and the level of connection they have, you just don't feel it land the same way as someone that's actually been through something. You can't connect with an individual if you've never been in that situation before. So I believe yes, every single day it's a challenge, every single day it's a battle. You either choose to grow or you choose to decay. You either choose to move forward or you choose to regress. Right. There's no stagnancy. It's either you're growing or you're dying. But I also do believe that you can turn your pain into a badge of honor and use that to navigate and guide other people. And I also believe that can actually be some of your most powerful leaders as a quality, as a leader, or as a communicator or as a philanthropist or whatever business or situation you are in your life, you can actually use those challenges and resurface those for a short amount of time in order to help other people move forward for those challenges. Cause that's really the only thing that you can do. You can relay and have empathy for that individual because of your own personal experiences, and that makes the best kind of coach, mentor, or leader, someone that's been there, that's navigated through that, and that can pull on those old experiences to help other people.

Michael: Yeah. For lack of a better way to phrase it, staring down the barrel of the person that you used to be like, what is the conversation you're having with yourself?

Steven: I think it comes down to looking at everything I've accomplished and pulling from my past success. We all go through big challenges in life, we all go through big moments, whether it's a business deal you're trying to close, or trying to book an awesome podcast guest, or trying to go take a new job or move to a new city, or go talk to that girl or boy. We all are faced with big challenges and obstacles we deal with daily and consistently and naturally; I believe as human beings, sometimes the worst of us surfaces, sometimes the doubt and the low self-esteem and the old dominion beliefs and everything that we went through as a child during those big moments resurface. And if you can't drown those out, and focus on everything that you can accomplish, compare yourself not to other people, not compare yourself to ideals, but compare yourself to your old self and everything that you've accomplished. I personally, I pull on all my old victories in order to give me the confidence, the faith, and the conviction to move forward in these big decisions that I deal with in my life.

So, when I do stare down that barrel and I start to get flooded with doubt and flooded with fear. I remember how badass I am. I remember, hey, yeah, I'm the guy that quit on high school. Yeah, I'm the guy that ran away when my dad got into altercations, but I'm also the guy that bought them a house four years ago. I'm also the guy that's created X, Y, and Z. I'm also the guy doing all these things. So I pull on all my previous success and all the times that I didn't think I could do it, and then I failed forward and I committed and I achieved the thing that I wanted to. I used those, that noise to drown out the noise of all the fear and doubt that that creep up.

Michael: So much of it is that right? And we all have successes and what I think is really interesting as I coach people over the last eight years and more people that I can count, the one thing that every one of them has in common is somehow, somewhere in some part of the timeline, they've had successes, they've had awesome goals become accomplished. And I think sometimes people just are so afraid to acknowledge that maybe your success doesn't have to be, I bought my parents a house. It could be I lost 15 pounds. It can be, I quit smoking. It can be I don't yell at my kids anymore. And people don't leverage that enough where it's like, you don't have to be a fucking millionaire to be successful. I mean, if you can take care of your responsibilities and ultimately this is the game, I believe if you can get to this place, you win the game. If you can look in the mirror and be okay with the reflection, like you win, that's it. That is this whole game. But you have to acknowledge, like you've talked about it, you've obviously done a ton of work, a ton of personal development.

One of the things I know for sure, I had someone actually in that chair yesterday interviewing me and. How do you navigate knowing that most people are not gonna take this advice? You know, I don't worry about the people who are not gonna take the advice. Cause I know that, you know, a million people will listen to this show, 2 million people this year, somewhere in that window, and 9% of them are going to do something. But it's like knowing that is such a driver for me, cuz 9% of a million people is a lot of freaking people. And then knowing that on an exponential growth curve, both compounding and exponentially, that the people who start to take action, thus in their life, they create a shift and then it becomes this thing that moves society towards betterment. But it's a lifetime journey that starts with those first choices, those first decisions, and it's really kind of like operating in first principles. I'm like, if I can just do this one thing, can I play it out long enough to see if it moves me towards my goal? And ultimately the goal of this show Think Unbroken in everything that I do is can we end generational trauma through education and in information? That's it. That's the whole game. And it's like you had these traumatic experiences of dealing with violence and uncertainty in childhood that led you to push yourself to become who you are. And here's what I think is really interesting, in the same way that it can push you, it can pull you too. So, we're faced with these potential identity crisises constantly. You talked about paradigm shifts, and I want to go into that for a minute because I think that that's something that really we can nuance down into. And what I'm curious about is what does that actually mean to you? Like what is a paradigm shift and, and probably more importantly, what do you think is the greatest paradigm shift you've made in your own life?

Steven: For me, a paradigm shift is a aha moment. It's something that you experience, something that is told to you, something that you truly have a mental shift in, and then you look at that thing differently. Paradigm is really just a bundle of thoughts. I believe that we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. Forget who said that quote, but I'll take credit for it.

I think perception is everything, Michael, I really do. I think every single day we have the decision to either look at all the things that are happening in our life as something that is happening to serve us, something that is happening for us, or something that is happening to us. It's crazy to me that the same negative situation, the same trauma could happen to two individuals. You know, you could have two brothers that have alcoholic dads that beat them, and one decides to open up a foundation to serve alcoholism and benefit. And the other one could turn into an alcoholic and go down a negative spiral. What's the difference? It's because that individual had a paradigm shift. He chose to be different and take that opportunity and create something good, and the other person took that opportunity as something to destroy. So, we have the opportunity to have these paradigm shifts consistently depending on our experiences, depending on the mentorship we get, depending on who we're listening to.

I'm a big believer in making sure that you stand guard at the door of your mind, because I believe input in output out. Typically, when people aren't living a fulfilled life, typically when people are depressed, typically when people are in a low vibrational frequency, it's because of the stimulus that they're allowing into their psyche, into their mind. Whether that's their physical environment, whether that's what they're listening to on television, whether what content they're listening to. So, I am a firm believer that I physically visualize a guard, a little blue man at the store in my mind and whatever information stimuli, things that happen throughout the day, I decide whether I allow that into my mind or not. And I believe that that's when paradigm shifts happen, that's when aha moments happen and they happen to everyone. Every single person listening to this podcast and viewing us right now has had some type of paradigm shift, whether or not they are aware of it, whether or not they realize it, whether or not they continue to double down on that paradigm shift is up to them. But for me, my biggest paradigm shift was probably realizing that everything that happened in my life and everything that is going to happen in my life is because of me. Everything I have in my life; I have attracted by the person that I've become.

And the concept of that is extremely empowering because it doesn't matter what happened in my past, it doesn't matter what's currently happening in my present, and it doesn't matter how many people have lied to me, have stolen from me. Doesn't matter how many mistakes I've made, it doesn't, nothing matters up until this point when you realize that everything, all the good, all the bad that you've acquired in your life, you've attracted by the person that you've become, by the decisions that you've made, by the person that you showed up until that point. And I believe that is the most empowering thought and decision that you can make in your life, because when you take full responsibility over all the good, all the bad, and you realize, man, this may have not been my fault. It may have not been my fault that my dad was the way he was. It may have not been my fault that I never had privilege. It may have not been my fault that I was abused as a child, or that, you know, no one ever gave me anything or people forgot about me when I was younger. It may have not been my fault. It's my responsibility to do something about it moving forward. And you have the choice to pull strength from that and have that chip on your shoulder and actually do something about it and create that generational shift in your life. So that pattern and that behavior doesn't recur moving forward. So paradigm shift for me, extreme ownership, every single thing in my life I have full control over because if not, someone else has control over it. And then I am not in an empowered state to do anything to change it.

Michael: I heard, Jordan Peterson recently talking about this new concept called learn helplessness. Have you heard of this? Learn helplessness is effectively watching your community be helpless and being helpless, meaning not showing up, not taking accountability, rents, piling up cars, getting repoed, unhealthy lifestyles, not becoming educated, staying illiterate, all these things.

I am from a society of learned helplessness, without a question. And what happens is you start leveraging that victimhood and you go, well, this is what I'm from. This is who I'm supposed to be. So, I'm just gonna continue to lean into this. One of the greatest accomplishments someone in my neighborhood would like be adamant about was if I can get on welfare, I win the game like, that is the mindset of what I come from, that level of learned helplessness. And I would literally watch people celebrate, be like, yes, we finally got on welfare. I don't have to work, the government owes me this, whatever. And you watch the lifestyle that comes with that. And I remember being very young, very young, nine, ten years old and seeing this and like, I do not want that. I don't want anything to do with that. And it being deeply ingrained in me, like even in youth, whatever it was that was in front of me, watching people be alcoholics and drug addicts, smoking cigarettes, being overweight, um, being on welfare, being on food stamps WIC, government housing, all of these things were a part of my life. I'm not looking at this from an outside perspective. This is an objective. I'm in this mother*cking situation perspective, and I remember being like, no, I do not want this. I don't know why. I don't know where that came from, but I just knew like I did not want it. And this concept of learn helplessness is so devastating from a societal standpoint because we're making people fail to realize potential because where you want to go in life has nothing to do with where you started. While simultaneously, and this is the dichotomy of it simultaneously, the zip code you grow up in is a better indicator of success than almost any other variable in childhood. And so, I'm gonna guess somebody in a 600 square foot condo, parents bearing, barely being able to make rent, looking at your father, having a mental condition, your mother barely making money as a teacher, and constant struggles, lack of ideal, lack of self, lack of belief, lack of hope, probably not even going to the best schools, right? Did you go to public schools? So you go to public schools, and so you have the whole world stacked up against you, and yet you made a decision. You said, I'm going to go down this path and I'm gonna look at this from a different perspective regardless of what society is telling me, I can, should and will be. That's the game. Right there. Like if I were to ever summarize this whole show, almost 700 episodes, interviewing the greatest minds in the world, what you just said is the reality. You can look at it life is serving you, it is happening for you, or it is happening to you. And if you look at life from the scope of it's happening to you, you are in learned victimhood and learned helplessness, and your life is always gonna suck. I'm sorry. And I hate to tell you that. And I know you're gonna hate me for it. And I know you're going to email me and be like, you don't understand my circumstance. I don't. Cause I did not f*cking grow up the way you did. Cause no matter what, we all grew up differently. But I know that when you shift that paradigm and you go, life is happening for me/life is happening to serve me, to show me a different path, to show me what I don't want, to show me how to go and create change. It's incredible what can happen. When you think about it and you look at the people, cause I just wanna like make a broad stroke generalization right now. Cause I think it'd be very beneficial. And I don't want you to point anyone specifically, but when you look at the people you grew up with in similar environments, going to the same public schools, dealing with parents who had their circumstances, how often do you see those people that you know, actually go on to find success in their life?

Steven: Not often at all. And it's cool that you brought that up so, I value relationships, you know, growing up I still have till this day, I hang out with them once a month. I'm not sure if they're listening or not, but childhood best friends that I've literally grown up with since two, three years old. And it's interesting to see the different trajectories of our life and it's interesting when I sit with them and I talk to them, you know, people even from high school, middle school, and the differences in our consciousness, the difference is in our priorities, the difference in our belief and how they talk. You know, you can tell a lot about someone based on the words that are coming out of their mouth, the linguistics that they're saying, because chances are that's what they're thinking in their mind as well. And it's just crazy to see someone again, the scenario come from the same environment, the same schooling system, maybe similar backgrounds, maybe similar uprisings, maybe not, and see their trajectories are completely different.

And I don't know what it is, Michael. I don't know what it is. To your point, when you were talking, you know, when you were in that environment growing up and, in the muck, and in the mud and something, intrinsically in you said, no, this is not the life that I am destined to live. This is not the life that I choose to live. You don't know what that inner voice was, but it was something, and because of that, it made you make those decisions to start taking a different route in life and start looking at things differently to lead you to who you are today. So, I don't know exactly what that inner fire is or that inner voice, but I do know that if you don't find that, and if you don't find something bigger in your life other than conforming to mediocrity. There's a quote on my Instagram, it's my favorite quote. It says that “the opposite of bravery in our society is not cowardness, but it is conformity.” They say that conformity is the biggest way to express cowardice in our society because the easiest thing that you can do in life is just do what everyone else is doing. It's to conform, it's to be a complainer. It's to be a victim. It's to just go down a basic route and do something that you're not fulfilled in because everyone else told you it's to not make decisions that you want to because of what if it doesn't work out? Instead of what? If it does work out and growing up when I first got exposed to all of this belief that you can actually accomplish really anything that you want, and it doesn't need to be big, it's just something that you are actually fulfilled and purpose in. It's not about the money, to your point. It's not about building a billion-dollar business and driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis. It's about living life on your own terms. It's about not allowing society and the government to dictate your life if it's not the life that you chose. And I see so many people that have just given up on life, and they're not even old, they're in their thirties, they're in their twenties, they're in their forties, and they've given up on life because they've submitted to the idea of what society and what the system and what the government deems as what you should be doing. And as me and you both know Michael, Society and Averageness does not look good. Society and Averageness is being obese. It's being unfulfilled. It's about living paycheck to paycheck. It's about not being in a great, conducive environment to accomplish the things that you actually care about. And the scary thing is that's what most of society is living, that's what 97% of people out there are operating. And until you start tuning into a different frequency and start listening and taking action on the content that you create and that people out there are creating to help people live a bigger life, they're just going to be in the rat race. The worst thing about the rat race is all we all we know is even if you win the rat race, at the end of the day, you're still a rat. It's unfortunate.

Michael: One of the things you have to recognize in everything that you just said is I don't care what anyone thinks, the government is not here to help you. It is not here to help you. F*ck the food pyramid. F*ck taxes. But I'm gonna get canceled again cuz I always do. I get canceled like once a month. This is gonna be my annual monthly canceling. The government does not want you to succeed, they want you quiet, they want you complacent and you know, you can call it the matrix, you can call it the red pill thing, whatever I'm not trying to go down that path, but what I am saying is opportunity is in front of you and it requires you unprogrammed yourself. You have been brainwashed. Your brain is dirty with concepts like, stand up and walk on the right side of the hall. Raise your hand to go to the bathroom. Don't question authority. Wear the clothes. We say dress, how we say, talk how we say, don't get tattooed, don't get nose piercings, don't fake on stages. Don't write books, don't question anything. Show up and live exactly how we tell you to do and tell you die. And then hopefully you had a good life but good luck and that's just control. And I get it to some extent like you have to control society, there's what, 450 million people in America? That's a lot of people. A lot of people with a lot of bad agendas and a lot of people with a lot of good agendas. And it's kind of like, okay, I can recognize the importance of it, but if you create your own value system, then it doesn't matter what the government or your friends or your peers or your teachers or society or the television or radio tells you, you should be because trust me, lemme tell you right now, I'm successful. I do not own a sports car. I don't even own a house. You're in my condo. We are here together. I love my life. I've the greatest life ever. I get to travel the world and speak on stages and write books and help people transform their lives because I just objectively looked at my life and I said, I don't want what you're offering me. I don't want what you're selling, take it the f*ck back. And I think that once people can do that and understand that you used a term that I love failing forward, John Maxwell book. If you haven't read it, go and read it. And if you're willing to fail and just take a step forward every single day knowing that this journey will be as long as you are alive, your life will be different. Man, this has been amazing conversation. Steven. Thank you for being here, before I ask you my last question, where can everybody find you?

Steven: Yeah, at Steven Cohen on Instagram, at Steven Cohen on Facebook. I do most of my content on Instagram, so yeah, hit me up. If you guys have any questions about anything would love to connect with your viewer. And podcast is Millennial Millionaire on Apple, iTunes podcast and YouTube. You can also get the link through my Instagram as well.

Michael: Awesome. And of course, we'll put the links in the show notes. Guys, if you ever thinkunbrokenpodcast, look up Steven's episode there for more. Steven, my last question, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Steven: Unbroken, I believe to me is just being sound and on a solid foundation in your life, it's about alignment. Unbroken, I believe, is being secure in your decisions, secure in your vision, secure in what you believe, and having strong values that are correlated to the future that you want to create. I think most people out there we talked about this a little earlier. They're buying into other people's vision, whether it's the government's vision of their life, whether it's someone they saw on social media's, vision of their life. Oh, I'm young. I am an entrepreneur. I need to be driving this, or I need to be living like this. When in reality, you're never going to be fulfilled. You're never gonna be in alignment. You're never gonna show up in your best self if you're not being genuine with how you really feel and what you really want. Authenticity is a word that's thrown a lot, thrown out a lot as of recently, but it's true you need to be authentic to you, and the only way you do that is by spending time with yourself. It's by understanding what drives you and the values, and by being unbroken, I think is just being true to who you are and what you want to accomplish outta this life.

Michael: Brilliantly said, my friend, I heard a quote recently said, most people climb mountains for views, they don't want to see. I think that is an unfortunate truth of society. Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for being here. Steven, thank you for being here, my friend. Please remember to like, subscribe, comment, share, tell a friend. And remember, when you share this episode and this content, you are helping other people transform their trauma to triumph, breakdowns to breakthroughs, and become the hero of their own story.

And Until Next Time.

My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.