WEBVTT
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And he jumped off in front of my truck and
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uh finish split second. I mean I didn't have time
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to react. It happened that fast.
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Take control, control of your life, break the chaine, your.
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Eyes, normal, feeling powerless, normal shape and take your power.
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Break out of the pain. Because it's more than fortication,
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more than procreation.
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It's not just self stimulation.
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Sex.
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Energy is for creation, that transformation.
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It's doing destination.
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This is poorn talk.
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Points change your life from dum to life by free.
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This is porn talk. He was your host, Eric Zuzak.
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We have someone here to empower us today. Michael Clegg
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joins us to share his journey of transformation. Sparked by
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a life changing tragedy. After a fatal accident, Clegg had
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to face and rebuild himself, rediscovering a purpose he thought
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he had lost. Through his experience, Clegg developed his leader's
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go first philosophy in the leadership Squad framework he uses
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to guide others from executives to high school quarterbacks in
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creating connection, psychological safety, and resilience. Together, we'll discover how
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these principles can be applied to some of us, overcoming
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addictions and helping you to find a renewed sense of
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purpose and an unwavering commitment to your goals. Well, please
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welcome Michael Kleig.
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Welcome Michael, and thank you for having me. That's quite
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an intro too, and great music by the way, Thank.
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You, and well you're quite an amazing guy. Let's get
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right to it. What was the tragedy that changed your life?
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In the spring of twenty twenty three, I was at
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a football tournament. We actually played in the championship, which
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we won, beating the art rivals that were playing this week,
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and this first time we'd beaten them in seven years.
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So you can imagine like parents were related, the kids
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were related. I was elated, just a ton of fun.
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So I hop in my truck to head home. And
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I was in the Charlotte area, which is where I
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am today, and had about a forty five minute ride
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home and was driving and on this part of the
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highway on the Interstate. It was pretty dark, not a
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lot of lights out in the more of a rural
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part of Charlotte, and there was a gentleman standing on
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the bridge that I did not see, and I was
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on the Interstate below the underpass, and he jumped off
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in front of my truck and.
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Within a split second, I mean, I didn't have time
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to react.
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It happened that fast, and I ran.
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Over him and he did not survive.
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And obviously that in and of itself is like even
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telling the story sometimes it's kind of like an out
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of body experience, like, man, that did happen to me
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eighteen months ago.
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And which isn't a long time, by the way, But.
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You know, all I could think of was how quickly
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I could pull over off the interstate to.
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Go back and help him.
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And I do that, and I'm running up you know,
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the shoulder of the highway and cars are still, you know,
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flying by, and fortunately there was a couple of bystanders
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that saw it happened that pulled over quickly.
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To try and get the traffic to stop.
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And by the time I got back to the gentleman,
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it was clear that he didn't survive, which I'm not surprised,
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And that just set an entire.
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String of events for me.
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And as you can imagine, if self reflection isn't exactly
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something that comes to mind when something.
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Like that happens, you know, I'd received tons of.
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Messages and by the way, obviously, they they closed down
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the interstate that evening, and fortunately I left before my
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team left, because I also one of one of my kids,
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one of my my son was on that team also,
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so it very well could have been him or any
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of his teammates.
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Or they could have driven by that.
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But fortunately they left a little later than I did
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because they were celebrating, and so I was very fortunate
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that that happened to me and not to one of
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my kids. I can't imagine any of my players or
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my own kid having to go through that experience. So
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happy to expand on that, but I'll stop there for now,
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and then you just tell me where you want me
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to go with that.
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Well, first of all, you know, I'm sorry that you
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had to go through that, and I can't imagine begin
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to imagine. Like I told you on our first call there,
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a friend of mine, I was on the phone with
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her the night that her son committed suicide in a
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very similar way by but he didn't jump off a bridge.
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He ran in front of a semi tractor trailer truck.
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And I can't help but think of that that night,
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and so you know, to have that happened to you,
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take us through like the dark part here for us?
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How did that affect you? What happened? And by the way,
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for those that are listening, the reason that I haven't
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have clegg here. Guys think they come here for porn
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or sex addiction or commit overcoming some addiction. But I
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tell them, it's not about the porn or it's not
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about the alcohol. It's about whatever is fueling it. And
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some people have some horrific tragedies that happened. And so
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you were able to only in eighteen months endure this
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and actually come out the other side sounds like for
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the better to life. What happened after that?
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Yeah, so that was a long evening.
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Obviously, you know, police investigated the accident and they had
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to check, double check, triple check everything that I said
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was facts.
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And there because there were several witnesses.
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Yeah, I went home and uh, you know, I'd called
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my wife from the scene, and you know, obviously there
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wasn't a whole lot that I could say other than
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what happened.
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And I guess there was a level of shock.
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I knew what was going on, but you know, I
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still was like, holy crap, like this really happened to me.
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And and then I kept going through this loop about
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you know, the individual that jumped, like, why who are they?
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You know? Were they a husband? Were they a father?
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I knew just by you know, visual appearance that looked
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to be you know, mid forties male. You know what
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was what was going through that person's life in the
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moment that that was the choice that they made in
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that moment to in their life. And you know, I
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kept going in a loop. It wasn't necessarily the accident
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seeing itself that kept going in a loop, but it was.
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It was the questioning And still to day, I have
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no idea.
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I don't know the gentleman's name, I don't know anything
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about him. And and it was a long night, no doubt.
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I think I slept like twenty hours. I mean, I
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think I've missed the entire next day.
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But knew that I needed to get in to see
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some sort of counseling.
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And I did that the first day that I woke up.
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But I woke up to hundreds of text messages of
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you know, Hey, it's not your fault. Hey, I'm sorry
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you went through this. Hey, wrong place, wrong time, Hey,
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I can't believe it. Do you want to talk about it,
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I'm here for you, you know, stuff like that, people
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trying to be kind, right, that's an unusual like how
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do you respond to somebody that goes through something like that?
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Like I, honestly, I don't know that I would necessarily
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how I would have handled that being a friend or
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a colleague of me.
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But you know, I remember being with the counselor, and
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I don't know that I said a whole lot.
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Obviously, I told her what happened, and she got me
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in immediately, and there was a lot of silence. There
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was a lot of.
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For me just questioning why, why me? Why me?
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Kind of thing, and once again going through that loop
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in my mind about who he was, why he did that?
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You know, being someone that's always been passionate about leadership,
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you know, I questioned, like, gosh, did he have did
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he have a bad boss?
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You know, what was this work environment?
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Like?
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Did he have a job?
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And you know, some of the things you think about
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are kind of really strange and out there, and I
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certainly understand. But the weeks and months following that, I
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just wasn't present anywhere in life. I wasn't present with
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my family, and I've got three kids and a wife
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twenty three years. I didn't want to go to work.
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I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't
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really want to eat. I didn't want to work out.
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I didn't want to do anything in my normal routine.
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I wanted to stay in bed and honestly just bury
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my head. And that went on for a few months
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till finally I just I was so sick of not
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being present. Now, had you asked my family or my wife,
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how's Claig doing, they would have been like, oh, he's great,
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Like never even talks about it, you know, I don't.
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I don't think he thinks about it. He saidn't, no,
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And I wasn't really openly sharing. Now, I continue to
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go to counseling, you know, for three or four months,
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and really it was last summer. I I knew that
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I was in a bad place. I knew that I
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wasn't being productive. I knew that I wasn't really being beneficial.
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To anyone in my life.
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And so I was just scrolling YouTube, honestly, and I
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was googling, I think, like trauma, transformation, those types of things,
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and I came across some videos by doctor Benjamin Hardy,
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and it like this whole idea of your future self
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just really spoke to me. And I mean he's got
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hundreds of videos on there, I believe at this point
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now I've watched I think every single one or podcasts
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that you've been on. I've I've been working with Doctor
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Hardy for the better part of the last year and
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some Mastermind groups with them. He's been a big part
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of me becoming my future self, and even so much
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so that I've created my own program group coaching for
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people that are just stuck in life.
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They are looking for more then they may not know
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what more is.
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But they know they want it, called the Future You Program,
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and so so many things have happened since then, but
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it all the recovery really started when I started diving
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into trauma and this whole ideal around being the future
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version of yourself.
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Yeah, and that's what I was really interested with your material,
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The Future You, Doctor ben Hardy is awesome. That's how
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we know each other through the Doctor ben Hardy's Future
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Self book and program, and the program is awesome. So
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I wanted to hear about your future new program as well.
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But before we get into that, one of the things
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I heard you say, is when after this happened, all
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these people reached out to you. But I always say
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the opposite of addiction is connection, And it sounds like
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you were disconnecting from people.
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I really was. I didn't realize I was. But you know,
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you can only tell the story so many times. I mean,
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most people knew what happened. I mean when something like
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that happens. I mean not that I'm like this big
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public figure or anything, but you know, I am CEO
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of an organization, so I have a lot of connections
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through twenty plus years of being in this industry.
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I coach high school football.
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So many of these kids on the team I've coached
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even from their Pop Warner days, all the way through
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high school. So I've got a lot of families that
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I've been involved with over the last fifteen years.
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And so word did spread pretty quickly and I didn't.
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And honestly, I.
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Think I told you the first time I really told
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the full story. I believe was telling you outside of
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obviously my counselor and really a select few people, but
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publicly I've never told the full story. I've told part
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of the accident, you know, through my ted X talk
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and the recovery. But it really was more about the
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recovery than it was the accident and how I felt
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in the moment and actually what happened in the accident,
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and that in and of itself is cleansing.
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But yeah, I don't ironically. One of my values is connection.
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But yeah, I think it's very safe to say that
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I was actively disconnecting.
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Yeah, and that is the disconnecting, disconnection from people. It's
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what often fuels different types of addictions and behaviors. So,
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but the cool thing is that you came across doctor
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ben Hardy's material Future Self, Future You material, and I
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stumbled across doctor Hardy's material as well. But I already
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was very active in the identity change, because that's the
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whole pile for Eric story. You know. I went to
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all these programs where they say how you say you're
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powerless over things? And that didn't work for me. So
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I decided one today just to call myself powerful, Eric.
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And so that's why I was so attracted to doctor
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ben Hardy's material and your material as well. How did
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you turn things around or did things get worse before
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they got better?
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Yeah, I wouldn't say after that point it got worse.
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I would say, this whole idea of becoming your future
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self was pretty intriguing to me. I mean, naturally, I
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think I'm a fairly ambitious person anyways, but I love
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my profiles.
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I love starting things, but not necessarily finishing things.
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And and so this was and let me take one
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step back. You have to understand when I when I
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discovered this and found this, you know, I'm I'm running
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Q Works Group, which is my executive placement firm as
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the CEO and co owner, and really took my eye
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off the ball in a in a bad way, you know,
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just not being present. And it was the end of
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September when I realized that our accountant at the time
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had hired.
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One of their family members to do the bookkeeping. Well,
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they had flipped debits and credits. They were listing debits's
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credits and credits as debts. And so when I woke
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up from you.
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Know, this awful of and really started trying to be president,
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I realized that as I was looking under the covers,
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that we had lost almost five hundred thousand dollars in
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our business that year and we weren't even in Q
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four yet.
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So, you know, so throw that on.
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Top of the accident and all of the residual things
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that come from the accident, it was a pretty crappy
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place to be. But I have to be honest, because
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I had started dreaming about this whole ideal around the
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future self.
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I just put.
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Together some steps to overcome the challenge, made some very
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rapid changes inside of the organization. And you have to understand,
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we also hit an all time high in revenue last year,
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so we had to pay commissions and bonuses on that
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revenue even though we were losing a significant amount of money,
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and so that created.
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This whole set of challenges.
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So all of this is going on in the back end,
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and you know, doctor Hardy says it, it's not how
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you do things, it's who you do them with, right,
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It's who, not how. And so I really adapted to
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that who concept and just started going out trying to
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trying to partner connect with other who's that could help
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me get out of one my accident struggles and two
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the company struggles. And so I joined Ben's Mastermind Group
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in Q four last year, and I really started doing
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some deep work and one of the things that I
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work towards now is My mission is to humanize one
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million conscious leaders. And a conscious leader doesn't necessarily have
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to have that corporate title to be a conscious leader.
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A conscious leader is someone that's deeply introspective and highly
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self aware. And most of us actually, like eighty five
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plus percent of us are not self aware, even though
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ninety five will say that.
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What do you mean, humanize them?
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Yeah, so you've already mentioned connection.
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You know, being a human is, you know, what comes
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with what separates us from you know, the rest of
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the animal kingdom. Right, it's it's our ability to learn, Right,
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it's our our our level of intelligence, and our emotions.
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But in the workplace and in life, we feel like,
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unless we're in the confines of our homes, we feel
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like we have to leave emotion out of it. And
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you can't grow without emotion, because you can't get excited
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about the future without emotion. Excitement in and of itself
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is an emotion, and so embracing the emotions, you know,
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drumming up the appropriate emotions.
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Is part of that deep introspection.
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And that's what doctor Hardy helped me with was I'd
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never journaled, I've never done any of the things that
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he taught us. You know that that eighteen months ago,
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before the accident, I would have called all that stuff
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like I don't do any of that woo woo crap.
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That woo wuo crap is like it's gold. It is magical,
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and I'm a believer.
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I was not right.
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I mean, I was your prototypical male sports guy, coach,
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tough guy, alpha.
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Male, all of that.
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Right. That didn't give me anywhere right not to say
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that I didn't have a level of success prior to
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the accident. But what I didn't realize that prior to
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the accident, I had reached the ceiling in my life
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that and it was a self proclaimed I didn't even
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know it was there. I just said, ah, you know what,
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this is as good as it gets now. I was
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doing that automatically. I wasn't actively saying that because I
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wasn't actively keeping score on my goals and ambitions.
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Shame on me.
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And you know, at the time, a forty nine year
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old man, I started looking back, going, man, you know
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I have had some success.
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Why did I stop? And what I realized was I
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had stopped dreaming.
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And so as I started journaling with doctor Hardy and
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Q four last year, there's a whole host of things
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that came up.
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And you know, I call it the power of the pen.
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You learn so much about yourself that doesn't happen overnight, right,
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it doesn't.
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It just doesn't happen overnight. But it wasn't too long,
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It wasn't you know, too many weeks.
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Out where I really started identifying things that I had forgotten.
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And one of the things in you know, Ben's Mastermind
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was at the end when I was really looking forward
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to what are some impossible goals for me to really
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set beyond Q four for twenty twenty four, one of
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them was I'm gonna tell this story of recovery on
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a ted X stage. So I determined that in December
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of last year. And and to me, that was an apot.
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Everybody that's on that's doing tech talks, they're all like
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famous people, right, Those are people that have books. There's
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the people that you know have have changed the world
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in some way, shape or form.
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I didn't know, right. I made a lot of assumptions.
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And it's one of the things we learned to question
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our assumptions.
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And so I started this idea of just asking myself
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one question and and this is if for your audience
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it's listening, write this down, asking yourself one question. So
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when I said I want to do a tech X stage,
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I want to be on a tech stage to tell
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the story of recovery within five years was my goal.
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That's what I was putting down on paper.
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The question is what would have to be true in
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order for you to achieve that. So I go to
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the pen, I start journaling, and I start going through
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the process of you know, what would have to be true? Well,
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I need to have a book, Well I need to
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be famous, Well, all these self limiting beliefs, right, the
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lies that we tell ourselves. I'm writing on paper and
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it did take me a couple few days to ultimately
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get to it. But what I realized was if I'm
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going to do this, I had to commit.
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I have to be all in.
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And one of the things that I teach my clients
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is if you want to change, you can't wait until
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you feel good, because you're not gonna have confidence about
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change because change requires you to do something different.
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And two, most people wait for the capability to know how.
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To do something before they commit to doing it, and
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that's why so many people are stuck that's why ninety
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two ninety three percent of people never achieve their goals
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because they're waiting until they feel good or waiting to
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know how to do something.
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And I fully committed. I was all in.
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I burned the boats and I said I'm going to
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be on a TATEX stage within five years. And what
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I ended up coming up with is what would have
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to be true in order for me to achieve that
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was I'm going to hire a speaking coach, And so
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did some interviews, found the local Guides North Carolina, had
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a conversation with him, and what I figured was, I
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don't know how to do a TED talk. I'm not
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a professional speaker. I don't even know how to land
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a TED talk. You know, everything I read about it
410
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was like some some things that I saw. It takes
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fifty plus times of applications of before you even get one.
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Actually the average is eighty six to get one talk.
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Wow.
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So I hire someone who had already done too, and
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who was a professional speaker, and and he got me
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to apply the first of January or the end of
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December rather before the end of Q four. He got
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me to apply to a TEDx and and by the way,
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when I say it got me to apply. He told
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me to apply and I didn't, and I get a
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text message from him at like three o'clock before the
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five pm deadline.
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Clegg.
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Everybody calls me Clig by the way, include my wife, Clegg.
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Have you applied? I was like, should I even respond
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or wait till after five o'clock?
427
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So I response like no, he goes apply, Please apply.
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You didn't hire me to not figure this out. Apply.
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This is built for you. This is made for you.
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I know it, I feel it. Apply. So I did,
431
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and a few weeks later I got a phone call
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that they were intrigued about my story. And then you know,
433
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the process happens. You have to do an interview, you
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have to send a three minute video. This is this
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whole process, and I ended up being selected. But the
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point is is that my mindset was what would have
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to be true, and so I responded.
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I answered. I journaled on that and came up.
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With hiring a speaking coach, someone that's already one, knows
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how to do it.
441
00:25:33.960 --> 00:25:36.359
So there was the capability that we usually wait for.
442
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It's his capability. He was going to teach me.
443
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And then the confidence I felt great because I was
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hiring someone, so I felt confident to apply, not because
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I knew how to do it or anything about it,
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or that I would get selected. The first time I applied,
447
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I certainly didn't think that would happen. But because I
448
00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:55.240
was all in, because I burned the votes, because I
449
00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:59.319
fully committed, it didn't happen in five years. I was
450
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:03.519
on a text age within five months. Wow, And that
451
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was part. That was also a part of this recovery,
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because you know, my mindset started changing about this future.
453
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.119
You And oh, by the way, how I landed on
454
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doing a ted talk or a TEDx was.
455
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In my journaling.
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I had started coming up with things that happened to
457
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me as a kid, and a lot of trauma. And
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you know, most of us know our lives. When our
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lives are crapped, they tend to stem from things that happened.
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To us when we were kids.
461
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And I mean, I the first seven to eight minutes
462
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of my TEDx is all things that I remembered by journaling.
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I mean, my TEDx starts. You know, picture this, an
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eight year old little boy standing on top of a
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bump bed holding a small bible, pretending to preach to
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the congregation below, But in reality, the only member of
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the congregation was my three year old little brother. Like
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I was writing that, and I'm getting goosebumps talking about it,
469
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because I remembered standing on that damn bunk bed, holding
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that small Bible, pretending to preach to my little brother,
471
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and I.
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Was, And I remembered the feeling of being in front
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of people.
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I remembered the feeling of dreaming, of ambition, of one
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day being in a stadium, in an arena, in front
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of thousands of people telling my story. Now, I didn't
477
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.960
want to be a preacher, right that. I didn't want
478
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to be standing on the pulpit. But that's all I
479
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knew at that time. You know, I went to church
480
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on Sundays with my mom, and so I remembered that.
481
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I remembered things about when my parents got divorced. I
482
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remembered things about my stepdad and all bad, bad, bad
483
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things that Now I realized that, you know, we all
484
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hear the victim mindset, and most of us asked the question,
485
00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:00.440
why did that happen to me? I get that, I
486
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:04.720
understand that's a natural response why. But in reality, what
487
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:09.400
doctor Hardy helped me with was you know that that
488
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why did that happen to me? Is a very victim mindset.
489
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It's a very fixed mindset, like like like I had anything.
490
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To do with the event. Of course I didn't.
491
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But what doctor Hardy says is shift your thought process
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from what happened to you to how did that happen
493
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:32.000
for you? And and when I met him, which is
494
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:35.359
an entirely different story, probably for another episode, but I
495
00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:37.440
met him during the Q four challenge after I had
496
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:39.240
declared the day before that he was going to be
497
00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:42.359
one of my who's He said to me and I said,
498
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.279
I said, Ben, I said, I just can't get past
499
00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:49.079
this whole happened to me versus for me.
500
00:28:50.119 --> 00:28:51.279
I said, I just don't understand.
501
00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:53.119
I was like, I said, so, so basically that's me
502
00:28:53.240 --> 00:28:56.279
saying that someone else had to lose their life in
503
00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:00.359
order for me to have a good one. Like that's
504
00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:03.640
some selfish ass stuff right there. Like I don't even
505
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:07.000
He was like, no, Claig, you don't understand. It's not
506
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:10.000
He's like, the past is yours. We don't control the events.
507
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:13.160
Bad things happen to good people all the time. We
508
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:17.759
cannot control the events. But what we can control is
509
00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:22.759
the meaning of those events. What can we pull out
510
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:27.039
of why that was happening, what lessons have we learned?
511
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:39.880
And I'm not Oh, I get that. That was like
512
00:29:40.440 --> 00:29:49.880
a That was a massive breakthrough moment for me because
513
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:52.359
I realized that I had the power of that event.
514
00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:56.200
I had the power of taking the meaning out of
515
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.759
that event. And that's when everything really starts coming together
516
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:04.400
and including going I need to tell the story. I
517
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:08.519
need to tell the things that I've learned about this recovery,
518
00:30:08.559 --> 00:30:13.599
about this process, about thinking about tomorrow becoming the future you.
519
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:19.599
And it was so powerful and so I made that
520
00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:21.920
declared that goal.
521
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:24.559
And my possible goal is going to be to tell
522
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:28.039
the TEDx be on a teTeX stage average Joe, you know,
523
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.079
in five years.
524
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:31.480
But because I fully committed, it happened in five months.
525
00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:33.880
I'm going to start and found a new company called
526
00:30:33.960 --> 00:30:38.599
Leadership Squared, which Leadership Squared is a framework that I
527
00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:42.799
call the power of two, which is culture and connection, right,
528
00:30:42.839 --> 00:30:47.279
And that's the whole premise around humanizing one million conscious leaders,
529
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.319
because you cannot be a conscious leader without deep introspection.
530
00:30:51.079 --> 00:30:53.559
Because look at all the things that I would not
531
00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:56.640
have had in life had I not found doctor Hardy
532
00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:01.160
and realized the value of deep introspection and then having
533
00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:05.160
high self awareness, self awareness telling me, well, I don't
534
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:07.960
know how to be on a tat X stage, but
535
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:10.000
I can find somebody that that does.
536
00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:13.119
And so that set this chain.
537
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.200
Of events into one being on the TATEX stage earlier
538
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:22.960
this year, starting and founding this company in January, making
539
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:27.119
it profitable inside of just a handful of months, and
540
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:30.559
and and now starting to grow this and create a program.
541
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:33.559
And oh, by the way, you know, I do a
542
00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:35.680
lot of one on one coaching, but I realized, like
543
00:31:35.960 --> 00:31:37.880
I couldn't help more people. I'm like, how am I
544
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:40.960
going to humanize a million conscious leaders if I'm only
545
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.759
meeting people one on one? And one of the things
546
00:31:43.799 --> 00:31:46.519
been told me in May, He's like, Cleg, you got
547
00:31:46.519 --> 00:31:48.160
to start saying no to things.
548
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:49.359
You've got to start.
549
00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:54.440
Uncommitting from things in your life that don't serve a
550
00:31:54.480 --> 00:31:58.839
purpose to your mission. And so that's when I said,
551
00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:02.640
oh my gosh, I can start doing group coaching.
552
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:08.200
I can actually start really professionally speaking, reaching more people.
553
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:12.160
Claig, I hate to cut you off, but we're out
554
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:15.039
of time for this episode. Don't worry We'll have you
555
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.640
back in Part two, where we'll dive even deeper into
556
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:23.799
your journey and how these powerful principles can change lives.
557
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:26.960
Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it until then.
558
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:31.920
Stay strong, stay focused, and keep channeling your energy into
559
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:36.000
your goals. This is powerful Eric signing off, see you
560
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:37.839
in the next episode for Part two.
561
00:32:38.359 --> 00:32:41.960
Thanks for listening. If you're struggling with porn or sex addiction,
562
00:32:42.359 --> 00:32:45.440
reach out to Eric at powerfuleric dot com.
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And he jumped off in front of my truck and
2
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uh finish split second. I mean I didn't have time
3
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to react. It happened that fast.
4
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Take control, control of your life, break the chaine, your.
5
00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:22.640
Eyes, normal, feeling powerless, normal shape and take your power.
6
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Break out of the pain. Because it's more than fortication,
7
00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:30.760
more than procreation.
8
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It's not just self stimulation.
9
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Sex.
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Energy is for creation, that transformation.
11
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It's doing destination.
12
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This is poorn talk.
13
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Points change your life from dum to life by free.
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This is porn talk. He was your host, Eric Zuzak.
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We have someone here to empower us today. Michael Clegg
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joins us to share his journey of transformation. Sparked by
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a life changing tragedy. After a fatal accident, Clegg had
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to face and rebuild himself, rediscovering a purpose he thought
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he had lost. Through his experience, Clegg developed his leader's
20
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go first philosophy in the leadership Squad framework he uses
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to guide others from executives to high school quarterbacks in
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creating connection, psychological safety, and resilience. Together, we'll discover how
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these principles can be applied to some of us, overcoming
24
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addictions and helping you to find a renewed sense of
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purpose and an unwavering commitment to your goals. Well, please
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welcome Michael Kleig.
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Welcome Michael, and thank you for having me. That's quite
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an intro too, and great music by the way, Thank.
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You, and well you're quite an amazing guy. Let's get
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right to it. What was the tragedy that changed your life?
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In the spring of twenty twenty three, I was at
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a football tournament. We actually played in the championship, which
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we won, beating the art rivals that were playing this week,
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and this first time we'd beaten them in seven years.
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So you can imagine like parents were related, the kids
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were related. I was elated, just a ton of fun.
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So I hop in my truck to head home. And
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I was in the Charlotte area, which is where I
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am today, and had about a forty five minute ride
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home and was driving and on this part of the
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highway on the Interstate. It was pretty dark, not a
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lot of lights out in the more of a rural
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part of Charlotte, and there was a gentleman standing on
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the bridge that I did not see, and I was
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on the Interstate below the underpass, and he jumped off
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in front of my truck and.
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Within a split second, I mean, I didn't have time
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to react.
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It happened that fast, and I ran.
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Over him and he did not survive.
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And obviously that in and of itself is like even
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telling the story sometimes it's kind of like an out
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of body experience, like, man, that did happen to me
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eighteen months ago.
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And which isn't a long time, by the way, But.
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You know, all I could think of was how quickly
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I could pull over off the interstate to.
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Go back and help him.
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And I do that, and I'm running up you know,
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the shoulder of the highway and cars are still, you know,
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flying by, and fortunately there was a couple of bystanders
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that saw it happened that pulled over quickly.
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To try and get the traffic to stop.
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And by the time I got back to the gentleman,
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it was clear that he didn't survive, which I'm not surprised,
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And that just set an entire.
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String of events for me.
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And as you can imagine, if self reflection isn't exactly
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something that comes to mind when something.
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Like that happens, you know, I'd received tons of.
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Messages and by the way, obviously, they they closed down
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the interstate that evening, and fortunately I left before my
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team left, because I also one of one of my kids,
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one of my my son was on that team also,
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so it very well could have been him or any
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of his teammates.
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Or they could have driven by that.
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But fortunately they left a little later than I did
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because they were celebrating, and so I was very fortunate
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that that happened to me and not to one of
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my kids. I can't imagine any of my players or
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my own kid having to go through that experience. So
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happy to expand on that, but I'll stop there for now,
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and then you just tell me where you want me
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to go with that.
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Well, first of all, you know, I'm sorry that you
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had to go through that, and I can't imagine begin
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to imagine. Like I told you on our first call there,
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a friend of mine, I was on the phone with
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her the night that her son committed suicide in a
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very similar way by but he didn't jump off a bridge.
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He ran in front of a semi tractor trailer truck.
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And I can't help but think of that that night,
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and so you know, to have that happened to you,
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take us through like the dark part here for us?
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How did that affect you? What happened? And by the way,
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for those that are listening, the reason that I haven't
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have clegg here. Guys think they come here for porn
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or sex addiction or commit overcoming some addiction. But I
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tell them, it's not about the porn or it's not
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about the alcohol. It's about whatever is fueling it. And
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some people have some horrific tragedies that happened. And so
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you were able to only in eighteen months endure this
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and actually come out the other side sounds like for
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the better to life. What happened after that?
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Yeah, so that was a long evening.
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Obviously, you know, police investigated the accident and they had
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to check, double check, triple check everything that I said
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was facts.
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And there because there were several witnesses.
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Yeah, I went home and uh, you know, I'd called
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my wife from the scene, and you know, obviously there
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wasn't a whole lot that I could say other than
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what happened.
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And I guess there was a level of shock.
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I knew what was going on, but you know, I
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still was like, holy crap, like this really happened to me.
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And and then I kept going through this loop about
119
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you know, the individual that jumped, like, why who are they?
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You know? Were they a husband? Were they a father?
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I knew just by you know, visual appearance that looked
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to be you know, mid forties male. You know what
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was what was going through that person's life in the
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moment that that was the choice that they made in
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that moment to in their life. And you know, I
126
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kept going in a loop. It wasn't necessarily the accident
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seeing itself that kept going in a loop, but it was.
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It was the questioning And still to day, I have
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no idea.
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I don't know the gentleman's name, I don't know anything
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about him. And and it was a long night, no doubt.
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I think I slept like twenty hours. I mean, I
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think I've missed the entire next day.
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But knew that I needed to get in to see
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some sort of counseling.
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And I did that the first day that I woke up.
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But I woke up to hundreds of text messages of
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you know, Hey, it's not your fault. Hey, I'm sorry
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you went through this. Hey, wrong place, wrong time, Hey,
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I can't believe it. Do you want to talk about it,
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I'm here for you, you know, stuff like that, people
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trying to be kind, right, that's an unusual like how
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do you respond to somebody that goes through something like that?
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Like I, honestly, I don't know that I would necessarily
145
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how I would have handled that being a friend or
146
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a colleague of me.
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But you know, I remember being with the counselor, and
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I don't know that I said a whole lot.
149
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Obviously, I told her what happened, and she got me
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in immediately, and there was a lot of silence. There
151
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was a lot of.
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For me just questioning why, why me? Why me?
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Kind of thing, and once again going through that loop
154
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in my mind about who he was, why he did that?
155
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You know, being someone that's always been passionate about leadership,
156
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you know, I questioned, like, gosh, did he have did
157
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he have a bad boss?
158
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You know, what was this work environment?
159
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Like?
160
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Did he have a job?
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And you know, some of the things you think about
162
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are kind of really strange and out there, and I
163
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certainly understand. But the weeks and months following that, I
164
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just wasn't present anywhere in life. I wasn't present with
165
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my family, and I've got three kids and a wife
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twenty three years. I didn't want to go to work.
167
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I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't
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really want to eat. I didn't want to work out.
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I didn't want to do anything in my normal routine.
170
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I wanted to stay in bed and honestly just bury
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my head. And that went on for a few months
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till finally I just I was so sick of not
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being present. Now, had you asked my family or my wife,
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how's Claig doing, they would have been like, oh, he's great,
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Like never even talks about it, you know, I don't.
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I don't think he thinks about it. He saidn't, no,
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And I wasn't really openly sharing. Now, I continue to
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go to counseling, you know, for three or four months,
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and really it was last summer. I I knew that
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I was in a bad place. I knew that I
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wasn't being productive. I knew that I wasn't really being beneficial.
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To anyone in my life.
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And so I was just scrolling YouTube, honestly, and I
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was googling, I think, like trauma, transformation, those types of things,
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and I came across some videos by doctor Benjamin Hardy,
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and it like this whole idea of your future self
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just really spoke to me. And I mean he's got
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hundreds of videos on there, I believe at this point
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now I've watched I think every single one or podcasts
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that you've been on. I've I've been working with Doctor
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Hardy for the better part of the last year and
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some Mastermind groups with them. He's been a big part
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of me becoming my future self, and even so much
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so that I've created my own program group coaching for
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people that are just stuck in life.
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They are looking for more then they may not know
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what more is.
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But they know they want it, called the Future You Program,
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and so so many things have happened since then, but
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it all the recovery really started when I started diving
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into trauma and this whole ideal around being the future
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version of yourself.
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Yeah, and that's what I was really interested with your material,
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The Future You, Doctor ben Hardy is awesome. That's how
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we know each other through the Doctor ben Hardy's Future
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Self book and program, and the program is awesome. So
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I wanted to hear about your future new program as well.
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But before we get into that, one of the things
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I heard you say, is when after this happened, all
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these people reached out to you. But I always say
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the opposite of addiction is connection, And it sounds like
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you were disconnecting from people.
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I really was. I didn't realize I was. But you know,
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you can only tell the story so many times. I mean,
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most people knew what happened. I mean when something like
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that happens. I mean not that I'm like this big
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public figure or anything, but you know, I am CEO
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of an organization, so I have a lot of connections
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through twenty plus years of being in this industry.
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I coach high school football.
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So many of these kids on the team I've coached
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even from their Pop Warner days, all the way through
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high school. So I've got a lot of families that
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I've been involved with over the last fifteen years.
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And so word did spread pretty quickly and I didn't.
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And honestly, I.
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Think I told you the first time I really told
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the full story. I believe was telling you outside of
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obviously my counselor and really a select few people, but
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publicly I've never told the full story. I've told part
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of the accident, you know, through my ted X talk
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and the recovery. But it really was more about the
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recovery than it was the accident and how I felt
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in the moment and actually what happened in the accident,
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and that in and of itself is cleansing.
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But yeah, I don't ironically. One of my values is connection.
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But yeah, I think it's very safe to say that
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I was actively disconnecting.
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Yeah, and that is the disconnecting, disconnection from people. It's
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what often fuels different types of addictions and behaviors. So,
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but the cool thing is that you came across doctor
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ben Hardy's material Future Self, Future You material, and I
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stumbled across doctor Hardy's material as well. But I already
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was very active in the identity change, because that's the
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whole pile for Eric story. You know. I went to
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all these programs where they say how you say you're
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powerless over things? And that didn't work for me. So
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I decided one today just to call myself powerful, Eric.
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And so that's why I was so attracted to doctor
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ben Hardy's material and your material as well. How did
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you turn things around or did things get worse before
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they got better?
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Yeah, I wouldn't say after that point it got worse.
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I would say, this whole idea of becoming your future
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self was pretty intriguing to me. I mean, naturally, I
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think I'm a fairly ambitious person anyways, but I love
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my profiles.
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I love starting things, but not necessarily finishing things.
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And and so this was and let me take one
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step back. You have to understand when I when I
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discovered this and found this, you know, I'm I'm running
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Q Works Group, which is my executive placement firm as
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the CEO and co owner, and really took my eye
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off the ball in a in a bad way, you know,
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just not being present. And it was the end of
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September when I realized that our accountant at the time
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had hired.
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One of their family members to do the bookkeeping. Well,
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they had flipped debits and credits. They were listing debits's
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credits and credits as debts. And so when I woke
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up from you.
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Know, this awful of and really started trying to be president,
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I realized that as I was looking under the covers,
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that we had lost almost five hundred thousand dollars in
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our business that year and we weren't even in Q
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four yet.
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So, you know, so throw that on.
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Top of the accident and all of the residual things
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that come from the accident, it was a pretty crappy
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place to be. But I have to be honest, because
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I had started dreaming about this whole ideal around the
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future self.
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I just put.
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Together some steps to overcome the challenge, made some very
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rapid changes inside of the organization. And you have to understand,
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we also hit an all time high in revenue last year,
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so we had to pay commissions and bonuses on that
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revenue even though we were losing a significant amount of money,
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and so that created.
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This whole set of challenges.
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So all of this is going on in the back end,
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and you know, doctor Hardy says it, it's not how
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you do things, it's who you do them with, right,
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It's who, not how. And so I really adapted to
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that who concept and just started going out trying to
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trying to partner connect with other who's that could help
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me get out of one my accident struggles and two
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the company struggles. And so I joined Ben's Mastermind Group
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in Q four last year, and I really started doing
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some deep work and one of the things that I
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work towards now is My mission is to humanize one
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million conscious leaders. And a conscious leader doesn't necessarily have
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to have that corporate title to be a conscious leader.
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A conscious leader is someone that's deeply introspective and highly
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self aware. And most of us actually, like eighty five
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plus percent of us are not self aware, even though
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ninety five will say that.
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What do you mean, humanize them?
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Yeah, so you've already mentioned connection.
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You know, being a human is, you know, what comes
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with what separates us from you know, the rest of
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the animal kingdom. Right, it's it's our ability to learn, Right,
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it's our our our level of intelligence, and our emotions.
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But in the workplace and in life, we feel like,
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unless we're in the confines of our homes, we feel
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like we have to leave emotion out of it. And
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you can't grow without emotion, because you can't get excited
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about the future without emotion. Excitement in and of itself
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is an emotion, and so embracing the emotions, you know,
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drumming up the appropriate emotions.
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Is part of that deep introspection.
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And that's what doctor Hardy helped me with was I'd
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never journaled, I've never done any of the things that
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he taught us. You know that that eighteen months ago,
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before the accident, I would have called all that stuff
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like I don't do any of that woo woo crap.
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That woo wuo crap is like it's gold. It is magical,
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and I'm a believer.
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I was not right.
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I mean, I was your prototypical male sports guy, coach,
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tough guy, alpha.
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Male, all of that.
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Right. That didn't give me anywhere right not to say
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that I didn't have a level of success prior to
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the accident. But what I didn't realize that prior to
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the accident, I had reached the ceiling in my life
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that and it was a self proclaimed I didn't even
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know it was there. I just said, ah, you know what,
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this is as good as it gets now. I was
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doing that automatically. I wasn't actively saying that because I
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wasn't actively keeping score on my goals and ambitions.
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Shame on me.
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And you know, at the time, a forty nine year
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old man, I started looking back, going, man, you know
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I have had some success.
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Why did I stop? And what I realized was I
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had stopped dreaming.
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And so as I started journaling with doctor Hardy and
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Q four last year, there's a whole host of things
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that came up.
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And you know, I call it the power of the pen.
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You learn so much about yourself that doesn't happen overnight, right,
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it doesn't.
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It just doesn't happen overnight. But it wasn't too long,
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It wasn't you know, too many weeks.
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Out where I really started identifying things that I had forgotten.
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And one of the things in you know, Ben's Mastermind
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was at the end when I was really looking forward
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to what are some impossible goals for me to really
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set beyond Q four for twenty twenty four, one of
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them was I'm gonna tell this story of recovery on
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a ted X stage. So I determined that in December
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of last year. And and to me, that was an apot.
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Everybody that's on that's doing tech talks, they're all like
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famous people, right, Those are people that have books. There's
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the people that you know have have changed the world
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in some way, shape or form.
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I didn't know, right. I made a lot of assumptions.
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And it's one of the things we learned to question
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our assumptions.
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And so I started this idea of just asking myself
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one question and and this is if for your audience
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it's listening, write this down, asking yourself one question. So
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when I said I want to do a tech X stage,
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I want to be on a tech stage to tell
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the story of recovery within five years was my goal.
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That's what I was putting down on paper.
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The question is what would have to be true in
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order for you to achieve that. So I go to
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the pen, I start journaling, and I start going through
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the process of you know, what would have to be true? Well,
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I need to have a book, Well I need to
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be famous, Well, all these self limiting beliefs, right, the
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lies that we tell ourselves. I'm writing on paper and
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it did take me a couple few days to ultimately
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get to it. But what I realized was if I'm
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going to do this, I had to commit.
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I have to be all in.
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And one of the things that I teach my clients
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is if you want to change, you can't wait until
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you feel good, because you're not gonna have confidence about
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change because change requires you to do something different.
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And two, most people wait for the capability to know how.
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To do something before they commit to doing it, and
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that's why so many people are stuck that's why ninety
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two ninety three percent of people never achieve their goals
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because they're waiting until they feel good or waiting to
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know how to do something.
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And I fully committed. I was all in.
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I burned the boats and I said I'm going to
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be on a TATEX stage within five years. And what
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I ended up coming up with is what would have
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to be true in order for me to achieve that
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was I'm going to hire a speaking coach, And so
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did some interviews, found the local Guides North Carolina, had
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a conversation with him, and what I figured was, I
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don't know how to do a TED talk. I'm not
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a professional speaker. I don't even know how to land
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a TED talk. You know, everything I read about it
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was like some some things that I saw. It takes
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fifty plus times of applications of before you even get one.
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Actually the average is eighty six to get one talk.
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Wow.
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So I hire someone who had already done too, and
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who was a professional speaker, and and he got me
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to apply the first of January or the end of
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December rather before the end of Q four. He got
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me to apply to a TEDx and and by the way,
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when I say it got me to apply. He told
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me to apply and I didn't, and I get a
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text message from him at like three o'clock before the
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five pm deadline.
423
00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:46.119
Clegg.
424
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:50.400
Everybody calls me Clig by the way, include my wife, Clegg.
425
00:24:50.680 --> 00:24:54.759
Have you applied? I was like, should I even respond
426
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:56.000
or wait till after five o'clock?
427
00:24:56.960 --> 00:24:59.400
So I response like no, he goes apply, Please apply.
428
00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.000
You didn't hire me to not figure this out. Apply.
429
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:04.319
This is built for you. This is made for you.
430
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:07.480
I know it, I feel it. Apply. So I did,
431
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:10.519
and a few weeks later I got a phone call
432
00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:15.079
that they were intrigued about my story. And then you know,
433
00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:17.000
the process happens. You have to do an interview, you
434
00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:18.640
have to send a three minute video. This is this
435
00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:21.680
whole process, and I ended up being selected. But the
436
00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:25.240
point is is that my mindset was what would have
437
00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:27.039
to be true, and so I responded.
438
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:29.839
I answered. I journaled on that and came up.
439
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:33.400
With hiring a speaking coach, someone that's already one, knows
440
00:25:33.400 --> 00:25:33.920
how to do it.
441
00:25:33.960 --> 00:25:36.359
So there was the capability that we usually wait for.
442
00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.440
It's his capability. He was going to teach me.
443
00:25:39.359 --> 00:25:41.440
And then the confidence I felt great because I was
444
00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:45.200
hiring someone, so I felt confident to apply, not because
445
00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:47.160
I knew how to do it or anything about it,
446
00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:49.920
or that I would get selected. The first time I applied,
447
00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:52.640
I certainly didn't think that would happen. But because I
448
00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:55.240
was all in, because I burned the votes, because I
449
00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:59.319
fully committed, it didn't happen in five years. I was
450
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:03.519
on a text age within five months. Wow, And that
451
00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:07.359
was part. That was also a part of this recovery,
452
00:26:08.039 --> 00:26:11.920
because you know, my mindset started changing about this future.
453
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.119
You And oh, by the way, how I landed on
454
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:18.680
doing a ted talk or a TEDx was.
455
00:26:20.119 --> 00:26:21.079
In my journaling.
456
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:25.640
I had started coming up with things that happened to
457
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:28.400
me as a kid, and a lot of trauma. And
458
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:31.799
you know, most of us know our lives. When our
459
00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:34.920
lives are crapped, they tend to stem from things that happened.
460
00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:36.119
To us when we were kids.
461
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.759
And I mean, I the first seven to eight minutes
462
00:26:39.799 --> 00:26:44.799
of my TEDx is all things that I remembered by journaling.
463
00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:47.359
I mean, my TEDx starts. You know, picture this, an
464
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:49.480
eight year old little boy standing on top of a
465
00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:53.279
bump bed holding a small bible, pretending to preach to
466
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:56.119
the congregation below, But in reality, the only member of
467
00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:59.720
the congregation was my three year old little brother. Like
468
00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:03.920
I was writing that, and I'm getting goosebumps talking about it,
469
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:08.279
because I remembered standing on that damn bunk bed, holding
470
00:27:08.279 --> 00:27:10.960
that small Bible, pretending to preach to my little brother,
471
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:13.039
and I.
472
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:15.200
Was, And I remembered the feeling of being in front
473
00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:15.559
of people.
474
00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:20.079
I remembered the feeling of dreaming, of ambition, of one
475
00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:23.920
day being in a stadium, in an arena, in front
476
00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:29.559
of thousands of people telling my story. Now, I didn't
477
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:31.960
want to be a preacher, right that. I didn't want
478
00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:34.119
to be standing on the pulpit. But that's all I
479
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:36.240
knew at that time. You know, I went to church
480
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:39.559
on Sundays with my mom, and so I remembered that.
481
00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:43.079
I remembered things about when my parents got divorced. I
482
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:48.119
remembered things about my stepdad and all bad, bad, bad
483
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:54.359
things that Now I realized that, you know, we all
484
00:27:54.440 --> 00:27:57.519
hear the victim mindset, and most of us asked the question,
485
00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:00.440
why did that happen to me? I get that, I
486
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:04.720
understand that's a natural response why. But in reality, what
487
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:09.400
doctor Hardy helped me with was you know that that
488
00:28:10.039 --> 00:28:13.119
why did that happen to me? Is a very victim mindset.
489
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:16.960
It's a very fixed mindset, like like like I had anything.
490
00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:18.359
To do with the event. Of course I didn't.
491
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:22.880
But what doctor Hardy says is shift your thought process
492
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:26.799
from what happened to you to how did that happen
493
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:32.000
for you? And and when I met him, which is
494
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:35.359
an entirely different story, probably for another episode, but I
495
00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:37.440
met him during the Q four challenge after I had
496
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:39.240
declared the day before that he was going to be
497
00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:42.359
one of my who's He said to me and I said,
498
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.279
I said, Ben, I said, I just can't get past
499
00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:49.079
this whole happened to me versus for me.
500
00:28:50.119 --> 00:28:51.279
I said, I just don't understand.
501
00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:53.119
I was like, I said, so, so basically that's me
502
00:28:53.240 --> 00:28:56.279
saying that someone else had to lose their life in
503
00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:00.359
order for me to have a good one. Like that's
504
00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:03.640
some selfish ass stuff right there. Like I don't even
505
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:07.000
He was like, no, Claig, you don't understand. It's not
506
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:10.000
He's like, the past is yours. We don't control the events.
507
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:13.160
Bad things happen to good people all the time. We
508
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:17.759
cannot control the events. But what we can control is
509
00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:22.759
the meaning of those events. What can we pull out
510
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:27.039
of why that was happening, what lessons have we learned?
511
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:39.880
And I'm not Oh, I get that. That was like
512
00:29:40.440 --> 00:29:49.880
a That was a massive breakthrough moment for me because
513
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:52.359
I realized that I had the power of that event.
514
00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:56.200
I had the power of taking the meaning out of
515
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.759
that event. And that's when everything really starts coming together
516
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:04.400
and including going I need to tell the story. I
517
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:08.519
need to tell the things that I've learned about this recovery,
518
00:30:08.559 --> 00:30:13.599
about this process, about thinking about tomorrow becoming the future you.
519
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:19.599
And it was so powerful and so I made that
520
00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:21.920
declared that goal.
521
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:24.559
And my possible goal is going to be to tell
522
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:28.039
the TEDx be on a teTeX stage average Joe, you know,
523
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.079
in five years.
524
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:31.480
But because I fully committed, it happened in five months.
525
00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:33.880
I'm going to start and found a new company called
526
00:30:33.960 --> 00:30:38.599
Leadership Squared, which Leadership Squared is a framework that I
527
00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:42.799
call the power of two, which is culture and connection, right,
528
00:30:42.839 --> 00:30:47.279
And that's the whole premise around humanizing one million conscious leaders,
529
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.319
because you cannot be a conscious leader without deep introspection.
530
00:30:51.079 --> 00:30:53.559
Because look at all the things that I would not
531
00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:56.640
have had in life had I not found doctor Hardy
532
00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:01.160
and realized the value of deep introspection and then having
533
00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:05.160
high self awareness, self awareness telling me, well, I don't
534
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:07.960
know how to be on a tat X stage, but
535
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:10.000
I can find somebody that that does.
536
00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:13.119
And so that set this chain.
537
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.200
Of events into one being on the TATEX stage earlier
538
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:22.960
this year, starting and founding this company in January, making
539
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:27.119
it profitable inside of just a handful of months, and
540
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:30.559
and and now starting to grow this and create a program.
541
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:33.559
And oh, by the way, you know, I do a
542
00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:35.680
lot of one on one coaching, but I realized, like
543
00:31:35.960 --> 00:31:37.880
I couldn't help more people. I'm like, how am I
544
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:40.960
going to humanize a million conscious leaders if I'm only
545
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.759
meeting people one on one? And one of the things
546
00:31:43.799 --> 00:31:46.519
been told me in May, He's like, Cleg, you got
547
00:31:46.519 --> 00:31:48.160
to start saying no to things.
548
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:49.359
You've got to start.
549
00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:54.440
Uncommitting from things in your life that don't serve a
550
00:31:54.480 --> 00:31:58.839
purpose to your mission. And so that's when I said,
551
00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:02.640
oh my gosh, I can start doing group coaching.
552
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:08.200
I can actually start really professionally speaking, reaching more people.
553
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:12.160
Claig, I hate to cut you off, but we're out
554
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:15.039
of time for this episode. Don't worry We'll have you
555
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.640
back in Part two, where we'll dive even deeper into
556
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:23.799
your journey and how these powerful principles can change lives.
557
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:26.960
Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it until then.
558
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:31.920
Stay strong, stay focused, and keep channeling your energy into
559
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:36.000
your goals. This is powerful Eric signing off, see you
560
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:37.839
in the next episode for Part two.
561
00:32:38.359 --> 00:32:41.960
Thanks for listening. If you're struggling with porn or sex addiction,
562
00:32:42.359 --> 00:32:45.440
reach out to Eric at powerfuleric dot com.
