Overcoming Trauma with Dr. Marie Cosgrove: A Journey of Healing and Positive Change

Michael: Hey, what's up Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with you with another episode with my guest at Dr. Marie Cosgrove, my friend. How are you today? What is happening in your world?

Dr. Marie: I'm doing great, thank you. And I'm so honored to be here with you.

Michael: Honors all mine. I'm very excited for this conversation. I know a bit about your background, one of our mutual friends, Ken Joslin, put us in contact as I researched you learned more about you in the back and forth, we've had. I just thought to myself, your story, your journey is so incredibly powerful, like I have to share you with the Unbroken Nation. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about you and your backstory and how you got to where you are today?

Dr. Marie: Well, my backstory actually started in adversity and actually started in trauma. I am a product of rape, my mother was in a car accident and the car accident left her permanently brain damaged. And during her recovery, she was raped, that ended up in pregnancy, which ended up in my birth. So, you know, even before I was born, I was conceived through a very traumatic and violent act. And that's why I'm here today is because my mom decided to gimme a chance at life, even though it was a traumatic situation and the doctors did not want to allow that to happen because they said it was a hundred percent guarantee that I would be born with some form of abnormality, mentally and physically because of the medication she was on for the treatment back then for traumatic brain injury, they didn't do anything other than electric shock treatment and pharmaceutical drugs, which caused schizophrenia. But her mother, my grandmother, decided to support her and decided that it didn't matter how I was born, they were going to take care of me and miraculously, I have all my limbs and, and I'm okay. And today I work in the field of helping patients to overcome trauma, through concussion, traumatic brain injury and things like that, not directly, but more indirectly. I own a manufacturing company, we manufacture a diagnostic devices and treatment devices to help clinicians that specialize in traumatic brain injury and balance disorders and things of that nature with central nervous system disorders to help patients get diagnosed and get proper treatment without pharmaceuticals. And the success rate is so huge, it's so successful that we're seeing patients that have had traumatic brain injury not have to use any type of pharmaceutical and regain complete function of their brain again, as they were amazing prior to the accident, which is amazing.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the thing that comes to mind is you think about adversity, a word that you use to start this off that I think is really important because, depending on your background, you know, you find that a lot of people will go through really traumatic things and find success and some won't. And I don't know that it's necessarily fair to say that you find people who have traumatic backgrounds to be more successful, but often times I find that to be true because there's just a certain amount of resiliency that is built within us is that we go, man, well, I've already faced things that are so incredibly bad, like how much worse could it get? Right? But I think also sometimes it cripples people, which of course makes sense, especially when you add in a lot of the different elements of life that can come to pass. And I'm really curious about this because I think that you have a very rare story, right? To be born through rape is probably one of the most traumatic ways someone could possibly be brought into the world. Now, that wasn't my experience, so I can't help but label it by that just from the first thought. Growing up, did you know about this? Did you have any inclination that this was the way you were brought into the world? And if so, like how did that impact you in childhood specifically?

 Dr. Marie: Well, it absolutely impacted me in a very profound way, but I didn't, you know, you were talking about adversity before, how sometimes it makes you more successful, it actually crippled me as a child, and I knew about it, but I didn't really understand the meaning of it until I got a little bit older and I was in school or people would come over to my grandmother's house and they didn't really have an understanding of scripture or understanding of empathy actually, because I remember people telling me, oh, you're a bastard child. I didn't even know what that meant, but basically telling me, because I'm a bastard child I would no longer be able to access the Kingdom of Heaven because I was a bastard child and I was cursed forever. Now, scripture nowhere says that, so at that time I thought, oh my gosh, you know, like I'm a curse, not even God would ever approve of me. And then I had some family members who shunned me because I had a mother that was schizophrenic and sometimes, she was okay, sometimes she wasn't, you never knew when she was gonna go off, so everybody was embarrassed by her and you know, family functions, she often wouldn't get invited. And that I felt that because it's my own mother, so I felt that shame kind of passed on to me as well, because here I have a mother who's mentally disabled, I have no dad, I'm a product of rape, I'm being told that I am a bastard child, which that is the term. However, the Bible does say that God loves the fatherless and the orphans and the widows, and so, it was a totally different portrayal of who God was. And in my mind, I just felt completely worthless. I didn't belong. I was a mistake. I shouldn't be here. And when I got to school, it was worse because it was a small community, and kids would come to me and they would say, my mom said, or I would go to them to try to play with 'em, they wouldn't let me in their little circle because they'd say things like, your mom's crazy, and my mom told me not to talk to you. I'm not allowed to talk to you. So, in the playground, when I'm in elementary school, I'm the little kid sitting on the corner just watching everybody have fun and feeling just lonely, worthless, and a person of absolutely no value.

Michael: I actually resonate to a lot of what you just said. For me, growing up with no father, abusive stepfather, a mother who had bipolar manic-depressive disorder who was suicidal, same thing even members of the family would be like, I distinctly remember, I won't name any names ‘cuz you know, and just being like, you're not allowed to even come to our house. And it's like, we're family like why can we not do that? And it's a lot of weight, it's a huge burden for children to carry because we only know what we're exposed to in childhood, we only know what people show us. And if we are led to believe that our experience is bathed in shame and guilt, then that's the way we care ourselves in the world. Many of us retreat, you know, you mentioned that at crippled you same. I mean, I was the silent kid, but I was also super violent. Right. And we all find our ways to kind of push that through. And it took me really until I was probably like 27, to recognize the impact of that, to create the framework, to have the shift to be able to move forward into life as you were navigating this in as a kid, I think for most of us it's just kind of at face value we say, oh, this is our reality not knowing that there's something different. When you were going through adolescents, teens, into your twenties, so on, how did you start to navigate that shame and that guilt ‘cuz so many people carry it when it's not even hours to be carried to begin with?

Dr. Marie: So for me, I started working really at a young age, as soon as I was able to legally work, I started working and I thrived in that environment. So, for me, and this was not right, but I'll share with you later why, but I felt that I got my value for my work, for my work ethic. And so, as I rose up the ranks, you know, by the time I'm 21, I'm a VP of marketing for a bank, for financial institution. And so, I was doing very, very well in the work environment because I thrived, I didn't want anybody to know about, it was a place where I could hide my past and no one would know, and I would take it to my grave. But it was after many failed relationships, I went through domestic violence and that was something that followed me in my personal life. And I did not understand at that time that it was my value. I would value myself, my self-worth based on my past. So, I attracted someone like that because I had no self-confidence. My first husband had no confidence in me and would beat me and tell me, nobody, you're lucky I married you; nobody would want you, you're a product of rape, you had no dad and I believed these lies. And somehow put my value or my worth based on my success in business. So, I had it all backwards and it took my second marriage when I got home and my kids kneeling on the ground, I came home early from a business trip, they did not expect me there. And second husband stepdad is on the couch with a belt buckle and the kids are crying and I said, what happened? He said, the kid said, he hit me, he hit us. And he said, no, I didn't hit them. I would never hit them. And I turned and I looked and I saw blood coming down the shorts of my little one. I just grabbed those kids and I ran, I never looked back and I said, no one will ever touch my kids again, no one will ever abuse them or lay a hand on them. And that moment I decided, I'm gonna find out what is wrong with me, why am I doing this? And I just delved into personal development at that time, I was very involved in the church, the church was not supportive, which is not biblical at all. But they kept telling me, I need to go back because he's the head of the house. So, I drove into my scriptures and I remember reading scripture which says, it's better than a man hang himself with a millstone than hurt any of these little ones and I said, why? You know, you're telling me that I need to obey this man that beats my kids. But it also says that a man is supposed to love his wife as God loves the church and he is, that's not a loving act and if he's not obeying God, I cannot obey him. And I basically told that to the church and I left that church and I left church all together and then I came back to God, not to that church. And I came to the realization that I had it, you know, all backwards that my value and my worth didn't come from money, it didn't come from how successful I was in business, it didn't come from my background, it didn't come from being a product of rape, it didn't come from what happened to me. My value was given to me by God and only God, and that's who I know I belong to and nothing else matters. And because I know that now, of course, I see that every single person is a valuable person, every single person on this earth has a purpose. Now, that doesn't mean everybody will recognize that purpose, that doesn't mean everybody will recognize their value, but it is my goal and my desire to share that with the world that you do have a purpose and to help find that purpose for you. And I strongly believe that and I believe it's through this resiliency that helps us to overcome because once you recognize that, all of us have challenges in life, and even when you come to recognize these truths, you will still have challenges, you will still have crazy people that try to come into your life and try to destroy you because we have free will. And so not everybody knows their value, not everybody knows their purpose, and so their purpose is to destroy because they don't know anything better, that's where I used to be. And when you have the keys to be able to unlock like resiliency, such as being adaptable, being able to move out of your comfort zone, being able to be empathetic, then you are able to pass right through that so it doesn't faze you anymore, you're like, okay, it's not big deal that, you know, whoever's trying to hurt me, you know, I will just get them out of my life and you learn to walk away from those situations. You learn to allow those people their space and get out of their space and get into, back into your space and you're able to push things through things much quicker, much faster. And you know, adversity just doesn't faze you anymore because you're onto bigger, better things.

Michael: Yeah. And I think one of the things we have to recognize as individuals is like, religion does not always serve the betterment of self. Right? Not, i.e., like relationship with God's, spirit, universe, but like this organized religion structure because to me it, I listen to what you said initially I go, that's nonsensical, how would you ever want to push a person to be in a place of danger because that's what we do. Right? The ultimate, like honestly, I think about church a lot because I grew up Mormon, I spent a lot of time in church and I always thought myself like, church is really a very fixed mindset, right? It's so by the book and you're like, wait a second guys, you can't see the forest for the trees here, why don't you take a step back and evaluate the fact that maybe how we've always done it isn't the way that we should do it? And I love that you took it upon yourself to make an incredibly difficult decision, the right decision, I dare say, to go and change your life, change your family's life, ultimately, probably step into ending a cycle before it even begins or goes further. And I think that's really beautiful and powerful and as you were speaking, I just couldn't help but think, you know, there's so many people who they haven't been able to do that, they're stuck in those circles, they're stuck in those relationships and that religious trauma and abuse. And I wrote something down here and I'm curious, how do you recognize purpose? Because I do think if you can recognize purpose, if you can understand values, it does give you the fuel to create change. And so, I'm wondering like, what does that look like for you? And as you stepped into that personal development journey for yourself, creating this shift in your life, how did you leverage that purpose?

Michael: So for me, how I recognize purpose is each and every one of us are individuals, unique. Now, I mean, we're all the same in the sense that we all have two arms, two legs, we all have a heartbeat, that's the one thing. I mean, cuz some of us, you know, have lost our limbs through accidents or born that way through, whatever reasons. But every single person has a heartbeat.

One of the things I recognize when I got FDA clearance for a device, I had been fired from a company and then I started another company and I got FDA clearance on the device that had a bunch of different biomarkers from being able to identify risk of stroke, diabetes, things of that nature. And one of the things that it tested was your heart rate and your heart beat has a unique signature, which is really interesting because nobody has the exact same heartbeat, I mean, we all have a heartbeat, but every single person on this earth, their heartbeat is unique, you have your own electrical signature. I mean, we have electricity running through our bodies, and doctors can identify if you've had a history of a stroke, if you've had certain tachycardia or certain things going on with your heart. So, I found it very interesting that we all have a heart, that our heartbeats are completely unique and we all know that, you know, our fingerprint is unique, our irises are unique even our voice box, nobody has the exact same one and we use it in technology. So even if you don't believe in a creator or that someone created you, even science has proven that there is no one like you now, growing in, growing out working for big financial institutions I remember being told by management that you're replaceable. I'm like, no, that's not true. You are not replaceable. So, for me, as recognizing number one is you are unique, that means something. If you are gone today, no one will ever replace you. Number two is we tend to live in a society and a culture where we're copycat. Someone has a very successful podcast, everybody tries to copy that method, you know, whatever it is, we're copycats. The most successful people are not copycats. If you look at the top, so I do a lot of speaking internationally and I share stages with people like John Maxwell, Brian Tracy, Les Brown, Nick Voyage, I just did an event with him last weekend, Dr. Rome. And one of the things that I learned is all of these guys are hugely worldly successful, they're worldly known speakers, but they're all completely different. And yet if you take one a speaker course, they teach you the exact same thing, it's like, no, you are not a copycat, you are unique. And once you embrace your uniqueness and you embrace your skillsets, instead of trying to copy, you know, somebody else's skillset. So I wanna be like this person ‘cuz this person is so amazing, it's great to admire someone and admire their skillsets, we should elevate each other, that is wonderful but don't forget about your own skillsets.

And I share this in my book, how important that is to identify what are you good at? And just because in somebody else's eye it, it's not a like, wow, that's amazing, it doesn't matter. You can take your skillset. And if you can use that to change the world to help somebody else, how is this gonna benefit the next person? You can change the world, and it may be different for you than it is for somebody else.

My daughter, for example, she has a degree in nursing and she has a beauty spa, a lot of people in the family or a lot of family members, they look down upon that like, woo, why did you let her do that? Like nursing is so much better now. She has a beauty spot, they look down on that, they don't realize she makes five times more through her business, as a business owner than she would working as a nurse, and she enjoys it, that's her passion. Her passion is, she loves beauty. She loves making women feel beautiful. So, I told her, you follow your passion, where is your gifting? Where are your gift sets? And you use those, she's also an artist, so she sells her artwork and things like that. Cheesecake Factory for example, that started with a woman who loved cheesecakes baking in her basement and now it's a huge, I think it's a corporation, but there's cheesecake factories everywhere, and that's my favorite place to go. So, it can be something as simple as making a great pecan pie, it can something, you know, you're an inventor, but you're afraid of launching your product because it's never been done before. And we tend to follow patterns, oh, this has been done before. It's gonna be successful, no, it's not, that's why there's inventions and it's those people that recognize their skillsets, that recognize their value, that are they have the courage to go out and take that risk and do that invention and patent it, and then launch that product.

Michael: Yeah, I think courage plays a huge, huge role in this journey, and so many people just don't have it. I mean, honestly, like realistically, for many people, especially if you come from a traumatic background, courage is kind of stripped from you in youth because when you attempt to do things that are unknown, you often face massive ramifications, some of that is physical, mental, emotional abuse, and you kind of turn off this idea and instead of living in abundance and connected to source and goodness and God's, spirit, whatever that is, however you define it to self, you often pull yourself away in fear. And we learn to live and operate in fear, self-doubt, self-judgment, shame, guilt, saying, I can't, I won’t, nobody ever will do this, I can't do it, it's not possible. And like to me, that is the most dangerous space to live because there's no area in that space in which you can actually step forward into what's next. But you said something a little bit ago that I wanna circle back to because it hit me and it struck me really hard. And I think a lot of times when people make that massive change, they do ask themselves the same question that you asked and you asked yourself, what is wrong with me? And I think about that a lot because I rewind my life, be looking at it in the chaos of my mid-twenties, and I'd be like, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, why do you keep doing this? What is happening? What is going on? For me, that was a really powerful experience, just getting massively honest with myself because that became really the rocket fuel, the catalyst to be where I am today, it's self-reflection, it's introspection. And I'm curious, what did that do for you and how can people leverage that question in a positive way in their life?

Dr. Marie: Well, I think for many of us, we may be afraid to admit we've done something wrong, so that's when we go into victimhood. Oh, I always be, oh, this happened to me. And you're always in that victim mode, so when you recognize and you start taking responsibility, that's when the change happens. And that's what happened to me when I took that responsibility and I recognized, no, I had a choice in this. I didn't have the self-confidence to not get into this relationship, to walk away when I should have walked away as soon as I saw something bad happen, and I didn't do that, and I had to own up to that. So, I think the number one thing to be able to recognize that and to be able to shift into. Just go into a different direction, into a positive direction and into success is to recognize where you are right now, take personal responsibility because yes, things are gonna happen to you, but it is our responsibility to decide how will we will respond. Are we going to be the victim and stay in it and continue to tell all your friends, oh, can you believe this happened to me? Can you believe this happened to me? Now, there's a difference between sharing with someone, Hey, I went through this. You talk it out, and then you move on. But to stay there just leaves you in that victim mentality, you have to turn around and say, well, what did I do wrong? Oh, I didn't look up for this, or I didn't do that, or, I could have done this, so this is something I can do in the future. I have to look up for these signs, for these red flags. You know, what are these red flags that keep showing up so that I can recognize them and avoid them.

Michael: Is there a way to have personal responsibility without shame? Because I feel like a lot of people will hear this and they will immediately retreat back into that space when it comes to, they'll go, oh, I knew it. I always do this. I'm not good enough. I'm such a loser. Of course, this is always the thing that happens to me because yeah, I agree with you, it is about personal responsibility, but how do you navigate that without carrying shame through it, but instead looking at it as something positive because you've learned?

Dr. Marie: So for me, if you cut me off, that's fine, but for me it was faith. Now, people that may be listening that are not people of faith, I will tell you a hundred percent of the people listening to this or a person of faith, and you're probably saying, no, I'm not. No I'm not. Yes, you are. Because if you're living in fear, that's your faith. You believe that these bad things are gonna happen to you. You believe that your past is impacting you today. You believe you are, that is faith because faith is belief. So, 100% of you have faith that where are you taking that faith? Are you using it for fear? Are you using it to believe that you have value you have worth? And for me, it was my faith in Jesus Christ because I remember I was something horrific happened to me in high school. I was raped by a family member; this family member was married to an aunt of mine and it devastated me. I could not function in school at all. I cried all the time, and it had been a couple of months, and I felt so much shame from that, I didn't realize why I was crying, that it was tied to that. I didn't know how to handle my emotions and I was with a counselor in the school and she said, did you know that Jesus Christ felt whatever happened to you because she couldn't get it out of me. I mean, I feel so bad for her. She had me in there for what seemed like hours before she got it out of me. And she says he felt the sins of what has happened to you and the sins of the entire world and did you know that you have value and you have purpose? And then she shared with me a scripture that God loves the fatherless, the orphans. And I was like, God does love me, and all I knew was that God didn't love me. Here's His God full of wrath, he's gonna destroy people like me because I'm a product of, because I'm a bastard child. He's gonna destroy people like me. He's gonna come back and just destroy me completely and destroy anyone who's ever done anything evil and I'm part of that group of people. And when I heard that, that just changed my world, I was like, he does love me like even for me, he died, you mean I do have a father? I don't have an earthly father, but I have a father who created me and who does love me, it just changed the world for me and that I can't say it was instantaneous my world shifted because after that I never saw her again. But it planted the seed, that's when I started to do really well in work, I was 16 years old. I got a job and was doing very, very well. But my personal relationships I still wasn't there yet, it's been a process that I still work through every single day, but that was the big shift for me is that faith in knowing and understanding that I did have value, I did have a purpose. There was a reason for me to be here on this earth even though I didn't understand it before and I didn't see it before. And so, for me it was, you know, faith that helped me understand and realize that I did have purpose.

Michael: Yeah, I resonate with that in a different context, looking at faith as hope, right? One of the things that I really leverage is just this idea that it's possible, like whatever that thing might be, and that could be literally anything that could be about having a great relationship, having great health, having financial freedom, about having a great podcast, about whatever that thing is on planet Earth I just go. All right. I can leverage hope not, and I hope that that happens, but hope as an i.e., I believe this can happen. And that creates a level ‘cause I agree with you I think faith is belief, whatever you believe will come true, it will come to pass the things that we speak, they become our reality, the things we believe, they become our reality and you have to be willing to navigate through that fear. And I loved what you said, that if you're living in fear, that is your faith. Like I hope people hear that because it's so much of this crazy mind game that you have to play on yourself because you do have to convince yourself and sometimes you have to hold on to other people and your community and your religion or your beliefs, whatever, to bring you and pull you forward into the world because if you're not doing that, the one of the worst thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna end up dying with regret because you're going to have a life and lived, because you're not going to have shown up, because you're not gonna be living in your values and in your purpose. And I think that one of the things you have to do when navigating fear, and I don't know if you agree with this or not, is I think you have to embrace it. Like, I think you have to sit and be like, yeah, I'm scared right now like, this is freaking me the fuck out, like, what am I supposed to do? And so, I'm curious, like now knowing your career, what you've been able to build, being in the position you are, how have you been able to face fear in your life, your relationships, your family, in your career?

Dr. Marie: Well, I so resonate with what you said, and that is through hope, belief, faith, and you know, this is another lesson I learned from my grandmother, but I didn't recognize it early on in life, I didn't recognize it till way later was her faith because the doctors had told my grandmother that there was absolutely no chance my mom would make it and she was in a coma for many, many months and she had to fight for them to even do surgery to stop bleeding in the brain that she had from her car accident. And then they said, we're gonna pull the plug and my mom said, my grandmother said no. Don't pull the plug because she had this hope, she had this belief, she had this faith that it was possible that she would survive, and she did. The very next day, my mom opened her eyes and she had to learn how to walk, talk, and do everything all over again. And as I was writing my book, I did some research and I pulled up the newspaper article where it talked about it. In that article, it talked about how there were, because the accident happened in Mexico, they were ready to arrest my grandfather for involuntary manslaughter. So, the police were there, the priest was there to give the last right so they were just gonna, unplug my mother. So, I learned this faith and hope. So when I was fired from my company because I did too well in sales and they didn't understand my passion of helping people like my mother if I can help one person not have to go through what my mother went through, for me, that was what drove me, my passion. But when I got fired from that job, I had to turn to that faith and that hope. Now, I'll be honest with you, it didn't ha immediately after that, I was devastated and I was in that fear, I was in that fear you talked about. I'm scared right now. I was terrified. Here I am a single mom with four kids, dad lost parental right. I have no family to turn to. So, I went to my good, good friend of mine that was a client and became a friend and is like a father figure and his wife's like she's like a mother to me. And I went to him and I said, Dr. Martin, I just lost my job, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. And I was crying and he's like, this is the best day of your life and I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, well, just start your own company. You pretty much already do that. I'm like, no, I don't know how to start a company. And at that time, I was commissioned only, so I was doing very well on commission. So, I was like a solo entrepreneur but I was fired, I was told I can't come back, I can't work for them. I can't sell for them so I was devastating. So, I started another company, that's the product I said I got FDA clearance for I got together with some of my friends that I had built relationships with in engineering and manufacturing and clinicians to do clinical validations. And then I scaled that business to the point where I was able to go back and buy the company that had fired me. And so, I did that through, one is, FEAR. Yes, I had that fear, I faced it. But at that time, Dr. Martin helped me to recognize and get back to that faith and that hope, and he believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and then through collaborative relationships, which I think are huge, is collaborating with the right people who do believe in you and do support you because I had a lot of people who didn't believe in me and they're like, you're crazy, you have no experience in manufacturing, what are you talking about? Just go do sales. That's what you're good at. And those same people became my sales representatives and distributors, and they made millions of dollars off of it, but I had to shut off those negative voices, listen to the voices of the people that were supporting me, and built those collaborative relationships, and that's what helped me get to where I am today, that's what helped me navigate past all my adversity, is going back to hope and faith, facing that fear and sometimes you need to do that with someone else, sometimes you may not recognize it, but you may have a hero in your life right now that you don't even recognize. And then you just think about who has been there for you? Who has been there for you when you've gone through tough times? Call them. Tell them thank you. And that is so powerful because I feel that, you know, sometimes I think God has blessed us with friends to apologize for your family when you have a family that's not been there to support you ‘cuz I've had some family members that simply don't talk to me anymore because I've decided to come out and share what's happened to me. But then I have family members that do support me and they want to see me continue to share a message of hope, a message of faith. So, embrace the positive voices, the people that are there to support you. And sometimes it's not family, sometimes it's friends, and sometimes it is family. So learning to be able to recognize those people ‘cuz we tend to at least, I used to gravitate to the negative voices. I would listen to the negative voices of people that would tell me, this can't be done. Oh, they know better than I do, they're successful and I would listen to them. I would not listen to the people would say, yeah, you can do this.

Michael: Yeah, and if you let other people's voices be louder than yours, then you're gonna be drowned out, you're not gonna hear yourself, you're not gonna be able to do anything. You know, it's funny, I remember when I was 25, I was working for a Fortune 10 company, which is almost impossible in consideration that I don't have a high school diploma or college education. And I sat with a group of my friends one night and I told them I was quitting and I was going to go take this side hustle I'd been working on, and I was gonna go build it into a company. And all of them were like, dude, you're absolutely crazy, you're never gonna be able to be this successful again in your life, it's luck that you're even here. And so, if I were you, I wouldn't quit what you need to do is go back into that job tomorrow and do this for the rest of your life. And I remember thinking to myself, well, you guys are all wrong. Watch me. And obviously there was, you know this as an entrepreneur, there was massive struggle in the beginning like I was borrowing money to pay my rent, like I was barely surviving, I was definitely on that ramen noodle life. And a couple years later I made more money in a month than I almost did in a whole year working at that company and it's not about the money, and I wanna be very clear about that, it's about the passion, it's about the drive, it's about the willingness to serve your purpose.

Now rewinding, looking at that moment, you know, we all have a choice to make. We all have a decision to make in those moments where we can sit there and we can allow these people who quote unquote, have our best interest in mind more often than not dictate our future. But what you find when you really like dive into the people who have your best interest in mind is that they're terrified. Those are the people not living their own dreams. Those are the people not showing up in their own lives. And you have to be willing to face the ridicule, the family members who are going to leave you and step closer and deeper into knowing that you're living in connectedness with yourself. And I think that's really important, I hope folks will take that away because if you're willing to do that and yes, struggle quite a bit, especially in the beginning on a long enough timeline, you can have the life that you want to have. I'm really curious, and I know people ask you this all the time, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, what was it like for you when you went back to buy the company that you got fired from?

Dr. Marie: Well, I didn't think about it and I didn't think that's what I was doing, they had called me and they said, are you interested in investing in the company. So, I had never actually been to the headquarters so I flew up and I did evaluation with my accountant and he shows me the numbers and I'm like, wow, that's amazing. And he says, no, no, you don't understand. You did like 87% of the sales during this year. And I was like, wow, I don't wanna invest in the company. I wanna buy the company. So, six months after negotiations, I bought the company and it hit me when Dr. Scarpino, he's my chief technology officer, he's signing the paperwork and he says, you'll never be disrespected again. And I said, well, what do you mean? And I'm like, what does that mean? And he says, well, you just bought the company that fired you. I was like, oh. And I just laughed at it and I was like, no big deal. You know? And people asked me also, did you fire the people that were responsible for firing you? I'm like, no, because they were good at what I found out is like a lot of companies compartmentalize and they're not able to collaborate with each other. So, I had the top scientists, the top doctors, the top engineers in the world, why would I let them go? What I started to do was I started to build collaborative relationships so everybody knew what every everybody was doing, and I remember I was one of these salespeople that was probably the most annoying salesperson to the engineers, they hated me because I was like, why can't you change this? Why can't you do this? Because I'm looking at the best interest customers, but they're looking at regulatory requirements, so they like I didn't understand and they were never able to explain that to me, which I learned after I bought the company that was like over 10 years ago in 2010. And they said, Marie, you don't understand that we make one change that cost us over $35,000 worth of paperwork and it's like over six months and you know, all the regulatory stuff, which I didn't know before. So, then I understood like, oh, that's why they would always brush me off and treat me like I was stupid and I took it as an insult, not understanding. So, I believe like if you have the same vision and you're in alignment with your goals, you can collaborate. Now it's a different story if you know they're just jerks and they don't care about helping anybody and you're not in alignment with your values and your mission statement, that's different. So, I didn't fire them and I like you didn't have a college degree at the time, you know, we have a lot of similarities, although I never worked for a Fortune 10 company, I worked for a Fortune 100 company and that's when I left that company without any plan B, I had nothing. I lost everything. And then that's when I got into healthcare in sales. So, and it was kind of like starting all over and I made more money doing that in one month than I did like in a year, doing what I was doing before at that Fortune 100 company. and I was, you know, making a very, very, what you would consider a very good salary at the time I was like $150,000 a year, which is considered very, very good with all the benefits and everything. But I wasn't happy, it wasn't something I enjoyed but it wasn't something that I left because I thought of, I left because I had to, because of that domestic violence situation that I had mentioned.

Michael: Yeah. And ultimately fulfillment is everything. Right. It doesn't matter how much money you make it, you know, circling back to what you said earlier, you know. At 20 years old, I was working for this great company, miserable, did it for five and a half years, almost six years. And I was like, Nope, can't do this, not my life. And ultimately, the biggest thing that I hope that anyone can ever recognize is that if you bet on yourself, you will never, ever lose. My friend, this has been an amazing conversation, before I ask you my last question, please tell everyone where they can find you?

Dr. Marie: I'm at Resilient Expert on social media, Instagram, Facebook on LinkedIn at Marie Cosgrove and mariecosgrove.com

Michael: Brilliant. And of course, we'll put the links in the show notes for the audience. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Dr. Marie: For me to be unbroken means that you do not allow outside circumstances to affect you and leave you in this broken state. And maybe you were broken in the past, but now that you know your purpose, you know your value, you're no longer broken, you're unbroken, and you never have to go back to that place.                                                                             

Michael: Brilliantly said. Love it my friend. Thank you so much for being here. Unbroken Nation. Thank you for listening.

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