How to Think Unbroken - AlignCon keynote with Michael Unbroken

When I was four years old, my mother cut off my right index finger. Five skin grafts, more surgeries than I can remember. She was a drug addict, an alcoholic. My stepfather was super abusive, kicked the sh*t outta my brothers, and I put me in the hospital multiple times. And from eight to twelve, I was homeless, I lived over 30 different families getting bounced around place to place to place. I got high for the first time when I was 12, drunk at 13, and by 15, I was expelled from school for selling drugs. And what was really interesting is I grew up in a Mormon household, raised and adopted by my grandmother, who is an old racist white lady from a town here in Tennessee called Sun Bright, you've never heard of I'm biracial, imagine the mind f*ck. And I know what you guys are thinking like, holy sh*t, this dudes like David Goggins like, well, not really. What I discovered is that there's this really interesting power that we all have inside of ourselves. And as a child, I remember being like one day, one day, one day.

If I have your attention right now, say yes.

Here's why…

Inside of every single one of you is the one day, and some of you are running from it, some of you are hiding from it ‘cuz you're terrified. But why? So, I don't graduate high school, and my girlfriend calls me one day and she goes, Hey, by the way, your name's not on the list, you know that graduation list, they post. Congratulations, all you guys did, such a good job. I was at Home Stone playing video games, by the way, as I always was just doing, I go to school, I go up to my business teacher, irony of all ironies, and I say, how dare you fail me? I'm the ornery 18-year-old at this point. He looks at me and he goes, I didn't fail you, you failed yourself.

And then he told me the most important thing to this day anyone's ever told me, ever, like, no bullsh*t. He goes, if you want something in life, you have to earn it, you can't get by in your charms and your good looks. So, I go to summer school. I'm an embarrassment. All of my friends uninvite me from the graduation parties. My girlfriend won't hang out with me, my family, which is already in chaos, is like, you're out, bro. I'm like, f*ck. And the same day that my summer school teacher tells me, by the way, we're giving you the diploma, you are out. It's the same day I got fired from the warehouse job where I was putting microchips in motherboards all day long. And so, I'm sitting here like, sh*t, man, what am I supposed to do? I'm the loser now. And I had to admit that to myself, like real talk. I was a loser. Like I was living into what all these people have told me, you're not good enough, you're not strong enough, you're not capable enough, you don't matter, you're never gonna be anything and so, that became my reality. And I sat in my car this night after getting fired and kicked outta school again. And I was like, you're not leaving this car until you figure out the solution for poverty, for homelessness, and for abuse. And I was like, all right man, what is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? And it was like literally in my car, I could not get out. And I was like, oh, it's money. How many of you like have ever thought money is the solution? Say yes. How many of you know money is not the solution? Say yes. Okay, well I didn't ‘cuz I was 18, I was stupid. So, what happened was I end up, I make this promise to myself. I said, by the time I'm 21, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a year, I wish I would've said a million and I wanted to do it legally, that was super important to me. My three childhood best friends have been murdered. I've been in handcuffs more times than I can count, and I have family in prison for life to this day.

First time I went to prison, I was seven years old to visit my uncle. And so, I was like, all right, cool, I'm going to figure this out. And so, I just started doing the things I felt like I had to do, I got a job anywhere I could get a job, I learned any skill I could learn. And by 18 I had a team of 52 people under me working at a fast-food restaurant in leadership. I made every mistake you can imagine, ‘cuz what do you think 18-year-olds do of other 18-year-olds, I'm just calling it what it is.

One day I'm on MySpace to age myself, I'm talking to my homie and he's like, y'all all were on MySpace? What is so funny? And so, he's like, yo, I just got a new Tahoe this like 2006. I'm like, how the f*ck did you get a Tahoe? You're the same dummy I used to get stoned with and skip school, put me on game. And he goes, I'm working for an insurance company. My mind was blown ‘cuz I didn't know you could do that, that thing inside of you, that thing inside of you when you're a kid, that dream that you had this thing that you've always wanted, you've always looked to other people to find it, ‘cuz you didn't know you could do it until you watched someone else do it.

And so, he said this and I was like, all right, cool. I'm gonna go work at an insurance company. And for the next two years I got declined like 200 times for every role from mail room to CEO until I didn't. And the month I turned 21, I cash my first check for $10,000. No high school diploma, no college education, working for a Fortune 10 company and then my life became a real disaster ‘cuz I started making money. I had access. I could do anything I wanted with no clarity.

If you need anything in life to have this thing called alignment, you need clarity because I'm going to tell you right now, if I put you in a car in New York City and I say to drive to San Francisco, you have no GPS, no roadmap, no compass, no street signs, you ain't making it. And some of you are like, I know where I'm going. I'm like, how are you getting there? What vehicle? What's the route? How long is it going to take? And you're like, I don't know. And that's why there's no success in your life right now ‘cuz you don't have the level of clarity that you need to be able to get there.

So, I didn't have clarity. I'm just like, I'm gonna make this money. I'm gonna hook up with these chicks. I'm gonna drive this Cadillac. I'm gonna wear all these Jordans. I'm gonna be 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep high from the moment I wake up till the moment I go to bed, cheating on my girlfriend, my little brother says, never talk to me again you are not my brother, and I'm gonna put a gun in my mouth.

And the next day I'm lying in bed. It's 11 o'clock in the morning. I'm stoned watching the CrossFit games and eating chocolate cake. Keep in mind, I'm 350 pounds that's rock bottom. But that wasn't rock bottom one or two or three or seven or 50 or a hundred that was the thousandth. And for whatever reason, I pulled myself up out of bed, I go in the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror and don't recognize the face. How many of you have ever not recognized yourself in the mirror? Say yes. How many of you just lied? Say yes. Just messing with you. I get it. It's hard, it's awkward, it's uncomfortable to come to truth.

And as I looked in the mirror, I remember being eight years old and the water company had come and turned off our water. I grew up in Indianapolis. I grew up in Indiana, in America, the greatest country in the f*cking world, and we were so impoverished and so poor because my mom and stepfather spent all of their money on drugs and alcohol that our water got turned off. Oh, and I had to go in the backyard. I grabbed this little blue bucket. I walked across the street to our neighbor's house, I turned on the spigot on the side of their house, and I stole water. And I remember being like when you're a grownup, this won't be your life. And it wasn't my life in so many ways and on paper you'd look at it, you'd go, this dude has a Fortune 10 job. He's hooking up with all these chicks, he's got all this money. But that wasn't reality.

See, there's something really interesting that you have to understand if you actually want to create change in your life, and that's there's a separation between truth and fact. I can put fact on the table and look at it and go, that is reality. Truth is an interpretation, we all can arrive at a truth that's different, right? Because everybody here is goanna share a similar truth in that we showed up to this place and maybe we met that way and maybe this was the shirt I had on, or maybe this was the thing, and you're going to come to a slightly different conclusion but the one truth we all have in common is we're here right now, we're present. Nobody can argue that. And so I had to face fact as I looked in that mirror, 350 pounds, two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, destroying everything in my life, and I asked myself a question, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? God's spirit, universe, mother Nature, Batman, I have no idea where this came from. The answer was very simple. “No excuses, just results” because I realized I was playing into everything, everyone ever told me I was going to be not good enough, not strong enough, not capable enough, you'll never matter, you're not sh*t, nobody loves you, and what are you going to do about it? And it's the hardest thing I've ever had to decide. Make a decision about your life.

Inside of each and every one of you there is this thing that you are driven, that you are called to do, be, create, and yet the fear that you have from the people who have indoctrinated you with lies and bullsh*t have led you to believe that you don't deserve it. If you've ever believed that you don't deserve what you want in your life, say yes. If you have ever believed that you don't deserve what you want in your life, say yes.

Now look, here's the truth of the reality of how you get it, it's very simple. Action ultimately is a cure all, anyone up here will tell you this. Go create action, you'll have momentum on a long enough timeline the thing that you want will be yours. The thing that people don't tell you that often gets misconstrued that I really want to dive into is the understanding of mindset. We live in a society, especially if you do what I do, people are like mindset, mindset, mindset, right? You hear that f*cking million times. Somebody tells you what it is, so I'm gonna tell you what it actually is. Mindset's, very simple mindset is this. What you think becomes what you speak, what you speak, become your actions, your actions become your reality. I've seen myself on this stage 10,000 times.

When Grant Cardone became a business partner, I saw myself on that stage when I spoke on these biggest, all these things are things that I fought through. Some of you will never find success because of an unwillingness to understand one thing. The words that you're using are keeping you trapped. And some of the sh*t you are saying yourself, that if you said to me on the street, I'd punch you in the face, yo. And it's funny, but like you expect to be successful when you're the one destroying yourself. How the f*ck are you going to be successful when every single day you wake up, you say, I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not capable, I don't matter. But the truth about that is that's indoctrination, that's not even you, that's lies that's been spun into you. People who before you, through generational trauma and abuse have indoctrinated themselves in a falsity in a fake reality and something that doesn't actually exist. So, you have to ask yourself, am I willing to do the hardest thing that we ever do?

The hardest thing that we ever do. “It's to be kind to ourself”

Can you be kind to yourself, and see?

Kindness is this really interesting thing because on this one hand, people like be kind to yourself, honor of the self-care. Cool, yes, agreed, but ask yourself a question. Am I taking care of myself or am I taking it easy on myself? Because the truth is real success comes through pushing through walls.

Real success comes in the moments in which you don't do it. You do it anyway. Real success comes in, giving yourself permission to succeed. But you have to understand that there is a path to this success. Most of the identity that you have is not true. It's just not. You're looking at truth based on experiences that you had, but you're not looking at fact.

Most people say, I can never do anything great, I'm like, m**her*cker, you do great sh*t all the time. You just don't give yourself your flowers. You do great things every single day. When you wake up and you brush your teeth, you step into the world and you say, I'm going to try. But you don't give yourself accolades because you've been told to be humble. Be quiet. Stay in the back. Walk on the right side of the hall. Raise your hand to take a piss and stay quiet in church. And so, when it's your turn to be unmuted, you're terrified of judgment, but guess what? Nobody's paying attention to you anyway, so you might as well go make yourself happy. And kindness is about the willingness to push through. It's uncomfortable, like nobody ever wakes up one morning and they're like, I want to be great, but I'm just not gonna do anything about it unless they've been lied to and told that they're not allowed to. Everyone in this room agreed that they'd been told they're not allowed to touch their greatness. The only way that you're ever going to be able to is you give it to yourself.

And so here I am, I'm 25, heading into 26 disastrous life, and I'm faced with the decision, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? That answer again was no excuses, just results. So, I made a decision. I pushed and I pushed, and I pushed therapy, coaching, fitness, all of the things I just kept going.

You will never lose if you don't quit. It's f*cking impossible unless you walk away from the table it's not over, but you have to be willing to go through the strife, through the pain, through the hurt, through the growth. The best thing about running a business or being an entrepreneur is one thing and one thing only, you're gonna find out who the f*ck you are. Real talk. And in that something beautiful will happen. You'll step into your power. You'll become the person you were capable of being. You will live life on your terms. The greatest sense of healing that you will ever have in this journey begins with forgiving yourself for things that you are not culpable for it. That means that things that happen to you that are bad, that are not your responsibility, your fault, you let go of that, you forgive yourself. Watch your life be different. And in that something really interesting will begin to happen. You'll recognize that everything from this moment forward is on you.

And if you accept that responsibility, greatness is inevitable as long as you don't stop. And so, as you go through what's next in your life, as you step into alignment, as you learn, as you grow, as you heal, as you change, as you become the hero of your own story, the thing you are destined to become, you must ask yourself the hardest question anyone can ever ask themselves.

“What am I willing to do to be the hero of my own story?”

“What am I willing to do to have the life that I want to have?”

What am I willing to do to be unbroken?”

Thank you.