Overcome Obstacles and Unleash Your Full Potential | with Steve Bacon

Michael: Hey! What's up Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Very excited be back with you with another episode with my guest and friend Coach Steve Bacon. What's up my man? How are you today?

Steve: I am excited like I am beyond excited to be here. I've been looking so forward to having this conversation with you since we first met. I think we talked for maybe 10 minutes and we were like, we gotta do it. We had literally such a similar story and I've been excited for months, man. So, I'm ready to rock and roll.

Michael: Same man. I appreciate you coming out here. You know, whenever I think about the journey, I've been on in my own personal life of this mental health thing, it's very rare, almost infinitesimally small, that I come across someone who had a crazy childhood like mine, who has somehow been able to transverse and become who they are like you are today. And the reason why I wanted to have you on this show, cuz sometimes I get the feeling and I've heard from this audience that they don't think that it's possible. Right. And they think that I'm somehow an anomaly in this. And I'm like, I'm not. I know that other people have been through some dark sh*t and that they have been able to also pull through that. So, as we dive into this, I wanna start with very simple question. What is one thing about your past that I need to know to understand who you are today?

Steve: I have no shame. Zero. I'm not ashamed of anything that I've ever done. I'm not ashamed of anything that has ever happened. I think understanding it is what allows me to give myself the grace to recognize the innocence and all of the decisions that I've made.

Michael: Where does that come from?

Steve: We tend to give children a lot of grace when they make mistakes because we make the assumption, they don't know what they're doing, so it's totally fine, they're new to the world. I still had to apply that to myself as a 38-year-old man. Today is just as new for me as it was when I was three, I've never been 38 on June, whatever it is in 2023, every day is still new. So I give myself the grace to know that every decision I make, I'm making the best decision I can in that moment with the knowledge, resources, mindset at the time. And I have to recognize the innocence in that. And I'm not talking about a judicial type of innocence. I'm talking about literally; I don't know what I don't know. And being mad at myself for what I don't know is like getting mad at myself for failing a test in a class that I didn't know I was supposed to take at a university I didn't know I was supposed to be in or at a class, I didn't know I was supposed to be in at a university I didn't know existed, that makes absolutely no sense.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, that's so much of life, right? When you think about it, the things that we beat ourself up for, the things that we hold ourself to accord for are often things where it's like, you have no idea what you're doing, right? And I say this all the time, like I wasn't born with any playbook and in fact, if there was one, then I got the shaft, right? Coming from this background, coming from this childhood, it was like, you look at these experiences of life and it's like, there was nothing foundational that would set me up for today. The trauma and the abuse and those things aside, but just in general, like I had no idea 37 heading into 38 years old myself, that I would be where I am today. Right? Like, you couldn't have told me this at 13, and I would've believed you. I'm like, you're outta your f*cking mind. Going back because I think that's really astute what you just said, and I think it's powerful and we don't give ourselves enough grace, enough patience, enough self-love, enough compassion. Tell me about childhood, what was that like for you? What was it growing up as young, Steve?

Steve: So, I was born in Hayward, California where the Rock was born, just so everybody out there knows. I think we might've been born at the same hospital, but no, I was born in Hayward, California 1984. I was raised back and forth between Oakland and Hayward, and my mom got addicted to crack in 1984, six months after I was born, when crack hit the scene. And so, I spent most, the first eight years of my life growing up in crack houses like I've seen it all right? I've seen people overdose in my face. I've seen people get killed in my face, there were times when my mom would take me to a crack house. And then say, sit right here, I'll be right back and then go in the bathroom and out the window and I wouldn't see her for days at a time left with complete strangers. There was times where I was left outside at two or three o'clock in the morning in the car by myself with my imaginary friend, waiting for her to come back out. Like that was the first eight years of my life and I knew exactly what was happening. I knew exactly what was going on. There were times where in task force, the police task force would bust into our house looking for my mom. Right. My mom ran the first crack in the box. She was literally selling crack outside of the laundry room window in our apartment building. And so that was the first eight years of my life.

And then one day she drops me off at my grandmother's house like she normally did before she went on a benger or something. And this Chico, DeBarge looking dude showed up the next day. Now, for those of you who are too young to know who Chico DeBarge is, look him up, that's not my father, but my daddy looked just like him light-skinned with the Jerry Curl, but I didn't know who this man was when he showed up, all I know is that he said, you coming to live with me? And I'm like, who the F is you? And I'm looking at my grandma like, you really finna let me walk out the house with this dude? And she did nothing. She just sat there at the counter in her little robe smoking her Marlboro cigarette, drinking her coffee like she normally did, and off we go. It was that moment I developed a hatred for my mother and resentment towards my grandmother because nobody told me that this dude was coming, you dropped me off like you normally did, and tell me nothing about what was gonna happen the next day. Not to mention my dad, we had a very abusive relationship. My dad was young, he didn't know what he was doing and what he'd lacked in words, he made up for violence, and so now I'm angry towards him pissed off at my mom. I got massive abandonment issues and so at 14, I threatened to kill him. We got into a massive fist fight and I told my cousin that I was gonna kill him. I had it all calculated. Next thing I know, I end up on a bus from Georgia going back to California and during this time period, I had already went to 14 schools so I was the new kid almost every year.

So on the way back to California, I decided to reinvent myself because I was bullied all the time for being light-skinned in Georgia. So I decided that I wasn't gonna be bullied anymore, I was gonna become the bully. So then I started lifting weights, taking creatine, you know, all that stuff. And I use my anger as a way to keep people away from me to try to build my confidence and my self-esteem. And then at 17, I went to the military ‘cause I figured if I get away from everybody that caused me issues and harm and trauma, then all my problems will go away. Not to mention I forgot I was molested while in my mom's care. She knew nothing about it, but it happened so I went through all of this by the time I was 17, so I figured I'd get away from everybody, not even a few months into bootcamp or after bootcamp I married the first girl who said she loved me. And then I physically, mentally, and emotionally abused her until she got the courage to leave six months later. I'm not proud of it, it's just part of the story, because growing up I saw problems, especially between men and women being solved through violence. No one where I grew up had any emotional intelligence whatsoever, that's also the reason why I became so I avoided conflict at all costs because I always felt that conflict would end up in violence because that's what I saw growing up anytime two people got into an argument violence.

So I get married for the first time and six months in we get no security deposits back. I didn't punch it a hole in almost every wall in the house. I didn't kick doors off the hinges. I threatened her with the gun that she bought me for Valentine's Day. And so, when she finally did get the courage to leave, I ran in the bathroom, put a loaded shotgun in my mouth, and pulled the trigger and the only thing that saved me was God.

Michael: Obviously a lot's unpacked there and I can't help but sit here and just feel, unfortunately, for lack of a better term a kindred bond with you over what you just laid out. And that is of course, because in everyone who's listening to this show for a new period of time, knows that my story sounds exactly like yours. There's a truth in something that you laid out that I don't think people fully understand or embrace in a way that is rational enough for them to want to take a step back and assess what's really happening. And what that truth is, is the language of communication that we have with ourselves, with other people, with our spouses, with our family. And for many people who grew up in violent households, many of the people who grew up in traumatic households who are probably listening to this show, you and I included communication was violence. You know, I remember distinctly every single time there was anything that was outside of the norm or the status quo of my home, I could assuredly expect that my stepdad was gonna kick my ass. Right. And so you imagine a guy my size, six foot four, 220, beating up a seven year old. Right. You know, this life, you know this world. And you know, a very similarly, when I was 18, I told my mother, if she ever touched me again, I would kill her and so I know that space of anger. And it is so all consuming and it is something that blinds you to reality and it is something that will take away everything. And we often try to escape, right? Because it's like, okay, well if I'm angry, I'll get away from all of this. I'll go over here and maybe things will be different, right? But it's the old adage, no matter where you go, there you are.

And so, being in this situation, cuz I want to dive into it a little bit more ‘cause I think it's gonna be really practical because this level of vulnerability is what changes people's lives. Being in a very violent relationship, mentally emotionally, physically, obviously having someone who is powerful enough to walk away, right? Same thing happened to me 24 years old. My ex walked away from me. I was massively verbally and emotionally abusive to her. Right? That became one of the most important moments of my life because it made me realize that the pain that I was feeling because of the sh*t I hadn't dealt with was consuming everything around me. And so I'm wondering now, being in this situation, looking at this shift happening in your life, when she walked away, you put that shotgun in your mouth. You have this moment where you're saved by grace, spirit, earth, God, universe, whatever you want to call it. What happens after that?

Steve: Well, she reported me to my superiors cause we're both in the military at the time and they took my gun and put me in anger management and ironically, I was sitting there in anger management going, y'all mother is the one with the problems, my anger is justified.

Michael: It's funny how we'll find justification of things.

Steve: Oh yeah. I was like, oh, your daddy didn't love you. So what? Mine beat me, this happened. That happened. This happened. So again, I was 18 young, dumb outta control, full of testosterone and pissed off at the world. Right? Not to mention my grandmother had just passed. So I don't know for anyone else listening, but sometimes, especially for people like us, there's that one person that's always holding you together. When my grandma died, I completely unraveled and that's really what led to that spiral with the abuse and everything else. But I still didn't know what to do with all this pain I had because I'll just say it cause I call myself the Bernie Mac of personal development. I say what everybody else is afraid to say. Our mental health system sucks. So I still didn't know what to do with all that pain. So, I just started drinking and drinking and get drunk until I find myself on the wrong end of the law and the convicted fell at 19. Now I done messed up my military career, now I'm homeless. I still don't know what to do with all this pain. I still don't know what to do with all this trauma. So, I did what any sane, rational human being would do. I married the second girl who says she loved me at 20. I learn the first time, did you say, I didn't learn the first time and I repeated the process the second time.

Michael: Of course, you did. How could you not?

Steve: I still didn't have any learnings. I had no parents to give me guidance. My dad and I were in communication, my mom was running the street somewhere. So, a lot of people say, man, you've made a lot of mistakes in your life. Well, I didn't have anybody to tell me, it was stupid. There was nobody there, I was 3000 miles away from anybody I knew, I was living in Virginia at the time. My family was California, so I had no one to tell me that was a mistake, this is a mistake. Don't do that. Don't do this. I literally had to learn by trial and error. Which is why I made so many mistakes, which is another reason why I give myself the grace ‘cuz I didn't know what I didn't know. And so, I met this guy named Hank, when I was being sentenced to probation, this random black dude just stepped into the middle of the aisle and said, you don't know me, but we have a mutual friend, let me give you a ride home. And that mutual friend he was talking about was my first sergeant at the time. And so apparently there was this group of older black men on base that would just get together and discuss issues and my name came up and they drew straws and this guy named Hank drew the short straw and said, let me try and take a stab at him. I'll never forget just to give you a context of when that was John Legend had just came out with ordinary people. And Hank was driving a red Mazda six with gold leather seats, I'll never forget it. And on that ride home, he said, young man, I know where you think your life is headed ‘cuz at that point I was thinking suicide again, because now I'm a felon.

I spent my whole life trying to get away from that, I was even trying to become a cop. God knows what he was doing, not letting me become a cop by the way because I was no in no psychological condition to have other people's lives in my hand. I barely knew what to do with mine. Right. But he says, I know where you think your life is headed, and it doesn't have to if you change how you see yourself and you change what you believe about you.

Now, two things. One, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

But two, I knew that I didn't wanna live the life of a felon that I witnessed growing up my entire life, working at fast food chains or construction, I'm way too pretty to be doing construction, I'm too dainty, I don't believe in manual labor. If I can pay somebody else to do it, I let them do it. I don't do manual labor. So I was like, he offered me the opportunity to mentor me and I took it and that man dragged me from convention to convention, my pleading with my probation officer at the time to let me go outta state to go to these conventions. The first one was, I think was here in Las Vegas, he started stuffing books down my throat, like Thinking Grow Rich and Bob Proctor stuff, and Tony Robbins stuff. And he just started stuffing his stuff down my throat for a whole year and some change. He like metaphorically held my hand and never let it go, no matter how disrespectful I was.

Michael: I want to go into this real quick. The power of mentorship is singularly the thing that changed my life forever. But it was like these subtle moments, right? These very small, I never had that, right? I didn't have this like one overarching moment, but there were a lot of these little things that would happen, people would come to me, they would say to me, they'd be like, hey man, you know, you're fucking up over here or the best thing probably ever my high school business teacher, Mr. Bush, once told me after failing me and leading me down the path of not graduating high school, which of course is my fault, he goes, you have to understand something about life. If you want something, you have to earn it. You can't get by in your charms and your good looks, right? And these things, like these little increments of shift started to happen, but there was always still this hesitancy, right? I'm 20, 23, 25, 26, before my rock bottom moment, before I find myself with a gun in my mouth before my brother tells me, never talk to me again, you're not my brother. All of the things that became the catalyst for the change, there were these small little things that just bing, bing, bing they just kept popping up and popping up and popping up. I wasn't listening though, you know what I mean? And so what I love that you just said about Hank is like, he took your hand and he dragged you through this. But there's something that I don't think people factor in enough to this element of conversation and this thing that happens in shift, they don't understand that they also have to be willing. Right. I want to go into this because the catalyst, I believe for success, for change, for transformation, for growth, always begins with one's willingness to say, I'm tired of myself. I'm sick of my own sh*t. I'm not good enough who I am as, who I am. I want to be different. I want to grow, I want to change, I wanna transform. You have this concept in your head because here you are, you're now going through being on probation and having a felony, you know, problems with the military, can't become a cop, all these things are happening. But why did you make the decision here? I need to say a little bit more context cuz I really want to narrow into this. Growing up like you, the only thing I witnessed was violence, suffering, pain, hurt, abuse, buy here, pay here places, repos working at f*cking Taco Bell getting fired, bill collectors calling, getting kicked out, being evicted, living with 30 different fam like you just and I'm witnessing this and so many people who are listening right now, they have been through that as well. But when you are faced with becoming who you are, everything must become different, but you're programmed to be the version of the person that you were. How did you step through that?

Steve: To give you even more context on that, he introduced me to network marketing and network marketing they said it's a compensation plan with a personal development program with a compensation plan attached to it. So changing myself for the sake of changing myself was never the goal. I wanted to get rich because I didn't want to do manual labor. I'm telling you, bro, that was the motivation, the reasons, the reason. Right. So, I'm in this conference in Las Vegas for this company, this network marketing company and this guy gets on stage and he tells these rags to rich's story. And I'm like, that's possible, like that was the light bulb moment for me. I'm like, that's possible. And they said, the size of your business will be determined by the size of the man or woman you become. And then he starts introducing me to Jim Rome and Jim Rome's like, work harder on yourself than you do your job. Spend more time working on you than you do whatever it is that you're doing. So, I was just naive enough to believe what they were saying. They said, in order to get to this mountaintop, to multiple six figures a year, seven figures a year, it's about who you become as a person. I was just dumb enough to believe that. So, I became magnificently obsessed with personal development. I read and I really couldn't read. I mean, even up until last year, my wife had to sit down and really teach me how to read. So, yeah, I'm a 38-year-old man who just learned how to really read last year.

So, people say, well, Steve, how'd you go through so many books, audio books? I have thousands of audio books that I would just devour through, and I've literally spent, I've probably invested anywhere between a half a million to a million dollars in myself over the last 20 years. Every dime I have ever made, I put back into myself or into my business because again, reading personal development, what was it? The Benjamin Franklin. You pour your money into your mind and your mind will pour your purse into your mind and your mind will pour into your purse, all these little sayings that they had, I was just dumb enough to believe them. So I just kept going and kept going and kept going. And I would get so far until I got introduced to really deep work.

Michael: It makes me think of the law of the lid from John Maxwell. And it's like, you can only go so far on your own. You can only go so far with specific mentors. You can only go so far with specific information and education. You have to be willing to go to the next level. And for me, the same dude, it's so wild like I have invested more money, more time, more energy into personal development, into self-education, into growth than anything else to be honest with you, most days I'm still like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Right? And so, what came to mind as you were saying that is it's brainwashing, right? You're effectively being indoctrinated into a shift, into possibility. There's something that people don't talk about enough though, about conferences and events. I believe that when you are in those rooms, you are being exposed to possibility. People who hesitate, they're like, I don't wanna spend $97, I'm like, that'll be the worst decision you've ever made in your life. Right. You don't wanna spend a thousand. Okay, I get that, that's a scary amount. But what if I told you could turn that into a hundred thousand. You don't wanna spend 10,000. Well now you're just crazy, why would you not want to spend 10,000? If somebody sat across from me, Steve, when I was 14 and they said that one day you're going to be sitting across from a guy like you, but the only way that I'll ever be sitting across from that guy like you is I'm gonna have to invest in myself I'd been like, go f*ck yourself.

Steve: Did we just have to invest a million dollars in ourselves to meet each other basically?

Michael: Basically, but it's so true because like if you're unwilling, nothing changes, right? And like, thank God you have a Hank. But there's a lot of people who don't. Right. And I fear that for a lot of people hearing this go, well, I don't have a Hank.

Steve: 100000% disagree with you on that. Because Think Unbroken is their Hank. You are millions of other people's Hank,

Michael: That's a good point. Yeah. I mean, I factor that, I guess in my mind I was thinking like the physical representation of the hank in the courtroom.

Steve: No, it wasn't Hank's physical presence, it was his constant, Hank never allowed me to hold a small thought about myself. That's why our relationship was really contentious. We didn't talk for 17 years because I was that little pissed off kid that this guy's trying to manipulate me, this, that, and the other. But it really was, he would never allow me to hold a small thought about myself and I didn't know how to take that.

Michael: What is it? Okay, so here's an interesting question. What is it like you, what is it like for you to love yourself?

Steve: To never hold a small thought about me.

Michael: What is that feeling though? And the reason I'm asking this question is because I think from an analytical perspective, we can say that. Right? But what does it feel like? Because I know I'm gonna put words in your mouth. I try to never do this, but like I'm basically talking to myself right now, so I have the feeling that you were probably an asshole to yourself for a long time. And so I'm trying to understand what it's like to not be that anymore.

Steve: The true honest word is grace. It's just grace. It's not feeling like I'm supposed to be anywhere, that every day is new and it's not just the same old sh*t every day, every day is new and every day is an opportunity for me to choose who I want to be. When I started to really understand do have because that's a concept in personal development, but most people don't probably recognize that that is the most important concept ever written ever, ever.

Michael: Let's break that down. What is it?

Steve: So, who you're being determines what you do and what you do determines what you have? Well, the way most people approach it is, if I have it then I'll be it, then I'll do it. Or if I have it, then I'll do it, then I'll be it. Or if I do it, then I'll have it, then I'll be it. Right. Or if I do it, then I'll be it then I'll have it. And it's always the effect, trying to change the cause but being is the cause. Right. So, for instance, if I were to say I am a runner, what do runners do? They run, if I am a boxer, what do boxers do? They box. Well, if I say I am a meat eater, I'm a carnivore, but I'm going on this vegetable diet, that creates cognitive dissonance with your self-image and your brain doesn't like to be in that confused cognitive dissonance state.

Michael: That's right. And a confused mind will always fail.

Steve: Absolutely. And so, before you know it, you're stuffing meat in your mouth again, and you have no idea why that's because you tried to do something outside of yourself image and your brain will always correct that. So we have to change how we see ourselves in order to change what we do permanently. There are six levels to change. First one's environmental, second one's emotional, third one's physiological, fourth one's behavioral those first four are all temporary.  And most environments we go into only talk about those first four because they get the quickest result and you feel great when you leave out of there, but if we don't change our belief system and our self-image, then we will always revert back to doing what we were doing. So, for me, not becoming the asshole was first choosing to be grace.

Michael: Beliefs are this really fascinating thing that I have probably consumed myself with for the vast majority of the last 13 years. And I frequently teach people, mindset is very simple. Mindset is not just this word that we throw around, but it's what you think becomes what you speak, what you speak, become your actions, your actions become your reality. The hard part about belief, and I don't think people understand this until they're like in it and they're walking on the path of belief and changing identity, is that your beliefs are structured within the foundation of what you come from. You feel abandoned. You feel that you don't matter. You feel hatred towards your mother, towards your grandmother, towards your father. You feel like you are not important. You feel like anger is a space of communication. You believe all of these things about you, and thus in reality, that's your life. Right? We can literally look at these dots connected on the timeline from the moment you're born to the moment you have this transformation and go, because of Steve's beliefs, this is who he is. Right. Now changing those beliefs, that's the thing that changes your life and that's the thing that people are f*cking terrified of because when you change your beliefs, you're effectively showing yourself possibility. But if you've only ever seen things in terms of possibility that are negative and harmful and hurtful and debt and despair and pain and suffering and hurt, well, what's more scary than grace? So as you're in this shift of belief, ‘cuz I want people. I want to go down this rabbit hole because I think it's the reason my life is different, it's the reason your life is different and I want you to talk about your journey into shifting your beliefs.

Steve: Yeah. Especially because I don't believe that you have to be angry to change your life. I'm just saying there's so much out there and this is one of the reasons why it was really important for me to want to do this podcast with you because it's effectively like me finally putting myself out there because I see so much of, you know, you gotta become successful. And those people and that person, I'm just like, why so much anger? Like, why does it have to be angry? I have the right to be by societal standards to be the most angriest son of alive and yet I'm the one of the most emotionally healthy, loving people you'll ever meet. Now here's why. Because I began to understand those first 14 years that you talked about, Ooh, this is about to be so good.

When a child is born those first few years, they have no idea they're even alive, they're completely unconscious. This is why we love babies because that is all possibility that is the physical representation of God right there, that is all possibility. And that baby has no self-image, they're blank. Well then one day that baby wakes up and it's, it's conscious consciousness kicks in and that's like waking up out of a coma with amnesia. You have no idea who you are, where you are, what's going on, you're familiar, but you have no idea what's going. It's kind of like you're just looking at yourself and going, what the F? Right? It's like waking up on a strange planet. Now, Dr. Miles Monroe says that every human being is asking themselves five questions for their entire life. Who am I? Where am I from? What can I do? Where am I going? Why am I here? And that's when those questions start. Well, if you got a question of who am I? And it's an unconscious question. Well, your environment is informing you of those answers. You're black, this is what this means about you. You're a male, this is what this means about you. You're from here. This is what this means about you. And then when we talk about relationships, the importance of relationships, what's only in relationship can we actually know who we are? So now depending on my mom and dad and the way they treat me, or the way I perceive they treat me, my teachers, all this, all of this is starting to inform me of who I am and by the time I hit about nine, ten years old, I write a thesis on myself. I make a conscious decision of this is who I am.

When my wife got her master's degree, she had to write a thesis. Pick a problem, pose a question, do a bunch of research, and then her thesis was the conclusion and all her research cited sources, every child does that. They write a thesis on themselves, and by the time they're 14, 85% of what they believe about themselves, about the world, what they deserve, what they can, what they can't do, they've already decided. And so most people, 48, 50 years old are really just 14-year-olds that have lived 40 more years. Does that make sense? So especially when I'm working with people, I only go back to those first 14 years because that's when the foundation of your life was set. If we can shift that now, the key to shifting that is the willingness, like you said, to be wrong. This is where most people get stuck, it is because we have these views of our childhood. The challenge is we're viewing it through the eyes of a child. So imagine walking into a courtroom and the judge is eight, the jury is eight, the prosecution is eight, the eyewitness is eight, and there's no defense attorney and no cross-examination, that's a runaway trial. Well, every child is making all of these assumptions about what things mean in their own head, judge, jury, an executioner. And so, a lot of times you'll find that if someone's willing to be wrong, not about what happened, but about the meaning that they created and sometimes about what happened because a lot of times, especially as children, we create these narratives in our head and have conversations with our parents that actually were never had, the whole conversation was had in our head. So, let me give you an example.

Remember I told you eight years old dad shows up, right? Okay. 20 years later, I go through some really deep work with SAI seminar and they pull up, it's like landmark sister company. They pull up this really deep rooted belief that I had around abandonment and traced it back to that time at eight years old. This is when my abandonment issues started. So, I go to my mom, she happened to be clean during that time, and I go to my mom. I said, ma, cuz this is when my whole work changed. I said, ma, I traced my abandonment issues back to when you gave me up, I never got the answer why? Why did you give me up now if you knew my mama, God rest her soul. She passed away three years ago. If you knew my mom. My mom was like, Madea, gun toting weed, smoking bible quoting like she will cuss you out, threaten to kill you and bless you all at the same time with a scripture like that was my mom, right? And my mom, I don't know if I can cuss on here, but my mom, she said, I said, mom, why did you give me up? She said, boy, what the f*ck you talking about? I said, you gave me up. Why? That's when my abandonment issues started. Why did you give me up? She said, boy, what the f*ck are you talking about. I never gave you up. Yes, you did. Remember when dad came, da da, da da? She's like, no, that's not what happened. I said, what? She said, that's not what happened. She said, I dropped you off like I normally did with all intention to come back and pick you up. But what was happening that I didn't know was happening was your grandma and my sister tracked your daddy down and helped him file for custody, showed up at the custody court hearing, testified on his behalf, all without me knowing cuz I didn't have an address for them to send a letter to. Your grandma got had to pick you up for some drug dealer I had owed money from or owed money to so that's when she was just like she had it. So, she picked your daddy up. She's like, plus my sister got mad cuz her kids got taken into foster care and you didn't and we was both smoking crap. She said, so behind my back they helped your daddy get a hundred percent custody. I dropped you off cuz your grandma asked me to and she called your daddy to come pick you up. I said, is that why she didn't do shit? He's like, she's like, yeah, it was her idea. I looked at my uncle I was like, yo, is this true? Because I went and asked him, he cuz he was living with my grandmother at the time. He said, yeah, that's what happened. I said, so wait a minute. You telling me you never gave me up? She said, no, boy. I said, so I have manipulated, abused myself and women out of hatred towards you out of a lie, I told myself, because I was too young to understand what the fuck was happening, that's when everything changed, that's when I really started to dive into what I call now, the unreliable witness.

Michael: One of the things that came to mind as you were saying all that, and one, what an incredibly powerful story to me I look at that and I go, they were actually just trying to save you, that's the thing that most people don't pick up in that moment. And then I think of something secondarily, a quote that I actually put in my first book Think Unbroken from Neil Strauss it says, most adults are walking around as wounded children. And when I read his book, it is his second book about his life is very bio biographical, it is called The Truth. If you've never read this book, I highly recommend it's actually one of my favorite books of all time. When I read that quote in that book, I was probably 28, 27, 28, and I remember thinking clearly in that moment, why do I hurt everyone? Why do I push everyone away? Why do I have these giant walls up? Why can I not connect mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, sexually, to another human being? Why do I always burn everything down? Why am I in debt? Why is my car getting repoed? Why am I overweight? Why this, why that? And it all came down to realizing something that for, at that point, 27 or 28 years, I had never actually acknowledged the fact that my mother cut my finger off when I was four years old. I never had it because it was such a shocking and painful moment and experience knowing that my mother's a drug addict and an alcoholic and a pill popper, and she's this crazy bipolar, narcissistic, suicidal manic depressive and like everything around me as cass all the time. And I read that quote and like normally I will say this. I believe that you need help and support to change your life in that moment for me, even though I was in therapy and doing some personal development stuff, that quote changed my life because it made me go, holy sh*t, I'm trapped in inside a four-year-old me. And so many people are right just trapped inside of who they are, they're trapped inside of this experience of something that now, and you know this Steve, which is really difficult to reconcile with. You don't have f*cking time machine. You cannot go back and change other people's behaviors, and yet those behaviors are manipulating. I love that you used that word. Your behaviors today, you are letting other people control your life and what's so desperate about that is that until you are in this space in which you're willing to acknowledge that, Mom, you f*cking, I thought you abandoned me. I did all these things. And then on the flip side, which is leading down the path of the question I'm about to ask you, you have to take responsibility because this was Steve's doing, right? This was Michael's doing. Tracy, Stacey, whoever you are, this is on you.

I believe this to be true. The lack of ownership is the number one reason outside of belief shifts that people's lives do not change. How were you able to take responsibility for your actions? I think you're gonna say grace, but I want to go a little bit deeper. How were you able to take responsibility for your actions while simultaneously creating a space of reconciliation for the things that were not on you?

Steve: One was understanding the power of meanings. Life events plus meanings equal quality of life. I really did get molested that wasn't on me. The meaning that I created and belief I created about myself as a result that is on me. So, when I say take responsibility, I'm not saying that I'm responsible for being abused, I'm not responsible for being dragged around the crack house, crack house, that's number one. I am responsible for the meanings that I gave those events and am responsible for the beliefs that I created about myself as a result. So that is what I could take responsibility for, and that's what I decided to take responsibility for, and that's what I decided to dive in. So, I decided to bring up all these childhood stories, and this is what I do with my clients. I make them pull up all these childhoods anger hurt issues and guilt and all this stuff. And they'll see that it's when they actually write it out and they get all that stuff out, they can see the little kid on the paper.

Now it's my job as a grown ass man to go through these stories and give this child a different perspective because I'll give you an example. We judge other people solely based on their actions. We judge ourselves based on our intentions for the exact same sh*t. That's how hypocritical we are as human beings. So the reason why I call the child the unreliable witness, it's not to say that what happened to you didn't happen, but the reasons that you have concocted in your head as to why it happened, that is the part where we have to put the child back on the stand and cross examine.

I had a client, she told me her mother didn't love her. She was 56 years old. I mean, swove her down. Her mother didn't love her, couldn't wait for the bitch to die. Like that's how she felt, that's what she said, right? And I said, how'd you know your mama didn't love you? And she said she was cold. She never told me she loved me. She never hugged me. She never any of this. I said, okay. Now one thing we don't do as grown people, ‘cuz we're children walking around in grown people's bodies, is we never take into account that our parent also was a child and a wounded child at that. So I like to make my clients do a history report on their parents' upbringing. Right. And so, I said, well, where'd your mama grow up? She said, Dominican Republic. I said, she said during the time, during the Haitian Dominican war, I knew nothing about it, but she said, this is when this is when it happened. And she said, my mother every day was, up until she was about 14, she was afraid of being raped or beheaded every day;, that was, she grew up in a war zone and then eventually moved to the United States. Had her a couple years later and I said, oh, really? I said, so you have children? She said, yes. I said, what's your job as a parent? She said, to protect my child. I said, yeah, but protect your child from what she said, the world. I said, no, you don't know the world. What are you protecting your child from? She says, I guess the hurts and pains that I've experienced. I said, exactly. You passed down trauma and call it protection. Well, guess what your mama did too? I said, if she grew up in a war zone and then has a daughter, what do you think her number one responsibility is to raise a gushy soft little girl who won't be able to take care of herself if something never happened to her. Absolutely not. She raised you to be cold as ice and tough as nails to make sure you could take care of yourself if something would've happened to her. I said, that is f*cking love. I said, so you were loving just not the way your spoiled little bitch ass wanted to be, but you were love the only way she knew how to love you. And especially look these new age people that coaches now and speakers and you know what pisses me off most about that? I just tell it like it is. I don't need to be liked by nobody. I tell it like it is. You judge your parents based on sh*t you just learned.

Michael: I cannot help but laugh at that because you're so right. And I need to say this cuz I think this is really important contextually in this conversation. I'm sitting in my therapist's office 32 at the time so going on six years ago, I mean, I'm deep in the work at this point, dude. I'm going to therapy fucking three times a week. I got a coach. I'm reading all the books. I'm consuming f*cking Tony Robbins. I'm hearing his voice in my dreams, you know, all the whole thing. I sent across from my therapist one day, this was a revolutionary moment for me. And I will forever be thankful to Daniel for what he gave me in this moment. And I look at him, I go, I'm so f*cking tired of coming here every Wednesday, sit in this same stupid chair, drinking the same bullshit tea out of the same bullshit cup. I don't even like your f*cking face. Like literally, these are the words coming out of my mouth. And he says to me, he goes, yeah, I understand. He goes, I get it. And then I go, I'm so tired of cleaning up other people's messes. I'm so tired of cleaning up the sh*t that my mom caused, my stepdad, my aunt, my uncle, my grandmother, and I'm just, I'm railing at this point. I'm so f*cking over all of this, right? And he goes, yeah, I understand and then in the most calm manner you could ever imagine a human being ever stating a sentence, ever. He goes and just imagine how their childhood was.

People ask me all the time, cuz you know, obviously I get interviewed on podcasts all the time I'm speaking on stages all the time. I do this literally like you as a profession and they always go, how are you able to forgive? And I go because when I look at their past, I go, how was their mother? And their mother and their mother. And then I look at what I'm creating, what my siblings are creating, what amazing humans like you are creating. And I go, what's the point of holding the f*cking grudge?

Steve: Here comes that G word. Grace.

Michael: And that's such a hard word to delineate and to extrapolate all of the power of it, both genetically and energetically because when you forgive yourself, when you give yourself grace, you're actually healing the timeline.

Steve: And until you give yourself grace, you will never give anybody else grace, because you don't even recognize the innocence in yourself. Therefore, there can't be any innocence in everyone, anyone else. See, when I learned about my dad's history, so my dad and I last year got together for the first time in 20 years. I have a whole video of me and him talking about the 20 years we spent the part, our healing journey, and I sat with my dad. I had already did my healing work, so he owed me no explanation. I just wanted to be with the man because I saw him for the wounded child, he was at 50 something years old. And when he told me his story about being put up for adoption, finding his birth mother, and then when he finally found her, her response was, nigga, I didn't want you to, and I don't want you now at 13 years old. And then him being raised from foster care to foster care being abused and everything else, and then less than 10 years later, having me. He didn't know how to love, not the way I wanted to be he didn't know how. So not being willing to give him that grace is what makes me an asshole because then now I'm just committed to being right. And anyone committed to being right will never heal.

Michael: Yep. And your ego is always looking for reasons to justify the misgivings of the world to justify the pain and the suffering moments of which you're putting yourself through and for all those other things. And I think ultimately this, this work is so much more profound than just simply saying it's okay or I forgive you, or letting go. ut the thing that comes through that it’s like a funnel, right? You take all of the chaos and you put it in the top and you drop it in, and then it comes out at the bottom in grace. But the top of that tunnel, the bottom of that tunnel is f*cking 20 years of work and maybe not a million dollars, but you know, a lot of investment in yourself time, effort, effort, energy, money. And the time is the one thing that we all got the same amount of. And it's like, show up, do the work, execute the game plan, get mentorship, get coaching, read the books, listen on the podcast, do all things and it will still be hard.

Steve: Yeah. You know, so, I'm writing two books right now dunno which one's gonna release first, but the first chapter and the one on healing, the first chapter is called F*ck Your Inner Child. And the reason being is because, the inner child is the problem. A lot of times when I get with people and they start and I hear, just get over it they're like, just get over it. Or it's so, you know, just move on. The reason why I call the child the unreliable witness is because people say, well, don't you need to validate the child's feelings? And I say no, because if you validate the feeling, you validate the thing that caused the feeling, which is the thought and the thought was wrong. So no, I'm not validating the child. The child made an emotional decision about what this situation means based on wrong thought. So no, I'm not gonna validate the child. I'm gonna correct the child because whatever happened to you and whatever meaning you gave it ‘cuz there's not a single, there's nobody's that unique to where their experience is, is unique. Neglect is neglect. Abuse is abuse. Right. The content may be different of how you got there, but the context is the same and that's happened for as long as human beings have been alive. But whatever meaning you took away from your situation, you have to be willing to sell the same sh*t to your child. You said you're not good enough because your dad didn't come to your basketball games. Okay. So I want you to imagine your child walking up to you as a grown adult. You're a grown adult and you've got this little six-year-old going, I'm unworthy and I'm unloved because dad doesn't show up to my basketball games. You have to be willing to go. Yeah. He don't like your ass, and I actually don't like your ass either. You're right. You are unworthy of love and you are undeserving because he doesn't come that's exactly why he doesn't come to your basketball games. If you are not willing to validate your child with that, then why do you get to hold it? So, the true answer is you haven't healed because nobody's ever done for you what you would do for your child. You wouldn't correct the meaning. You wouldn't let your child walk away with that because you wouldn't want them to grow up with that self-image cuz you know they're making an irrational decision in the moment based on emotions and you as a grown adult with more life experience is gonna correct it.

Michael: And yet we hold onto that for dear life.

Steve: Because it's beliefs are like children. We birthed them, so we'll die for 'em.

Michael: Pure gold. Steve, man, I would love to continue this. We're out of time today, but before I let you go and ask you my last question, please tell everyone where they can find you, learn more about you and what you do.

Steve: You can find me at coachstevebacon.com and everything about me is there my social media handles anything coming out. I have a new book that we'll be releasing soon or should it already released, have a new book of the timeline. I was like it's called Doubt to Destiny, Unleashing the Inner Champion, the Champion Within through the Power of Self-Image. And so I'm writing an entire book on self-image and why it's so important and the alpha and omega of everything. How it's formed, how you change it, everything.

Michael: Love it. And of course, guys, head to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com where we will have this and more in the show notes. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Steve: To realize that there's absolutely nothing wrong with you other than the thought that there's something wrong with you.

Michael: Poignant. Simple. Love it my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation. Thank you for listening. Please like, subscribe, comment, share, tell a friend, and remember, every time you share this, you're helping us in generational trauma, transform trauma into triumph, breakdowns to breakthroughs, and helping people just like you become the hero of their own story.

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My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.