Overcoming Adversity and Creating a Vision for Success

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

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

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

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

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

Transforming Suicidal Thoughts into Success | with Jarek Tadla

Michael: I want to go into this concept of not enoughness more because I think that is something that right now in our society, not only just in the U S or North America, but worldwide. I think that the internet and social media has created more mental health catastrophe in the world than probably arguably almost anything. At least in our lifetime. I don't think you can compare it to something like World War II. I don't think you can compare it to many things, but I think that you can look at the impact of social media today, and it's really creating this painful experience for people of not feeling enough. So now you have on. I don't feel enough as a kid and then I don't feel enough as an adult. Cause I see it everywhere that I don't have jets and cars and the hottest girlfriend or hottest husband or the perfect family and all the great body and all the, and then people are just fucked up. So I think it'd be really special for you to do me a favor and do us all a favor and define. What not enoughness is like. How do you see that and what role is that playing in the world right now? I think we really need to go into this for a second.

Jarek: What, hold on my book here, that's my book, right? I don't say they're not enough. I love how you say it. So they're not enough. What comes is, I think with the internet and everything else, it's funny, like the internet's a gift and a curse, so we can connect and we can share our stories, but what happened is the internet is showing everything else, and you, we start playing the comparison game, right? And then from the childhood, like what I call it, not enoughness, but it's really the blame and the shame inside us. You know what I mean? Because we are, and then, and you know what we're really, it's after that, what it comes when you even accomplish something, you think you're not worthy of that. But this is constantly when it got to us into the childhood and now this new, the internet and having access and seeing everybody showing everything, the beautiful girls, the beautiful yacht jets and everything else, it's just we're just striving. And if, and everybody in the instant gratification. We are men, porn right there, alcohol. Hey, I want to feel good. That's the instant gratification, right? Coming remember, I'm from this country. Coming, I want a house. I will pay the house for the next 30 years, but I want a house now getting, you finish 16, you want a car, you pay for the car for the next five years. You only enjoy the car for three months. Then you sick of making those payments. The instant gratification that's the huge thing. And then the doping level, you need more and more, and that's not enough. And we get sick of it. And when it comes from the childhood, then you constantly look for validation, not who you are. That's when it's that's the stigma. But I think that's the curse, but it's also, for me, it was a gift because I was always striving for more until there was no more and the doping level was not hitting because how many cars can you buy? How many houses can you buy? When I get through divorce, I was the first time it hit me five years, six years ago, I go through divorce and then the COVID happened and I'm on the top of the mountains. I made all my money, even more, more than 2008. And I'm sitting, I'm on the yacht with all those Instagram girls with rich in Miami, the bubble is Jesus, each guys are like, multi millionaires. And I got like everything on the palm of my fingers, all the girls, all the drugs, all the alcohol, everything I have access to, anything you can imagine. Wall Street is nothing, the movie is not great. And suddenly I'm like, fuck, I'm not happy. Don't want to be here. Do you know what I mean? Like suddenly everything that I ever dreamed of, that every guy ever dreamed, the movies are written. He like, it's if it's, you have access to it, you don't want it. I need connection. I need people. I need love. But the problem is I didn't know how to love myself. Like I've been on a relationship right now with my queen five years after a year when I told her, when, because, we were, combining family. So we're going to the therapy sessions, how to combine family and stuff like that. And I told her after a year, I only felt love twice. She started crying. Like you only fell in love twice. The problem is I never felt love. I never loved myself. And that's, I'm getting goosebumps. That's where the pain was coming from. I didn't know what loving yourself is. So I was always the people police that I was giving and my bucket was getting emptier, emptier. My soul was getting like, I lost the faith in God. I blame God for everything. I suddenly become a victim of the circumstances. But I forgot to love myself. You're a loser. It doesn't matter that you're not enough. The shame, the guilt, you're stupid, you're ugly. You know what I mean? I was like, holy cow. The way I talk to myself, it just more and more. Right now, when I start and like really start connecting and start loving myself, tell me, tell a guy your age, my age, love yourself. What the fuck is wrong with you? You're delusional. Tell you, every morning I go to the mirror, Dude, I love you. I'm gonna take care of you today. I'm gonna put good food. I'm gonna take care of your body. I'm gonna put, everything is me. And I'm gonna love you. And I'm sorry for neglecting you for so many freaking years. And I mean it and guess what when you give when you would suddenly I feel loved all the time. I'm like I How was the little boy? Trying to get all this shit to be just fucking love.

Michael: Yeah. And you know what it is that I, yeah. And that's where I'm go I think about this all the time. Self-love. And the way that it's spun in society is bullshit. Self love in society, at least from what I see, and I've been, dude, I've been coaching for almost a decade. I've helped thousands of people. And I always see self love as this thing of take a bubble bath, have a glass of wine, shut the fuck up.

Jarek: No, the fuck up exactly loved.

Michael: Self love is this and look and this is hard because people don't want to admit this because it requires breaking the frame of who they are. Self love is doing the shit you don't want to do that you know is good for you. The food, the love. The exercise, leaving the relationship, taking care of yourself, not drinking, not doing drugs, not smoking, not staying up too late, scrolling all night, not do but it's also the dues do put good food in your body. Do go to the gym, do have the breaks when you need the breaks. Do the hard work, show up and live life as someone who gives a shit about themselves. And that was the hardest thing that I had to learn because dude, when I was 350 pounds. I was way obese. Yeah, dude. Way obese, smoking, drinking, partying. I have been on those yachts with those people and those girls, like it's happened. I spent a lot of time in Miami over the years and I look at those moments. I go, there's nothing fulfilling about that. And as crazy as it sounds, waking up at five 45 in the morning, going to the freaking gym, eating healthy food and staying on my routine. That's what makes me love myself. That's it. Taking care of my girl, taking care of my family, doing this hard work, coaching my clients. That's where happiness comes from for me. Cause I'll be honest with you. There is nothing in the world there. Dude, there's, but here's the thing. And I want to go into this with you. There's nothing in the world I would rather do than be sitting in my living room, smoking a joint, playing video games, eating pizza, watching porn, getting drunk and hanging out with people who have not have my interest in mind.

Jarek: I've done.

Michael: Have to make a decision.

Jarek: Easy? I always tell guys I asked myself, would I give this to my child?

Michael: This is a great question.

Jarek: Would you do this to a 10 year old child? Or a 12 year old child? Or an 8 year old? Whatever your child is. Would you give your four year old child pizza, what a lot of people do, those french fries? Would you give him a Coke? Would you give him a beer? Would you give him weed? Would you give your 12 13, my son is 13, would you give him, would you sit with him and watch porn? Or watch weed? Would you do that? No. Why are you doing it to yourself? A grown ass man? Are you fucking kidding me? Because you're a grown ass man? Pfft. Stop. So, we know how to educate. And the same, it's funny, when I start doing this, when I'm telling my story, and I'm giving, the problem is I'm giving advice to myself. Because I'm catching myself, it's shit, I didn't do this today. You know what I mean? I didn't and, you think a lot of times we don't want to do this shit, but we got to take care of ourselves. Because we neglect ourselves for so many times. We neglect our relationship for chasing for money. We neglect, but we neglected ourself for the longest time. never appreciate my body. I, I was very I'm a, I'm good athlete. And then I had ski accident. I have a six months in hospital and 13 surgeries. When I was, I always, I was, I always have gratitude, but I never, like in the morning when I prayed, I never prayed. Thank you for my body. Thank you for my heart beating. What the hell? Because we assume we take this stuff for granted. And we take ourself for granted and the problem is when people understand when you want to, when you take care of yourself, then everything else comes because we hear for our children. We hear for our partners. We hear, on the end of the line, we are here on this earth to serve. But the second, we got a little bit in life. Oh, I deserve this shit. I'm deserved to party. I work hard. I work. I love like this. It was me I work hard, but I party harder. What was my mantra? I'm not.

Michael: Yeah. Been there. That does not work very well.

Jarek: Dude, until you find a purpose and fulfillment in life It doesn't matter what you get you screwed.

Michael: So let's go into that.

Jarek: And you can't find fulfillment purpose in life if you sedating remember I was sedating with work. I worked 22 hours a day You Then I was sitting with workouts. So what happened? And then with alcohol drugs. When we sedate our soul and our, like our heart and our spirit and our brain, they don't connect. There's no connection. So we look for the connection somewhere else. But why don't we take care of ourselves?

How Men Can Overcome Isolation, Depression, and Victimhood | with Vincent Infante

Michael: You have to be able to take these true experiences. And look at them, but most men run from it going back to where we started this conversation. What would you, what was your journey? Like, where did this really begin? Because I believe healed masculine energy is like the most powerful fucking tool in the world, right? When you're a man that's a servant leader, you take care of your family, you get it done. You figure it out, you raise your kids the right way. You're a standup dude. You have disciplined, like that is the. Fucking you win the game, dude. That's what it is. How did you get, where did the shift happen?

Vincent: So the shift happens. I, there was a fake shift from high school into college. And when I say, and this, I think this is important for the listeners to recognize that sometimes you think you're making a shift, but you're not. So as you pointed out before, I have these degrees hanging on my wall to say I'm qualified to talk to people, but that's what it comes down to. But the funnier and more interesting part about these degrees, which is actually even funnier and a great reminder for me is that they say the name Vincenzo on them. They don't actually say Vincent. Because, when I was going into college, and I was tired of being this weak guy that, got picked on, had no girlfriend couldn't have any friends, and was just utterly this pitiful man. I said, something needs to change. And so I wrote my name as Vincenzo on all my college applications. And It, nobody checked it, which is even weirder. They're like, nobody was like, is this matched? Yeah, sure, you're Vincenzo. I was like, okay, cool. If everybody's gonna believe it, great. Which is like such a mafia dude name, by the way. Right to the origin of the Italian roots. And I felt like that was my opportunity to be cool. If anybody's ever seen that movie, the new guy, that's how I felt. It's like this opportunity that I was this big loser that nobody liked. And I didn't even like myself, but now I can be somebody and it's worked. And that's why I say it's I made the change, but not really. I started working out. Cause I was a little bit chubby and I always struggled with gyno. So I would always get made fun of like man tits and this and that. And so I started really working out, taking a lot better care of myself. I changed up my hairstyle. I grew out a beard. I started wearing cooler clothes and I just started becoming a little more detached from people because I was always like this awkward kid. And so I had more of a cool guy vibe now. But the funnier thing was that those were just external changes. They weren't internal. So I still struggled with severe self esteem issues, severe confidence issues, codependency issues, anxiety, like crazy panic attacks, depression, sadness, suicidal. I would drink a lot at 18, 19 years old. I was drinking a lot because I met some kids that were older than me. And I was always going to the bars and stuff. And it was really interesting because seemingly now is this cool person. I had friends, girls were interested in me a lot. I couldn't, I could not maintain a girl and if I did get into a relationship, she cheated on me and it was a bad relationship. I couldn't maintain friends. I would get extremely sad or jealous if they went out without me or whatever the case was. And so all of these things to say that I made a fake change from high school to college, but my real change was at about 23 years old when I graduated with my master's degree and I actually took some time for myself to try to figure out my life. Because now, much like Mike described over here, was, I had the fast car, I had a Camaro SS with a performance exhaust. I had a hot girlfriend, every girl loves, by the way.

Vincent: Oh, they did. Oh, they did. I could pull up in that thing, man. It was great. And so it made my life easier. So I worked out. I'm now this I'm now this quote unquote, good looking guy. I got tattoos. I have a hot girlfriend. I got a fast car. I have money in my bank account. I have my license to practice psychotherapy and I'm 23 years old and I was miserable still. And that's always the funny part because society, as we started this conversation with society told me, if you have a hot girlfriend, money, a car, your job ahead of you, all this stuff, you should be happy. And the other part of it is, which is the fun stuff society does is if you have all that and you're not happy now, you're just ungrateful. Now you're this person who just has terrible perspective, right? So I didn't even feel comfortable talking to people about how I felt because I already felt like I shouldn't be feeling this way. So, at 23, I just, I wound up having this honest conversation with myself in the mirror. And I went to the bathroom and I just slammed my arms down on the counter. And I was like, dude what is wrong with my life? Like, why am I still miserable and angry and sad and upset and anxious and all this crap? Like why? And I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. And then I looked up at myself and I was like, oh man, I actually, I get it now. It's because you're Vincent and you see that was so powerful because that was the first time in seven years that I said my actual name and in there was something that I didn't even realize, but it was about to change the whole trajectory of my life because it's what I call the or it's ownership, accountability, and responsibility, how we were talking before about like you're in this river in a boat. You can't steer the boat if you don't at least have an oar. And the ownership is important for accepting my past. I have to own that, right? I have to own that everything that has happened up until this point, I had a role in. Whether it was the way I was looking at it, thinking about it, feeling about it, acting or reacting towards it. I have to have this ownership of it. Then I have to have the accountability of the fact that my life in the present is just a result of everything that I did not own in my past. And then I had to take the responsibility that if I wanted my life to be different, it was going to be different only by me taking an active participating part in it. So, I just sat there in this conversation with myself in the mirror and I was like, dude, who are you? It's you're a loser. You're sad. You're pitiful. You're depressed. You're anxious. You're suicidal. Nobody admires you. Nobody cares about you. Nobody wants to be in your vicinity. And that's just God's honest truth. And I needed that because you can't start creating change if you don't have a basis for where you're at. And so once I had that, it said, do you still want to be this way? And the answer is no. And then it's who do you want to be? So I want to be this leader. I want to be inspiring and powerful and helpful. And I want to heal others. And I want to be strong and empathetic and enthusiastic. And then the last question is really, who must you become to live out all of those things? What would a leader do? How would they show up in this life? What would they say? What would they think? What do they talk about? Who do they hang with? Et cetera. And so that conversation in the mirror was so pivotal to me. Changing the trajectory of my life forever and that's where it all started.

Keys to Transform your Life | with Cody Rininger

Michael: Why do the thing that you were thinking about? Why decide, okay, this is what I'm thinking about. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go for it. Why? Ultimately the question I'm asking for, why go for it? Why try to create the life that you want to have instead of just staying in a life that you hate?

Cody: I was very happy. It's a great question. Thank you for asking it. And I've never actually really talked about this out loud to anyone. But I needed to come in a very close friend, best friend person told me that I just needed to be me and be raw. So, I just needed to. Talk about it and say, I was extremely happy as an educator. I was, I feel I was very good at it. My students loved me. I did well within the district and I was then divorced and an opportunity came up to become a large position with a. Japanese company and I took it and that made me leave the classroom and I left the classroom and it was, things happen in your life and it gets you to where you are now. So I don't regret that because then I wouldn't have what I have now because it wouldn't force me. Like we fast forward. After five years of working this position, basically they dissolved the position in my territory. And I'd never been faced with that and grew up on a farm, always had a job. There was a teacher never got displaced, which I was very fortunate of. Became a math director. Then I move on to this position, worked there five years, life was good. I took that position, but I took that position. This is what I've never said. I took that position because not cause I want to leave the classroom, not because I want to leave education because I want it to look bigger. I wanted to, I don't know. I let's call it, let's call it what it is. I want to show off like that. This is my position now. Fuck you. This is what I've got and I loved it and I was good at it. And then, again life didn't like it. So I had no choice. I have a family, I have children. I had to get a. A job and I had to get a job in that forced me to be in a cubicle. I never one time ever in my entire life, I would watch movies and say, that is never going to be me. Like Space or something. Like I'm sitting there and I'm sitting there, man. I was miserable every day. I was, it wasn't as bad as crying on the way to work, but damn, it was close. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I can't do this. So that, that, I don't know what night it was. It doesn't matter. Laid there and said, this is really what you've become. Like you are like seriously depressed with what you are so much more than this. It wasn't a bad company. It was a great company. It just wasn't me. And I was doing nothing outside of emailing and making phone calls. I wasn't traveling anymore. I wasn't making a difference in anybody's life. It felt like I was collecting a paycheck and that pissed me off. It's not what I'm supposed to do. Yes, we all want to get paid, but why are you doing it? What's behind it? Nothing was behind it. So I made the decision and it did not take 10 years. It did take about 10 seconds. Like you said, it was, I love teaching. I love helping people. I get a lot of questions about lifting and all of this. So I went back to school. I got my certifications. I did it. I think I, they gave me 12 to 14 months and I did it in three. It was like, this is I'm doing this. So I held out the job longer because I hadn't built a base. And then I finally left the job. I left my job, which was the scariest thing ever. And I became a head trainer and fast forward again. Then I left my gym to create my own business. And I did that because I knew that there was more to me and that I always taught my students that and one of the things that I always taught my students was because there was a fight at school one day between my two fifth grade boys and one was trying to hurt the other one with a homemade Pen shank. I don't know what you want to call it, but it happened and it just came out of my mouth that you need to he I dare you, Mr. R to do this as, or some shit. Like he said to me and I said, I dare you to be great. And then from there it just came, it just started. And my company is built around that. I was teaching to that, that my students were better than what they thought they could be. And then I hadn't done it myself, like that's not cool. So I decided, take my own advice. I'm doing all these things and, I had my twins and you want the best for your kids and you raise them to be everything that they can be. And I'm very involved with my kids life and, it just, it had to happen. And, when I talk about being pissed off and wanting to be something that I probably wasn't and leaving the teaching position, it was because I didn't get full time custody of my kids or not full time, I should say, I didn't get to see him a lot. I went from seeing him every morning and every night and raising them to probably four days a month. And that is for me as a father and everybody has different views of things. But for me as a father, I was unacceptable. There was no, that's where my relationship with acceptance piss off. I didn't need to accept anything. It wasn't going to happen. And my relationship, not only acceptance, but higher powers, family, people went totally rogue, dark, no good. You couldn't tell me anything. I was going to do this. I'll put on a smiley face for you at work, but that's about it. Knew that things had to change and I had to find a better avenue for myself. And the only thing that helped me through that time was the gym. Even though I wasn't doing jack shit in it, it was just there to keep me. And I wanted to have that for what I do now with my clients. Cause I, when I train for what they need and yeah, I understand you want to go to a Caribbean cruise or on, to Mexico or, I get that, the clients that I have now with my business. It goes much deeper than that. We're still going to hit those aesthetics and, the personal and the physical, but it really is about the mind and emotional. Cause if we have that in check, I'm learning, cause I'm going through the process too, and I tell them that I want to be vulnerable with my clients. Cause it's no good for me to lie to them and act like this has been a perfect life because it's definitely not.