Is Your Story Helping or Hindering Your Progress?

Transcription

Is your story helping or hindering your progress. You know this is a really important episode and the reason I’m sharing this with you today, actually the reason I do this podcast is, because stuff happens, right? In business and life, and then I think about it, come up with some ideas around it and then I just share it in the form of this podcast.

That’s kind of the essence of a lot of these solo rounds. In the sense of years having conversations on the phone, via chat, email, et cetera with clients, non-clients, prospective clients, people in general, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of stories being shared. Like, my life is tough, shit happened, whatever, right? But I want to share some perspective with you.

Introducing today’s topic: Letting your story help or hinder your future

What do the Rock, Kevin Hart and Oprah Winfrey have in common? Well, number one, there are three of the most successful people in the world in terms of their influence, income, impact. Second, they’re all of a minority race, right? Being black, obviously the Rock is more Polynesian, but nonetheless. And three, and I say that because culturally, at least you know, decades ago that I mean, and maybe even to this day in some areas of the world can be a barrier to a lot of people’s progress, right? And it’s sad, but it’s kind of true. And third, they all went through shit for a long period of time.

So I shared these three stories with you because I think it’s really important to remember that no matter what you’re going through, people have gone through far worse. And in those situations, there’s always two outcomes. Outcome number one is you let your story dictate your future. Or outcome number two is you circumvent or you kind of catapult above the story to make the future or to create the future you want to create.

So we look at the Rock, right? So the Rock has 141 million followers on Instagram, arguably like that’s the third of the US population, if you will. If he ran for president, he would probably win just based on popularity. He grew up in a really poor neighborhood in Hawaii.  He got into playing college football but was injured quite a bit. Ended up getting into the Canadian football league, the CFL playing for, I think it was the Calgary Stampeders. And at one point in that journey he had $7 in his pocket, that’s how much money, he had $7. He goes from that to major depression, popping pills the whole bit to starting a career as a wrestler. Going through that whole journey, then becoming an actor. And now the highest paid actor in Hollywood, $1.48 billion in revenue he generated last year in 2018. Okay? That’s pretty impressive.

Oprah Winfrey grows up again, super poor area bouncing back and forth between her parents. One house to the next type of thing across the country, moves backward with her mom at a young age. From the age of nine repeatedly sexually abused, okay? Goes on again years down the road to become arguably one of the most influential entertainers, if you will, in the world.

Kevin Hart, same thing, grows up, not necessarily the best upbringing in terms of his family, his neighborhood. Goes through a bunch of crap, grew up in Philadelphia, gets into comedy and does fairly well, but admittedly is really bad with his money, makes a lot of bad decisions, eventually figures things out. And now he’s one of the highest paid, the most revered comedians on the planet.

The choice you must make

So the reason I share this with you is, because those are just three examples of millions of people on this planet who’ve been through remarkable things and who’ve come out on the flip side against all odds. And then there’s the other half of the population, I’m not even going to say half, 95% of the population who have gone through similar experiences, have been sexually or physically abused as kids, have gone through a divorce, have lost their job, have whatever, like you name the story. And for whatever reason, they have allowed that story to hold them back from their dream.

So here’s what I want you to really think about is that anything in your life is a choice, right? You have the choice to let that story be your story and continue singing that song, continue telling that story as your justification for why you can’t have what you say you want, or you can write a new story.

You see in most people’s lives, whatever the age, it’s like they have a book and that book has already been written and all they’re doing is reading it over and over again, and they’re telling that same story to everyone else. And then again, there’s the small percentage, the Rock’s, the Kevin Hart’s, the Oprah Winfrey’s who have that book, but they decided to put it on a shelf. And instead what they did is they took out a new book with blank pages and they said, “I’m going to write the next chapter. I’m going to write the book I want to read. I’m going to create the future I want to create.” And listen when no one has written a book before you, it takes a lot of balls. It takes a lot of courage to write that next chapter. When everyone else is saying, “Y’all, you can’t do it. Look at what you’ve come, like what you’ve gone through. Come on, man, just get a secure job. Just go back to the way things were. You’re going to be a lot safer.”

Where success fits into your story

You see the select few, there’s, like success and when I say success, I don’t just mean financially. I mean, success is the worthwhile pursuits, I think, of a worthy goal. Worthwhile pursuit, meaning it’s something you spend a lot of your time and energy pursuing because it’s something worthy. If it’s finances or health, right? A better looking body, healthier body, better relationships with your kids, with your spouse, whatever success is to you. Success leaves clues, right? And see, I believe that success in one area of life is 100% transferrable to any other area of life. But the thing is you have to choose a new story, you have to create the story you want. So when I was 17 as I mentioned, I lost my hair. Okay? So the story that half of my family, so my dad’s side of the family was reading or saying was that, “Oh my God, poor you, you lost your hair. It must be so challenging.”

And I’m thinking to myself, “Whatever, I’m going to create the story that I want to create.” And that story was, hey, you know what? Yes, it sucked that I lost my hair. I used to have really nice hair. It was cool, but things can be a lot worse, right? There are people suffering with far worse conditions, I just lost my hair. At least I have my health, at least I’m fit, at least whatever. I decided that I’m not going to let hair loss hold me back from my dream. And even to this day, I mean, if you saw some of the comments on our ads, like it’s hilarious. On my Instagram and Facebook ads, people talking about how I look like I’ve got stage five cancer, how they would never take advice from someone with no eyebrows. Like who cares? Right? There’s all this nonsense that people talk about. And you know, I just posted this on my Facebook profile the other day, is that no one who is doing anything worthwhile in their life has time to post negative crap on the Internet, right?

So if, and I’m assuming your listening to this and you’re not that type of person anyways, right? But if you’re getting negative comments, that people are kind of smack talking you just understand that they’re not doing anything meaningful with their life. Seriously, they’re doing nothing meaningful with their life. And that’s a blanket statement, I know. But I would venture, and I would put some money on that because for someone to take any amount of time out of their life to write a whole paragraph, or even just stupid comments like that, it says a lot about them, right? And it’s really unfortunate that so many people are out there to pull other people down and not, I shouldn’t say so many, but enough people, right? So I want you to really, really think to yourself like, am I telling a story that is helping me or hindering me?

Because listen,  I don’t care and I don’t want to sound like I don’t have compassion because I do, but when you hear story after story it’s like, okay, here we go again. Right? Life was tough, stuff happened. Things didn’t work out as I hopes, you know, people, a lot of people are looking for handouts. They’re looking for hall passes. Like, “You know what? Like, the last year was really tough for me I’d really love a hall pass,” and my thinking through that is like, “Listen, man, everyone’s life is tough. Life is never going to be perfect or ducks are never going to be in a row. How many more hall passes do you want?” Right? There’s always going to be something, there’s always going to be an excuse. For every excuse there is always a flip side. There is always someone who has the same story as you, who is absolutely crushing it. And I’m going to finish this by sharing one story of a colleague/friend and I’m not going to mention the name. But multiple time, New York Times bestseller in the health space.

An example and an analogy

Number of years ago, her son was hit by a car and he was put in the hospital, doctor said he was pretty much done, like at best he’s going to be a vegetable. And this individual said, “You know what? That’s not going to happen, that’s not what’s going to happen to my son.” Now here’s the interesting thing, is that not only did she commit to making sure that her son was going to be resurrected to his healthy self again, even though the doctor said he was, you know, toast. She was in the middle of her first book launch. And so there she is in the hospital doing whatever she had to do to get her book launched. And not only did she launch the book, it became a number one New York Times bestseller. And that’s happening in the hospital room. Right? Her son is in literally a coma. So she’s taking care of him, trying to get him back up the speed, which by the way he almost made a full recovery, which is amazing.

She goes on to publish and launch this, you know, this number one New York Times best seller and then several after that. But here’s another great example of someone who could have said, “Listen, life got in the way, you won’t believe what just happened to my son. I need a year to figure this stuff out.” And that’s why success is hard, because most people don’t have what it takes to do whatever it takes to reach their goals. And I believe that everyone has within them a fire that can burn really bright, that can really do amazing things in this world. But for whatever reason they get fearful, they get doubtful. They need to see all sorts of proof before they can move forward and they simply lack courage to live their dream. So I want to leave you with, like I really, really want you to think about this, I want you to ask yourself.

I want you to look in the mirror and look at yourself and say, “Okay, I committed to X results by this certain amount of time, this date or this time. I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 30 or I wanted to do this by the time I was whatever.” And I want you to ask yourself, “Have I achieved that goal?” And if the answer is no, I want you to really sit and reflect on why that is. Why have you not achieved the goal you said you wanted to achieve? And I promise you it’s not because you didn’t have enough support. It’s not because of this, it’s not because of anything else around you. And this is the big, this is the big distinction. It’s never about an external factor, it’s always an internal factor. 80% of success is psychology. Okay? And the quicker you understand that and the quicker you realize that you are the only limiting factor in your life, the sooner you can break free from that.

It’s as if you’re driving a car and you have your foot on the gas pedal and you’re like, “Why am I not moving forward? Why am I not moving forward? Why am I not moving forward? You know, this car isn’t good enough, right? It needs more horsepower. You know, it needs to look better. I need more mechanical support on it.” And then you recognize that the whole time you’ve been revving this engine, just revving this car and it’s not moving anywhere. This whole time you recognize, you finally realize that your other foot has been on the break and that break is your story. It’s your story that you’ve been carrying around like a blankie and I want to encourage you to let the story go and move on. No matter how bad it was, and listen, like I’m not trying to discredit anyone’s past, right? You’ve probably gone through some really bad shit in life and I, listen, I’m not going to sympathize with that because everything happens for us. It doesn’t happen to us.

The only time it happens to us is when we choose to let that be the situation. When we choose to be a victim of our circumstances instead of a victor, instead of taking out a new book and writing a new chapter. And I really, really want you to think about this because I promise you, no matter what it is you want in life, the only reason you don’t have what it is, is because of you. It’s nobody else’s fault, it’s your own. And I say that with all the love and compassion I can possibly give, because the reality is that’s the truth. Nobody can hold you back from your dreams. Listen, if Oprah Winfrey can go from what she went through to becoming Oprah Winfrey, if the Rock can go from what he went through to where he is, if Kevin Hart and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of other people we don’t even know of, have been through similar journeys and have come out on the flip side, there’s no reason why you can’t do it. There’s no reason why you can’t do it.

And I tell people often the biggest difference is simply your level of desire. How much do you want it? I was watching a really great interview on The Joe Rogan Experience with Kevin Hart and listen, like I’m not a huge fan of Kevin Hart in terms of his comedic, like a standup and stuff. I think he’s a funny guy, I just don’t like his standup’s personally. But I was listening to this interview he did with Joe Rogan and I’m like, dude, I have so much more respect for this guy now because this is like, he’s a guy who’s got his stuff together. Like he’s really well thought. He’s got some really great perspectives on stuff and you know, he talked a lot about, you know, Joe Rogan was like, “Hey man, like why do you do so much? Like why do you do so much? Like you have everything, you have more money than you can possibly spending a lifetime. Why do you keep going? Why do you keep playing up at 5:00 AM every day? Why do you keep doing all this stuff?”

And Kevin Hart said, “Listen it’s not about why do I do this stuff, it’s more of a why shouldn’t I do this stuff?” And I’m like, that’s great. Right? Here’s a guy who wants to contribute, who wants to make his life, the life of other people better and he’s in a position where he can do that. Right? And I just thought like, listen, I’m going to just finish this off before, I mean, I’ve second talk on for hours about this stuff, but I want you to really, really consider the story you’ve been telling yourself. And are you going to allow it to continue limiting yourself or are you going to continue to allow it to slow you down, to hinder your progress, so that six months down the road, one year down the road, you think to yourself, “You know what? I did this thing and it didn’t work.”

Final takeaway: Take responsibility and write a new story

No, no, no, that’s the wrong thing to say. You have to always take the perspective of, I didn’t work and this is something we tell all of our clients, all of our perspective clients is like, “Listen, we know what we do works. The only thing we don’t know is whether, or not you do.” And a lot of the, you know, a lot of the teachings in marketing is always about like absolve the customer’s pain, essentially saying it’s not your fault, right? You’ve been told this and that, you’ve been misled. Right? And that’s to a degree, true. But I think honestly it is your faults and it’s my fault and it’s our fault. Any time we don’t have what we want in life, it’s never a factor of external things, it’s always up to us. And that’s what I want to leave you with, is I want you to really look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How am I not showing up? How am I letting the story I’ve been telling myself or telling other people, hold me back?” And I want to challenge you to create a new story.

I want to challenge you to take out a new journal, a new book, and I want you to write the next chapters instead of using the same old story book that you’ve been telling for maybe a little bit too long. Okay? So that’s all for today’s episode. Some deep thinking and reflection to really ponder on this one and for now, I hope you have a great day. Thanks for joining me. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode and keep doing what you’re doing. Keep up the great work and I’ll see you soon.