Become the Hero of Your Own Story After Trauma | with Jarvis Leverson

Michael: Jarvis, what is up, my friend? How are you today?

Jarvis: Feeling beautiful, my man. Awesome. Yeah, I love it. I

Michael: Yeah, I love it. I love it for listeners who are not familiar with you and the Morning Hero what's the elevator pitch here?

Jarvis: The morning hero is my growth journey started when I read this book called the Miracle Morning and the Miracle Morning at the time I was homeless, depressed, living on my mom's couch. Waking up at, I had no reason to wake up. So I wake up at nine, 10 in the morning and someone said, you know what, you should read this book called the miracle morning. Get your life together. And I read the book and the book preaches, to wake up early and, do a set of core habits and principles. That's going to drastically transform your life. And so I got this book and I opened it and read it in two days. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to try to wake up at 6 a. m. The next day, and I woke up at 5:57 a. m. That following day hungry and excited with a new lease on life, and that was five years ago, and every day I wake up early, and I would do this process. And every day I would wake up early, and I would just turn into a hero, every morning, I turned into a hero with. I just got up early and I just fucking. Took charge of life and I got acquainted with my goals and I meditated and I did some exercise and every morning I just turned into a hero and I started tagging myself. I started documenting my journey on social media and I was like, all right, this morning I'm a hero. And then someone was like, yeah, you are the morning hero. I was like, yeah, that's it.

Michael: Dude. That hero, that's powerful, my friend. Hey, I just quickly, your hands are like hitting the desk and that's picking up the mic. Oh, sorry about that. So just to be cognizant of it, I do it all the time, that's why I put my hands underneath the desk these days.

Jarvis: Yeah, that's a good idea. Thank you, man.

Michael: I'll tell you what, that, there's so much here I wanna talk about because in retrospect, looking at the journey of my life, the moments in which my life has changed the most is. In those moments when I've put myself in a position to be uncomfortable, right? We often find comfort in the norm. And even if that norm is something as simple as what time we wake up, which most people don't equate to really being the baseline for how everything is impacted in their day. And when I changed my life to go, Oh, I am getting up before 6 AM every morning as a person who is much preferable around the, I'm going to go to bed about 3 AM and get up at 10 kind of lifestyle. It was so dramatically impactful for me. So I resonate with that in this really intrinsic way, but how do you get to this place where, man, I want to unpack this a little bit, you go from being homeless, living on a couch, reading this book, what's the lead up to this moment, like what is happening that puts you in that position?

Jarvis: Yeah, great question. I had a very privileged existence for a while. I went to school. I was really good at everything I did. So I went to engineering school. I got a computer engineering degree went to sales and for tech sales and I was a sophomore salesman for 15 years and was really good at that president's club top 1%. And I was making a lot of money, I moved to San Diego from Chicago, and then eventually I moved to San Diego and new in a brand new town, making a lot of money. I get a, this loft downtown overlooking the water and overlooking downtown. It's a 2 story loft, but living by myself, making all this money and my priorities shifted, it went from, I was hungry for goals and I was striving for things and to all of a sudden, I had all this abundance and then I just took advantage of it and, started partying too hard chasing girls every weekend drinking, fell into doing drugs and went from, once or twice a month to once or twice a week to then almost every day, hanging with the wrong crowds and slowly but surely my life It started to overtake my life and my life started to deteriorate. And so all these things that were just so great about my life, everything was, in working order all of a sudden, like these substances took control of me and now I wasn't going into work anymore. I'm missing appointments, I wasn't showing up for myself, I wasn't showing up for my job, I wasn't showing up for my family. And I was really just a shell of my former self to the point where I got released from my job. I had a girlfriend at the time she broke up with me and all of a sudden everything I had. I lost it. And like really within a one week time span, I lost my job, lost my girl, got kicked out the house and I was stuck with my bags, bumming couch surfing from friend's house to friend's house, trying to, find people to take me in. And eventually I had to move back to Chicago with my mom. And there I was 36 years old. So here was I had, I went from having it all, everything was on cruise control in life. And then, slowly but surely hanging with the wrong crowd, not focusing on the right things. I let all these, great things in my life fade away and then I was stuck with nothing. And then at that point, that's where I had to really figure out, how to put all these pieces back together again, and it was at that moment, like serendipitously, this book introduced was presented to me, and it was the catalyst that kind of I was like, Who started the initiated the rebirth of Jarvis, right? The Jarvis 2. 0, if you will, man that's so powerful.

Michael: And I think about my own journey being very similar to that, right? In my twenties, I got really good in corporate America and I was making more money than everyone. No one I knew made more money than me. And I blew every penny of it, man, every penny. And then worse, I got sick and I went into this huge level of medical debt. And then I find myself totally in rock bottom and I had many moments of serendipity, right? I believe I, I like, and this is not to be too woo, but I truly believe that the universe. Places in front of you, exactly what you need. You call it spirit, God, whatever you want to call it, but somehow you arrive at the place that you are supposed to be now, the key is in these moments where you've hit rock bottom, for lack of a better term, not to put words in your mouth. And you're faced with, okay, here is this book, this Holy grill, the potential for everything that you need to hit in your life to create change, and here it is. And are you going to take fucking advantage of it or not? I what happens in the moment where you go, you know what, I'm actually going to read this book because the book is always there, man. The book is there and we don't read it. So why did you read the book?

Jarvis: Yeah, you're right. And it was, and the funny thing is I had never read a book in my life until that moment, like all through school. I took advantage of all the shortcuts. I was a cliff note kind of guy. I can skimm stuff and kind of come up with the gist of what it, what they're talking about. I never in my life read a book cover to cover until this book when I was 35 years old, sitting on my mom's couch, and I'm, when I say cover, I mean from every word on the front of the cover, all the way to every word on the back of the cover. And it was one of those things that as soon as I read the first several pages, it was talking directly to me and I couldn't put it down, like the author of the book is a guy named Hal Elrod and he went through a similar experience where he was the number one sales rep. He's like the all time selling sales rep for Cutco in history. Cutco is this they sell like knives, like a culinary, and so he's an all time selling salesman in history, and he got into a car accident lost his life actually two times on the in the emergency room and they revived him. And so there he was. Completely broken, was once at this great point in life, and now he's broken could barely walk, it wasn't supposed to survive, and he was trying to put the pieces of his life back together again. And he came up with a formula that took him from almost dying to back being, an extraordinary achiever, and he wrote this book to outline his process of how he went from broken to high achiever, and when I was reading his story. I was right where he was in his story, he was laying on his deathbed in my story. I was laying on my mom's couch, but I was right there with him, and so from the moment I opened that book, he captivated me like, Hey, this is where I was. But here's where I am now in this book. I'm going to give you the step by step process. And so at that point I was hooked like, all right, give it to me. I'm going to read this whole fucking book, an I do that?

Michael: That's incredible, because here's what I always feel like happens in those moments, we recognize that we're not alone, right? I don't think it's as simple always as here's your magic potion, drink this and things are going to change, right? You have to have this moment of cognizant resonance where you say, Oh, Wow, you mean it's not just me. I'm not the only fuck up in the world, I'm not the only guy who's flipped his life upside down, there's hope there's potential, something can happen, something can change, holy shit, you step into it. So here's where I really want to push you a little bit. Day one's easy. Talk me through day one and then talk me through, okay, I did it once and now I'm going to do it again because so often we fall off, right? It's easy to get up at 6 a. m. one time, but how do you do it every day for the rest of your life? How do you apply meaning and goals and all that? What is that experience?

Jarvis: It's, and I get this a lot and I tell people, you just got to get into it because you'll see once you start this process. So the first thing I noticed was the moment I made the decision to do it, it was easy. So often we create this narrative of, I'm not a morning person. Oh, I could never do that. Oh, I hate the mornings. And you'd be surprised at how powerful. The subconscious mind is so you're feeding your subconscious this narrative and it's going to take it and run with it. So the minute you say I could never get up at that time. You're right, you won't because you just convinced yourself that you will never do it. But the minute you change that narrative and change the way you speak to yourself, you change the language that you use, it's easy. So the first thing I noticed was how easy it was, the moment and in the book, he gives you ways to reprogram your thinking instead of saying, ah, how we do just negotiation with ourself at night oh man, I only got, what time is it now? So I got five, four, I got five hours left, oh God, I'm going to be so groggy, I'm going to be so tired. Like we try to negotiate, like, how much time do I have to sleep now? It's like instead of telling yourself like, Oh, I'm only going to get five hours of sleep, I'm going to be, I'm going to be so tired in the morning. You flip it and you turn into a positive Oh, wow, I'm so thankful for, I can't wait for these five hours of sleep. I can't wait to get up at 6am so I can do my yoga or do my meditation. It's just this little small tweaks of how you use language to program your subconscious, and so that first step, it was easy. It was it's so easy to wait to get up early when you just change your perception of it. So that was the 1st thing, but 2, I noticed that there was such a peace in the morning that I could never, I never experienced in at any other time of day, when I get up and it's dark outside and it's just me, no emails are coming in, no phone calls, no text messages, no, my phone isn't buzzing on social media. It's the rest of the world isn't active yet. And so I get uninterrupted, like just dedicated, peace time to really focus on me, focus on myself, focus on my goals. And so it was the dictating, it was like, I would literally get a high from it. And so all this time I had been using these external substances to raise my vibration and my elevation. I found that I can go inward and get that same feeling. And I was up early and I would do my meditation and I would just really channel this energy of gratitude and peace and love and joy. And it was, I would just get, I would be buzzing like I'm, I would have goosebumps and I was like, fuck, I'm doing that again tomorrow. And that's, it was this loop of this feedback loop of, I can't wait to do that again tomorrow. And I would do it again the next day. And I'm like can I even, I love this so much, can I even move it back to five 30? And then it was like. Okay, now can I move back to 5 a.m., and now I actually get up at you, this is going to sound crazy, but I actually get up in three 30 in the morning now, and so I'm up at three 30 in the morning, every day I get up, I go for a run. I come back, I do my meditation, I do my yoga stretching, I sit down and I focus on my goals and write out and journal my goals and visualize them. And then keep playing my day, like I have this whole practice because I get such a rush from it. So the moment you commit, the first thing is you commit to it, you'll find how easy it is. But then two, you see the benefits of it, it's going to continue to feed you to want to do. And so it's, to be honest, it's not easy at, it's not hard at all when you first just commit to doing it.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And I resonate with everything that you just said. And I often say we are the stories that we tell ourselves, right? If my narrative is, I'm not. I can't, I shouldn't, I won't, I don't guess what that's going to be true, and this idea of getting excited about it I love that because I love my mornings, there is no question. The first two hours of my day are my time period, there is no emails, I am so 100 percent about, the create before you consume, I step into my stretching, my meditation, I go hit the bike, I hit the treadmill. I hit the gym. I write, I journal, I blog posts, I create all morning long in those first two hours, no interruptions, right? ‘Cause guess what? There are not that many people awake at 6. And look, I understand that for me, I will never wake up at 3:30 AM. It does not entertain me in the least that is going to be my own personal boundary. But the point being here, it's not about the time as much as I think it's about the space and the usage of time, right?

Jarvis: 100%, like it doesn't matter. So the only reason I wake up at three 30 is because now I run morning coaching programs that start at 5 a.m. So every morning at 5 a. m., I've asked for my call. So technically my work starts at 5 a. m., so I have to get up at 3:30 to give myself my time before I report to work. So the only reason I get up that early is because my workday starts at 5. Everyone's workday doesn't start that early. So what you hit the nail on the head, as long as you give yourself some buffer. Before you need this report to work, whatever your work is and work doesn't have to be a physical location. You go into work means whatever your first responsibility of the day is. And so as long as you give yourself some buffer time before you need to be attentive to your first responsibility of the day. So that's the only reason I get up at 3:30.

Michael: But Jarvis, I got kids and COVID and I got a side hustle. And I'm up till one o'clock in the morning, and I got all this but Jervis, how do I do it, man? I like, this is great, I'm super glad you and Michael can do it, but how do I do it? How do I step into this when I have life?

Jarvis: Yeah I'm a living proof of that now, I got a one year old kid, he wakes up at 4:30. So I have to wake up one hour before he wakes up. That's my rule of thumb. Be up one hour before the rest of your house. You have to have an hour for yourself. So if your kids or your spouse or everyone else in your house wakes up at six, wake up at five. You have to report to yourself before you can report to everyone else, that's just the rule. So I don't, and I get this all the time. You could do that because before I had kids, they would also, but you don't have kids, but you're not married, but you, okay, now I got kids. Now I got a wife. Now, now I got all that, those chaotic, situations, extenuous circumstances. I still prioritize waking up one hour before the rest of my house. So I can take care of me first, then I can tend to everyone else.

Michael: Let me ask you this question, because I think this is really important. And I relate to that again. I think we're just going to be in agreement in all of this because of how potent I believe that it is and how transformative it has been for my life. What are your rules around this? Because I think people often, and this was my experience. I say, I'm going to do something and then I fall off, ‘cause I didn't put rules and parameters around it. That say, this is my life, this is what I hold myself accountable to what, talk to me about rules and accountability and how you show up for yourself, because it's really easy again, to do it a day or two week, maybe even, but man, to adapt a lifestyle change. And it's not even necessarily just time, think about how different your life is from homeless and being on the couch to reading this book to I'm married. I have a kid, I have a career, I have a business, I'm moving towards the things that say shape me as a human being, there's gotta be parameters there, right?

Jarvis: Yeah, so the one of the greatest and so the beauty of what the miracle morning taught me was the power of reading, like the biggest lesson despite, in spite of all the technical know how that it taught me as far as how to form a great morning routine how to wake up early what to do when you wake up early how to meditate, just in spite of all that, the biggest thing it taught me was, The power of reading because if it wasn't for me reading that book, my life would not have branched off into this, this trajectory that it's off. And so after I read that book, I was like hell, what else can I read? I just got super hungry for just consuming it's the greatest way to take 10 years of knowledge and boil it down to 10 days, like it took. The author of that book, 10 years of his knowledge, his failures, his successes, and he boiled it all down into something that I could read in 10 days. And so I was like, how else can I accelerate my life? So I started reading everything I possibly could. And this book that I read was called willpower doesn't work by Benjamin Hardy, great book. Instrument, profile, and the power, the premise of the book is that your own internal willpower, discipline, motivation at some point will fail you. And successful people have a way of setting up their environment outside structures, systems, and processes that ensure that they show up even when their own willpower fails them. And so I took that principle and I was building this discipline of trying to wake up early, trying to make sure I got my workout in, trying to make sure that I did all these habits that have The success habits, if you will, and you're right, it's hard initially. And so the saving grace for me was right at that time. I started introducing other people to this miracle morning book. Hey, this is a great book, this is a great book. And they started reading it and started trying to do it, and I was like look, let's all join together because look, I, some days I do it. Some days I don't you over there struggling you over here. You want to like you're struggling, let's all come together and be accountability Bart partners for each other. And that was the same, that was it, the moment we got a group together and every morning at 5 AM, we would all get on a zoom call and basically hold each other accountable to waking up early and doing this morning practice, and we did it together on the call and the moment we did that. It was easy because now it wasn't just me anymore. I had to show up for them, I had to show up for other people. And the moment you incorporate that aspect, when you incorporate like other people holding you accountable, then the discipline, that's where you kick the discipline in because you'll let yourself off the hook all the time. You can find any excuse, but you'll go through, you will do everything you can to not disappoint someone else. So if I know they're counting on me, I'm going to show up and I'm going to, I'm going to show out, I'm going to show up and show out every time because I had that outside account of the accountability structure. That was the sit, that was the magic sauce, and this is the magic sauce to everything accountability.

Michael: Yeah. I agree, I agree, and putting parameters around it, let's say I am going to do this, right? It's so much about that narrative, I am going to do this. I'm going to put myself in a position, right? Because we always have an excuse, we always have a reason why we don't have to show up for ourself, we always have this reason why we can go tomorrow. But today I always think about that, there's no tomorrow, there is no promise that I'm not going to have a heart attack right now and drop dead in the middle of talking to you. And so to wait for tomorrow is you're not living, but it can be scary, right? This idea of stepping into life, and stepping into embracing the idea of possibility, what was that journey like for you as you started to shift, right? Because here's what happens slowly, you notice change. Oh, I feel different, I feel self esteem, I feel worth, I feel value, I'm moving towards real goals. Again, I'm moving away from drugs and sex and the things that don't actually matter in my life. What is that transformation like for you?

Jarvis: It's like a drug. It's so the goals, so goals are so powerful, like goal, I get so much, I get so much of a high now from chasing my goals than I ever did when I was doing cocaine, like having a vision and a vision worth pursuing. That's purpose driven, that has some sort of meaning to it and then seeing yourself progress to it. I think that is the key to life. The key life is having a vision of purpose driven mission and then actually putting one step one foot in front of the other and making progress towards that vision towards that best version of yourself towards your grand design. And so the moment I got clear on what my goals were, and again, this was the format that I learned in the miracle. Every morning, write your goals down. And to that point, I had never written my goals down, never even really formed goals.

Michael: What were like the first goals you were writing?

Jarvis: So I was really ambitious. It was, I wanted to form a real estate company. I wanted to build an app, a mobile phone app. For this idea that I had I wanted to lose 30 pounds and get back because at that time I was overweight and just from partying and drinking and eating too much. I wanted to reconnect on a meaningful level with and repair broken relationships. That I had severed from when I went through my downward spiral and I try to alienated myself from people that love me. And so I needed to repair and mend relationships, and so those are the, every morning, those, that's what I would write. I would write a financial goal. I would write some sort of passion or driven goal or a hobby write some sort of fitness goal, and I'd write some sort of family or connection or relationship.

Michael: How many of the I write down goals every single day, half for years. How many of those goals came to pass? How many of those things actually happened?

Jarvis: All of them. Yeah, all of them, from the moment I started.

Michael: The power of writing is so intense.

Jarvis: From the moment I wrote down, I wanted to start a real estate company. Within two months, I had my real estate license and that was with a commercial brokerage in downtown San Diego, where I bought and sold office and retail properties in San Diego. The moment from the moment it got clear and said, I needed to repair my relationships. Two months later, I was engaged because the first my first priority was to repair the relationship with that with my ex girlfriend that had broken up with me when I was on my downward spiral. And I put an intense focus because every day I would write it and I put an intense focus back on reconnecting reminding and repairing that relationship and to the point where we engaged and now we have a one year old son. My passion hobby, which was to write, to build an app, the moment I started writing it, the universe started putting things in place and connecting me with someone who another gentleman who writes code and writes apps, and I pitched my idea to him and he built a beta version. So now we actually have a beta of this app idea, everything from the moment I got clear and just started writing it every day, the universe was slowly just. Put all the dominoes in place for me. All I had to do was write it and declare it, and then it just seemed like things just started falling in line for me.

Michael: But I'm going to have to say, I have to assume that two things were happening here, one being patients, and two being you actually doing the things to move towards those goals, because I don't want people to be confused. This is a secret type thing where like you read a book, you manifested it fucking happened, ‘cause that's not real. Talk to me about the process of the doing.

Jarvis: So here's the thing though, the doing it's, there is a, the whole law of attraction thing, there is an element of you attracting things like, so yes, you do have to move towards the goal, but there is an element of the goal fall, attracts is attracted to you too. So it's not as for the moment you get super, super clear, awareness to everything that will help you for that goal. And so it's like when you see a, the moment you want to buy a sudden you start seeing Jeeps everywhere, right? The Jeeps didn't just start popping up out of nowhere. It's the moment you got clear on which it broadened your awareness to now you notice the Jeeps everywhere. Same thing about your goal, the moment you get really clear on what you want, all of a sudden you notice all the opportunities. That are available to help you get it, and so the first thing was, yeah, the moment I got clear that I wanted an app a week later, if seemingly fell into my lap, that I got introduced to a guy who said, Hey, can I write your app for you? I, that didn't actually, that didn't actually take a lot of all that did was get me really clear on what I wanted because then all of a sudden my patterns changed, the people I talked to changed, and then all of a sudden it seemed like this opportunity just fell into my lap because I was really clear on what I wanted. So I will challenge you that you'd be surprised that when you get super clear and you're hungry on what you want. Actually, it does require less effort because you just get really in tune and aware and hungry and seek out the opportunities that will help you get it. So what but I do agree with you, there is a patience, there is a time factor, but I want to really emphasize the power of writing your goal, you will be surprised at how stuff falls out of the sky in your favor. When you know what you want and you write it down every day, man.

Michael: Can I get an amen? I love that. I agree with that a hundred percent. What if, what is the one thing, if you were going to say, if you want to be the morning hero, Jarvis, what is the one thing that you should implement into your life beginning right now?

Jarvis: Waking up early is by far the first thing, like it is the first domino. If you imagine a row of dominoes, you don't have to put an intense focus on knocking down the third domino. You don't have to put an intense focus on knocking down the fifth domino. You don't have to focus on each individual domino. All you have to do is knock that one domino down, right? Knock that domino down, right? All the other dominoes naturally fall in line, waking up early is that first domino. When you commit to that first domino, you'd be surprised at how everything else just falls in line because now all of a sudden you have more time. The biggest resource that we claim, our biggest excuse for why we don't do things, why we don't move things forward, why we can't invest in things is because of time. Time is the resource that is the biggest limiting factor, and when you commit to waking up earlier. Now you have time. Now you have time to invest in that side hustle, now you have time to invest in your fitness, now you have more time and clarity and peace to get in tune with yourself and to connect with people on a meaningful level. Now you have time. You have the greatest limiting factor now back in your favor. And now everything else will fall in place the minute you give yourself more time. And that comes from waking up earlier. So for me, the one thing is waking up at least one hour earlier than you wake up now and using that time to work on yourself and your goals.

Michael: I love it, I love it. Before I ask you my last question here, where can people find you?

Jarvis: themorninghero.com. So actually everything that we talk about, I actually have free on my website and you can sign up and I send them out to my list. Because email out and they're all like this, how to schedule your day to activity, how to use your calendar and time, so you're using more efficiently how to get hyped up and motivated and fire it up every morning, with a little small, simple tweak. So I offer all these kinds of tips and tricks, at the morninghero.com and I send them out as an email every week, once a week, call them motivation Monday. So they can sign up and they can get all this free videos and free video lessons.

Michael: I love it, themorninghero.com. Jarvis, my friend, amazing. Thank you so much for being here with me today and the unbroken nation audience. My last question for you, my friend is what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Jarvis: And so when I think of unbroken said another way is unbreakable is just this discipline that you do what you say you're going to do, even if you don't feel like it. I think of a discipline and I got this from David Goggins. David Goggins says, do something that sucks every day. Every day, do something that sucks the minute. And I use this mindset. It's just this mindset of, we always get this negative voices saying, Oh, you shouldn't do that. Oh, you're too tired. Oh, you're not good at that, and you got to realize that you are not that voice like that voice is a separate entity. And so Goggins taught me this technique of every time you hear that voice, whatever tells you not to do, you have to do it. Every day, you have to do something that sucks. So I use this principle every day. I'm like I'm making that call. I don't feel like calling that investor, I don't feel like the minute I say that to myself. Boom, that's my trigger, I gotta do it. And so I'm breakable, when I think of unbroken or being unbreakable, it's having this unbreakable spirit, this unbreakable discipline that no negative voice, no excuse can come up in a way and break you from your stride.

Michael: Man, that I got literally goosebumps hearing that because I relate that as 100 percent everything that I believe in my friend. Thank you so much for being here, guys, if you found value in this conversation, please follow, subscribe, review, go check out the morning hero.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.