Trauma Healing: Why Most People Fail to Achieve Breakthroughs | with Morgan T. Nelson

Michael: What's up brothers. Hope that you're doing well. Back with another episode with my guy, Morgan T Nelson. He is the podcast host of the dream out loud podcast. He also has an amazing YouTube channel. Go check them out. Morgan T Nelson, brother. Welcome to the show. It's been a while.

Morgan: Mate, it has been a long time. I'm so good to be here chatting with you and let's see where we go with all this.

Michael: Yeah, I'm stoked. It's funny the power of social media. I reconnected with you after seeing you and the people you might know Facebook loop and I was like, oh, fuck, man, I haven't seen Morgan in five years. You and I connected when we both were living in Bali. Once upon a time, and I would love for you to just tell us a little bit about your story, your background, and maybe even a little bit of that lead up, like how we ended up in that space together at Bali, and I'll let you share about what that space was.

Morgan: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it has been a long time. It's probably been at least five or six years because I think we joined that men's group together which to be honest, so that was the first ever men's group or thing I been in but yeah, it was super freaking good but that's time in my life back in Bali. I would have been, I was probably 24, 25 years old, 24, 25 years old, build my first business living online, doing all those sorts of things but living with my girlfriend, living and working with my girlfriend, so I think when I found that I think I got invited there by Dai, the guy running it and never in my life did I think hanging out with a group of dudes, not drinking could actually be A, so much fun but so impactful as well and yeah, it definitely turned into an addiction, hey, every single week like looking forward to this sort of night to hang around with the bros, talk about real shit bring some humility back into your life but also. Relatability to be like shit. Everyone's got their own shit. Everyone's dealing with things people going through different sorts of things yeah, it was a good community that

Michael: Yeah, it's interesting. And shout out Di Manuel. That, that community is one that I look back fondly. What was interesting about it is I've actually carried some of those same things over into the men's groups that I host here in Las Vegas or the men's meetings or guys nights that we do where the only roles are no drugs and no strippers, but outside of that, it's we go for it, man. And we really connect because. It's interesting growing up. I always felt like I, I had brothers growing up, but it's different having brothers versus having a bond with this group of guys. And I found that throughout my journey, like if I'm around some really solid dudes, my life is better. Better, right? And I think that guys need that. What was it like for you growing up? Did you have guys in your life? Did you have father figure? Tell us a little bit more about your background and what boyhood was like.

Morgan: yeah, it was interesting. Like I'm the third child of four So two older brothers actually but it was very interesting like dad was typical worked quite a bit, come home, he'd be angry we didn't really get much time like that I grew up and what I really do remember when I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I was like, this makes a lot of sense to me because I grew up in my household where mom and dad, the traditional sort of house, mom stayed home, did what she could for all of us, dad went to work, provided, make the money, but we never, we had everything we needed, but never had a lot. And it was the stereotypical you can't have that, we can't afford that yadda, yadda. Then, when I got my first job when I was 11 years old working for this guy down the street and he was like, total opposite to that. He was this ex Muay Thai fighter, ex SWAT police officer. He was like, he was a fucking killer, this guy. He's just a psycho, multi millionaire, entrepreneur bodybuilder, just macho as fuck. Got his son a hunting a throwing knife for Christmas one year. You And would, and it'd be teaching us how to actually like hunt with throwing knives and shit in the backyard, right? And I often look at that, that polarity growing up where I'd go and work with Cameron and he really showed us that sort of like hard ass tough guy toxic as well. Like he had, he was fucking a prostitute every single day, like what, cheating on his wife and doing these things. And like we knew about that life, but at the same time, he's just like rugged just, and then dad was totally different. So that's what it gave me that duality growing up in life to look at, really each and look at which path do I want to take and I blended them both and realized like it didn't take me too much to really realize that you know you're obviously an unhappy guy but at the same time maybe there's some aspects here that I could take and use. So I definitely learned a lot from Cameron in terms of how to actually be a man, get up, get shit done go and build businesses and all these sorts of things. So I took a lot from that and realized that maybe like cheating on my wife with prostitutes and stuff maybe is the best idea as well. But he was definitely a strong father figure in my life, like from 11, and still to this day, I'm very good friends with him. We still keep in touch. He's still going to do very well. And my dad's relationship was always interesting. Dad was like, he always did his best, always there, and he did the best he could. Because his dad was his dad was violent boxer, like pop was a boxer and all this shit. So I think dad went back the other way, and then I've gone back the other way. My early teenage years. All the way up until probably 21, I was also a Muay Thai fighter, I was good at fighting, and I was angry. So every single weekend, nearly every single weekend, I'd find myself getting into fights and getting locked up. Down here in Australia, if you get in a fight with someone, it's not as bad in America. If you get in a fight with somebody here, they'll throw you in what's called the watch house. So you get locked up in jail for the night, essentially. If it's on the weekend, sometimes you go all weekend until you get face caught on Monday. But then, usually, you get a fine and you're on your way out again. Nearly every single weekend, I was getting arrested, thrown in the watch house, spending the day, sometimes two days in there. That was somewhat normal. It definitely took me a few years to like into adult life to start to figure out how to control my behavior, how to control my emotions effectively, and all these sorts of things. Like everyone, doing the best I can with all the information that I had there was definitely an interesting sort of upbringing for sure.

Michael: Yeah. It's like, how could you not end up getting in fights and have anger issues and get thrown into the watch house? It almost would be impossible that wouldn't happen. And, you look at the parallel of my journey being young. A lot of my energy was into doing illegal activities, breaking in houses, stealing cars, running around with guns, shooting at people, like doing some really insane things. And you look at the guys in my life that were like rearing me into the world. What were they doing? Like my best friend's brother, I remember the day he got out of jail. The first thing that we did to celebrate was we went and got high and stole a car. You know what I mean? And it's like what kind of insane lifestyle is this for boys to be learning from? And it's like we are the total of our experiences and you can have even the outlet because I did some martial arts as a kid, Muay Thai much later in life, but I had wrestling. I had football. I had baseball. Luckily, some things to put that energy towards. And man, I can't help but think because of the anger that I had and because of how furious I was at the world, if it weren't for those things, man, I probably would have killed somebody, and it's it's so wild to look at that and reflect on that When you were young and you're looking at these guys living into these lifestyles and ultimately something that shaped you in many ways, were you ever cognizant that something about that was just a little weird? Like, why is my dad always angry? Why is this guy over here with prostitutes all the time? What were your thoughts around that as a kid?

Morgan: I don't think there was really any like thoughts. I really can't remember I tend to always look at a lot of things in life quite objectively and just look at things and go still, what do I want to do from here? Like it, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's right and what's wrong. However, when we, in that teenage life, especially for men, I can tell you why this happens actually. We have this thing called values levels, our consciousness levels. And a lot of men will transition to what's called values level three at a, their teenage life. Which in this consciousness level, it's all about breaking away from the tribe, aka the family. And seeking power, seeking control, violence wanting to break the law, like there is no care for the law in this space, and most men, women go through this a lot earlier, women go through this section a lot earlier, so by the time they're 18, 19, 20, usually they've fallen to the next level. Conscious level, 4, they'll fall into this, which is more so about law and order, right and wrong, good or bad, get a job, do what's the next best thing, that's why they want to nest earlier in life, in their early 20s, they all want to find the man, wife them up, have the kids, do the thing, where men will transition a little later in life, that's why more men are put in jail when they hit 18, 19, 20, because they're still in those reckless years where they're stealing cars, doing bad things, Because they have this sense of not giving a fuck yet Because they just don't know, they don't understand guilt yet They haven't actually, we're talking about the evolution of psychology And how the brain, the consciousness is actually forming for years At this level, they haven't actually been able to find out the feeling of guilt yet They don't know what guilt feels like yet So they're heavily driven by avoiding shame So all the things that they've suppressed for their young life, they're avoiding shame because it's all about the image. They're seeking control. They'll look up for people that are doing better than them, aka the gang leader, the ones who will just kill, run the shit. But they'll do anything to, they haven't experienced guilt yet. So if you ask somebody at a, if I ask you when you're younger, why'd you steal the car? Probably it was fun. It doesn't make you a bad person, depends who's judging, because someone else who's also in that values level would be like, oh, I agree, I'll do the same thing, because it would be fun to steal someone's car, but a few years later, when they get heavily punished, maybe they go to jail, maybe they have their girlfriends or their mom's car gets stolen, they realize, shit, I've seen my mom in so much tears right now, she's so sad, she's so upset. I've probably done that to other people until they can then realize and see a perspective shift and actually feel the feelings of guilt. They won't transition yet, but eventually most people We'll transition to values number 4, become a good citizen, do the right thing, avoid guilt. I'm not going to do that now because that's actually bad. They start to realize good versus bad where before everything just is a game. I don't care about the police. I don't care about this. This is what I'm doing. A lot of men hit that later which is where I think it and unless they've got good role models to pull them through. So like, how can you transition that fun, that passion, that energy, and that creativity you have for stealing cars? How can we transition that into something more useful in life like a business? Or something that's going to be more effective so you can have more power, more control? This is why I always bang on with mentors. I have several mentors because these people are the ones who really pull me through life and show me that they've had fucked up past as well, done things wrong, but it's a matter of sort of battle. Look at these things and pick for ourselves which path is the one we want to follow. Another thing I'll just add in for shits and gigs. I don't know if this is valuable or not, but also I think, cause you said like, how could I not, like in all these fights and shit, where I think a lot of the anger came from was mom and dad split up when I was about 16. So they got divorced. And then, mom remarries 145 kilo Papua New Guinean bouncer. Now, for the Americans, 145 kilos, 2. 2 pounds to a kilo. Times 145 by 2. 2,320 pounds, 300, big motherfucker. Papua New Guinean island, big guy. And about a couple years into their relationship, yeah, the domestic violence started. Mom would come home with big black faces, big black eyes. You swollen, got the shit bean out of it, then they'll cover it all up. Now, I'm about 18, 19 trying to process all this. I'm skinny as 55, 80, sorry, I'm 55 to 60 kilos. So about 110 pounds, right? Compared to this guy. And then, one night, this thing got all just so bad. I was sitting at home with stitches in my face through my eyebrow here because I got hit in the face with a block of wood through a fight previously that week. And I'm sitting at home, trying to take the night off. I'm like, I'm not gonna party tonight, not gonna go out. I'm just gonna relax. And then end up getting in a fight with him. Comes storming upstairs, goes fucking crazy. We get into a fight, my stitches bust open, there's blood everywhere now. Shit just gets crazy. Cops come, he gets arrested. That then started a massive divide in the family that was my fault. Because my sister wasn't allowed to live there anymore. I wasn't allowed to live there anymore. We were kicked out, and they're still together to this day. So I didn't I legitimately, this is probably a valuable, I can talk about this, what I want to do after that, because a lot of my friends, we were in like, we had bikies, a lot of our friends were in the bikies and stuff like gangs, over here we have a lot of, the gangs are bikies here, I'm not sure, those are over there, but I go to my girlfriend's mom and she's what are you going to do, I said, I've already thought about it, I've talked to a few friends, and I'm going to have both these legs broken for two and a half thousand dollars. And she's okay, she's you could do that or you could just go and become really successful and let that be the revenge and I'm like, to be honest, I that option better and that I use this pain from eight, from 19 through to 23, four years, I want to kill him, I want him dead, I was like, if he had a died, I would not have cared and it wasn't until I was sitting actually at a leadership event where his face kept coming up, I'm doing this work, doing this like energy work, right, spiritual development, And and his face kept overcoming me, I'm like, fuck off, and I'm like, hang on. What do I need to address here? Why does this keep surfing? Why does this keep surfing? And the answer was You're holding so much hate against him and that's like you're drinking poison expecting he's gonna die. And in that moment, I decided to actually release all the anger, all the aggression I had for him. I gave him a phone call and I said, Hey, let's catch up. Let's go have a beer. And we had a beer. And after that, I moved to Mexico. That was the I left Australia. But from that moment, I decided to completely forgive him. And I really think that point right then was such a peace, like so peaceful. So like such as overflowing feeling of just Oh, I don't have to wipe anymore. Like I was holding so much charge to the wrong thing. And I think if, if we're talking for value for men, there are so many men out there that are so pissed off and angry that are blaming other people for the things that have happened in their life. And what they're doing is they're giving away all of their power. They're trying to be righteous. People go, yeah, but it was their fault. I'm not saying it wasn't your fault, but I'm saying it's your responsibility now to do something about it because it's in your awareness. You have the ability to respond. Now, unless you want to feel like shit and hold anger for the rest of your life, choose peace, choose to forgive, choose to let go, and move on with your life. That was the biggest thing that probably changed a lot for me.

Michael: First, thank you for sharing that. That's real shit. You know what I mean? And I actually resonate with that in a tremendous number of ways. My, my stepdad, when my mom married him, this dude was my size, six foot four, 220 pounds, just beating up little kids, right? Beating up his wife, like a real fucking coward of a man. And to tell you the truth, man, I was haunted by that for years. You said something that really hit home to me, we, I won't go into details, but there was a plan to make sure he was dead. I was 14 with a plan and luckily whether it's God or the universe, that plan did not come to fruition, but for years, man it drove me. It was like all I thought about. I was like, man, I got to figure out how to kill this guy. Like I got to figure out how to make this guy's life in. Cause I was like, my life will be better. And I realized you said something, I actually wrote this down because I think it's really important and it's a lot of people don't know how to release. They don't let success be the revenge. Props to your girlfriend's mom. Holy shit What great advice for a kid and it's so funny, man I remember the first time that I truly let go and this was deep into my journey I was probably 30 years old. We're talking about eight years ago almost nine years ago I just I took a step back and I was like this guy is controlling my life. I haven't seen him in 12 years Why is this guy controlling my life? And I realized like, Oh my God, I have to let go. And what was interesting about the let go process, it actually was about forgiveness and it's one of the hardest things that we do. How do you, sorry, Ruth, edit that out. It's one of the hardest things that we do. It's like, how do you forgive someone that took so much from you? How do you forgive the guy that hits your mom, who busts your stitches, who made your sister not be able to live with you anymore? It's like, how do you forgive that? And then I think it's really like, how do you not forgive it? Because every single day you're holding onto it. You're like walking down the path with this backpack full of bricks. And it's bro, when are you going to put that shit down? But it, I'll be honest, Morgan. I feel like sometimes it's the need that we have as men to be angry becomes our identity. You talk about these levels, right? Eventually you make this transition. You're in this other level. This is the place of peace, of joy, of happiness, of forgiveness, of love, of compassion, of all of the things that you're capable of having, but man, that identity of anger, bro, it just feels so fucking good.

Morgan: Yeah, Tony Robbins talks about it as your emotional home and how I relate to it to a lot of people. I talk, everyone's addicted to their comfort zone and inside the comfort zone, we have a familiar emotion that we're most comfortable with. And even me as an entrepreneur I'm somewhat Addicted to the feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed. It's so f-ing bizarre and I'm like thinking about it lately. I'm like when I have nothing on and there's no problems happening, to be honest there's always f-ing problems happening, but if I have if I've done the things I need to do, And oh, things are just happening and I've got time to just chill. I'm like, something's wrong and it feels bizarre. And that's literally in real life present right now. I'm like, that's something I'm wanting to investigate more. Why do I have some type of addiction to have to feel this stress or this overwhelm all the time? Because when I am stressed and overwhelmed and busy, I'm like, oh, fuck, I just want to relax. But the feeling of totally relaxing and being at peace is somewhat scary as well because I'm not sure if it feels like there should be something happening or I'm not sure but currently right now, my emotional home, my comfort is, I'm comfortable when I'm like hustling essentially. When I'm getting things done, when I have really busy days, I'm like, oh yeah, it's a bit uncomfortable. But if I also look back at a hundred years old on that life, I wouldn't want to spend my whole life like that. However, it's more like that more and more right now. So I'm very curious on that. But in the past, my emotional home, my comfort zone was anger. I literally used to have a metal pole in my ute, behind my seat that I'd use for road rage. Because I was just so easily accessible to that emotion, I'm like, I'm just pissed off, I'm a, I was a good fighter, and I was just pissed. I don't know why, but it's a combination of heaps of things, anger at the world, little, small man syndrome, so I knew how to fight, people would piss me off, I'd fucking lay him out, and I just became, I became good at it, but it's, people's emotional home, so I'm not sure if Like all men feel, because this is also the thing with the men's work type thing. It's like sometimes I feel people, I hear people go express your anger or emotions, release anger, all these types of things. I'm like, what if we can just choose not to feel it to begin with? Because any negative emotion we have, anger is a negative emotion. It's useful. Everything's useful, but it's still a negative emotion. Anger, sadness, hurt, fear, guilt, shame, these are all negative emotions. We'd rather use this aggression but do it from a sense of desire even, it's better than anger. A certainty, peace, love. We can still lead with love. I would rather look at negative situations and diffuse the anger within me first and then do whatever comes next. And a thing I teach in one of my leadership programs is How to make effective decisions and the effect, the process I have is just this, whatever is the second thought in my mind, I do that because the first thought is usually bad, especially Cause it's derived off an emotion. When we get angry, cortisol rises in our body, and what actually happens when there's anger and a large amount of cortisol in our brain, it dumbs us down. It scientifically will actually kill, start to kill off neuropathways in your brain. So the more prolonged, the more we are prolonged to feeling stress and anger, It's essentially the dumber we're becoming. And we can all relate to this because if we ever been really pissed off or really stressed out about something and we reacted and we said or done something really stupid that later on when we were calm, we looked back on it and said, yeah, fuck, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean what I said. I didn't mean to run you off the road. I didn't mean to punch you in the face. I'm like, I just freaked out. I was angry. Because in that moment, we did the best that we could because our brain was literally stupid. Our brain didn't

Michael: It's funny.

Morgan: to be like, no, don't do that. So I go, what's the second thought? Do the second thought. Because it's usually after the ha has come, it's no, do this instead. Follow the second thought, it's going to be much better. Yeah.

Michael: a great point. And I laughed because I just like suddenly just like these flashes of like, when I was angry, some of the shit I would do, man. And if you look at that, it's like some of those things, man, they just a, they don't serve you. B, they're going to cost you time, effort, energy, money. They're going to ruin relationships. They're going to put you in predicaments that you really don't want to be in. And it's funny. I thought of a quote from sod guru, as you said that in, and he said, being angry is like beating yourself up from the inside. And it's so true because you take all of this energy and this vitriol and this hate, and you try to project it in the world. What's funny is when you look at the world through the view of someone who is seeking literally almost anything else other than anger and hate and fear, the world's a beautiful place, man, that's all. I think that's a hard thing for people to wrap their heads around because if you have backgrounds like ours and you come through hell. And you suffer, especially at the hands of the men in your life who are supposed to take care of you, or the ones who are supposed to take care of your mom or your sisters. It makes you feel like, man, I've got to take an eye for an eye. I've got to get my revenge. I've got to make these people hurt. And then it's just you're just fucking your own life up, bro. I would beg to argue that you've never kicked anyone in the face, went to jail and then be like, I'm really glad I did that.

Morgan: Yeah. No, it's not. To be honest, I'd always feel bad after I'd beat the shit out of somebody. I actually feel bad. Still to this day, like I'll UFC fight. Because I like the idea of it. I like the adrenaline, the testosterone, yeah, but like it's, there is a, in my gut, I'm like, I just fucking don't like it still. There's just, I, it's no I've definitely never been in a fight with somebody and for a prolonged after that, I've been like, that was so good.

Michael: How do you work? You brought up the word guilt and shame a couple of times earlier, and I want to touch that for a second. What's that healing process like for you? We all have guilt. We all have shame. Every one of us as men, we've made things and decisions outside of our values, out of our characteristics, out of our morals. I know I certainly have. Look, dude, you don't end up 25 years old, 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, cheating on your girlfriend and 50 grand in debt because you're a good guy. I promise you, you don't. But I lived that. And I had to face the thing in front of me. How did you face Obviously you mentioned mentors, you mentioned leadership, you mentioned wanting to move towards success. What did that look like for you? If you framework out the journey for you to become Morgan today, like what are some of the things you actually had to do?

Morgan: Yeah, I can give you the whole five step process. It's five, five things we must do. In fact, I've reverse engineered this whole thing because at 19 years old, I tried to take my own life. Left that out of the story, didn't I? 19 years old, completely miserable, unconfident, try to take my own life, two times, and then 23 years old, I'm financially free, living on the beach of Mexico, made my first million dollars by 28, have four different companies right now, one of the top podcasts in Australia, 30, traveled 50, 60 countries, spoken on stage in five different countries around the world. So I'm like, what the fuck happened there, right? I've been extremely obsessed on going specifically between 19 and 23. 4 years, 4 years what on earth happened and then even more specifically between 21 and 23. Because 21, I started my first business. 23, I was financially free. I've never worked a job since and still to this day, could just delete my whole social media, go live off the grid and be okay financially forever. Everything I do now is based off the obsession of how did I do it because I want to be able to teach other people how to do it. And I brought down to the five things and I call these now the, the five laws of creating a dream life. Law number one is we must have a vision, we must have a vision and I want to be able to explain this in a way that's so simple. And for some people, they might even be like shit, I've heard that before. And what I'll say to that is, do you do it and does your bank account show it? Because there's 3 levels of learning. We can know information, we can understand information. People who understand information, this is the world we're living in right now. We're not living in a world of lack of information, we're living in a world of lack of implementation. Because a lot of people just get to about to the level 2 there and they go, hey, I understand this information, now I'm going to teach about it. And it's fuck bro, why don't you go and actually do it and teach people about how you did the thing in your own life and put your spin on it because that's the third level which is embodiment. Unless you're doing it in bank account and showing it, there's still something else you can learn. I literally wrote that quote down today. The first one is vision. There's a reason, I move very fast. Very fast. There's a lot of things doing. We're on 31 days into the new year right now. I've started a new company. We made more money this month than we did in the last quarter last year and I'm collaborating on the biggest event I've ever ran with Tai Lopez in a few weeks. That's all happened in one month and the reason, okay, I'm not saying that to be like I'm the man. I'm saying it's the reasons is If you get into a car, if you get into a car and you drive down the highway at night time, in the middle of the night, and you have no headlights on, how fast are you going? Probably not very fast. Probably not very fast. But if you can put your headlights on and you can just see the next 200 meters, 300 meters, 400 meters in front of you, you can go as fast as the car will allow. In fact, why would you not? If you're in a hurry, you need to get somewhere, you know you're not gonna get pulled over, nothing's gonna happen, you can go as fast as you can. And it's the same thing if we're standing in a room and I say, Hey, run a straight line anywhere in this room you want. Sorry, run a straight line to that side of the room right over there. You'll start going. You'll go as fast as you can. But if I throw a table down in front of you, what will you do? You'll probably just run around the table and keep going. But you disobey what I asked you to do in the beginning. I said run a straight line. So what happens is, You use your own problem solving skills to figure out a way around the obstacle. You didn't think about it. Quick reaction, boom, make it happen. But if we're staying in a square room and I said, you run anywhere in this room you want as fast as you can go. You'll probably go where should I go? I don't know. Figure it out. Anywhere you want. The world's yours and you'll start dawdling, won't you? You'll just, you'll dabble. You will not sprint because of the lack of uncertainty. The lack of certainty. You'll just tiptoe. Now I throw a table down in front of you. What do you do? You go, Oh my God, it's the universe. The universe clearly doesn't want me to go this way. God has stopped me. I must stop completely or I'll just go another direction. That's what they'll do. They'll stop. Oh, clearly that's not the way for me. Or I'll go another way. It's a test. And they do that for their whole life. And they get to the end. They go, God comes along. What did you do with the life I gave you? I don't know. Every time I took action, you put a table down in front of me. Dummy! That was to test you to see how badly you wanted it. That was to strengthen you. That was to test you to see how you figure out your way around obstacles. Because life, getting to the Holy Land, getting to the things that you actually really want to create in this life is going to require you to become stronger than who you are right now. When we declare a massive powerful vision, it's, you bet your ass there's going to be tables along the way. It's going to strengthen you and it's going to test you to see how badly you want it. Because in each situation, it was the exact same obstacle. Then, the second situation, the obstacle become a problem and it took you out of the game because you had no vision. Everything starts with vision. What do you actually want in this world? What is the vision? What's the 10 year vision? What's the plan? Where are you going? What are you putting into your GPS? All right, let's go start with that. So when I was 19 years old, I'm like, what the fuck is happening? What's in my GPS? How can I recalibrate this thing? Because clearly, I've taken a wrong path. I recalibrated. I'm like, what I actually really want is I want freedom. I don't want to be a builder. I don't want to be a carpenter because that's what I was doing. I don't want to do this. I just want freedom. I want to be able to travel. I want to be happy. New vision. My reticular activating system in my brain now picks up new opportunities, 21 years old. Found my first business that allowed me to do this, which takes me to the next pillar, the next law, which is the right environment. We must have the right environment. We've got internal environment and external environment. Now, there's been so many studies done on this and cut me off anytime you want because I literally have a 40 hour program. About this whole topic. Okay? So I'm gonna give , I'm gonna give you the fastest way I can teach it.

Michael: I love it. I want you to keep going because I'm taking notes. I'm getting value. And I want these men who are listening to this right now, like even here's the thing I'll tell you this Morgan. Cause I think it's important. Even all the work I'm doing and even all the time invested, even being mentored by guys like Tom, Bill, you like I'm still learning. And so I want you to go deep. We have the space here. Let's give these guys a real true understanding because. Bro, when I was 19, I had a vision. I created a life I've traveled the world. We met on a fucking beach and ball. You know what I mean? And it's that happens because of vision. And so I don't want to scrape over any of this. It's so valuable. So number one, we got vision number two, we got environment and guys, if you're listening and you are not taking notes, you're doing yourself a disservice, get a pen, get a piece of paper. This is gold. This is the way you change your fucking life right

Morgan: yeah. Cool. So the next thing, another thing with the vision though, the, what the vision also does is allows you to make the right decision. Because a lot of people, sometimes they'll ask me, they come to my events, they ask me, how do you know that what you're doing is the right thing? Ultimately, I don't know. Nobody knows. Nobody has a crystal ball. All I'm doing is making decisions based off my past experience. I'm gonna try and make better decisions. But also, I make decisions that are in alignment with my vision. Somebody comes along and they say, Hey Morgan, invest in this new business over here and it's got to do with making pens. I'm like, I don't know man, that's got nothing, that's got nothing to do with my vision. It could be an amazing opportunity, it could be. But it's not in my vision. It's just, yeah, it's not. That's probably a distraction. That's how I decipher distraction or opportunity for growth. So the next one is the right environment. So let me tell you about this. Scientists put Six monkeys into a cage and in the cage they took, they put a ladder. At the top of the ladder, they put bananas. Every single time a monkey would go up the ladder, they would scold the other monkeys with water and then so they started to figure out, hey, every single time you go up the ladder, we get punished. So they started to beat the shit out of the monkeys that would go up the ladder. Eventually, not one monkey would go up the ladder anymore and then they replaced one monkey with a brand new one. The monkey goes up the ladder, gets the shit beaten out of him and he's left to wonder like, what the fuck did I just walk into? They do it again, the monkey goes up the ladder, gets a sheet bean out of him by every single monkey, including the one that just got put in before, he's joining in now. And they kept doing it, new monkey, until not one monkey was brave enough to go up the ladder and not one monkey had actually been scolded with water. Now, if you could have a conversation with the monkeys and say, bro, why aren't you going after your bananas? He'd say one of two things. That's just the way things have always been done around here. Yeah. Or he would say, Oh my god, I didn't even notice that it was bananas there because when we have blocked something out for so long, our reticular activating system I mentioned before is part of our brain that works like a heat seeking missile to go out there and find those opportunities and evidence of things that we actually want to provide evidence that's true. It will create a mental scotoma. Same as when people come to me that, Oh, my business isn't growing. Why is it not growing? Oh, because I'm not getting any customers. Not getting any customers. December is a slow month. It's like that. They're telling themselves, they're programming themselves that I'm not getting any customers, not getting any customers, not getting any customers while they're processing a payment for someone. I say what's that? It's a customer. Oh, no, but that's just one. But it's a customer. They didn't even, they weren't even aware of it. It's the focal illusion. There's a focal illusion. They did a test way back and I think about the 90s. They put three six basketballers, three of them had a black shirt, three of them had a white shirt on and you said it was a video and it says all you have to do is count how many times the people in the white shirt throw the ball to each other. That's all you need to do. They press play and they're throwing the ball, they're throwing the ball and you're counting like one, three. You get to the end of it and you think you're so smart and they go, how many did you count? You say 12. It goes, correct, it was 12. But did you notice the black gorilla? And you're like, fucking what? Replay the video. In the video, while you're counting, walk straight through the middle slowly. A guy in a gorilla suit beats his chest and then walks off camera. See, when our focus is so set on one thing, we actually become, we ignore. anything else in our awareness. So what happens is if we've been in an environment for so long that we've been said that you can't have success, we're not successful people, you can't be happy. Hey, you're a man don't cry and you've been denied access to the thing that you actually want for so long. Eventually, you will not even see it in your awareness because it's been blocked out at an unconscious level. It's been, our brain does three things, generalize, delete, and distort information. It's going to delete all this information every time a banana comes through. Delete. Every time a new banana, delete. Can't have it. Why not? Don't know. You just can't because that's just the way things have always been done around here. But what if you took one of those monkeys and you put him into a new cage? And in the cage is a whole bunch of monkeys and the only thing they're doing is eating their bananas. Every time they eat them, they get new bananas. First, the monkey will probably be like, what the fuck is this all about? Scared. This is uncomfortable. This is a new normal. I don't get it, but after a while, through conditioning, through the rewiring process, break pattern, recondition, break pattern, recondition, has a banana, Hey, I like this. Hey, it's safe to have it. I can have it. I can have it. I can have it. Eventually, it's Hey, this is the new normal, but it's a path of reconditioning. That reconditioning process for me took years and to be honest, it's still reconditioning. When I meet other people, when like I had, I don't know if Daniel G, he's big over there in America, sales trainer. He came over here to Australia and we caught up and he tells me, he's yeah, like one of my businesses is doing a million a month. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? He's yeah, he's he's got a Lambo, he's got this. I'm like, he's my age. I'm like, it just blows my mind. That's one of your businesses. I'm like, Next level. I'm like, that's a big shit. It's not, that's not normal for me. I'm not doing a million a month yet. It's not normal for me. It's bizarre. But hey, if I keep hanging around you long enough and other people like it, eventually that's going to become bizarre not to have that money. So the power of our environment is literally the shortcut to having every single thing we want. Is to change our environment and be inside the right environment and the people that are loving us, supporting us, and aware we want to be. That can even be the same story I just talked about, going from a toxic relationship to a new one. Where all you're used to is being treated like shit. And when you go to someone who loves you and appreciates you, we see people reverse, right? They sabotage, go back to what's normal, even though they're not happy with what's normal. It's fucked. It's an interesting thing. But, we've got to become aware of it. Because it's going to take a while to actually go through that level of discomfort. Because leveling up into a new environment, it's going to be extremely uncomfortable. So that's the second one. You want me to keep going?

Michael: It is. And yeah, I want to go in a little bit deeper. And like when you talk about environment, I look at this and I asked myself, where did success come from in my life? I've only ever shared the story maybe once on a podcast. I was 18. I got kicked out of high school. I get invited to this like early, the, in America, you have to be 21 to drink, but they have these 18 to 21 underage clubs that you can go to. Everybody's fucking high and drunk anyway. It's nonsense. All farce. So I go to this under 21 club and there's this guy that I used to run the streets with and he lived in my neighborhood and I was like Oh shit. This is about to go down. Like I was like, we're going to fight. I might get stabbed. I might get shot. I have no idea, dude. My heart was beating so hard out of my chest. I was like this could be it. And I'm 18 years old. And I'm just like I might as well just walk up to him. And so instead of being a coward, instead of dipping out the side or anything, I was just like, fuck it. If this is my fate, it's my fate. I walk up to him. I won't say his name, but I go, what's up, man. Yes. Where you been? We haven't seen you in the hood in a while. And you know what I said to him and dude, I'll remember this till the day I die. I go, I know, dude, I'm trying to live a better life. You know what he said to me, Morgan? That was unbelievable. And I thought he was about to hit me and we're going to scrap and it's going down. And he goes, good for you. And he turned and walked away. I never seen him again. And the reason I'm sharing that is because I made a decision to change my environment. out of the neighborhood. I went to even at 18, dude, I was working at a fast food restaurant and eating at the restaurant because I was so broke, all the money I made only paid for my rent and for my car, that's it. I had no extra money. So I'm only eating at this restaurant, but what happened is it took me out of that environment. And that was the beginning. And today, just before you and I started recording, I was mentioning you some of the people coming on the podcast in the future. And I said, it's because I'm in the environment, I'm here, I'm around these people. This is where it's at. And the truth is like that environment is such a critical cornerstone to your growth. It's if you want to be a man of success, if you want to be a man of value, if you want to be a man who looks in the mirror and like actually loves themselves, go look at the men you're surrounded by because I promise you they're going to tell you a better story about who you are than the mirror. Sometimes, obviously you need the mirror because it's really important, but sometimes it's sitting and you're like, man, Tom fucking smokes two packs a day and Steve's always drunk and Kevin is always high and Bill is always cheating on his girlfriend. What was my life like at 25 smoking two packs a day, 350 pounds cheating on my girlfriend. You don't think your environment matters and people let's stay on this for a second. Cause I think that's important. I want to top hit the other three. We'll have to do that quickly for the sake of time. But think about this for a second. If your life's a fucking disaster and you just took inventory of all of your friends, the men in your life who should have your back, support you and want you to grow and their lives are a disaster. Maybe you should read the fucking tea leaves here because you're missing the boat. Something is a disconnect, what happens, Morgana, and I'm sure that this has been a part of your journey. People will go, yeah, but those are my boys, man. I grew up with those guys. We did the things together. Let me tell you this. The, my boy is that I grew up with. My three childhood best friends got murdered all over drugs. They're dead. My other best friend, there was like four or five of us. That dude has been to jail so many times. He has no life. He ended up marrying the chick in the neighborhood that everybody ran through. I'm just calling fact. I love him to this day. I cannot talk to this man. He has no future in front of him. The guys who were like, yo, let's go break into these houses and do this thing. Most of them are doing bids. Most of them are in prison and yet here I am talking to you. And do you know the hardest thing about that whole changing your environment is you can't look back, bro. I don't, I cannot look back. This is, I'm so far removed from it and it's not that I don't love them and it's not that I don't miss those guys, but it's fuck dude, do I want to be dead? Do I want to be in jail? Do I want to barely be making it by because I'm working at a job where I get paid shit? And it's like that environment piece is so important. And I'm so glad that you mentioned it. Looking at this journey, because this is a top. I think there's a really important topic. I want to stay here for just a little bit longer

Morgan: I wanna add on this for a second. 'cause what you were just saying there, there's a reason for this, there's a reason for this and people need to understand this. There's this thing called the sunk cost fallacy. And this thing keeps people doing things for far too long and keeping 'em unhappy because it's a cognitive bias in our head. And what it says is based off how much energy, money, effort we've put into something. We'll determine how long we'll stay in that thing because let's say for example, if you get into a relationship today And you rock up and the woman is treating you like shit And she's a hoe and she's DM'ed 20 other guys or whatever and she's disrespectful to You probably would not have a second date. You'd probably be like, hey Not here for me but what if you've been with her 10 years and Gradually over time now you see her messaging other people, she's disrespectful to you, yada, you got kids you There's more reason now to go fuck, and they go why don't you just leave her? Why can't? We've been together 10 years, we're married, we have kids, we've already, look at all these things we've already done. And that's the story that people told themselves, the sunk cost fallacy, because of how much effort they've already put in, they've already lost 10 years. Why am I going to pull out? But the horrible thing is when we talk about like this, it makes, it's that's so dumb. But that's how our minds work. We'll go I'm just going to stay with, I'm just going to tolerate and hope that one day it changes, but we know it won't. Instead of actually just going, you know what, make the decision, hey, if this was brand new today, would I continue? Would I continue? The answer is no, you get the fuck out. Sunk cost fallacy. Same thing with but we're bros, we've grown up together. I get it. Suncoast Fallacy. You're like we've known each other for so long, I can't just bail. And by the way, no one's telling you to bail. I never bailed on any of my old friends. I just changed values. I started surrounding myself with different people, spending more time with them, and then when I caught up with the old boys, I just had less in common. I'm like, I don't want to talk about picking up bitches. I don't want to talk about what you did in the club on the weekend It just bores me. It's just not interesting for me anymore, so it's just it's not so much of a, I don't want to hang around you anymore. It's hey, I'm just gonna, it's if you've got a dirty cup of water and you just put it under a free flowing tap of clean water, Eventually, it's going to clean out the entire jar and eventually, it will be clean. It's not necessarily about going, I'm going to switch one out for the other. It's about drowning it out with something better. And over time, you're going to reshape your whole reality and be like, Fuck, how did I get here? I was 23, moved to Mexico, financially free, I put a post on Facebook. I'm like, I'm financially free, quit my job. People started DMing me. When are you coming back? Never. What do you mean never? I've got a one way ticket to Mexico, bro. I quit my job. I told you about it. I told you I'm serious about taking my life seriously. Building a business, doing it. I told you! So it wasn't until it happened. But that's the whole reason why people stay in situations for too long. So it is actually, it's not a thing to feel stupid or anything about but to actually acknowledge and be like, hey, it's very natural for my brain to actually want to stay in this. because of the fallacy.

Michael: Yeah. And again, that's a space of the emotional home. Obviously, man, we could go hours into all of these, but for the sake of time and we'll absolutely have to do this again. But I want you to just hit the cliff notes on the other five laws, just because I know we're running out of time.

Morgan: So the next…

Michael: We could talk about this environment thing for.

Morgan: Yeah, it's it. It's, I think the environment thing in itself has actually birthed so much more now. It's actually going to be like a big keynote in its own, but So from the top, we got, you must have the right vision. You must have the right environment. Next one is you must have the right vehicle. You must have the right vehicle. Because if you've got, you got a sick environment, but you hop into a Datsun, you're not, you're not really going to go too far versus if you can get yourself into a Ferrari. But what do I mean by this? Find the right vehicle for you based off your true north in life. So I have a whole process I take people through where they can discover their true north which comes down to what are the things that are most meaningful to them essentially. I worked with John Demartini on creating this essential. I built, I showed him and he's you're on the money. This is some good shit. John studied human behavior for 50 years and so people can figure this out. Like for example, mine, my top two, my true north is learning and teaching, which is why because people might think if you don't have to work a day again, why don't you sit in Mexico? Because my true north isn't surfing and drinking tequila. I love it, but not, what I love is learning and teaching. I love to teach. So I've built a whole, my whole programs are always seminars where I teach all the things that have helped me. I fucking love it. It's the right vehicle for me. When I was 21 years old, I started a network marketing business. That was the right vehicle for me at that time. Then, I built that for years by the time of 26, I was out of it because my soul started to call for something else. I started to follow the vision. That chapter is finished. I stepped into the next thing. I follow the vehicle. So if things aren't really necessarily working out right now, you can always and I'm not you don't have to start a business like I often say to people like if your passions, if what truly lights you up in life is to make fucking coffee. Then you go and you learn every single thing you can about coffee and you become the best fucking barista the world has ever seen because you'll be more successful than the corporate worker making a quarter million a year doing 60 hours a week because he thought that's what he should do because he got an MBA and because his dad said that's what you should do. If you catch yourself saying things like, I should do this, I should do that's the indicator to know that is actually the thing that has have you, you're off track of the right vehicle. Cause it's why do I, why do you do this? I should do it because it follows in the family. Why are you a doctor? Oh, because I got good grades so I should go and become a doctor, right? Perfect example, Ali Abdul, one of my friends, he's a doctor, finished number one at Cambridge University, smart as hell, but he quit that because he wanted to become a YouTuber. Now, he's one of the top YouTubers 10 million Australian a year, makes about 5 million pounds a year. It's crazy. That's right, following the right vehicle. That's third. Next one is the right timing because if we don't actually make the decision you mentioned before, we've got to make the right decision. Our whole life is made up of a combination of decisions. Some are good, some are bad, right? It's about to determine what is a good and what is a bad decision. But the right decision you're going to be making is am I all in this or am I not? Because if men listening to this podcast, if we go home to our women and we say, Hey baby, I'm 99 percent sure that you're the woman of my dreams. Let's get married. We can almost guarantee exactly what she's going to say. She's gonna be like, fuck off. We're talking about 99 percent motherfucker. Where's my 100 at, right? And we're like, but fuck, cause we like commitment issues and shit, right? We're like, oh fuck, I don't know about, I don't know if, I don't know if, I don't know if we're 100 percent Like, I gotta keep some for my side girl, but women are gonna be like, fuck off, bro. Give me the 100, and now let's break it down to energy, masculine, feminine. We're out there attacking shit, attacking our goals, masculine. The universe, God, whatever, the duality of whatever, we're working with this universe. It has to connect from the other side feminine. If we're only 99% sure, if we're only 99% in universe, God, our goals, what we're trying to call in will also meet us at 99%, which is so horrible because we're so close to everything we want and we're just 2% away from having it. When we make the decision to go all the way in and actually go 100%, everything happens like that. Things just, they come together. It is a grueling process, 99%, but when you're a hundred percent in, it's fucking easy. Yes, it's challenging but it's easy because you're like, Oh, I'm in. You're not battling against the other biggest enemy in the process which is your mind being like, Oh, are you sure? Maybe you should quit. It's not working. Fuck off. Because that's just not there. It's I'm all in. So the right timing has to come right now. Make sure right now, the right time. When I break this down a lot more, it's really important. I'm breaking a lot more inside of us to crush procrastination, motivation, all these types of things. But, essentially, once we're 100 percent committed in, we're going to treat things a lot differently. The last one is this. The last one is to become the right you. We've got to become the right you. The person who gets you to where you are right now will not be the person who gets you where you need to go. Life is a continual growth journey. We are exactly like trees. If we're not growing, we're dying. And a lot of people, unfortunately, when they finish school or university, unless they think that their learning has stopped. I think this generation has changed a lot because of podcasts and YouTube and everything which is fantastic. But a lot of people think my learning stopped. I've learned more I think in the last 6 months than I did in my probably 12 years of school. I feel like I've done an MBA in the last 6 months. It's because I'm just so addicted to learning and growing and doing more things. So we've got to continually upgrade and relearn. But the right you will come down to 3 things. Number one is the right belief system. We must have the right belief system. If we've got a belief system that's wrong or it doesn't support us, that's like you having GPS set, incredible support people around you, you've 100 percent made the decision, and you're driving a Ferrari, but the Ferrari has a kink in its valve and it's not delivering 100 percent of the fuel. You ain't going nowhere. You'll go somewhere, but not far and not fast. If you're firing off four cylinders when you go V12, you ain't performing at your best. That's what it's like having just a few limiting beliefs that can completely fuck you up. Hey, I'm really keen for this but, I don't feel like, I'm not gonna, I'm not made out for this. What are people going to think of me? Oh, but I'm not loved. I'm not good enough. All these things that maybe is coming up behind the unconscious mind. 95 percent of everything we do is unconscious, right? So the belief system, we've got to become aware of this. This comes down to a lot of the work that I do with people, transformational reconditioning work. Discovering what are the limiting beliefs that are actually behind the processing tool that you're acting on. Like, where are the kinks in your hoses? The next one is the right values. Values are some of our deepest programming, okay? For so long, one of the most important things in my life was fun. So when it came to working on my business on the weekend and the boys called me up, they're like, yeah, we're going to a party instead. I'm like, fuck yeah, because that's more important than success for me right now. So all I did for my early 20s was party my face off, okay? But it wasn't until I become really aware of this, got in touch with my values and realigned my values, right? And a lot of people have no idea what their values are, by the way. But we're taking through a big process where they can realign their values with their belief systems. Once I got this realigned, and they're in alignment with the thing that I wanted, the vehicle that I was in, the decision I made, and the people that are around me, life changes. But the last one, this is the thing that if people only take this, if people only take this one thing, this will completely change their life. It's, there's three types of attitudes that we can have. The first attitude is someone who goes, they just complain about the wind. They complain and they complain. Poor me, the wind is not blowing in my direction again. I can never catch a break. Oh my god, COVID. Someone told me the other day. How you been? Oh my god, you're still getting over COVID. You're still getting over fucking COVID, bruh. That was two years ago it finished. Get over it. Get over it. Oh, but you don't understand how hard it was for us. I don't care. I just don't. The world doesn't either. Your results, I don't care too, but they'll have an excuse for everything, right? The wind's not blowing in my direction. Just big victim in life. That was me for a long time. Victim. Next person is the person, the hopeful person where they put all their crystals out in alignment and they sit under the full moon or they pray to God every single day and they just hope and they just hope and they just hope and they hope. Meanwhile, they're doing the exact same thing over and over and over thinking that's going to change, which is the definition of. But the last person, they just get up and they change their fucking sails. They get up and they're like, you know what? The wind isn't blowing in my direction so I'm gonna pivot, I'm gonna adjust, and I'm gonna keep going. Oh great, the wind changed again. I'm gonna adjust, I'm gonna pivot, I'm gonna keep going. Oh, the wind changed again. I'm gonna adjust, I'm gonna pivot, I'm gonna keep going. Jim Rohn said it best, Jim Rohn said the same wind blows on all of us, the wind of opportunity, the wind of disaster. But it's not the blowing of the wind that determines your destination, but the set of your sail. And the decision you got to make today is to become the third person. And no matter what's happening in our life, no matter what you're going through, good or bad, we're always going to go through tribulations. That is life. It's up and down. It's up and down. Just like a beating heart. If it's flat, we're dead. But become the person that no matter what's actually happening in our life, we're going to become a problem solver. We're going to adapt and we're going to pivot to whatever is happening. So there, that's the whole thing my man.

Michael: That's gold, man. And I wanted you to go through that because it's incredibly important. And I think that if people will take a pause and just really soak that information up and go back through and listen to this again, you've got these five laws, vision, environment, vehicle, timing, becoming the right you. If you really distill that down into one thing, And you take the action required to become the person that you're capable of being, to be the man you're capable of being, to be that unbroken version of you, the universe will conspire in your favor. You cannot lose. I'm telling you, I've seen it in my own life. I've seen in the lives of the people I work with and the people I coach, the men I coach, I see it with them. So many of the same things we teach these guys and think unbroken values, belief systems, attitude, seed, having the vision of foresight, putting yourself in a position to be successful. And so it's really powerful. At the end of the day, it's when you believe in yourself enough to take the risk of figuring out who you are, the universe will lay out the obstacles as a test. And it will say, do you really want to be this? And every single time you overcome those obstacles, you will move closer and closer to who you are. And on a long enough timeline, because as well as I do, Morgan, this is no overnight job, but on a long enough timeline, you will become that person. And this has been an unbelievable conversation. I hope people got a tremendous amount of value out of it. I certainly have been taking notes the whole time before I ask you my last question. Where can everyone find you?

Morgan: Best places to get me Instagram at Morgan T. Nelson, YouTube, Morgan T. Nelson, or my podcast. Dream Out Loud, where everywhere. Anywhere you listen to a podcast, you'll find this Dream Out Loud.

Michael: Amazing. And of course, guys go to think I'm broken podcast. com. Check out Morgan's episode with this and more in the show notes. My last question for you, brother, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Morgan: My first initial thought to be Unbroken is more of a negative aspect. To be unbroken would be someone who's never even tried because I think every single time someone's tried, you get fucking broken, man. I think all greatness requires us to be broken. Oh, greatness. All success, all joy, all happiness has to come through being broken in some way, shape, or form. So to be completely unbroken, I would say it's the person. I wouldn't want to be unbroken. I wouldn't want to be someone who has never tried. However, have an unbroken mindset is the person who has been broken a million times, learn how to put themselves back together and has this resilient, unstoppable mindset who is gets up nine times. Fails nine times, gets up ten, and says fucking bring on the next thing. You can't defeat me. I'm unbroken. And it's the mentality to know you have not broken me full stop. But I think the process of greatness requires a lot of breaking. And then getting back up and having the mentality, bring it on, try me again. That's what I think.

Michael: Brilliantly said my friend, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think as you go down this path, as you level up, as you become the man you're capable of being, there will be new obstacles that will be new breakdowns, but those breakdowns become breakthroughs, those tragedies turn to triumph and you can become the hero of your own story, my friends.

Thank you so much for listening, Morgan. Thank you for being here.

And until next time be. Unbroken. I'll see ya.