The Journey to Self-Love and Personal Growth | with David Shands

Michael: What's up Unbroken Nation? Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Obviously, you're doing something a little different today. You might hear a little background noise, were recording live with my guy David Shands. What's up brother?

David: I'm good. I'm good.

Michael: Thanks for doing this, man. I've been looking forward to it.

David: Unbroken Nation. You got a nation of people that are unbroken?

Michael: We do, yeah.

David: Unbroken.

Michael: The journey is healing, man. Helping people overcome their stuckness in the places that they feel lost, hurt, like no one loves them, and build that bridge of self-love and helping people become the hero of their own story.

David: But broken at some point.

Michael: I think we're all broken at some point.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: So I'm gonna flip the script on you 'cause you're already in the interview.

David: I'm okay. Yeah. Sorry.

Michael: I'm gonna get you David if you don't know David…

David: Mi: It is an incredible podcast host interviewed some of the greatest minds in both business and personal development. And man, when we met, I don't know, what was it, six, eight months ago, maybe a little bit longer, you were very welcoming. You and I sat down, had a dinner, and I just remember thinking to myself, man, this guy has an incredible story, one that I think more people need to and should hear, even though maybe you don't look at it from that scope.

David: Yeah, no.

Mi: Because look here's what it is, man. Here's my thought. You went from a very what, on the outside looking in, people would look at it and go, yeah, he's got average life and now you have an extraordinary life. And that was the thing that made me feel like, man, I want to tell this guy's story. So why don't we start with this? Tell me something about you that I would need to know to understand how you got to where you are today?

David: My parents growing up, not my parents, I won't say it that way, but the tone of my house was siloed, meaning we didn't really talk about how we felt about stuff. So it's almost like you got these four people in a house that are all. In a bubble and we like whatever's in my bubble. I keep my bubble to myself. So I would see my, I could clearly see that my dad and mom was going through something. I could ever pinpoint it, or I'll come downstairs and my dad is like on the couch and it looks like he's waking up on the couch. Yes. But in my mind, I never really thought to ask, Hey Dad, why are you on the couch? It's just what he does. He just, you, he's like sleeping on the couch. Maybe he likes sleeping on the couch, maybe watching TV and fell asleep. But I should have asked more questions. But in our house, we don't do that. That's one thing I guess no one really knows about me.

Michael: But dude, that's fascinating because if you look at who you are today, all you do is ask questions.

David: I do, however, not, but I don't share necessarily how I feel and not because I don't want to share how I feel. I honestly don't think I have the tools to be vulnerable like that. I think a lot of those tools come in time. They come in self-awareness, they come in building self-love, right?

Michael: And I think that one of the really difficult elements of the journey, especially for men, as men sitting here and looking at this scope, we're told don't cry, don't be a baby, don't be a bitch. Show up, put some dirt on it, get out here, make it work. And then you realize like that works until it doesn't.

David: Yeah. For sure.

Michael: And then you're like, what is happening in my life? Growing up like that and looking at what seeds have that planted in your life today that has actually served you? 'cause I think there's actually some power in being able to like work things.

David: Hundred percent. My lifestyle, it serves me 100%, just not necessarily the people around me, meaning I don't have high highs and I don't have low lows, I don't get too down into the dumps, but I also don't get too excited and I don't get too excited because I know there's going to be a down season at some point. So I don't celebrate the victory because I know we gotta go through another season of wins and losses, I know it. But that serves me because I don't get too disappointed 'cause I don't put too much faith in anybody. In any one person, I think me and my wife were having a conversation. And she said something like, and I think we're like in one of those, are you married?

Michael: No.

David: Have you ever been married?

Michael: No.

David: It's an experience.

Michael: But a lot of people who are listening to this are or have been.

David: It's an experience and I love it, I love it. But I think we're just in one of the most, she's yo, it seems like if I left, you wouldn't even care. And I would care, but would it bother me to the point of depression or would it bother me to where I can't think about anything else? Or would it really affect me emotionally? Probably not. That protects me, but it doesn't serve other people because I can be somewhat cold emotionally to people.

Michael: Do you feel like I understand that like I actually do and I think one of the biggest elements of…

David: It's weird 'cause I'm very empathetic, you know what I mean?

Michael: Yeah. No, and you are, and you're a super amazing dude. And like I think about my own journey and the same thing that served me, and then one day I sat and I realized, I'm like, maybe I'm missing the full capacity of the emotional journey of life, maybe part of it is protective. And look, we protect ourselves as human beings. It's our first native tool. Do whatever it requires to be safe. Yeah. But then the thing that I would question myself about is am I really missing the full depths of love, of hurt, of grief, of happiness, of joy of sadness, right? Is there an element of depth that you don't get a touch because of that? That harboring of I'm gonna control, yeah, I'm gonna keep cool. But then it serves you really well, especially in business.

David: Yeah. Is it over, is it overrated? Like the fact I want to cry, I just don't, 'cause I don't. It has to be like someone to die that's close to me and some sort of emotion hits me for me to cry. I was interviewing B Simone and she said, yeah, sometimes I wake up and I cry and I'm like, dang, how you do that? One of my boys was on stage one day and he starts telling this story. It's like a, about where he came from and, like the fact that he's successful now and he's really got emotional. I see this tear drop and I'm sitting there dang, how you do that? I want to feel that sometime. I don't know how to though. So it, in terms of in a therapist or anybody I talk to, that's in that space, they say there's something wrong. You're harboring these feelings. And I'm like is it overrated? Because it seems like the people who aren't harboring their feelings, they, they get hurt a lot. So I wanna feel that. I'm cool with what's been going on in my life. So I don't know, it's an interesting conversation though.

Michael: There's an element to it that's stoic, right? Because you look at it and if you look at the great stoic philosophers, if you look at really even some of the people that you and I have either interviewed or been mentored by, they control their emotions. And controlling your emotions, I believe is the key to a success. Now what I will say is…

David: Success in what though?

Michael: That's the point, right? That's the thing, and that's the thing that I think about often because. The hardest thing, and I've mentioned this on the show many times, and even being interviewed, the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life, David, is learn how to cry.

David: And tell you how to do it.

Michael: And tap into it and to be able to step through it and in that emotional capacity, like not judge myself.

David: I wonder if there's a book step.

Michael: There might be, dude, actually I read a book.

David: I cry.

Michael: No, that's a great title for a book. I read a book called Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, like a decade ago when I was like in the depths of this journey and it did open up things for me, but also on the other side, man, I look at it and I go, do you have to do, you really have to. I felt I did, 'cause like it was exploding out of me. And I was like, if I don't do this, like I'm gonna have a freaking breakdown.

David: But you felt something trying to come out.

Michael: Yeah, for sure.

David: I feel that.

Michael: And look, and it's for some people, maybe they don't, maybe it's not a necessity to write.

David: But there's something wrong with it. It is your question. Is something wrong with that?

Michael: I don't think so. I don't know if there's a right or wrong.

David: Me neither. But there's a a not psychiatrist. What is it? The thing that everybody gets these days? What's, it's not a counselor, a popular. I have a therapist. You have a therapist?

Michael: Yes.

David: Every therapist say that means that there's something that you're suppressing and pushing down and eventually you're gonna explode. I'm like, ah, what if I just never explode?

Michael: Yeah. Let me ask you a question, 'cause I actually love that. I've never had this level of conversation here about that, and I want to dive into this a little deeper, so thank you. Let's say we're in agreement, like maybe it serves you, maybe it doesn't, who knows. Do you think that it hinders your life in any capacity? Yeah, like outta depth like you love your wife, you love your kid. Do you feel like, because you're like, I don't necessarily have that level of emotional ex really, I guess expression. Do you think it makes you stuck in any way?

David: First answer, no, but a couple years ago, my trainer, Zeus, he painted a picture for me with a few words. That I was like, dang, maybe this is a hindrance. What he said was he was asking about my daughter. My daughter's 13 years old, and he said, there are gonna be some places that your daughter goes emotionally that you are not gonna go with her. You're not gonna be able to reach that level with her. She's gonna be in a real moment, and no matter how hard you try, because you don't have the tools, you'll never be able to like really get down in the dirt with her and feel what she's feeling. I'll encourage her to not feel that way, or I'll try to comfort her somehow, but I'll still never be able to reach that emotional level that her mom's going to reach. And that was the first time I really thought, and I said, wow, there's going to come a day where emotionally I just can't, I can't get there. And I won't be able to reach her, and now I have a two year old daughter, and I have a nine month old son, and they may not be me. I wanna be able to reach them, I wanna be able to fix it, but I may not have the tools, so that would be the it. It hasn't hurt me just yet, but that would be, that's the only time I consider that answer to be a yes.

Michael: Yeah. And you know what's interesting about you? I would imagine that when that moment comes to pass, like you would find a way. Like you're maybe like dude to me, like you're a find a way kind of guy, like obviously we don't know each other extremely well, but I see the things that you've done, that you've built, that you've created. And know there's something that you're driven to, maybe it's not even necessarily the word success that I'll use, but there's something that you're driven to so that you can reach these goals.

David: Yeah. But maybe not though, you know what I mean? So I think the ability to find a way to figure out a problem. It is not the same as finding a way to reach a person. There's some people that you just won't reach for sure through, no matter how, like you're encouraging and all that kind of stuff. There are certain levels, me and my wife, there are certain things that we are never gonna agree on because I'm thinking logically and I can't, with my logical brain, figure out why you don't see the solution to the problem, them.

Michael: Yeah, I resonate.

David: But that's not her issue. That's me because I can't get to the level of understanding exactly what I understand what she's saying, and I can repeat back to her what she's saying, but guess what she says? You don't get it.

Michael: You know what's interesting about that is like you're taking ownership in that. Yeah. Which I think carries maybe even more weight than a lot of people who just brush over it because you I think the cornerstone, and I'm curious about this is my opinion. I think the cornerstone to everything in life is know thyself.

David: Yeah. I agree, I agree.

Michael: Why do you agree?

David: Because at least you know how to handle you and manage you in all situations, 'cause you know what you have and what you don't have. You know what you can do and what you don't, and once you accept it, it's the people who don't know themselves like you have some friends, more about them than they know about themselves because they can't come to terms with who they are. They're only living in their mind who they want to be. So to blame everybody else for all the issues that are created in their life, when really the issue was them and they wouldn't have as many issues if they knew that about themselves. So I think 100% there are people that are trying to go out and do things that aren't within their own wheelhouse. I don't, I'm not that organized. I've accepted it, I'm not even necessarily trying to work on it, I work on my strengths and I cover my weaknesses, so I'm unorganized. Someone says, Hey David, I wanna book you for a speaking gig, call Kay, Kay's organized. That's my assistant, she'll do it. I'm not trying to work on my ability to remember and schedule it. I'm not trying to work on that. I know me and I know where I thrive and where I don't.

Michael: How did you step into the path of knowing myself when I think about my own journey, it took some rock bottoms, it took some massive mistakes. It took destroying some businesses, destroying some relationships, messing up in a lot of ways, man. Where II look at my life 13 years ago, I don't recognize that person, 350 pounds, two packs a day, drinking all the time party dude, making million dollars and wasting it, and it like took disaster to know myself. How did you get to it?

David: I think I've always known me. I've never, I never really had that arrogance or pride to say, I am the best person in this room. I just never had the desire to be that. And I think when you don't have that, it's almost like a it could be borderline imposter syndrome or it could be borderline not knowing your worth kind of. So if I know I'm not the best person in this room, I'm not the smartest, I'm not the quickest, I'm not the most successful. It allows me to be transparent and I take great pride in never being the best in a field. Good and bad. Good and bad, because I have that. I know that there's some things I need to work on. So when someone tells me about myself, I'm not surprised. I know I'm not perfect, right? But I could probably reach some higher levels if I had a little more confidence in who I am, it's a line that we all dance. You know what I mean? So I think the fact that I've never really had that arrogance of I have to be number one, and me knowing that there's so many things I need to work on that helps me understand myself better maybe, or maybe it's just me under me creating a narrative of not knowing how awesome I really am. Who knows? Life is a journey and a class, bro. I'm still learning.

Michael: Yeah. Say, I'm constantly learning. And it's funny. Do you know who TD Jakes is?

David: Of course.

Michael: So I'm sitting there. I was speaking at an event he was at also, he gets on stage and he goes I never heard anyone say this before. He says, new levels, new devil, and I was just like, he's so right. Because even in my journey, David…

David: Oh man, biggie said that in nineties, more money, no problem.

Michael: That's you're, it's same but different, right? And I'm sitting looking at my life and it's weird. People go, he's the next Tony Robbins, or he's the this or he's that, I'm like, I don't want to be those people. But when I elevate, there's this mindset game that I have to play to rewire the conversation about the possibility. And I think that's the thing, like that's my superpower because I've been able to stand in front of the moment of the decision that is required to become me, where I'm like, I'm stepping into it. I don't know what's over here, man. This is terrifying. Yeah, this is crazy, speaking in front of 10,000 people writing a book, podcasting, hitting up David Shands, like that's scary, and it's do it anyway. Is there an element of confidence that you've built in your life through that do it anyway mentality, and I wanna create context around something really important and I don't wanna gloss over. It's an important part of your journey, you went from working at Olive Garden making 30 GS a year or whatever, to arguably being one of the best podcasters in the country right now. Not to mention an incredible entrepreneur, you have an awesome circle, you coach people constantly, you have your amazing weekly group, you're doing something now on social that I absolutely love, and you're helping and critiquing entrepreneurs and calling them out, and it's but that wasn't David.

David: Yeah, but let's not fool the audience into thinking that wasn't a 12 year process. So I'm working at. I work at Applebee's, then I work at Circuit City, then I work at Olive Garden, and then I get a job where I'm working simultaneously as a security guard at Olive Garden. Then I work at Cheesecake Factory, quit. I got fired from Olive Garden. Then I quit the security job, and then I work at Cheesecake Factory for six years. Last two and a half years, I work in Cheesecake Factory and I'm starting this t-shirt brand. Two and a half years later, I was able to quit my job and be full time. I make six figures, but as an entrepreneur, making six figures doesn't mean you get to make all the six. You don't get all of it, you know what I mean? So I'm still making 30, $40,000 a year, even though I'm grossing six figures, and it seems cool, but at least I'm making the same amount of money, but I'm improving my skillset. But then I open another kiosk and I'll open a store, and then I write a book, and then I lose the store, another kiosk, and now I have this book, and now because I have the book writing my story, I start teaching people all the stuff in the book, and I start speaking, then I started making YouTube videos. Then my man CJ put me on tour with ET because I'm this regular entrepreneur who has a good message and I start speaking, making videos, doing small meetups, then I do conferences, then I'm doing a bigger conference, and that conference I'm interviewing the people that were gonna speak at the conference just as a way to sell more tickets to the conference. But then the second year of the conference, we have Covid, but I still like the interview, so I keep interviewing, and then Covid happens and people are in the house and they're watching more podcasts at that time. There's not a whole lot of interviews of entrepreneurs or influencers. So I got lucky, I started interviewing people in a time when there wasn't a whole lot of interviews going on. So now fast forward, not even fast forward, I'm this guy who has this big podcast, seven Figure Career. Everybody loves me, but we can't act like it went from Olive Garden to that for sure. There was a step, like there hasn't been a quantum leap. That's why people are like, yo, how does it feel? It feels like it did yesterday, and the day before and the week before and the year before, because it was incremental growth, people think, oh, you went from Cheesecake Factory to podcast? No, I didn't, it was that when I left the Cheesecake Factory, I had nothing, I was broke. And then I start making all this money and I'm still broke. And then if you accelerate your income, you can make a whole bunch of money. And it's almost if you have a block, my daughter plays with these blocks, if you have a block, she can tilt it over and it's not that big of a crash. But if you stack 20 blocks on top of each other, the wind blows wrong, it crashes. So people want to build this big building. But it's wobbly, it's susceptible. It's so easy to be knocked over. So that's why I tell people they really need to enjoy where they are right now and put one block on top of the next, and let's figure out how to manage going from one block to two blocks and two blocks to three blocks, and that's all I did. So you see 2020 story building, but if it started with one story, how do you feel when you went from one to two, the same two to three, same three to four. And that's how I built my career.

Michael: Yeah. And it's in those decisions, right? How do you handle the failures though? Because I think so many people.

David: I didn't have any big failures.

Michael: It's yeah but like the small nuanced moments where you're like, that didn't work. You know this as well as I do, 'cause you coach entrepreneurs too, crushes people.

David: Not really. You ever did an interview where you do the whole interview? It's the best one you ever had. You realize something wasn't recording.

Michael: Oh, for sure.

David: How do you handle it?

Michael: Yeah, you just do it again.

David: You weren't crushed, do you?

Michael: Okay. So maybe you and I are from the same cloth, but you don't feel like you've worked with people or coached people where they, you look at it the way that I do and I go, just pick yourself up and do it again. But for them, they're like, this is the worst moment of my life. Is failure for you?

David: That's a lie because there have been worse moments in their life. I'm sure. I agree. And that's an emotional thing that I can't, I don't know, so if that happens and my daughter comes to me crying, I can console her and I'll relate with her and I can share the stories on how I took a loss. But does she wanna hear that? Maybe. But now there's a level. I can't reach her because I don't understand, I don't understand how you are this privileged and the fact that you didn't get Prob Queen is the worst day of your life.You feel me? So that's one of those moments where we talked about earlier, I can't get there with you.

Michael: So how do you handle failure?

David: Is it failure?

Michael: I don't know. To me it's lessons.

David: A hundred percent. It's lessons. What is the alternative?

Michael: So how do you get to that moment then?

David: Gotcha. I think you have more of them. So I tell people to just go ahead and hurry up and fail. Just get it out the way, 'cause then it doesn't hurt as much the first time you lose a hundred dollars and that's your last hundred. It sucks, but it could be life altering for you. But if you are just an irresponsible person, you're always losing a hundred dollars and you lost it three times. The third time doesn't hurt as much as the first. It's dang, I need to fix this. So I don't lose the money anymore. So you just, you I, you just get through it more failures, it helps you.

Michael: Yeah. You're a truth teller, one of the things that I appreciate about you, what you do, the way you communicate honesty. It's a thing that I see in you, 'cause it's a thing in me. It's also a thing that, for whatever reason, rubs people a wrong way. I don't know if you face that too. People are like, you're too honest. I'm like, I don't know if that's a thing.

David: I don't think I've ever had that.

Michael: How do you, like what role does that play in your life? Like why is that important to you? Why what I'm always trying to get honesty get to is showing, finding the crux of what creates someone to be who they are. And I get that vibe from, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I feel like that's something really important to you.

David: Telling the truth. Gimme the question again.

Michael: Yeah. What role does honesty play in your life? What does it mean to you?

David: I don't know if it plays a big role, it's just, you should be honest. 'cause what's the alternative? Lying to people. What kind of person would you be walking around lying to everybody. You know what I mean? And maybe I'm not always the best truth teller. My wife just has a baby and she says, I just had the baby. So you got baby weight and. Turn to me and look and says, I gained so much weight, what should I say? Oh, you haven't. What should I say?

Michael: I agree. Look I am, I'm tracking you. I think that you should be like, here's what I would say. Can I tell you what I would say please? Because I'm not in your head, so I have no idea. I would say you did, but that was a part of the process.

David: Yeah. So would someone hail me as being honest for giving that answer? No, it's, I think it's I think it's the bare minimum of what you can do as a human is to be honest, tell people.

Michael: Why do entrepreneurs lie to, themselves when I started watching this new content that you're putting out. Bro, I'm just, it's cringe, dude. It is so cr because you're sitting here and you're watching these people and you're like, this man's here to help you. And you're lying to him. What are you do? Why do you want.

David: Here's the thing, I don't think they know that they're lying to themselves, they don't know.

Michael: So the guy says, but what kind of person would they be?

David: So the, they're, I would rather someone, lie and not lie out of ignorance then be trying to cover something. And I think a lot of these people are just lying outta ignorance, 'cause in their mind they're telling the truth. Guy says, I'm really motivated this time. I'm never gonna give up, I'm not gonna quit on this business. Now I know it's a high possibility that's a lie, that's not the truth. But from their perspective, they're fed up with. Like without, with starting and stopping and starting and stopping and getting up, giving up and quitting, they're fed up in that moment. But I know it's just gonna take a little bit of time before you forget what you said in this emotional moment right here. So I don't think people are like intentionally lying to me. I think, and maybe somebody's not gonna like this, but the when the secret came out, It creates a culture of liars, of people to say, everything's amazing, everything's fine, I'm going to be wealthy, because in that video it showed that you can say it, and if you say it often enough, it's going to happen, that's a lie. The truth is, and I got this from Jim Rone. He said people are really stuck on these affirmations, but he said, people need to affirm the truth, I am broke, I am lazy, look at my track record, I am lazy. And once we get to that truth, we can do something about it. But if you keep telling yourself, I'm not lazy. I'm not lazy, I'm not lazy, you can't fix it because you're trying to affirm yourself. But in their mo, in their mind, someone told them that's them being truthful and it's a lie. Yeah, but it's not, they're not trying to do it intentionally, I don't think.

Michael: Yeah. And I think a lot of those affirmations come 'cause look, life is hard, man, you get it, I get it.

David: But the line is, you gotta affirm, you gotta motivate yourself and bump. So it's just a lesson, I can't clearly define how to dance on this line, 'cause I'm not telling people not to. I'm not saying don't use affirmation, I'm not saying, don't do your vet your best to speak it now, because I tell people, speak it, say it, but also don't lie, you know what I mean? So I don't know. I'm not your guru. But I, my goal sometimes is to create a conversation so you can have your own answers about the conversation and come to some sort of truth yourself.

Michael: Yeah. And acknowledgement is the beginning of everything, people ask me constantly, to go in my healing journey to be where I'm at today. They always, almost every time I've been interviewed people or people on the street or people when I'm doing a book signing. They go, how do you start? And I'm like, tell the truth to yourself. When I was three 50, I wasn't sitting around in a four XL t-shirt pretending I was on Baywatch. But it was never acknowledging it. Walk past the mirror, just buy the next size shirt, buy the next size pants. It's all good, don't worry about it, you still got a girl. It ain't the biggest deal, you still got your friends, your health is okay, and then I was like, nah, dude, you're fat, you're fat, like you're gross. And look, and I get it, 'cause it's different and I do think that you have to have some element of kindness to yourself, I think kindness is everything in this journey, but I don't think you're being kind if you're lying to yourself.

David: That's a fact, that's a fact. And I know that there's no right or wrong, man. Even when I coach people, I don't give absolutes because I could be wrong in what I'm telling you. So if someone says, Hey, man, how do I launch my podcast? I'm gonna give you what I think to be true right now, but in the conversation, I'm going to let you know that you still have to come up with your own truth and how you're going to do it. I'm guiding, I'm giving you some information, take what I say, take the pieces that you like, the stuff that you don't like, throw it away, but you still gotta, you still gotta fashion your life the way you are going to do it, I think a lot of people get caught up in these coaches too, man, 'cause coaches are telling you do A, B, and C. And when A, B and C doesn't work, they feel like something's wrong with them and that's not the case, you know what I mean? I think it's people taking control of their life, identifying who they want to be. And you stop at nothing to become that, not to have the car or have the house, but become something, whether it's a truth teller or someone that's transparent or you wanna lose a bunch of weight.

Michael: What was the shift for you?

David: What do you mean?

Michael: Like, all right, to get to where you are now, there are, like I'm assuming, there are moments in your life where you were looking at it and you were probably unsatisfied.

David: For sure.

Michael: But a lot of people are unsatisfied and even a lot of people will be unsatisfied and they'll tell themselves the truth. And a lot of people will be unsatisfied, tell themselves the truth. Get a coach, pay them money. Yeah. Sit there and do nothing. You just said I agree with you. Just go for it, man, just fuck it. Like the worst that's gonna happen. I'll go back to working at McDonald's or Chili's or Wendy's or Hollywood Video or the warehouse job or the security job, I can always go back. Yeah. But I was like, what if? So what drove you and then what drives you?

David: Man, and this goes down to another one of those moments where there's my emotional my emotional medium, my emotional like level, 'cause it's not a lot of things that drive me and I can't how can I put it? I always wanted to fix one thing. I just wanted to fix one thing. So when I got my job at the Cheesecake Factory, I realized that when I worked at Olive Garden, I was there about 10 months and every other job that I've ever had, I've only been there about 10 months or less, I never had a job for a year, and then I started looking at my relationships and I'm like, dang, I haven't been in a relationship longer than 10 months. Never been to the gym longer than 10 months, I've never done anything consistently longer than 10 months, I'm in these network marketing companies. I'm there about 10 months and I told myself, it's not about getting wealthy right now. It's about staying at this job for at least a year, 'cause I want to tell myself that I can hold down a job for 12 months. The reason I keep leaving these jobs is because I get super inspired as an entrepreneur and I'm getting all this personal development and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do my business on my own. I can't have no job, a job isn't for me. When I was working at the Cheesecake Factory, when I got the job, when I had this realization, I said, my goal here is not to quit my job as this entrepreneur that I've always been, my goal is to be here for at least a year, so I just wanted to fix one part of myself. Okay? I am nervous going to approach people, so I'm gonna start working on this one part of my life for the next six, 12 months. I'm gonna go into, I remember it, when I had my t-shirt ran, I had this box full of T-shirts and I'm sitting in the car pulling up at a barbershop and I want to go in that barbershop and I want to ask all of these barbers to buy my shirts, but I am nervous, it's all get out. I'm sitting in the car for a good 20 minutes before the barber I'm, I can see the barber's cutting in there and I'm trying to visualize in my mind, I'm gonna go in there, take these shirts, put it in the middle floor, say, Hey y'all, I got this T-shirt brand called Sleep is for Suckers geared towards entrepreneurship. Anybody that's losing sleep, doing they love all y'all are barbers, y'all grinding, y'all hustling, you eat what you kill, y'all believe this lifestyle, I would like to sell you a shirt, sounds really good in my head, just couldn't get my feet to walk out of the car. That was one thing I had to work on. Okay, how do I get myself out the car in the barbershop and talk to these people? So I bring this box in and I say, okay. In my head, I drop it in the middle of the floor, say, Hey, y'all listen up, and I start talking to everybody. I said that's not gonna work for me, I go in and I say who owns this shop? And typically it's that first barber, or that's the manager or whatever, and I go talk to the manager, and I'll tell them this amazing mess. Hey man, I got this T-shirt brand sleep is for suckers skin entrepreneurship. Anybody that's losing sleep, doing what they love, you a barber, you eat what you kill, you grinding, you understand this message and that barber will say, Hey yo, y'all should rock with my man. He got this thing going on, I had to work on that one element of myself, how do I figure out a way to get in front of people without being so nervous and worrying, wondering about what they're gonna think of me? So to answer your question, It wasn't a whole lot of, it wasn't a whole lot of big life changing moments. It was something about myself that I didn't like that I had to work on. And typically it wasn't external, it was internal. What am I so afraid of these people for?

Michael: Yeah, they're just people. I wrote this morning that most people are dying a slow death of indecision.

David: That's a fact, that's a fact.

Michael: And it's like you being willing, and me and the people who listen to this and the ones who change their lives, who go and build and create the dream, it's like we're just making decisions.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: But we're just making them faster than you.

David: Yeah. Life is a series of decisions and I believe our life wherever we are right now is a sum total of all of the decisions, big or small, that we've made up until now, if you go and talk to a homeless person downtown, you have a conversation with them, you'll be able to see that they're there because of some decisions, and I know someone's thinking, wow, that's so insensitive. You never know what could have happened in their life. But if you track, if you have a conversation of how they got here, you'll see some decisions that put them there, life doesn't do anything to us It's how we respond to the decisions that we make. But wherever we are right now, good or bad, it's the sum total of all the decisions, big or small, that we've made along the way.

Michael: I'm sitting here and I can't help, I'll give you context, growing up without a father, no father figure, drug addict, gone, ghost, stepdad, super abusive. None of the men in my life could care about me in any capacity. Same with my brothers, I learned literally from the streets being in the streets, slang and doing what I had to do to survive taking a lot of like education from hip hop in the early nineties, probably not your best studio, and I'm sitting here listening to you and I go, my God, this man's children are going to be gifted knowledge that is so powerful and beautiful that exponentially, generationally, and on a quantum level, he's changing the world in ways that he can't even understand because the impact will be so huge that he'll be dead and not be able to see it. And I just can't help but be like, damn, those kids are lucky.

David: And I'm hopefully, man. Thank you.

Michael: And I'm wondering what lesson, do you want them to learn from you?

David: Own it. Everything that happens, own it. And your life is a sum total of all the decisions that you made. There's always going to be some decisions that are being made and not just, you just watch every decision, there's a million decisions that we make all day, small, big. I'm looking at the Lyft app and one says, pick up immediately in one minute. The lift will be there in a minute. The one under that says pick, wait a little bit, two minutes, and I saved like 80 cents. I made a decision to save the 80 cents. That's a decision, like I could've just picked the first one, that's not a big decision, but for me it's like rationale. A couple times later, there was a time where it said, pick up in three minutes, 20 bucks. Wait up to 15 minutes and it'd be 15 bucks, I had a little time, let me wait. Maybe this is me being cheap, I did the wait 15 minutes, car came in six minutes. Say five minutes, it was a little decision that I made, and people don't look at that. Oh, it's just, I'm just, you're just picking an Uber. No, it's decisions. It's acknowledging the decisions. You say, can you do this podcast? I say, yes. It's a decision. Who knows where this is gonna go, it's decisions.

Michael: How do you trust yourself?

David: How do you trust yourself?  I don't know. I don't know. Are you asking me how do I trust myself?

Michael: How do you trust yourself as David?       

David: I've been with myself for 38 years. I know, I'm not gonna lie to me, so I trust, I don't trust the outcomes necessarily. But I go with the decision. I trust the decision's gonna work out good or bad, but if it works out bad, it's not gonna be all bad, 'cause I'll learn how to make a better decision later. You just, you do stuff long enough, man, and you start to take the lessons from life. Now, if you're not listening to the lessons of life and you're like, being hurt over and over again by the decisions that you make, that's a possibility, 'cause you're not listening to the lessons that life gives you. But I look at all the lessons. Sometimes it's saying, wait and to wait and save, and I won't have to wait that long, it's just a lesson that I learned on the list at, it's just, I don't know, I just, I've been with me for 38 years, man. If you've been with me for 38 years and we've been through UPS, downs, trials and tribulations, you trust me? You have some people you trust, right? Yeah, you've been with them for a while.

Michael: So that's a really good point, you should write a philosophy, but you're a fascinating human being, man, I appreciate you greatly. Thank you for popping over and doing this with me, man. It means the world. I hope so. Thank you. Two things before we wrap up. One, can you please tell everyone where they can find you?

David: Yes. Social Proof Podcast. Go watch the Social Proof podcast. Listen to the social Proof podcast, wherever you listen to podcast. And on Instagram @Sleepis4suckers on Instagram.

Michael: The values’ unbelievable, man. Sometimes I just watch that stuff and I'm like, oh man, there's gold in here.

David: Thank you.

Michael: Whether or not you're an entrepreneur, Whether or not, because it's just, even in this conversation we're talking about nuance little thing, it's like pay attention. This one thing right here is the difference between everything you want, and losing it all.

David: Yeah, for sure.

Michael: My last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

David: Impossible, impossible. Everybody's broken and you just gotta manage the broken. If you break your arm, you gotta acknowledge that it's broken and wrap it and take it to a doctor and treat it, we are all broken, I think you can be healed of something that is broken. If you break your arm, eventually the bones will come back together and they'll be stronger, but something else is gonna be broken, there's always gonna be something broken, whether it's, in your business, your philosophy, a bone a heart, whatever. If you know that things will always be broken, it helps you manage. It's not a big surprise, like things happen, bro. And again, this is an issue for me because I don't trust people. I trust me, but lemme not say I don't trust people. I trust people to be people, and when people let's say when money's involved, people change. I don't trust anybody to not change where money comes or as you go through life and get experiences. I think I'm going through a situation right now where one of my friends, I believe financial situation is changing. And it seems as if he's changing. Maybe I could be off, I could be off, but I trust people to be people, which is why I can't trust people because they're unpredictable, bro, they're unpredictable. It might be somebody, it might be somebody that says that I said something bad about you and you trust the person that it comes from, and you have an inclination to feel a way about me, whether you like it or not, and then throughout your life, you'll be realizing, yo he does have the tendency to say that, but I expect that. I expect you to jump to conclusions, to believe something that someone said about you, that someone said that I said, and if you're the type of person that like I am, I just won't talk to you anymore. I get offended and I'm like, oh, that person said something about me, that's how every fight in school starts. It's, someone said something about me and don't let it be a bunch of girls around. Oh my gosh, you are going to approach me in a way that you wouldn't normally approach me, and you're gonna jump to conclusions because there's an audience now. Oh, I don't trust humans, bro. But it, but the cool thing is, when a human disappoints me, I'm not that disappointed because I didn't trust you anyway, which sucks though, because I should be able to trust my wife and my best friend and my kids and all that kind of stuff, it's just, man, some something's always gonna be broken, bro. You gotta expect it, and when things break down it doesn't kill you. It's oh, it's just another thing that happens in life.

Michael: Yeah. And what's fascinating is sometimes those barriers are things that people, 'cause as the mental health coach over here, I can I can dissect your whole life from everything you just said, but then I look at it and I go, Are you happy? Are you healthy? Do you love your family? Are you good? Do you take care of the people in? You Take care of people? I hear things about you in the streets, you take care of people.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: I know about David.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: And so maybe that trust thing is different. Yeah.

David: Maybe it's a, and bro, I show so much love to people. But the reason I do it isn't because I think the person won't hurt me. I help people. Because I help people, that's what I do. So I'm not helping you. So that. You'll have a favor for me later for sure. I expect that me to help you right now, and then when you get on top of the mountain, I expect for you to forget about me helping you two years ago. I expect that so that when you don't help me, I'm not mad at you. It's just that's what humans do.

Michael: I think there, there's a small quote. I teach all my clients. Life is going to life.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: And the thing in that, you're going to have the good, you're gonna have the bad, you're gonna have the middle. Most of it's the middle, like most of life is in the middle and I'm just like, if you're, if you can just recognize that if you remove expectation from everyone other than you, you're the only variable you actually have control of, you will find something really special, and it's called peace.

David: Yes. When you stop expecting other things from people you get a certain level of peace. I was actually talking to my friend, she's yo, man, my wife is this and that, and I can't believe 'cause she's not as personally developed, or she's talking to me about his wife. Yo, she's not, she's like lazy. The real question is, why does that bother you so much?

Michael: I have come to discover David. I am both the cause and the solution of all of my problems.

David: A hundred percent.

Michael: Brother, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. It means the world.

Unbroken nation, thank you guys for listening. Please comment, subscribe, check us out on YouTube. I'm on Instagram at Michael Unbroken. And remember, every time you share this, you're helping other people transform their trauma to triumph, breakdowns to breakthroughs, and helping them become the hero of their own story.

Until Next Time, My friends.

Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya!