Powerful Stories of Personal Transformation and Success

Turning Pain into Purpose: A Powerful Story of Overcoming Loss and Creating Massive Change with Jeff Wickersham

Michael: One of the things I want to dive into that, you've mentioned a couple of times is the book end of your evening and why that last 30 minutes is so important. People often talk about the morning routine at depth obviously as we are but now you're diving into different territory. Let's talk about in depth that evening routine and why that additionally, so important to success in your day.

Jeff: I feel like it's the missing link that so many people overlook. There are so many people out there that struggle with quality sleep, getting to bed, actually falling to sleep they'll go to sleep at let's say, 10:00, they toss and turn, they're on their phone, they're doing things that don't set them up for a quality night sleep, and then they wonder why when they wake up, they're exhausted stressed and felt like they haven't slept at all.

So sleepy is so incredibly powerful, right? It heals our body heals our minds. So preparing yourself for a good night sleep is, hey, I am going to get a good night's sleep, I am preparing for it. For example, for me, I put on blue light blockers, or go take out my contacts and my glasses actually have blue light blockers in him. So I'm not getting any of that light from outside sources, it starts the production of melatonin, it starts that shutdown process typically I'm reading before bed, so I'm not looking at a screen, I'm not being overly stimulated and it allows me to prepare for a good night's sleep. So what happens? I fall asleep, very, very quickly, much to my wife's dismay when we'll be having a conversation sometimes and I'll be out in, like six seconds she's like, how did you fall asleep when I was actually talking to you?

You know, preparing for a good night sleep as well as feeding your mind with something positive, something amazing you did, right?

So many times we think about crap, what the hell did I not do or I didn't get this done, we beat ourselves up, right? We're the only species on the planet that continues to beat ourselves over and over for the things we didn't do, but celebrating a success marinating on that, thinking about it and then visualizing your success in the next day, the mine actually works through it as you're sleeping. So imagine how powerful you and your day thinking about something amazing you did and then what's the amazing thing you're going to tackle tomorrow, your mind is going to be set up for that success, and it's going to be open what you're going to accomplish.

Michael: Yeah, I love that. And I spend my evening as I'm like, falling asleep, like, laying in bed, focused on things that feel so unbelievably unattainable that when I wake up in the morning, like I'm even dreaming about it because it feels so impossible, right? Because I've tried to preface, we understand that the brain can't really dictate reality from fiction and from dreams, and I've always thought about this like if I dream about doing this really crazy thing and I can convince my brain that it's possible, then maybe it is possible. And I'll tell you this, Jeff, I've done things that are almost impossible because I went to bed dreaming about them and the stuff that I'm working on a future is even greater than that, so I'm super excited to see what happens with those things. Let me ask you this, though, where people are in this position of looking at their life, from this scope of lack of not abundance, of not gratitude, of not having the things that they want, it's really easy like – I've been there, I think you've been there, we can all have been that, right? And I don't ever want to stand on high and look at people and go, well, just do this because I don't think that's how life works. But what I do think is that there's always space to find some sort of gratitude in your day, find some sort of accomplishment in your day but for the people who will say, I didn't accomplish anything I just did what I had to do and it's they're very nonchalant about their own abilities. What tool if any can you give them to try to tap into something incredible that they've done in their day?

Jeff: So couple couple things, one is starting that process of being grateful for something, and if you can't find anything, asking someone close to you, because many times people can see things that you can't, right? So that might trigger that thought of, yes, I should be grateful for two wonderful sons, right? So if you can't get yourself started, ask somebody close to you and they'll probably be able to give you some ideas. The second piece is start that practice of writing it down, get it down, write it on paper either in the morning at night, write it down and then that will start to open your mind up to things that you're grateful for. And then the third piece I would recommend is getting out and going for a walk in nature, right? Getting out there so much power to being out in nature. I remember it was a couple months ago, going for a walk around the neighborhood and I was walking and I don't know what was going on in my world in that day, but I just saw cars in driveways and I thought, how grateful should all of us be in this neighborhood, that we have a place, we have a roof over our head, we have cars in our driveways. I mean, there are so many more people less fortunate so, why am I even thinking whatever I was thinking on that day?

So, you know, those would be the three strategies I'd give to start someone down that path to getting much more into a grateful mind set, and getting into that mindset it's just like building a habit, right? You need to practice it over and over again, it's that repeating of what you're doing and then it becomes second nature and then all of a sudden you see more things that you're grateful for.

The Power of Investing in Yourself with Jessica Brothers: Empowering Your Growth and Success

Michael: And I love that you mentioned that and you brought that to attention because I don't think there's anything wrong with being angry, you should be, it's a human emotion like, it's a part of this, you should be able to feel what it's like to be pissed off. But you know what, you can use that anger to build something or you can use it to burn stuff down.

Jessica: Yeah. For sure, I mean anger is a motion that and anyone can feel, right? But the power is what are you gonna turn that energy into? When you feel that anger is you going to let it consume you? And let it bring you down? And let it control you? Or you gonna say hey, you're my bitch right now, okay I'm gonna control you and I'm going to transfer, I'm gonna transfer you into momentum ability and to showing up into proving people that I'm not gonna fail into using my power, not giving my power whatever, it may be. It's how you respond to the emotion and what because energy, you know, can't be cray nor destroyed, it just gets transferred, it gets not creating transferring from think the thing you could. We have the power and the energy we feel that's what emotion is; is energy in motion, we can convert it that's where that was looking before into anything we want because that's the power that I don't think a lot of people understand. Is when we feel in emotion, we have the power to convert it into anything we want. And you and I know that we can use it for good for power, so, I think it's a beautiful learning lesson.

Michael: Yeah. And you can definitely use that for evil which I have. The majority of my twenty it was evil Michael in my first book I wrote, I took the evil Michael over to the backyard and I shot him that was a joke I took from the movie, twister, if do you ever remember that film just aging myself briefly. But there was some truth to that because I was like fuck man, you're destroying your life like, my life could not have been worse, I'm making hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year but everything's a disaster, more obese, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep like, this thing where I'm like this anger is actually consuming me but I understand about this idea what it means to be yourself and how you can craft yourself, how you can create yourself and I sit and look at you on the conversation we have like, this is a human that has crafted themselves, you have made you who you are. What does that process been like, for you? Because I think a lot of people are like, I have this idea about who I wanna be but to bring it to fruition feels almost most impossible.

Jessica: Yeah. And it does because if you feel like you're so far from what you wanna be that, that does feel impossible, it feels like a long journey. To me, it feels like, I'm ever growing, it feels like power, it feels like happiness in every moment like, you can achieve anything you want by first believing it's possible and then I wanna say fake it until you make it because there's I can say both ways on that but you gotta have the feeling first, you gotta have the feeling of what kind of person you wanna be or the life you want, you have to leave it now in order for it to fill in. You can have your goal, you can have your plan and yeah, you want marks on how to get there, you do want some sort of plan, some sort of GPS because that's really what you want some sort of direction. And that is why I'm meditate every single morning, I meditate on my vision who I wanna be today, who I wanna be tomorrow, who I wanna be by the end of the year and that puts me in the feeling now and that feeling is power, it's happiness. And I've trained myself that the power really is in this moment right now, if I can be happy right now and have that feeling that I've made everything that I've ever wanted come true that's just going to a lot is it; it just fills in like, that's all the research I've been doing in the past like, five-six months which is really, really beautiful. But yeah, it's about the feeling, it's about the power, you gotta own that and have it right now and not let go of that because that's when you feel consumed by other things like, what you were just saying that you're consuming you; have the happiness consume you instead.

Believing in Yourself: Overcoming Obstacles and Finding Success with Best-Selling Author Jon Gordon 

Michael: I have to ask this question because I'd be remiss not to, what does it mean to you to like commit first because I hear so much of that in your journey and in your experience and I think people fail to really truly understand what happens when they make a decision and commit to their life, what does that mean to you?

Jon: That's so good, that you just said commit first like leaders go first they commit, they lead the way, if we want commitment from others, we have to demonstrate commitment ourselves. So, to me it's about committing to the life that you want, it's the grit to say this is my vision, this is my purpose, this is where I'm going and why I'm going there. When you know your why, you will know the way and you won't let obstacles get in the way and we don't get burned out because of what we do we get burned out because we forget why we do it. And so, we have our vision, we have our purpose and that drives us to move us forward. We stay positive on the journey, we love of what we do there's a devotion to it, there's a love of devotion and I always say love drives grit because if you don't love it, you'll never be great at it. But when you love something, you're not gonna give up, you're not gonna quit, you gonna to keep on moving forward.

And for me, it was a commitment that said you know what, let's go for it, life is short, we have nothing to lose even with the restaurant second mortgage in our home gotta, I get my wife a lot of credit, she said, let's go for it, let's do it and you commit it's almost like what Les Brown he says you jump and you grow your wings on the way down, you've gotta commit. And I believe, God will move heaven and earth when you're on the right path to support you. And so, you do commit and it's in that commitment where you activate somehow you activate the forces some called the universe others called it God but you activate the forces in the power to start to move through your life because you're committing, you're sacrificing, you're serving, you're making a difference so to me it means that commitment that trust, that faith, you're not living in fear. Fear holds so many people back, it's the faith the key moving forward.

I can look back and say, everything I have in my life was because I took a step into it and said you know what, no fear courage, boldness, faith and yes, a commitment. I believe you need the courage to have commitment like there's courage that creates the commitment that allows you to be successful and so, I do have a lot of courage and some in some ways stupidity and almost like not even enough to be successful like, I put that money down the restaurant, it could've gone south, I could've have lost all this money. My partners did steal for me years later and then I left and said by me out. I first asked to see the books they said we're not showing them to you, I said well, if you don't show them to be send the demand letter from my attorney so you have to show them after that they said okay we're buying you out like again, I'm twenty eight, twenty nine years old don't know a whole lot about business but they agreed to buy me out they offered me a hundred thousand dollars, it was probably worth four hundred to five hundred thousand but I took the money, I said fine, I'm not gonna argue, I'm not gonna go to court and I’m not gonna waste my energy on that, I'm taking the money and I'm moving forward and I did.

I think so often we get caught up in the past, we allow that energy of the past and the fighting and the bitterness to hold us back, I said, no, I'm moving forward and that's why did take that hundred thousand, moved down you know we moved down to Florida that's what I used to open up the most plus second mortgage my home and twenty thousand dollars of credit cards, it’s about two hundred and twenty thousand total to open up that place. And next year you know, I turned that two twenty when I stole my restaurants, I holding for about a million dollars, you know had to pay some of my investors because we opened up several others but took that money and then said okay, I'm not gonna write and speak and now that I could see is the foundation for everything I've been doing and have done. So, it was all about commitment, jumping in with the restaurant, jumping in with the most, jump beginning as a writer and speaker and say, I don't know what the future holds but I know this is my mission, this is my call, I did say, I'm gonna go for this. I realize this is what I'm meant to do even if it takes me ten to fifteen years, I'll be forty, I'll be forty-five even if it takes me that long at least I'm doing what I love and I'm passionate about it and I love getting up every day doing this work because doing the other work where I was working for someone. I felt like my soul was dying every day, I felt like I was little of living, I was dying and I knew I was made for more, I knew I was made to serve others and make a difference and clearly this was the calling that I was been for because I wake up every day, excited about what I'm doing, thankfully like it to do it. And I don't really don't need to go get a lot of talks every year but I do, I give over fifty to sixty talks sometimes eighty talks every year, I did a hundred and thirty-seven last year between virtual and live, fifty-five in person and I still do it because this is my calling. People say, what are you do you know ten years from now, twenty years or now what's your five year plan, ten year plan to continue to do this work to serve others, to make a difference, to write maybe more children's books, to encourage more kids and because you have an impact to get to interview people like you who are teaching about trauma and overcoming trauma childhood trauma which is so important again, I'm learning things along the way I never heard of trauma until about a year ago, two years ago now, I've been hearing about it all the time. So, now this is something that's new for me but it's something I realize how important is and it's amazing you're doing this work. And so, again I'm always curious, what's next, where is God gonna lead me and I'm open see that's the thing. God doesn't pick the best, he picks the most willing and you gotta be willing, he doesn't beat the best, he pick you, he picked me like you know who are we? But he picked us to do this work and we're just willing and we're obedient. I always say pray and you beg, you pray and then when you get that word, when you get that calling, when you get the message obey and go. A lot of people get it, they get the impulse, they get the desire, they get the thought that says you should do this and they say, oh no, no, no I can't do that; oh no, no that won't work, I don't have what it takes to do that or I don't feel worthy, I don't feel worth, I don't feel of a value like who might to be doing that and so what happens is they retreat instead of stepping forward with faith and boldness and courage they retreat and so they God can't use them to do what he wants them to do to be who they're meant to be and so they never become who their meant to become. Our job is to say use me, I'm open commit and say let's go and believe that it's possible, believe that it's possible for God because God is a lot bigger than you and believe that it's possible for you because you are worthy and you're here to do great things.