Mindsets & Actions to Overcome Childhood Trauma, Addiction & Anxiety

Take Control of Health Today for a Thriving Future with Sage Workinger

Michael: I will say this, there's always room for pharmaceutical intervention under the right circumstances. But generally speaking, the right circumstances are very, very small. Right. The small opportunity for most people that they would actually need the theme that the doctors are trying to prescribe. And I remember working in this insurance company and seeing the, not only the claims come through, but the medications and people at my age, at the time, in my early twenties on like four meds. And I'm like, what are f** are you talking about. And then you get into the study is around food and it's like they are sponsored. You go down the chain long enough. And look, this is not conspiracy theory. So, let's be very clear that the writing is on the wall. At the end of the day, people in this country who run pharmaceutical companies and big corporations, they want you to be sick because they make money.

Sage: I saw an advertisement the other day where it was an ad that said, if you're already on an SSRI, an antidepressant, but it's still just not working enough for you, here's another pill you can take. And then when it lists off all the side effects of that second pill, it's insane, I'm like, why would you take the chance to fix one thing and then end up with five more problems and then you gotta take five more pills to solve those side effects? It's like, it doesn't make any sense at all. And it's sad that they've already admitted that antidepressants don't work and the whole thing is that it, if the solution to depression is to have higher levels of serotonin, you would think that the solution to the pill would be to raise serotonin levels, but they don't. They just take what little serotonin you have and they spread it out. So why not look for a solution that helps add serotonin into your bucket? And that solution is diet and vitamins and supplementation, the right raw materials and it sounds too simple. And a lot of times, you know, I get a lot of sh*t on social media because they're like, she, by the way, for all of America to know I'm not a doctor, I'm not a medical expert.

Michael: I'm also not a doctor, by the way.

Sage: Right. Let's just throw that out there because they're gonna be like, she's not a doctor, she doesn't know what she's talking about. And listen, you know, digging deep, deep, deep into the science, you're right. I don't understand that piece, but I understand what happened to me, and I know that depression.

Here's another example. This has just happened two weeks ago now, you know, getting a little a bit more recognized and especially Gary is, you know, being noticed for his knowledge in this wellness space, a lot of people send us stuff ‘cuz they want us to try it out, they want us to promote it, they wanna be a part of 10X Health, which is amazing. So, he tests the crap outta everything so, we turn into Guinea pigs basically. So, this product arrives, he puts it in a cup, he throws the water in it and he's like, try it. I should know better. And he should know better too to have read the ingredients and make sure, but I'm kind of in this like naive assumption that if you're gonna bring 10X health, something you've heard at least somewhere that we say, do not take folic acid, do not take cyanocobalamin, if I can just get two words in everybody's head of things to avoid, those are the two ingredients. 

Michael: And quickly it's on the back of the label.

Sage: It's on the back of the label.

Michael: It's in everything.

Sage: It's in everything and it's disgusting and this is how corporations are killing us. And so, they send this product and the funny thing is they put a good B12, I think they put in hydroxocobalamin, which is like a very expensive form of B12 usually if you're gonna see a good form in natural form, it's methylcobalamin. Hydroxy is much more expensive and harder to source. So, it was weird that it was like a really good b12, but then they still cheaped out on the folic and they put folic acid. I didn't pay attention; I drank the stupid drink. And then I look at the ingredients and I'm like, oh my God, I just broke all my own my rules, you know, by doing this, I almost made myself go puke because I knew I was gonna be affected by it. And Gary was like, you'll be fine, it wasn't that much and don't worry about it, da, da, da. So, I was like, all right, well, maybe I'll be okay. So, I let it go next day couldn't get outta bed. I was so depressed. I wanted the room dark. I didn't want anybody to talk to me. I didn't answer my phone all day. This is like the middle of the week. It's like a Wednesday. I got a million emails, a million phone calls, a million things to do. I couldn't do any of it. But in my mind, at least, I knew this is what happened, I had folic acid, I'm depressed now, it's gonna be outta my system in 24-hours. I just sleep this off, basically. So, I slept, I watched Netflix, you know, I ate salads, grilled chicken, took my vitamins, and the next day I woke up fine. That's how I know that, how big of a deal this is. And if I can just explain that to people and have them recognize it in themselves, what did you put in your mouth in the last 24 to 48 hours that is affecting your mental state? It's not just about your stomach hurting when you eat something you can't process. What did you put in your mouth that is affecting you up here? And when you start to look back on it, and you recognize it, then you'll go, man, I didn't realize that pizza or that mac and cheese I ate, that's what's making me feel cruddy. And so if everybody paid attention, then you know, then we'd have a much better world. But yes, they have to list it on the ingredient label, so you gotta flip the box around and really pay attention to what's on there.

Michael: Yeah. When I think about that and this space in which you said something like pay attention, getting inside of your body is incredibly difficult especially if you've been sick for a long time. You know, so I ended up getting a few different gut health issues, I got sibo, I got c-diff, I was hospitalized like on death bed and I just had gotten to the point where sick was like my normal, and it sucked. And I'm running companies, I'm doing all the things, but I'm suffering every day. And I remember just thinking, here's what I think it is, like it's almost learned behavior in some ways. My grandmother was always sick, my mom was always sick, my neighbors are, everybody was always sick all the time. I was like, I guess you're just sick. You know, I didn't know what it felt like to feel normal, and it wasn't until like I really got deep into trying to understand my own body that it, it started to make sense, you could lay it out on the table and I could look and go, wait a second, if I eat these gummy bears with red dye, 40 and blue dye seven and high fructose corn syrup and things of this nature, I'm not gonna feel good. And the mouth pleasure that you get out of it, like, that's great, it's like the best dopamine hit. Like, this is the greatest sh*t. And exactly the next day I'm like, I can't function, I can't think, I can't get out of bed and it's like, but we keep torturing ourselves. And I take it back to this, I go, if you walked into room and every single time you walked in that room, you got punched in the face, the first time you walked in, you'd be like, what just happened? And the second time you, well, we're dumb, we're humans.

Sage: Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. At least two jobs.

Michael: So, the second time you walk in, you're gonna be like, okay, hold on. What's going on? You're gonna poke your head in and but the third time, you're not going to go in. And I wish that people would understand, like, you don't have to keep going down this path. So, I wanna rewind again and go back, so you're in this place a few years ago, you're on this multivitamin, you're feeling the effects, you're on the impact of it. People want a quick fix, was it really as simple as stopping that vitamin that changed your life, or were there other interventions that you had to bring into play? Because I think people were suffering from anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, all things that I've also experienced obviously, that's a huge part of what Think Unbroken is, they go, is it really that easy?

Sage: I know and I never wanna say that, oh, this is just so easy, you stop taking this or you start taking that and oh you'll, everything will be happy and glorious. I never ever wanna put that out there, but I do believe that getting my protocol right, ‘cuz it wasn't just about not taking the multivitamin, I started to recognize, okay, I having some bad anxiety for a while now, and I just always found a reason to blame it. Again, I'm blaming it on starting a business and not really knowing what I'm doing, I'm blaming on working with my spouse who, you know, I love and adore, but can drive me crazy. So of course, you know, oh, well now I'm angry, or I'm upset, or whatever, because of something he did. Well, it wasn't that stuff, it was more internal, the things I was getting upset about because a lot of this genetic stuff, it's not just anxiety, depression, there's an anger piece to it. And I realized I would get like so mad about something and it could be over the dumbest things like, you know, somebody, the kids left their socks in the middle of the hallway again, or didn't do the dishes like I asked them to do, and all of a sudden just everybody's heads off, and that wasn't me. I was like, why am I being like this? This is not who I am. And so, it did take a lot of like internal, okay, I gotta really work on myself. And so, that's where I started to go to therapy but still like, yeah, I can work on all these things, I can do breathing techniques, I can talk myself into a positive space with affirmations and all of that stuff, but ultimately it was deep inside that I had to correct. And those are all great things, yoga and meditation and all of those things are great things to calm the mind. But ultimately, what truly fixed it is getting, giving my body the raw materials, it was deficient in. And so, when I did this gene test and we only look at five actionable jeans. I don't care what your hair color is, your eye color, if you got detached ear lobes, I'm just looking for five actionable jeans that tell us did you get the gene mutation from one parent or both? And that will help us determine how deficient you are in certain material, raw materials. So, for instance, the mother*** gene, we call it the mother**er gene.

Michael: I have that.

Sage: You do, huh? Welcome to the club. 44% of us in the population, and I think that numbers higher, I think so. But about 50% of us have this genetic mutation, and for me, I got it from both my parents so, I'm severely broken. So, we're severely broken, it's not functioning at all.

Michael: Explain what that is ‘cuz some people don't know

Sage: Okay. So, when you have this genetic mutation, it means, guess the easiest way to say is we are allergic to folic acid. So, if you take crude oil out of the ground, you can't just stick it right in your gas tank, it has to be refined in a gasoline before it can go into the gas tank, and then the car and the engine recognizes that fuel source. It's the same concept with methylation. Methylation is the process by which we take in a raw material and convert it or methylate it into a usable form that our body recognizes. So, in the case of b12, you can't just take b12 and then your body just knows what to do with it and then all of a sudden, its energy, it has to be refined it has to be methylated into the right form of energy that so your body can use it. So, there's a whole lot more science stuff to this. If anybody is scientific, they're gonna be like that maybe that's a terrible explanation. But for us that aren't scientists, it's English, you know, it's just simple way to explain it. And you and I are deficient in vitamin B9, it sounds too simple, but we are. And that gene can only function at a hundred percent if we have five methyl folates in our system.

So, you can get it through food sources like leafy greens and there's like a whole long list of foods that you can find, like legumes and nuts and seeds and things like that. You can find that on the report that we produce after somebody gets a gene test. And ‘cuz I always wanna tell people, I'm not trying to sell you, our multivitamin, I'm really just saying that yes, multivitamin is easier to take if it has the right raw ingredients, but you can also get it through your diet so you just have to take in the right form of folate.

So, one big thing that I think a lot of women recognize when they hear folic acid is if they've ever been pregnant or trying to get pregnant or whatever, their gynecologist, ob-gyn is gonna tell 'em, take high doses of folic acid, because they recognized in, again, this all goes back to the nineties, where they're like, you gotta take high dose of folic acid when you're pregnant because it prevents neural tube defects in pregnant women. And so, they're like, oh, let's give this to everybody, let's spray the grain source and because then everybody's eating bread and pasta and rice and cereal, and that's when cheerios, you started to see the labels on like cheerio's boxes say, you know, fortified and enriched with all these vitamins and minerals. So, they're making it sound like, hey, we're giving, even in Poptarts, you know, we're giving, this is healthy food for your kids. So, everybody starts whackings back all this stuff and all of a sudden, the anxiety, depression, ADD, ADHD, everything goes on the rise and everybody's like, oh, well now we gotta create pills for that, now we have Adderall and Vivants and Ritalin and we're pumping our kids full of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. I was an eighties baby, none of my friends had ADHD.

Live with Intention | Heal and Thrive | with Sara Dean

Michael: So, I know who I am like, know thy myself is the most important thing in the journey. I know I'm stubborn. I know it's like in my f*cking bones, and I know that that is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. And so, one of the things that I've had to do to reconcile that, that moves me forward as opposed to stopping me is just I'm like, I don't know anything. Put me in the room, please let me be the dumbest person in the room constantly. And that only came through this choice of the willingness, like, I'm going to go step into the unknown and find out who I am. And that moment that you shared seems like that might have been a part of your journey. What prompted that for you? Because I think a lot of people who are listening, they're like, yeah, well I'm in my forties and I have a family and like, it's not that bad which tends to be the thing, eh, it's not that bad so why am I gonna do something? 

Sara: Why do I need to do in the inner work? So, I found myself a few years ago. I've had anxiety my whole life, but I didn't know that's what it was, I just thought that like, I'm kind of type A and I'm like, I'm just a control freak. And what happened over the course of time I started to recognize how unhealthy and unsustainable it was to wake up every single morning with like a huge ball of dread in my stomach. And I started talking about it, I started doing therapy, I went to a psychiatrist and I started, the therapist said like, what does this anxiety feel like for you? And I said, I wake up every morning and it's like there's this pit in my stomach and even on a day where there's things I'm really looking forward to where I know like, she's gonna be a great day, there's all these things to look forward to, there's this pit there that's like, okay, but like, what if this goes wrong or that goes wrong? Or what if you don't achieve in this way? Or what if you can't figure that thing out? And so, we spent a lot of time talking about like that knot and what does it take to unravel that knot and what would it be like to not wake up with that in the morning to wake up and be like, oh, I got this, it's fine. Or just to wake up and not have any thoughts about like, just to wake up and be like, I'm just gonna go brush my teeth, I'm like not be emotionally processing from the moment you wake up. And so it was really, I think knowing that I was waking up with that, I was carrying it with me all day. There were a lot of moments in my day where I would have this internal sense of overwhelm that felt sometimes, like my mind was moving at a pace that I couldn't control, but I was having to like live in reality, that moved much slower and it felt like this huge disconnect for like, I'm trying to keep up with my brain, but I can't and it just became absolutely exhausting and there's times when it's still exhausting and I take medication and do therapy and like do all this stuff. But it was really reaching out and being like,my brain is like, it's too much for me right now and getting the diagnosis of general anxiety disorder and PTSD and it helped tremendously in kind of getting to put some pieces together and being able to name like, oh, that's what I'm feeling and that's why I'm feeling it. Okay, now I can like neutralize it and move on.

Michael: Yeah. The naming it part is the game changer for me, you know, because in my teens and my twenties, I just assumed I was crazy. My mother crazy, my grandmother crazy, my stepfather crazy and I'm not using that word lightly, they were f*cking crazy. Bipolar manic, suicidal, narcissistic to, like textbook sh*t. Right. And I know those are buzzwords people throw around, but when I was a kid, we just called you crazy. And so I'm living this lifestyle where it's like doing gnarly sh*t where I'm doing stuff where I'm like, this is so insane like, I don't even know, ‘cuz this thing in my brain is like, this is normal, the same experience that you're having. 

Sara: Yeah. And it is really interesting how could you identify that? Like it felt normal to you, but like, it wasn’t like everyone else's.

Michael: I'm the one having the interview right now. 

Sara: I know. Lemme take over the interview.

Michael: But here's my thought on it. Like, I distinctly remember having these moments of being out of control and recognizing I was out of control, but the chaos felt so good. This is the thing people don't see which is actually where I was gonna lead into with anxiety. I think the people, most people, they get stuck in the rumination of the disaster i.e., someone's breaking the house, stealing the kitchen table, the place is burning down. So, most people, they go into hyperactivity to turn that off, is that what you did?

Sara: Yes, but all internally. Also, like my rumination I know is not normal compared to the people that I spend time with and so, it's like this rumination that is just quietly happening where I'm like, if anyone's sitting around me right now, knew all the things that I was thinking at one time. And so, it's that high level or like hyperawareness that I know that I'm like taking things in or seeing things, feeling things on a different scale than other people and you were like, I'm gonna act on these things and it sounds like, be big and bold I was like, I'm just gonna internalize this and feel like there's a lot happening inside, but not process it with anyone or not tell anyone that I'm feeling like it's too much and that's the exhausting part was like having to carry it but then look, quote unquote very normal on the outside. Look like a just high achiever, successful person, driven person, ambitious person without acknowledging that like there's kind of constant panic in the background. 

Michael: What did not acknowledging it do for you? Let me ask the question this way because there's something about high achievers when we just put it to the side, we go, it's like that meme, everything's on fire and it's like the little cat and he's like, it's fine, is that what it was for you? 

Sara: I think the not acknowledging it piece over time just became mentally extremely grueling and to the point where like it felt like if you're going through so let's say you're going through a divorce and so you tell your friends like, oh, as it turns out, we're separating and people are kind of along the ride with you, and they kind of have a sense of what's going on. It felt like I had gotten so far down this road of like internal panic and anxiety there never felt like it was the right time to like let someone in because the train was like, kind of already saw off the rails to be like, Hey, so by the way, I just wanted to let you know for like, you know, 30 some years I've had really bad anxiety and it's become really crippling like, it just never felt like there was a window to bring people in so, it felt increasingly isolating, I think. And it also felt, started to feel really incongruent with like, who I was and the work that I was doing where, like the stuff I talk about on the podcast around, just nurture yourself and show up for yourself, and like kind of all these things started to feel like platitudes, while I'm doing those things and encouraging people to live big, bold, brave lives, I'm doing it in a constant state of panic in the background. 

Michael:  But that's your norm.

Sara: It's totally my norm.

Michael: This is the thing that people don't always process, it's like, that is what you know, and the unknown of that is arguably more scary than the known.

Sara: Yeah. Can I tell you what my therapist told me to do that make made me so mad?

Michael: Yeah, of course.

Sara: There's two things. So, the first thing she's told me on our first session, she's like, when you're feeling panicky or when you're feeling a lot of anxiety, she's like, I just want you to do some mindfulness activities. And before she even finished saying mindfulness activities, I was like rolling my eyes like, oh my God, I'm not doing mindfulness activities. And then she told me the first activity, and again, cause I'm like, I work in this space, I don't need mindfulness activities. the first. I'm like, I actually could give you some tips how about that. So she was like, next time you're feeling anxiety, I just want you to look around and notice what you see, notice what you smell, go through all your senses, notice all the things around you and identify like, I am safe. I can see this, I can touch this, I can smell this, all this. And I was like, yeah, that's ridiculous. So, I was like mad about that ‘cause I was like, that's not an actual tool. And then the next session she told me that in the morning she's like, I think that it would really help you if you spent like 30 minutes first thing in the morning just sitting down with your tea or coffee and just sitting in silence and thinking, and I was like, oh my God. Do not tell an anxious person to just sit there and do nothing like I could that just sent me into like a state of terror. So, I was like, okay, I will give you two minutes, I will spend two minutes max, I'm not gonna sit down, I'm gonna stand in my kitchen, look out my window, take like three sips of coffee and like 3D breaths and call it good. And so that's what I started doing and it worked. And I was like, damn that this mindfulness stuff works. I mean, it has been an interesting process of learning how my brain works differently and like learning some of the tools that I thought were super eye roll kind of tools that do help a bit but also being super resistant and thinking that a lot of the, kind of the stuff that should work for an anxious brain would actually work for my anxious brain.

How to Transform Your Health after Trauma with Gregory Damian

Michael: I resonate that that's not a poke at you, but just like, I often think to myself, you should go achieve, you should go and see what you're capable of doing. And there is the hesitation that I think a lot of people have in stepping into that thing about their dreams. You have three degrees, you've competed in so many different events, races, half marathons, body building like how is it that you have been able in consideration of your past knowing that for most people, it's a massive hindrance. Right. My father was like this, my mother was like this, I witnessed these relationships, I was in this place I didn't want to be, I'm sure there was other things involved in that like where does it come from within you to be like, I'm gonna go for it. 

Gregory: There's certain aspects of my life where I've had a lot more self-confidence than others. One of the things I didn't mention in my twenties is I didn't date at all, I didn't have enough self-confidence to ask a woman out to date.

Michael: No dates?

Gregory: I mean, one or two maybe, I can't remember if they were.

Michael: That's shocking to me sitting across from you right now. 

Gregory: And I ended up getting married to the very first girlfriend that I had in my thirties. Right? And we were married for 15 years and it was a functional marriage. But I also knew in that experience, and I wasn't growing enough. There was more growing for me to do and this was again, that voice in my head, right? Like in the car with the state trooper and that one I didn't act on initially, it was like, this is the first person who I thinks ever really cared about me. And so, I agonized over getting divorced and when I finally got the courage to have that conversation with her. She's like, yeah, where do I sign? I guess she had some growing to do too. This was more about me and I know I was still a very selfish person in that relationship, right? So, I definitely acknowledge that. But to come back to your thought, when I'm moving my stuff out, I'm going through all of the boxes of old stuff and whatever, and I came across some pictures of me in my twenties and I look and I go, sh*t, this was all in my head, I mean, I'm five four that didn't change but there's plenty of people, my height who've done great things, right? That's not a limitation. So, one of the moments that I realized that this has just been me holding me back as opposed to something else. I got two hands, two arms and a brain that's good enough to get three degrees. So, there's just been aspects of my life where I've had a lot more confidence to say, yeah, I can go do that. My parents' only aspiration for me was to go be a computer key punch operator, and I said, f*ck that. Right. Because I know I'm capable of more than that. But to go ask Julie out on a date, oh yeah, that's not something I'm happy to do because I'm so afraid of being rejected.

Michael: Yeah, which is understandable. I mean, I can only imagine how many times growing up in a household like that, you're rejected. And for me, one of the things is I had a massive fear of rejection as well and I curbed that by having the willingness to be rejected all the time. And it almost became a game in some sense and I don't mean just in dating a relationships I mean, I got a sales job very young where I had to like, call people, right? F*ck you, never call me again. I'm gonna file complaints, I'm gonna find you and kill, like the craziest sh*t I would hear. And so, like, rejection eventually just became second nature, right? And I think that if you want to build confidence, go get rejected a lot and recognize that it's not about you.

Gregory: Part of that, after the divorce, I did get involved again, the teachers began to show up. And I started taking the variety of different self-improvement, self-help courses. And one of them was a charm class we could say and it was over in Hollywood, California. And one of our exercises was we were paired up with buddies, it was all guys and we were paired up with buddies on Hollywood Boulevard and said we had to go, I don't remember what the pitch was, but we had to go approach women. Right. And invite them to something, or the whole thing willow was to break outta that shell. And it was really amazing for me because I hadn't really experienced this sort of ability to walk up and not be rejected and you're sure some people are saying like, yeah, I'm just too busy. But a lot of people there were like, yeah, cool, that's cool what you're doing and good for you and that sort of stuff, and actually have a positive experience out of it. Right. So being willing to test some of those limits and learn that, again, these limits are really way up here in my head as opposed to real limits that the universe has said, oh no, Greg can't do that.

Michael: Yeah. Right. Well, and that's why I pointed to, I felt surprised by what you just said because here I see this man who stands confidently, chin up, shoulders back. And I think people will see me and think the same and not understand that for a very, very, very long time. It was shoulders down, slumped over, no eye contact, just anyone, please don't look at me.

Gregory: Yeah. I was invisible. Right. And that's the really, the way I thought about myself in high school in particular. Right. I wasn't picked on or bullied basically, but I wasn't a part of anything, you know, I was off, if anything, just hanging out with some of the nerd guys.

Michael: Yeah. But there's something in you that has the willingness to go for it, even though perhaps in all areas, and I don't think we all are ultimately confident in all areas, I think that's probably improbable. Right? And so, in consideration, I look at that and go, okay, well there's obviously areas where there's lack of confidence, there's areas that are fully confident and I think that perhaps your ability to be astute in the things that challenge you mentally have driven you into success. And I'm gonna guess the same way that you were able to now reset your life again in your forties and say, I'm actually gonna go this direction about health, which is kind of the thing that leads us to today. What was happening in that window where you're like, I'm going to just go in this other path, potentially head into this PhD program. Learn about health, ultimately find out like, actually that's not the thing I want to go into ‘cuz that's sick care, not healthcare. What was happening in that window?

Gregory: Well, again, I hadn't chosen a destination, I was running away from stuff all these years and I realized that health and fitness was a good destination for me that I could be an influencer or even a disruptor to show what is possible at 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80. Right. Because I've got some serious goals of what I want to do when I'm 80. So, there was another event that comes to mind, I guess it would've been my forties where after I was diagnosed with low bone density, I started weightlifting, I was also prescribed testosterone, and that helped and it also improved my libido, which is like, oh, this is what it's like. I was in the gym, actually, this was in Germany I was at work and one of my coworkers said, hey, Greg, have you ever thought about competing on stage as a bodybuilder? Like, who's he? Who's this guy talking to? Right. And he said, no, no, no. I mean, you know, and he saw the package of what I was. So, he was being really kind and generous and I thought about that a little bit more and I guess I said, why not? Right? Why not me? And I ended up going and competing in a body building show without ever having been in one. Right. And that takes a little, because I'm like, what the hell am I supposed to do? Right? And I met my first coach there at that show, though, backstage. She's like, all right, there's some things we need to teach you. Okay. Fair enough. I'm a rookie here, right? So, I guess I've been open to coaching right along the way as well. Open to feedback is sometimes it sucks, right? Getting candid feedback, but honestly, that's the best way forward is if someone's willing to give you honest feedback, they're your friend, right? Regardless of what their situation is, they've done you a big favor by giving you some honest feedback. And I haven't liked it at times but I've been at least I think, willing to listen to it, consider it, and also consider and look at what other people have done. I think, I did read some of Tony Robbins stuff back in 1990 when he released, Unleashed The Giant To Within. I didn't act on it as well as I should have, obviously, but some of those ideas stuck with me. Right. If you want to get good at something, look at someone who's doing it and go do what they do. And I've done that in some aspects of my life fairly well and others not, not so much. Right. But I feel like I've got the ability to do what anyone else can do. 

Overcoming Addiction and Healing Trauma with Mike Diamond

Michael: I would like for you in your own interpretation of this, ‘cause I have mine and as you're talking, I'm thinking about this a lot. We live in probably the most addicted time in history which is weird because on the flip side of that coin, we also simultaneously live in the safest time in history. And it's almost like the space for people to step into discomfort since it doesn't exist in our normal day-to-day lives has made comfort the priority. And so now you have people addicted to TikTok and social media, porn, online dating, alcohol, drugs, all of these things. When you think about, and knowing that you've helped intervene in the lives of more people than I can even begin to count, what is it that people need to understand about society and the world that we're living in right now when it comes to addiction?

Mike: All right, so every product that's created, that they study the neuroscience of it. So, the reason the book's called A Dose of Positivity is DOSE stands for Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins, the four brain chemicals that we're all searching for, we're all searching for a dose. Right. So, dopamine, the reward system, any video game company from the beginning? I mean, Steve Jobs said he never gave his kids an iPad or an iPhone, they know what they're doing, they want you to seek reward, but there's no end to the reward ‘cuz it's seeking. You're always searching for gold, but you're never gonna get the gold. Right. So, the only way to get over any kind of addiction, okay, ‘cuz what is addiction? It is trying to feed something lacking ‘cuz what's the human experience? Avoid pain game pleasure. So, we're always looking for a dose, right? We're either chasing the carrot or avoiding the stick. So, I tell people the most important thing is not your want, it's your needs. So, someone will say, I work with someone, right? And they're massively in debt. And I'm like, well, why do you have a BMW? They're like, why I need a BMW. I'm like, no, no, no, you need transport, you don't need a BMW. Right?

So, if you can simplify your life to the purpose, not passion, purpose, figure out what you're good at, right? Your skills work very, very, very, very hard to, like we talked about before, be so good you can't be ignored with that skillset. Use those skills in a purpose-driven way to bring value to someone else, right? ‘Cuz if I can bring you value, you will pay me ‘cuz people always say they don't have enough time, money, and resources. Well, I can have money if I bring you value, cuz you'll pay me for the servers. Right. Lose the comparison syndrome. Right. Stay in your own lane ‘cuz if you're driving down the highway in everyone else's lane, you have a f*cking accident in life. So, stay on your path in your lane, have a clear focus of what you want because you've gotta know what you go, what you're striving for. Know where you came from. Know where you are. Know where you want to go. Right. And like I say, successful people have the ability to do the work no matter how they feel. An unsuccessful person is always looking to feel good, feel right in the right time, it don't exist. In reality, it's me and you sitting on a podcast. So, you have to understand that everything's a test and the higher you get up the mountain, less air there is the more of a test. So, it's like crabs in a basket, you've heard that same, right? So there’s you gotta get out of that basket or that thing, get away from the crabs, get away from I call them anchors; an anchor will pull you down an engine will drive you. Where engines we wanna drive people, we look for their potential. We put air in their tires, we light up their fires, we light up their ideas, an anchor will drown you. So there has to be, ‘cuz I don't believe, I think we're in the most addictive time. But then again, is it, because back then people were still distracted. Right? When you look at old clips of people reading newspapers, no one was talking to each other. It's phones, it's newspapers, right? So, I think about this, was it 2,500 years ago whatever they built the coliseums around their Roman times, right? Around whatever the time was. So, if you look at the times back then, nothing has changed, right? In the sense of a Colosseum could be like a football stadium, a Colosseum, Roman times, you've still got war, you've still got politics. We are talking about what Jesus, what Buddha, what Lao Tzu said, what the stoic said, it's the same sh*t, we're just packaging it different but have we evolved?

Michael: Yeah. I don't know.

Mike: It's still at war, right? Why is there still racism in the world?

Michael: Yeah. We're still distracted.

Mike: How could we still, right? Why are we still chasing things? Look, at the end of the day, this is where they don't get it to addiction technology doesn't mean sh*t. At the end of the day, Mike, if they put us on our, in front of our graves, right? To face our creator, and they get the 2,650 billionaires in the world, right? Whatever there's 2,600 billionaires. There's no moving van behind us to take our sh*t. It's us and our creator. We can't negotiate a toothbrush or whatever, right? It doesn't matter what was it all for in the end? It's not what I give you, it's what I leave in you. It's how can I make you a better person?

Michael: One of the things that came to mind as you were saying that is there's almost something in that. I'll give you context. When I started this journey to be a coach, to mentor, write these books, make this podcast, speak on these stages, it all started because somebody was like, I think you can help me. But Mike, I battle, I was like, I don't want to. And I said, I don't want to, because dude, the f*cking journey was so hard. I've always stopped myself an anomaly to some extent, right? There's always been this punching forward drive that I have, the stubbornness that I pointed to, and I was like, I know I can do this for me, right? I believe that. I believe I can do f*cking anything, but when it came to helping this other person, I was like, dude, no way, absolutely not because I knew what it took and it took f*cking everything. There is a moniker that I live by anyone who's listened to this show for any period of time knows, and I've said it ad nauseum for a reason. Everything in my life summarizes into one thing, no excuses, just results. Period.

Mike: Beautiful.

Michael: And so, what I had to realize as I went down this path, decided, I made a decision. I will help this person. I didn't even know if I could. I was just like, I don't know, man, let's try it. It's a hundred bucks an hour. Right? Whatever it was back then, eight years ago. And I was like, but you have to do what I f*cking tell you because this is the only thing that I know that works. I didn't know anything else. I couldn't sit here and come up with ideas in real time. I could only track what I had done that was measurable and say, give it a try. And then now it's like I'm so happy that I made that decision, right? There's so much positivity in the world now because of a choice that I made and when I was thinking about this book that you've put out, here you are. You don't have to do this, man. You've been on television for f*cking ever, you've helped more people than we can count. You have a family yet here you are being of service, trying to bring positivity into the world. And what had held me back initially was the fear of the failure that I wouldn't be able to do it. Obviously, I recognize that there are people that's going to fail no matter what I do. But talk through this, let's go into this a little bit deeper, ‘cuz I think it's going to be a really important thing for people to leverage right now when we are so distracted, we are so avoidant and maybe we haven't evolved, but the one thing we've always, anybody you can go back to, to Seneca the stoics, and even before then Christ and look at positivity, look at gratitude, look at joy. Why do those things matter so much?

Mike: Man, such a good question. Look, I'll be straight. I never wanted to be an interventionist. No way. I just knew I could do it.

Michael: Because you had done it.

Mike: I just knew I'm called to do it. See, the calling isn't a conference call, that's why we get distracted. The calling is not what we wane do, it's what the universe tell. We're not in control. We have no control. We think we do. You know, we know we have no control. All we can control is our state, how we choose to think and how we choose to feel. We can't even control our thoughts. We can regulate our emotions because you see our monkey minds go everywhere. Right. We don't control the sh*t. That's why when people say, I'm gonna make a billion dollars, great. Can't take it with you. Go and build a castle of f*cking lies.

You know what? Look at it like this and I'll get to what you're saying. You go to the ocean and you watch a wave, and you watch the wave. And a wave for a moment, a time becomes singular. Right? It's a wave, it's our wave. Right. And when it hits the shore, however long that wave's life is what happens. It goes back into the ocean, right? We are spiritual things of one conscious believing where singular waves. And we have a short period of time and that's sure to us is death, the death of the body. And what happens? We just join consciousness again. I don't want to do the work I do. I can be honest. I want to take the easy route. I have to do it. There's a different calling. It's the need, not the want. If I do what I want to do in this human experience, I get girls with big breasts, I get cocaine, I get liquor, I get trouble, I get violence, I get debauchery. That's the truth if I've had that life, if I could get away with it, I would do it. But deep down at my core, I know the right thing to do. So, I just have to follow the daily rituals, which is get up early, journal my thoughts, meditate, stretch my body, read something positive, write these books. Do I wanna write a book? No. You know how hard it is to sit down and get your thoughts on paper and not write for yourself, write for you. I can admit it. We're all selfish to be selfless is f*cking hard, I don't want to do it, but I'm good at it and I do, do it. Now do I love the work? It's work. It's hard. Look, I am blessed to be on the show intervention, it's a f*cking hardcore show where we take people who are on are gonna die if we don't intervene and help them do. Do I really want to do that show? Can I do it? Absolutely. Am I good at, I'm one of the best, right? Not because I'm better than anyone, I'm just really good at what I do. There's a lot of great interventionists out there, as good as me. Do I want to do it? If you could offer me a show where I could be a lazy f*cking make a bunch of money, of course I want to take the lazy show and be a make a what I'm not lying, it's just the difference. I've got good character now. I've got good values. I know at the end of the day I've snorted the Coke and I've taken the wrong path and I know it's a dead end, that's all. I've been down the dead-end street, I just turned around.