Speaker 1: I have found over the course of my life that
Speaker 1: there is a truth to the reality that it takes
Speaker 1: as much effort and energy to destroy your life as
Speaker 1: it does to build your life. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they fee need
Speaker 1: their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Michael Unbroken. He's the host of the
Speaker 1: Think Unbroken podcast and he's also an entrepreneur, bestselling author, speaker, coach,
Speaker 1: and advocate for survivors of child abuse. Today, Michael and
Speaker 1: Eric discuss his book Think Unbroken, Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma.
Speaker 1: Hi Michael, Welcome to the show. Eric. It is my pleasure,
Speaker 1: my friend. I'm very excited to be here with you. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk with you. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about your book Think Unbroken, Understanding and Overcoming Childhood Trauma.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, we'll start like we
Speaker 1: always do, with the parable. In the parable, there's a
Speaker 1: grandparent talking with a grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second and looks up at the grandparents says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: does that parable mean to you in your life and
Speaker 1: in the work that you do. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's so spot on. I believe that inherently we all
Speaker 1: have the ability to create the life that we want
Speaker 1: to have, and I have found over the course of
Speaker 1: my life that there is a truth to the reality
Speaker 1: that it takes as much effort and energy to destroy
Speaker 1: your life as it does to build your life. And
Speaker 1: in that, I mean, it's so much about which wolf
Speaker 1: are you feeding? And for many of us we don't
Speaker 1: know which one to feed because we don't have clarity,
Speaker 1: or worse, like in my case, you're set up for failure,
Speaker 1: and so you find yourself in this position of just
Speaker 1: being like, is this who I am? Is this what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be doing? And you kind of get
Speaker 1: lost in that. I know, when you can get to
Speaker 1: this place in your life where you make declarations about
Speaker 1: who you are, you'll find that you are choosing which
Speaker 1: wolf that you feed. I love that, and I want
Speaker 1: to go into some of what you just hit on there,
Speaker 1: which is the not knowing and how childhood neglect and
Speaker 1: trauma often you say it screws up our GPS. So
Speaker 1: I definitely want to hit that. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's give listeners a little background. The book starts. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is the first line or if
Speaker 1: it's in the early part, but it says it was
Speaker 1: November of two thousand thirteen that I decided to change
Speaker 1: everything that was happening in my life. I was a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pounds overweight, cheating on my girlfriends, sick
Speaker 1: with a bacterial infection from drinking too much, smoking almost
Speaker 1: two packs of cigarettes a day, and getting high from
Speaker 1: the moment I woke up to the moment I went
Speaker 1: to sleep. So what was it about that day that
Speaker 1: caused you to decide to make a change. Well, I
Speaker 1: was just tired of my own ship. Man. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that the truth about this experiences at some
Speaker 1: point you have to recognize that your life is bad
Speaker 1: because of your choices. And that's where I was. I
Speaker 1: had been set up for failure. I mean, I come
Speaker 1: from an incredibly traumatic background, and I'd let everyone else
Speaker 1: always dictate who I am. You know, you're not good enough,
Speaker 1: you're not strong enough, you're not capable enough. And I
Speaker 1: started to believe it, and then I started to act
Speaker 1: like it, and then that became my reality. And you know,
Speaker 1: to be sitting three fifty pounds smoking two packs a day,
Speaker 1: my life as a disaster. But I'm doing really well
Speaker 1: in business. Like that's stupid, Like what is that? That
Speaker 1: makes no sense to me? There was so many just
Speaker 1: last straws, so many did. I quit smoking five thousand times,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I quit being a monster
Speaker 1: five thousand times. But it was like I just kept
Speaker 1: going back to it, back to it, back to it,
Speaker 1: because I realized like I was just still that hurt,
Speaker 1: lost little boy from all the experiences of my past.
Speaker 1: And as I was really starting to step further and
Speaker 1: deeper into this journey, it was on the back side
Speaker 1: of me putting a gun in my mouth. I was
Speaker 1: so miserable with my life and I'm just like, this
Speaker 1: is not who I am, this is not what I want.
Speaker 1: Why does this keep happening to me? And I realized
Speaker 1: that it was happening to me because I was allowing
Speaker 1: it to happen to me. I realized that my life
Speaker 1: fell upside down because I had let all of the
Speaker 1: people ingrain and in bed and groom me into believing
Speaker 1: that I'm supposed to be a loser and Eric I
Speaker 1: was a loser because I let them tell me that
Speaker 1: I was. And I was so terrified that I could
Speaker 1: be me. And and the thing about this is so
Speaker 1: many people experienced this where it's like you're sitting here,
Speaker 1: You're looking at your life, You're like, why does this
Speaker 1: keep happening, right, and like you're like, you can continue
Speaker 1: to be the victim, which I did really well. Man,
Speaker 1: it was your fault, my parents fault, community's fault, school's fault,
Speaker 1: Obama's fault. Like, dude, it was everybody's fault except mine,
Speaker 1: and we're not culpable for the bad things that happened
Speaker 1: to those children. Like, let's be very clear, like I
Speaker 1: have scars, cuts, burns, my mother cut my finger off
Speaker 1: when I was four years old, Like, that's not on me.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I realized in that moment as
Speaker 1: I was like reconciling all these experiences was very simple,
Speaker 1: I'm no longer a child. And that to me hit
Speaker 1: me like a brick to the face because it meant
Speaker 1: that I had to start taking accountability for the direction
Speaker 1: I wanted to go in my future. And what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is a really difficult and conversation to have,
Speaker 1: and it needs a certain degree of nuance because what
Speaker 1: you're saying very unequivocally, it is not my fault for
Speaker 1: the damage that was done to me. It is not
Speaker 1: my fault for the patterns that may have kicked off,
Speaker 1: but it is my responsibility at this point to change it.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one. You make that point often in
Speaker 1: the book, like nobody is coming to save you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no Disney moment like whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: think is about to happen where somebody's gonna ride in
Speaker 1: on on the white horse, like that ain't going down.
Speaker 1: It just isn't. And and I wish it was, man like, honestly,
Speaker 1: I swear to God, like I wish that life was
Speaker 1: so much easier for people. I wish that the suffering
Speaker 1: would go away. I wish that you know that thing
Speaker 1: that you needed when you're where a kid was given
Speaker 1: to you, because then you wouldn't have to be listening
Speaker 1: to this right now, and I would be obsolete and
Speaker 1: I would be doing literally anything else with my life.
Speaker 1: But that's not the cards that were dealt. That's not
Speaker 1: what we were given. That's not the reality of the world.
Speaker 1: And so you have to be willing to understand that
Speaker 1: everything that you do from this point forward is on you.
Speaker 1: And that's a hard pill to swallow because that means
Speaker 1: you have to take responsibility, radical radical responsibility for who
Speaker 1: you are. You have to own your mistakes, but also
Speaker 1: you have to own your amazing accomplishment some victories. You
Speaker 1: have to take your flowers, you know. And and that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I think people struggle with so much,
Speaker 1: is because we're always told to be small, be quiet,
Speaker 1: you walk on the right side of the hall, raise
Speaker 1: your hand to go to the bathroom. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's nonsense. Be big, be loud, be you own your space.
Speaker 1: Don't apologize for being you ever. And and that's one
Speaker 1: of the things I think that comes along with this
Speaker 1: hilling journey as confidence and and ultimately, the only way
Speaker 1: you're gonna build confidences, you're gonna have to repeatedly do
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult things ad nauseum, and eventually, on a long
Speaker 1: enough timeline, you'll look at your life and it will
Speaker 1: be different. I don't want to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time on it here, but let's spend I don't know,
Speaker 1: one minute on your trauma background. I mean, you mentioned
Speaker 1: some of it. Your mom cut off your finger. We
Speaker 1: could stop right there and that would be sufficient. But
Speaker 1: there's more to it than that. Kind of gave us
Speaker 1: a quick run through of it, just so listeners have
Speaker 1: a sense of kind of where you're coming from. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: so mom was a drug addict alcoholic cut my finger
Speaker 1: off when I was four. My stepfather super abusive, the
Speaker 1: kind of guy you praised. Never your stepfather put me
Speaker 1: in the hospital multiple times, never met my real father.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, he must be out save in
Speaker 1: the world now. That fool just did not come, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was homeless as a kid. I lived with
Speaker 1: thirty different families between like eight to twelve years old,
Speaker 1: getting bounced around place to place to place. My grandmother
Speaker 1: adopted me when I was twelve, and I'm bi racial,
Speaker 1: black and white. And my Grandmo's an old racist white
Speaker 1: lady from a town in Tennessee you never heard of,
Speaker 1: and so insert identity crisis. I got high for the
Speaker 1: first time when I was twelve, drunk at thirteen, expelled
Speaker 1: from school at fifteen, must have been in a hundred fights.
Speaker 1: Still a hundred cars, got shot at by the cops.
Speaker 1: Watch my three childhood best friends get murdered. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can keep going. Yeah, we got sexual abuse in there.
Speaker 1: Let's not forget that. Well, there's that. There was a
Speaker 1: religious abuse growing up in the Mormon Church. There was dude,
Speaker 1: there's this thing called the ace serve a a study
Speaker 1: and it's a great marker for long term health ramifications.
Speaker 1: And you know I answered yes to all ten of
Speaker 1: those questions, Like, look, it's not a competition. I want
Speaker 1: to be very clear about this. I have the worst
Speaker 1: childhood of anyone I've ever met, and I've met some
Speaker 1: people had some dark shit happened to them, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, That's what I was dealt. Man, those
Speaker 1: were the cards, and I can't change it. I can't
Speaker 1: change the abuse, the homelessness, the evictions, the sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: the religious abuse. I can't change any of it. Right,
Speaker 1: it all shapes and forms who you are. And let
Speaker 1: me assure you man, I had to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of money and a lot of hours to be able
Speaker 1: to even be functional to where I am now. And
Speaker 1: I look at my life and I go, but I'm
Speaker 1: still not even close to where I'm going. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the thing I decided. I made a decision.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be a damn victim anymore. And you've
Speaker 1: got to be willing to rise. You know, I wrote
Speaker 1: in the verse book, I said, you know, my life
Speaker 1: was like standing inside of a house that I had
Speaker 1: set on fire and was holding the matches. That's what
Speaker 1: it felt like. Man. I was like, damn, I'm burning
Speaker 1: everything down all the time, relationships, friendships, community, money. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was making six figures with a fortune ten company
Speaker 1: with no high school diploma or college education, and I'm
Speaker 1: in debt like forty rand. It's the chaos. I'm ruining
Speaker 1: every relationship. I'm ruining my body. The thing I hate
Speaker 1: more than anything that people who are traumatic experiences say
Speaker 1: is that I thrive in chaos. You shouldn't have to, Like,
Speaker 1: that's crazy to me, man, And so I had to
Speaker 1: discover through discomfort that on the other side of chaos
Speaker 1: is calm and be willing to thrive in that. And
Speaker 1: that's been the journey. So you just a minute ago
Speaker 1: said I made a decision, right, And I'm curious about
Speaker 1: that because we make decisions, and then if there's trauma
Speaker 1: in our background or mental illness and background, we're not
Speaker 1: one person inside, right, you know, there's all these different
Speaker 1: parts of us running around. So Michael makes a decision,
Speaker 1: but the next day there's loud screaming voices going no, dude,
Speaker 1: like do this, do that? How do you make a
Speaker 1: decision like that? The acts as an anchor point that
Speaker 1: you keep coming back to again and again. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: you know that's such a great point, man. I remember
Speaker 1: making that declaration after looking in the mirror and being like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to change my life. I wish I would
Speaker 1: have wrote this in that book, and when I revised it,
Speaker 1: because I'm going to I'm going to actually add this.
Speaker 1: The next three years were so incredibly difficult, dude. It
Speaker 1: was like one step forward, eight million steps back. I
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, man, I finally did something right today,
Speaker 1: and then I'd go burn it down. I finally went
Speaker 1: to the gym today, and then I smoked a cigarette.
Speaker 1: Like it was just three years of constant and like pushing,
Speaker 1: like crawling, like like I think about being in a pit,
Speaker 1: and like you're crawling up this wall and you make
Speaker 1: it to the top, you put your hand on there,
Speaker 1: and then you fall back down. You gotta do it
Speaker 1: over and over again. And what happened was I just
Speaker 1: I looked at my life, dude, and the real truth
Speaker 1: of this. And I didn't write about this in the
Speaker 1: book either. It's actually been kind of a weird thing
Speaker 1: that I've been sharing recently. I used to call myself
Speaker 1: a terrorist. I used to go in the mirror and
Speaker 1: look at myself and call myself a terrorist because Eric,
Speaker 1: I don't negotiate with terrorists. And what happened was it
Speaker 1: started to be this mind game I played with myself
Speaker 1: to force myself into the discomfort because you asked, how
Speaker 1: do you like make that north Star? And I looked
Speaker 1: at my life and I said, I've let myself down
Speaker 1: in the same way that everyone else has always let
Speaker 1: me down. And I was just so tired of it. Man,
Speaker 1: I just set up no more, go do it anyway,
Speaker 1: deal with it. Suffer, right, And I hate to use
Speaker 1: this word, but I don't have another word to use.
Speaker 1: I believe that you have to some extent suffer through
Speaker 1: creating your life, because rehashing the past is suffering. Going
Speaker 1: to the gym and losing a hundred fifty pounds of suffering,
Speaker 1: writing books is suffering. Like there's different levels of it, right,
Speaker 1: And because I was so clear of not negotiating with
Speaker 1: myself as a no excuses, just results, right, it's a
Speaker 1: huge part of this book. It's a huge part of
Speaker 1: the narrative. And the book's not even necessarily about me, right,
Speaker 1: there's parable in it, right in my stories, but like
Speaker 1: the reality is it's about tools, and the tool that
Speaker 1: I believe as the greatest tool in the human experiences
Speaker 1: the mindset that you take into everything that you must face.
Speaker 1: Then when I adapted this truth, no excuses, just results,
Speaker 1: like man, I meant it. I meant it because I
Speaker 1: knew that if I didn't force myself literally force myself
Speaker 1: into what's next, I would never be here talking to you.
Speaker 1: And that forcing that process is about understanding what you're
Speaker 1: capable of doing. Because one of the things that I
Speaker 1: do believe people do not understand about trauma. Dude, it's
Speaker 1: not the finger, right, It's not that, it's not the cuts,
Speaker 1: it's not the burns, it's not even the sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: It's none of that stuff that I carried that I
Speaker 1: had to fight through. It was the theft of my identity, right,
Speaker 1: Because think about this, what is the service of the brain? Survival?
Speaker 1: That's it. It does not care about anything else. It
Speaker 1: does not care about your goals, doesn't care about your dreams,
Speaker 1: doesn't care about the color of your shirt. It cares
Speaker 1: about you surviving. And so we understand that the brain
Speaker 1: is so adaptable and malleable that when you were in
Speaker 1: these traumatic experiences, when you're going through this, your brain goes,
Speaker 1: wait a second, hold on, If I'm me, that means
Speaker 1: I suffer, I get hurt, I get beat, I get
Speaker 1: locked in a closet, I get my head slammed into
Speaker 1: a wall. Well, I don't want to be me anymore.
Speaker 1: And so you learn how to turn off. It's an adaptability,
Speaker 1: it's a survival skill. It's an autonomic response to the
Speaker 1: stimulus of the environment. And so the worst part about
Speaker 1: this is it serves you for a period. So when
Speaker 1: you're eight, twelve, seventeen, it keeps you safe, like that's
Speaker 1: what's so crazy about it. And then you're thirty seven,
Speaker 1: fifty two years old. You don't know how to say yes,
Speaker 1: you don't know how to say no. You've never been
Speaker 1: yourself before, and so now you're in this crazy juxtaposition
Speaker 1: of trying to reconcile the past and look at the
Speaker 1: impact of the truth that we are the sum total
Speaker 1: of all of our experiences leading to this moment, while
Speaker 1: simultaneously balancing this nuanced idea and understanding that maybe you
Speaker 1: can be you, but you've never been you before, You've
Speaker 1: never been allowed to be you before, and the only
Speaker 1: way that you're going to discover how to be you
Speaker 1: is by choosing that north star, doing incredibly difficult things
Speaker 1: and just trying to figure out if it's true that
Speaker 1: your hypothesis, that this idea about what I think it
Speaker 1: is that I want is actually correct. Yeah, there's about
Speaker 1: fifty different ways we could go. I'm going to back
Speaker 1: up a little bit though, to your talking about those
Speaker 1: three years and how it was like one step forward,
Speaker 1: eight steps back, because I think this is a really
Speaker 1: important point. People often ask me when I'm being interviewed,
Speaker 1: tell me about how you got sober, right, and I'll
Speaker 1: pick up the story of when I got sober that time,
Speaker 1: like while I went into this treatment center. And but
Speaker 1: what it's missing is everything that happened before that, all
Speaker 1: the half starts that I tried. It would be a
Speaker 1: long ass story, right. We don't have enough time on
Speaker 1: the podcast for me to talk about all the different
Speaker 1: ways that I tried to get sober before it actually worked, right,
Speaker 1: And so so many of these stories of quote unquote
Speaker 1: redemption that people here You're wars or Mine or anybody,
Speaker 1: lots of people have them. They're not that special, but
Speaker 1: they're these tidy little narratives that miss just how brutally
Speaker 1: difficult this process can be. And I think it's critical
Speaker 1: to talk about because people who are in the middle
Speaker 1: of them, who are in the middle of their story
Speaker 1: right now, are going this is brutally awful and I
Speaker 1: must be doing something wrong, and I'm like, no, you're not,
Speaker 1: You're not. This is hard, dude. I'm a decade in
Speaker 1: and I'm still in the middle of this, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's it's kind of like
Speaker 1: always being in recovery, like you're always like I'm just
Speaker 1: trying day in, day out, but like I had been
Speaker 1: going to therapy, like I've been going to therapy for years.
Speaker 1: I've been going therapy since I was seven years old.
Speaker 1: But I learned how to not tell the truth to
Speaker 1: therapist because I thought it was safe, and then they
Speaker 1: go tell my parents what I said, and so you
Speaker 1: learn to turn that. I'm like, all right, cool, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go pay this full hundreds of dollars a
Speaker 1: week and I'm gonna lie to him for what It's
Speaker 1: so funny. It reminds me of I was always stealing
Speaker 1: for the time I was you know, I was just
Speaker 1: a kleptomaniac from early on, and I remember getting arrested
Speaker 1: one time and being sent to therapy, and I remember
Speaker 1: the therapist coming out and telling my parents like he
Speaker 1: seems like a really well adjusted young man. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine the snow job I gave that woman. I
Speaker 1: can't fully remember, but I surely didn't open the doors
Speaker 1: to my inner chaos. I became a masterful liar, man,
Speaker 1: I will argue today this is why, like I think
Speaker 1: values are so important, My number one value is honesty.
Speaker 1: Because I became a masterful liar. I watched my mother
Speaker 1: and my stepfather manipulate everything and everyone. Anyway, that's another tangent,
Speaker 1: because I want to ask you a question because I
Speaker 1: know how important it is. I would be in these
Speaker 1: situations that I said I'd never put myself in again,
Speaker 1: the random hookups on the internet, drunk in the bar
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock at night on a Tuesday. There I
Speaker 1: am again at the damn gas station buying a back
Speaker 1: of cigarettes. Yeah, man, I said I wasn't gonna do
Speaker 1: this anymore. This is the thing that I think is
Speaker 1: so important that I hope people will take away, is
Speaker 1: that I noticed that the more work I did, the
Speaker 1: more effort I put in. The more therapy, the moral
Speaker 1: personal development, the more they weren't really called podcast then,
Speaker 1: but the more of those I would consume, the further
Speaker 1: distance and time between those actions. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: that I think people need to hold on too, if
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of this, because if you haven't
Speaker 1: stepped into that vice in six weeks, that's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a context. I'd get off of work
Speaker 1: and I drive to the gym every day for a year.
Speaker 1: I did this literally for years. You talk about like chaos,
Speaker 1: and in the gym parking lot was a bar and
Speaker 1: a McDonald's, Like talk about perfect place to put a
Speaker 1: freaking McDonald's right next to the gym. And they're gonna
Speaker 1: assume it's like the good wolf, bad wolf in a
Speaker 1: parking lot, right, Like it's Here's what I would do
Speaker 1: every day for years. Eric bags packed. It's in the
Speaker 1: passenger seat again, in the parking lot. I'll look at
Speaker 1: that gym and smoke a cigarette and go to McDonald's,
Speaker 1: go to the bar, get in my car tomorrow. I'll
Speaker 1: do it tomorrow. And that was years of that man
Speaker 1: just suffering through the inability of being aware enough to
Speaker 1: understand that the choice that I make was killing me.
Speaker 1: And as I started the journey into healing and I
Speaker 1: got deeper into this, it started being like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: what if I just don't do the McDonald's today. I'll
Speaker 1: go to the gym and then I'll get a drink, right.
Speaker 1: And then what if it was I won't go to
Speaker 1: the bar, but instead I'll go to the gym, I'll
Speaker 1: get McDonald's, I'll do the salad right this time on
Speaker 1: my way home. And it was just like this iterative
Speaker 1: process again and again and again and again, and now
Speaker 1: I haven't had McDonald's like twenty years, right, well ten
Speaker 1: yere excuse me, And so I think about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, this process it sucks, dude, it's
Speaker 1: so freaking hard. But again, what happened was even though
Speaker 1: and here's where people will get caught up in the black.
Speaker 1: But I thought you said you don't negotiate with yourself.
Speaker 1: I don't. But it's just you are learning. You're going
Speaker 1: through this process of understanding who you are, what you're
Speaker 1: actually capable of doing. Because if you've never been allotted
Speaker 1: the space to do this before, you gotta give yourself
Speaker 1: some grace. And I say that because think about this, Eric,
Speaker 1: We've never had this conversation before. This is the first
Speaker 1: time we have ever done this. You are going through
Speaker 1: this process of the human experience and discovering things that
Speaker 1: you've never been exposed to. Right, So, in that space
Speaker 1: in which you're like, all right, I'm trying to be sober,
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to hook up with strangers. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to go to the gym, I'm trying to eat well,
Speaker 1: like you're learning through failure. Right. John Maxwell writes an
Speaker 1: amazing book called Failing Forward. I believe everyone should read
Speaker 1: because it's so much about this idea of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fail towards your goal. You're gonna fail forward,
Speaker 1: You're gonna trip over the finish line, right, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna make it there if you keep going. And then
Speaker 1: now I look at my life and I go I
Speaker 1: don't get drunk, I don't eat fast food. I'm a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pounds lighter. I don't smoke cigarettes. I
Speaker 1: don't get high when I wake up. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not that I don't still have my moments, because dude,
Speaker 1: sometimes a movie will come on, they're like smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, I want a cigarette right now, and
Speaker 1: I go, no, you can't have one, dummy, It's not allowed.
Speaker 1: And so it's that thing where the triggers are always
Speaker 1: gonna be there. But if you adapt these tools and
Speaker 1: you bring them into your life when you have them,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, you have a sponsor, or you
Speaker 1: have a coach, or you have that meditation or that journal,
Speaker 1: you go to that thing instead of the vice, and
Speaker 1: in a long enough timeline you'll find that six weeks
Speaker 1: turns into six months, into six years, into the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. Then it's just simply this process of
Speaker 1: just keep going forward. Don't stop because you screwed up,
Speaker 1: does not mean you erased all of the effort. You
Speaker 1: don't rewind time. Time's gone forever. I'll tell you something
Speaker 1: really interesting. If people understand what I'm about to say,
Speaker 1: it will change things for them. When I go to
Speaker 1: restaurants and I put my name on the list and
Speaker 1: it says time I right now. Because the time is now,
Speaker 1: that is the time it is. And so if you
Speaker 1: are willing to understand that right now is the thing
Speaker 1: that matters the most, not yesterday, and not ten minutes
Speaker 1: from now, but right now. The choice you're making in
Speaker 1: this moment is the thing that matters the most. It
Speaker 1: will change the trajectory of your future forever. You talk
Speaker 1: about how trauma really corrupts, you call it your GPS system, right,
Speaker 1: and it's got you thinking that what you really need
Speaker 1: is a big mac, what you really need is a drink,
Speaker 1: what you really need is a cigarette. And those voices
Speaker 1: don't go away right away, right, So how is it
Speaker 1: that you were able to sort of decide who you
Speaker 1: really are and which of those voices you want to
Speaker 1: listen to and which of those voices you don't want
Speaker 1: to listen to. And I'm just gonna add to that
Speaker 1: a little bit because part of the problem is that
Speaker 1: all those voices talk in our voice. They all sound
Speaker 1: the same. It would be it would be great if
Speaker 1: the one that told us to do the self destructive
Speaker 1: things sounded like the Tasmanian devil. It would be easy
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, that's not the right voice, right,
Speaker 1: So they talk in our voice, and sometimes the ones
Speaker 1: that are pushing us in quote unquote the wrong direction
Speaker 1: are really loud, and the one that's saying here's who
Speaker 1: I am. Here's who I want to be is very quiet.
Speaker 1: How do you stay oriented? Yeah, that's that is the question,
Speaker 1: right Like literally, if I could make a pill and
Speaker 1: sell it, I'd be the richest person on planet freaking Earth,
Speaker 1: because that is the question. Ultimately, I think it comes
Speaker 1: down to understanding really fundamental truth about this is that
Speaker 1: this thing right here called a pen is the most
Speaker 1: powerful tool you'll ever own in your life. And what
Speaker 1: I did in the beginning, as I sat down with
Speaker 1: a piece of paper and I wrote who I wanted
Speaker 1: to be, I wrote it out top to bottom, massive, massive,
Speaker 1: massive clarity. I said, this is the person I want
Speaker 1: to be. That's the impact I want to make in
Speaker 1: the world. This I want to show up in my relationships,
Speaker 1: my friendships, my career, my business, my personal life, all
Speaker 1: of it, right, And I just started moving towards it
Speaker 1: a little bit every single day because without the clarity,
Speaker 1: it's like being in a rudderless boat. You're just gonna
Speaker 1: end up wherever the breeze takes you, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh, my life sucks. Well, yeah, because you
Speaker 1: weren't clear about where you wanted to go. If you're
Speaker 1: on a desert Island. It's because you let yourself get there,
Speaker 1: because you weren't super clear about where you wanted to be,
Speaker 1: and so in the beginning it's so difficult because people
Speaker 1: don't understand the power of the mind. I truly believe
Speaker 1: what I'm about to say more than anything that I
Speaker 1: will ever say in front of me. There's a sign
Speaker 1: that says mindset is everything. I believe that so inherently
Speaker 1: in my soul, in my body that I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the most true thing that I know. But in this
Speaker 1: personal development space that I live in, everybody's always like mindset, mindset, mindset,
Speaker 1: but nobody tells you what it is. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you what it actually means in a practical way
Speaker 1: that will help you navigate those voices, because I promise you, man,
Speaker 1: they don't turn off. I tell people when they come
Speaker 1: into coaching with me, I'm like, man, this is the
Speaker 1: rest of your life game. Don't think that this is
Speaker 1: just gonna be over because you did some coaching. It ain't.
Speaker 1: I promise this is the rest of your life game.
Speaker 1: But one of the most important tools you have in
Speaker 1: this game is mindset, and mindset means this what you
Speaker 1: think becomes what you speak. What you speak become your actions,
Speaker 1: and your actions become your reality. And some of you
Speaker 1: listening to this right now are being so mean to
Speaker 1: yourself that if you said it to me, I would
Speaker 1: punch you in the face. And you're expecting yourself to
Speaker 1: be successful. There's something wrong with that picture. What I
Speaker 1: want you to do is I want you to take
Speaker 1: this pen. I promise you will change your life. Is
Speaker 1: the most important dollar you'll ever spend in your life.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna write down what I'm about to tell you,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna convince yourself that this is true.
Speaker 1: I am the kind of person who is kind to myself.
Speaker 1: And I know what you're thinking, Michael. You're six ft four,
Speaker 1: covered in tattoos, gold nose ring. What do you know
Speaker 1: about kindness everything? Because here's the truth about it. If
Speaker 1: it is true, which I believe it is that what
Speaker 1: we think becomes what we speak, and that becomes our
Speaker 1: action and our reality, then if we're operating through a
Speaker 1: scope of kindness when we are faced with making the
Speaker 1: difficult decisions and hearing those voices battle back and forth,
Speaker 1: you have a mechanism for deciding which one is louder,
Speaker 1: because you'll ask yourself when you're in challenge, when you're
Speaker 1: in struggle, when you have to do the difficult thing,
Speaker 1: what would a kind person do right now? How would
Speaker 1: a kind person show up? What would kindness look like?
Speaker 1: How do you deploy kindness in this moment? And then
Speaker 1: because you're thinking that, you will act that, and because
Speaker 1: you act that, that will become your reality. Because Eric, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but the voice that says
Speaker 1: you're a loser, you're not good enough, you're not strong enough,
Speaker 1: you're not capable enough, you're fake, Like that voice never
Speaker 1: fucking turns off. But I don't listen to that voice
Speaker 1: because I operate through kindness, because I have clarity about
Speaker 1: who I am and my goals in my mission. Then
Speaker 1: when you start to add on other layers of this,
Speaker 1: because dude, it's like putting together a cake. You gotta
Speaker 1: throw all the ingredients in right. And when you add
Speaker 1: on the layer of like your values. My values are honesty, kindness, leadership,
Speaker 1: self actualization, and no excuses. Those values become a funnel
Speaker 1: for the decision making that I'm making every single day.
Speaker 1: Great example, you invite me to come on the show.
Speaker 1: I listen to the show, I go, I'm not in
Speaker 1: alignment with the show. It's not gonna move me towards
Speaker 1: my goal. I don't do the show, or it does,
Speaker 1: so I am. So I'm here, but I have to
Speaker 1: filter through my value system first, because if I don't,
Speaker 1: then I don't have clarity about whether or not it's
Speaker 1: moving me forward. Do This applies to dating, to the
Speaker 1: food you eat, to the to the things you consume
Speaker 1: and watch on television, to the internet, to your phone,
Speaker 1: to your body, everything, because when you start operating and
Speaker 1: understanding that mindset is everything. It changes when you are
Speaker 1: in that moment of those voye is going to war
Speaker 1: because I don't know that I've ever had a moment
Speaker 1: where they haven't been there. And it's just like one's
Speaker 1: going to be louder because I'm choosing to make it
Speaker 1: louder by executing against the tools that I have that
Speaker 1: I know work in this process. Yeah, so you're saying, basically,
Speaker 1: you get clear on your values or some orienting ideas,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be kind to myself, and then any
Speaker 1: voice that isn't saying that that isn't reflecting that. You go,
Speaker 1: that's not the voice that I listened to. Like, I've
Speaker 1: decided which messages I'm going to give credence to, and
Speaker 1: anything that's not that, even if it's yelling in my head,
Speaker 1: I go, Nope, that's not me. That's not who I
Speaker 1: want to be. That's not the direction I'm going. That's
Speaker 1: not the thing I'm following, which is easy to say
Speaker 1: and very hard to do. Of course, Like to your point,
Speaker 1: let's go step deeper, because I'll tell you exactly why
Speaker 1: what I said is not going to work for people.
Speaker 1: I will lay out exact clear the roadmap for why
Speaker 1: what I just said is going to leave somebody in
Speaker 1: four minutes from being like, that's nonsense. Because one of
Speaker 1: the things that you have to understand is causation and correlation.
Speaker 1: There is a direct connection to everything that's ever happened
Speaker 1: in our life that has led to this moment where
Speaker 1: the sum total of all of our experiences and so
Speaker 1: that means every single thing that has ever happened in
Speaker 1: our life informs us. And so think about a paint
Speaker 1: a picture. Let's let's say you're in third grade and
Speaker 1: you're coloring a house and ms Smith comes up to
Speaker 1: you and you just colored the moon purple, and she
Speaker 1: chastises you and criticizes you in front of the whole classroom,
Speaker 1: and they go, Eric, the moon's not purple. And all
Speaker 1: the kids laugh at you and they don't play with
Speaker 1: you at recess, and then your brain goes, oh, man,
Speaker 1: when I'm creative, when I'm artistic, when I try to
Speaker 1: do something that makes me feel like me, they laugh
Speaker 1: at me. They take me out of the playtime. The
Speaker 1: teacher embarrasses me. I'm not gonna be me anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be me because it's too painful. And so
Speaker 1: now you're in this place where like you're hearing this
Speaker 1: idea about wait a second, but I can create myself.
Speaker 1: The thing about this journey is like when you get
Speaker 1: to this moment and you're hearing what we're saying, and
Speaker 1: you're like, I want to have the good voice be louder.
Speaker 1: You want that so desperately. You have to understand that
Speaker 1: the loud voice that has controlled you for so long
Speaker 1: has been immeshed in you, ingrained, and you groomed into you.
Speaker 1: It is not you, it's not you, it has never
Speaker 1: been you. But because of the brain's autonomic response for survival.
Speaker 1: It becomes this thing that keeps you safe, and you
Speaker 1: really have to understand the truth. The only way you
Speaker 1: squelch that voice, you make it quieter, is you have
Speaker 1: to challenge the narrative of who you believe you are.
Speaker 1: You have to be willing to do things you've never done.
Speaker 1: You have to be willing to fail. You have to
Speaker 1: be willing to step onto the edge of the diving
Speaker 1: board and jump. People will get sevent into this, you
Speaker 1: get eight four into this, and they won't take the
Speaker 1: final step. And this means really innately is when you
Speaker 1: have these moments, in these thoughts, in the silence, right
Speaker 1: especially at bedtime, getting ready to go to bed silent,
Speaker 1: your brain won't turn off. It's like, do that thing,
Speaker 1: just keep hearing it, do that thing that you're like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm scared, Yes, of course you are. You've been told
Speaker 1: to be scared of being you. You've been told to
Speaker 1: be scared of quitting the job, leaving the unfulfilling relationship,
Speaker 1: starting the business, doing the part. You've been told to
Speaker 1: be terrified of it. But the only way you make
Speaker 1: the voice about who you are bigger is by feeding
Speaker 1: the wolf right. Going back to where we started this feed,
Speaker 1: it be willing to step into the unknown because you
Speaker 1: choose to. I think one of the greatest aspects of healing.
Speaker 1: And I think if people really understand what I'm about
Speaker 1: to say, it will be impactful. I only do what
Speaker 1: I want to do, and I never do what I
Speaker 1: don't want to do. Like if you call old me
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, Michael, do you want to go
Speaker 1: to this country concert, I'm like, no, absolutely not. I
Speaker 1: hate country music. No way, dude. Fifteen years ago, I'd
Speaker 1: have been the first one to say yes because I
Speaker 1: wanted to feel like you made me feel good about myself.
Speaker 1: I needed that from other people. I needed other people.
Speaker 1: I needed to bend who I am, to have community,
Speaker 1: to have brotherhood, to have companionship. And you know what
Speaker 1: I got out of that. A lot of drunken nights,
Speaker 1: a lot of hookups, a lot of bragging to my bros,
Speaker 1: a lot of bullshit. And as I changed. Jay Z
Speaker 1: has my favorite quote of all time, goes people around
Speaker 1: you staying that you changed. Well, I didn't do all
Speaker 1: this work to stay the same. Who do you want
Speaker 1: to be? Who do you want to be? Because without
Speaker 1: putting in massive action, that voice that you want so
Speaker 1: desperately to be, the voice that is predominant, will never
Speaker 1: be heard. I want to go back to what you
Speaker 1: said a minute ago about and never do anything that
Speaker 1: I don't want to do. I assume you mean that
Speaker 1: you might very well know that going to a recovery
Speaker 1: meeting or your therapist is the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: but you don't quote unquote want to do it in
Speaker 1: that moment. Reconcile that with what you just said. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's really simply about this. Let me actually preface this.
Speaker 1: You have to do things you don't want to do.
Speaker 1: That's just the nature of the world. There's monotony. Like
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna have to do the same thing eight
Speaker 1: thousand times, right, you know, That's how this works. What
Speaker 1: I mean at a deeper level is the things that
Speaker 1: bend your identity are the things that you are not
Speaker 1: in alignment with, are the things that are against your values,
Speaker 1: your once, your needs, your interest, your moral compass. Right,
Speaker 1: it's going to the strip club or the bar when
Speaker 1: you're like, that's not who I am anymore. It's the
Speaker 1: smoke and the joint in the morning when you're like,
Speaker 1: that's not who I am anymore. It's like those things
Speaker 1: I don't do, the things that I don't want to
Speaker 1: do because you peer pressure me, because I feel connection.
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting things that has happened over
Speaker 1: the course of last decade is watching the people move
Speaker 1: away from me who have been in my life as
Speaker 1: I've changed, as I've grown, as I've said I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go to the bar with you tonight, as
Speaker 1: I've said I'm not going to go, you know, do
Speaker 1: that thing that we used to do. And then you know,
Speaker 1: it's really funny because I'll pop on social on the
Speaker 1: occasion and they'll show up in a feed and they're
Speaker 1: doing the same thing we did fifteen years ago. It
Speaker 1: ain't different. I'm like, I'm changing because I don't want
Speaker 1: to do that stuff anymore. Right, And that's what that
Speaker 1: means is you're taking fool ownership over who you are
Speaker 1: in all aspects, and I literally mean all aspects. I
Speaker 1: mean your career, I mean your relationship, the food you eat.
Speaker 1: Like if you're like I hate coffee and you're going
Speaker 1: and drinking coffee because you want to fit in with somebody,
Speaker 1: you need to question and check yourself right and the
Speaker 1: things that I want to do. I want to be healthy,
Speaker 1: I want to eat well. I want to go to therapy.
Speaker 1: I want to have a coach. I want to invest
Speaker 1: in personal development. I want to have a business that
Speaker 1: changed the world. I want all these things. So I
Speaker 1: only do things that move me towards those goals. Anything
Speaker 1: else does not bring value to my life. I will
Speaker 1: say this because I understand why you asked the question.
Speaker 1: You cannot do this without the massive clarity that we've
Speaker 1: been laying the track work for trying to figure out.
Speaker 1: You've got to be able to step into that because
Speaker 1: if not, again, you're just gonna be on this rudderless
Speaker 1: boat not going anywhere. Yeah. I love that I don't
Speaker 1: do things that it bend my identity. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great way of saying it, because you know, you've
Speaker 1: got your own business. I've got my own business. There
Speaker 1: are lots of tasks within that that I don't There
Speaker 1: are times I'm like, I do not want to do
Speaker 1: this right, but I know that it aligns with the
Speaker 1: direction I want to go with the person I want
Speaker 1: to be. You in the book talk pretty eloquently about
Speaker 1: the fact that there was no sort of single modality
Speaker 1: that led you to change. Right, you have done a
Speaker 1: lot of things right right us through a list of
Speaker 1: some of the ways you've worked on healing. Not much
Speaker 1: time do you have, man, Well, look, I'll go back
Speaker 1: to what are you willing to do to have the
Speaker 1: life that you want to have? No excuses, just results.
Speaker 1: Do that literally meant I'm gonna do everything everything. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try it all because I don't know what works,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what doesn't work because I haven't
Speaker 1: done it yet. And so it was therapy, group therapy,
Speaker 1: men's group therapy, men's group, trauma therapy, gestalt therapy, CBT, E, M,
Speaker 1: D R N, LP, ABC, all the acronyms. Dude, it
Speaker 1: was literally all those things. That was. I went to
Speaker 1: all the support groups, A A, in a essay, just
Speaker 1: trying feeling seeing is this right? Is this wrong? Do
Speaker 1: I belong here? Do I not? It was getting a coach,
Speaker 1: going to personal development, investing in seminars, reading the books. Dude,
Speaker 1: I've read over seven d books in the last decade. Right.
Speaker 1: It was going and listening to podcast, getting certifications in
Speaker 1: trauma education. It was all of the things, man, it
Speaker 1: was bodywork, acupuncture, raiky you know you name it like
Speaker 1: I did at all. Man, I was like, something's gonna
Speaker 1: work ship. I don't know what, but we're gonna find out.
Speaker 1: And it was the willingness to dedicate myself to it.
Speaker 1: And it cost every penny I had, and it cost
Speaker 1: every second of time I had, and even at one
Speaker 1: point early on I had to borrow money. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: I need this therapy. I don't have any money. Somebody
Speaker 1: I reached out, I asked for help because I was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something here. Man. I'm I'm going to
Speaker 1: therapy four times a week. I'm going to groups on
Speaker 1: Wednesdays and Saturdays, and you know, spending time on body work.
Speaker 1: I'm healing my body because I got so sick from
Speaker 1: all the drinking. Dude, I mean I spent I literally
Speaker 1: spent probably a quarter million dollars and a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: hours on this, you know, because I looked at I go,
Speaker 1: what price are you willing to pay for your health?
Speaker 1: I don't care how much it costs. Signed me up.
Speaker 1: And I found in that process like some thing's worked
Speaker 1: really well, and some things just I did did not
Speaker 1: connect with remotely and I will never do again. Right,
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have known that had I not ventured
Speaker 1: into it. But but I will say this, like honestly,
Speaker 1: and I mean this. I've thought about this a lot
Speaker 1: over the years. If I could go back in time,
Speaker 1: the first thing I would have done is I had
Speaker 1: hired a coach because the therapy, while is very very
Speaker 1: important and should be a part of your journey, it
Speaker 1: wasn't getting me out of the habits. There was still
Speaker 1: no accountability. There still was no roadmap or game plan.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that it would take me a
Speaker 1: few more years to discover. And that's ultimately what changed
Speaker 1: my life more than anything. You know, there's a symbiosis
Speaker 1: in it, like let's be clear about that. But where
Speaker 1: I believe that I really likes and bounds like started
Speaker 1: really laddering in this was when I hired a coach
Speaker 1: and I got deep into personal development because I realized
Speaker 1: there's this interesting distinction. Therapy to me felt like making
Speaker 1: meaning of past experiences of being able to understand again
Speaker 1: causation and correlation, to be able to have rhyme and
Speaker 1: reason like, oh I act like this because of that,
Speaker 1: and then putting it on a shelf, and then I
Speaker 1: realized like, oh wait, therapy is not actually propelling me forward.
Speaker 1: It's really really beneficial for this stuff over here, but
Speaker 1: it's not giving me what I need to go to
Speaker 1: over here. And so that was a really really powerful
Speaker 1: decision in my life when I got into coaching and deeply,
Speaker 1: deeply ingrained in a personal development and look, I'm the
Speaker 1: guy who used to be like Tony Robbins is full
Speaker 1: of shit, right, you know? All these personal development guys
Speaker 1: are morons. They don't know anything about life. And then
Speaker 1: you get in and you're like, wait a second, maybe
Speaker 1: they do. And that became really interesting when I switched
Speaker 1: to that type of investment, and it became super powerful
Speaker 1: for me, Like there's no question, like all of the
Speaker 1: modalities help. There's always a benefit to everything that you're
Speaker 1: willing to try, if for no other reason, then you'll
Speaker 1: learn something. But ultimately, I don't think there is no
Speaker 1: one single right thing. And even I have my own
Speaker 1: qualms with therapy at times because I'm like, you've been
Speaker 1: here for seven years, is it really working right? Like
Speaker 1: I had those moments with myself. I'd sit in my
Speaker 1: therapist office same Wednesday five o'clock, same part of town,
Speaker 1: same chair, same tea, And I'm like, why am my
Speaker 1: hair man? Like what are we doing? This is nonsense, right,
Speaker 1: And and it just took so much effort and energy
Speaker 1: to realize, like, man, you gotta clear the slate. You
Speaker 1: gotta wipe this thing clean so you can bring in
Speaker 1: all the new stuff. And so, you know, I always
Speaker 1: tell people try it all. I know it's not cheap,
Speaker 1: borrow money. I don't care. People will take out debt
Speaker 1: for shoes, but not for therapy or coach. I literally
Speaker 1: sold everything I owned, Like how committed are you to
Speaker 1: have in your life? And you know there you've got
Speaker 1: three and in your basement right now. Bullcrap. You don't
Speaker 1: need sell it. Go make your life better, read a book.
Speaker 1: You know you gotta want this. Nobody's gonna give it
Speaker 1: to you. And I think that that's part of the journey,
Speaker 1: is just the willingness to bet on yourself first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. People often ask me, like you,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of different things over the years.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been in therapy on and off. I
Speaker 1: don't know how old you are, but I've got a
Speaker 1: good number of years on you. So I've got X
Speaker 1: a number of years to do this stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: people be like, well, did that thing work? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, at this point, I can't even tweez apart
Speaker 1: what worked and what didn't and would this have worked
Speaker 1: if I hadn't done that thing first if I had,
Speaker 1: It's like, You've got to try for yourself and see
Speaker 1: what's helpful. I coach people as well, And one of
Speaker 1: the distinctions I often make about a therapy and coaching
Speaker 1: things I say oftentimes like therapy is really valuable, Like
Speaker 1: therapy could get me really clear on why when there's
Speaker 1: an adult male in my life who's older than me,
Speaker 1: who seems like they're inn bad mood, I want to
Speaker 1: go crawl in the closet, Like, Okay, it's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: I know why that is. I know why that is.
Speaker 1: The reality is, though it still happens. Knowing doesn't make
Speaker 1: me not want to hide. So what I need help
Speaker 1: in is what do I do right in this moment
Speaker 1: when that fear is coming up, when I'm in that
Speaker 1: situation that has paralyzed me in the past, how do
Speaker 1: I stay in it? You know? And that's really where
Speaker 1: I think coaching can be helpful because it's really focused
Speaker 1: on right now or moving forward. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that societally everyone's like therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy, And I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: but and that's right, that's right, Yes, And for sure
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about this, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to hit it again in more detail, which is talk
Speaker 1: about the power of community and other people. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: name is somebody who's done something great on their own,
Speaker 1: Name them? I got all day. Man, You know you
Speaker 1: can't like I'll speak to this from the perspective of
Speaker 1: you and I sitting here as men. Right. We grow
Speaker 1: up in this society that says, figured out, put some
Speaker 1: dirt on it, don't be a pussy, you know, all
Speaker 1: this toxic ship around what it means to be a man.
Speaker 1: That's actually why I wrote my third book it's called
Speaker 1: Unbroken Man, is because like we're lied to, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you right now, the greatest thing that has like
Speaker 1: really changed my life as the willingness to ask for help.
Speaker 1: I need help. Somebody, Please, you got the answer, Give
Speaker 1: it to me. Please, for the love of God, help me.
Speaker 1: And this idea that you can do this by yourself
Speaker 1: is a lie that comes from shame and guilt. And
Speaker 1: it's not even just about men. It's about the society
Speaker 1: women go through. However you identified, it doesn't matter. We
Speaker 1: all go through that. Especially if you grow up in
Speaker 1: the United States. Name your neighbors. What are your neighbors names?
Speaker 1: You don't know because you are not willing to go
Speaker 1: over and talk to them. You know, I was in
Speaker 1: the gym the other day. I'm new in this gym.
Speaker 1: I've never been there. I'm trying to like figure my
Speaker 1: way around some things. I got this big facility. I'll
Speaker 1: walk up to this woman. I introduced myself. Five minutes
Speaker 1: in the conversation, she goes, I am so scared to
Speaker 1: talk to people. Thank you for saying hello to me.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, that's the society we live in.
Speaker 1: Go be ostracized, Go watch TV, Go be in your
Speaker 1: cell phone, don't be in person like you have to
Speaker 1: understand that that is not working for you. And so
Speaker 1: if you're in this place like, especially especially especially at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this again, this thing about that suffering
Speaker 1: you have to suffer through the discomfort of asking for help,
Speaker 1: of putting yourself out there. And I don't mean crying
Speaker 1: on Instagram. Let's be very clear about that. That's nonsensical.
Speaker 1: What I'm talking about is going to the meeting, going
Speaker 1: to the group, signing up for the program, doing the
Speaker 1: thing that's with other people, because you'll be amazed at
Speaker 1: what you take away from that, not only because of
Speaker 1: what you bring in, but even what you give an
Speaker 1: offer and deliver to other people. You know, there's so
Speaker 1: many people that will reach out to me. I'm so low,
Speaker 1: I'm so depressed. I'm like, what are you doing? What
Speaker 1: are you doing with your time? One of my mentors
Speaker 1: taught me something that changed my life, which I really
Speaker 1: believe is actually probably the catalyst how think Unbroken started.
Speaker 1: They go, when you're at your lowest, you need to go, serve,
Speaker 1: go be a value to other people because you're being selfish,
Speaker 1: because you're only thinking about you and your problems. And
Speaker 1: that felt so true to me, because if you think
Speaker 1: about it, we are a communal species. Everything about our
Speaker 1: experiences really until the last fifteen years has been about community,
Speaker 1: has been about going and being a part of something.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the most dangerous things that
Speaker 1: you can do is think that you're alone because you're not.
Speaker 1: You know, there's eight billion people on planet Earth. I
Speaker 1: promise you are not the only one with that problem.
Speaker 1: It's called Google. Use that shit, right, Go and find it,
Speaker 1: go ultivate it. It's not gonna fall in your lap. Right.
Speaker 1: People are so faster like, Oh, I'm gonna hop on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I'm will order this thing I don't need. Well, why
Speaker 1: don't you hop on the internet and find a group
Speaker 1: you can go be a part of. Find a coach
Speaker 1: that can help you, Find a mentor that can support you.
Speaker 1: Find the community that you can go and foster and
Speaker 1: build into. Give your time, give your effort, give your energy.
Speaker 1: It will be reciprocated to you. But I want to
Speaker 1: say this Eric too, because I think this is really important.
Speaker 1: I think as a coach, you'll appreciate this. You got
Speaker 1: to invest into this ship. You gotta put some skin
Speaker 1: in the game. I came up this acronym a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. Team, time, effort, energy, money, Team. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to invest one, but you're probably gonna have
Speaker 1: to invest all four. And if you want your life
Speaker 1: to be different, you've got to be willing to make sacrifices.
Speaker 1: You've got to be willing to put yourself in that room,
Speaker 1: in that community, in that group, show up for it,
Speaker 1: make effort, put energy into it, because again, it takes
Speaker 1: as much energy to destroy your life as it does
Speaker 1: to build your life. So what are you building? What
Speaker 1: do you want? What are you willing to do to
Speaker 1: have it? And if you think that you're going to
Speaker 1: do this on your own, let me break it to
Speaker 1: you you're not, because I promise you. The more I
Speaker 1: tried to do this by myself, the worst my life got.
Speaker 1: And so be willing to step into the discomfort of saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can't do this alone, because if
Speaker 1: you are willing to do that, watch how the universe
Speaker 1: starts to bend itself to what you need. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: You are very clearly sort of like you said, no
Speaker 1: excuses kind of guy. You know, no excuses, you know,
Speaker 1: just do it, get to it right. And yet you also,
Speaker 1: I know, talk a lot about being really kind to ourselves,
Speaker 1: and so I want to talk about what do you do?
Speaker 1: How do you talk to yourself? How do you work
Speaker 1: with yourself when you don't live up to your expectations
Speaker 1: right when you are, when you are, when you make
Speaker 1: an excuse or when you don't do that, because you
Speaker 1: clearly have this balance of holding yourself accountable but also
Speaker 1: treating yourself kindly, talk about how those come together for you. Yeah. Man, Look,
Speaker 1: I'm human like everybody else. I struggle like everyone else.
Speaker 1: I'm not some superhuman. I'm not some superhero. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I promise you I'm gonna sunk up. I guarantee I
Speaker 1: will bet you everything in my life that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make a mistake by midnight. I probably already did. I've
Speaker 1: been up since six am. Man, I probably already screwed
Speaker 1: up ten times today, you know. And it's like, fine,
Speaker 1: we're iterative. We are a processing machine like you have
Speaker 1: to understand the power of the human brain, like and
Speaker 1: its service to be able to learn and to adapt.
Speaker 1: There's no other species known to man that is as
Speaker 1: powerful as we are. And when you recognize that first
Speaker 1: and foremost, I don't allow myself to talk to myself negatively,
Speaker 1: I don't. I refuse it. It's a non negotiable for me.
Speaker 1: You will never hear me put myself down. Ever. I
Speaker 1: took that out years ago, even the notion of it. Na,
Speaker 1: I just don't even I don't align with it, and
Speaker 1: so that that becomes precedent. Now, let's be clear about this,
Speaker 1: because you're like, well, what happens when you do screw up?
Speaker 1: And I screw it massively? You know what I do?
Speaker 1: I own it? Yep, I totally screwed that up. I
Speaker 1: dropped the ball, I messed that thing up. I made
Speaker 1: a mistake, I fell back. I did the thing I
Speaker 1: said I wasn't gonna do. Yes, I did that. I
Speaker 1: own it. I'm sorry. I learned something I understand. Here's
Speaker 1: here's where that sorry comes into play that I think
Speaker 1: people need to factor in as well. What did you
Speaker 1: actually learn from that mistake and how are you going
Speaker 1: to adopt that into your life? Because guess what. The
Speaker 1: thing about this is often, especially the deeper I think
Speaker 1: you'll agree with this, the deeper you get into this work,
Speaker 1: you start to identify your triggers better. Right, same reason
Speaker 1: you're like, oh wait, older guy than me, I run
Speaker 1: and hide? Got it? Copy right? But now you know
Speaker 1: that trigger. And I think that's what mistakes do for you.
Speaker 1: They give you the ability to recognize the triggers. And
Speaker 1: when you can do that more effectively, that's where that
Speaker 1: gap in time really starts to show itself. And so
Speaker 1: in these moments where I make a mistake, where I
Speaker 1: screw something up, where I go against my character, I
Speaker 1: go there was some reason why that happened. I need
Speaker 1: to uncover that reason and look. Going back to the
Speaker 1: point about therapy, you know, I've had the same therapist
Speaker 1: for five years, and I will literally call him and
Speaker 1: be like, I got this dude on speed dial because
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't need therapy every day, I don't
Speaker 1: need it every month even, but about once a quarter
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, man, I need to talk to you.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And so that's the thing
Speaker 1: about this. Be willing to find out why why don't
Speaker 1: beat yourself up? Beating yourself up isn't going to solve anything.
Speaker 1: You have never solved a problem once in your life
Speaker 1: by beating yourself up. But if you're willing to sit
Speaker 1: in it, make meaning of it, figure out the direct
Speaker 1: correlation between the past experience and the current moment, then
Speaker 1: now you have a framework and a roadmap for the
Speaker 1: next time that thing happens, which assuredly it will happen.
Speaker 1: To be prepared for it because you have the tools
Speaker 1: that you can deploy against it because now you understand it.
Speaker 1: And it's why being kind to ourselves I think is
Speaker 1: so important, in addition to the fact that it just
Speaker 1: feels a whole lot better to live in a brain
Speaker 1: that's nice to itself, is that when we beat ourselves
Speaker 1: up and we go into shame and we go into
Speaker 1: being really hard on ourselves, we don't learn. We're not
Speaker 1: capable of learning. We go into that shame at precisely
Speaker 1: the moment that we most need to learn. Like you said,
Speaker 1: why did I do this? Yeah? Well, and look, I mean,
Speaker 1: where does that shame come from? Like, really, let's tie
Speaker 1: this together really strongly right now. When you were a
Speaker 1: kid and you made a mistake, you suffered through shame
Speaker 1: and guilt. So as an adult, when you make a mistake,
Speaker 1: you shame and guilt yourself because you believe that is
Speaker 1: the way that you handle those experiences. And it's not
Speaker 1: until you reframe that understanding and recognize the truth that
Speaker 1: is not shame and guilt that will take you to
Speaker 1: the Promised Land. But instead it's understanding patient's grace, hope, love,
Speaker 1: and compassion that will And that's the thing about this,
Speaker 1: And you have to adopt that you have to bring
Speaker 1: that into your life. You've never experienced this before, so
Speaker 1: the only thing you know is I'm gonna beat myself up.
Speaker 1: But I'm not. I could. I could destroy my whole
Speaker 1: life today. I could. I'm not gonna beat myself up
Speaker 1: over I'm like, damn, what happened? Something dark must have
Speaker 1: went down. It was that talking to Eric zimmer Man
Speaker 1: that really screwed things, really ruined my life. And so
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a second, but now I know I'll
Speaker 1: never talk to Eric again. I can make meaning of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's the that's the truth. We're joking and we're
Speaker 1: in jest, but like, that's the truth of it. Man,
Speaker 1: like you, you've got to be willing to recognize that
Speaker 1: we are habitual creatures that operate on behavioral patterns that
Speaker 1: are ingrained in us in our developmental years, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not. Well, Michael, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This has been a really fun conversation. Your work is
Speaker 1: really powerful, your story is really powerful, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to come on and
Speaker 1: share with our listeners. Like, I think we can probably
Speaker 1: riff on this for another hour easier, but we are
Speaker 1: out of time. So thank you so much. Yeah, Eric,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Man, I thank you so much for the opportunity,
Speaker 1: and I want to acknowledge you for researching because I
Speaker 1: do hundreds of these a year and you know the
Speaker 1: fact that you took the time out of your day
Speaker 1: to understand what this conversation would be to help your
Speaker 1: audience means the world to me. So I just want
Speaker 1: to give you some gratitude and say thank you, my friend,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
Speaker 1: please consider making a monthly donation to support the One
Speaker 1: You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With
Speaker 1: this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 1: It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 1: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 1: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 1: become a member of the one you Feed community. Go
Speaker 1: to when you feed dot net slash Join the One
Speaker 1: You Feed podcast. Would like to sincerely thank our sponsors
Speaker 1: for supporting the show.