At the end of last weeks video, I said, “your life is happening to you, or for you, either way, the choice is yours.” Today I wanna dive deep into this idea and share parts of my childhood that I’ve never shared publicly before with the hope it will inspire to become the victor of your life. 

Truthfully, I was very hesitant to get this raw with you guys because in doing so I was worried it might cause even more tension with father and the very last thing I would want to do his hurt him for sharing this. After thinking it through, and sharing this video with the LB team, I decided to hit publish.

I shared the story of the 2 brothers, and the story of my father because I truly believe with all my heart and soul, our worst experiences in life can become our best ones if we allow ourselves to see life as happening for us in every moment. I am incredibly grateful for the experiences I’ve had in life, especially the most difficult ones because as hard and painful as they have been, they have made me who I am today.

Regardless of how painful an experience may be in the moment, in time every experience we have in life has the seed of an equal or greater opportunity to learn and grow if we have the courage to find it. Sometimes it takes months, years or decades to fully understand the grace in those “tough” moments but if you search for it, I promise you'll find it.

Said another way, when we want to train our bodies, we go to the gym and push through pain and fatigue to develop strength. In order to train our hearts and souls, we’ve gotta face difficulty and learn to overcome it. That experience can be incredibly painful, but through pain, we develop an incredible strength that we can use to shape our lives in incredible ways.

Perspective Changes Everything

Wayne Dyer said, “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” The key to finding the empowering meanings and the lessons from our darkest moments and biggest failures is changing the way we see them. This means we’ve gotta control our perspective and have the courage to see each situation from different vantage points.

Whether it’s battling addiction, facing abuse, losing a loved one, a failed business or complete financial disaster, if you can control your perspective and ask the right questions, you can find good in each moment. I believe it comes down to asking the right questions as our perspective is typically controlled by the way we think and the questions we ask ourselves.

I’ll dive deeper into the importance of questions in a future video, but for now, what you need to know is the questions you ask determine the answer you get!

If you ask yourself, “why is this happening to me?” you’ll find reasons why it’s happening “to you.” Many of which may be very self-destructive and limiting. The flip side of this is, asking yourself questions like, “what can I learn from this?” Or, “how can this help me?” Each question is going to lead to an answer, ask the questions that are going to lead you in the right direction.

In the video, I told you about my mother and the 2 promises she asked me to make. Promise #1, never act like your father. Promise #2, never treat women the way he treats me. As far back as I can remember, my mom used to say this to me and because of these promises, I asked myself one simple question that has dramatically impacted my entire life.

The question was, “why does my father act this way?” Searching for an answer, I was able to detach myself from the pain and anger of these experiences growing up and search for reasons why he would act the way he did. Asking why brought awareness to my life and give me the perspective I needed to observe his behavior and learn from it, instead of reacting to it.

These 2 promises and this question gave me the perspective I needed to see my father behavior as something I could learn from, something that was happening for me, and this belief has guided parts of my entire life. It wasn’t easy and as I mentioned in the video, there were parts of my life were I was very angry and acted out.

The language my father used towards me was difficult to overcome for a lot of my life. Hearing “you’re a worthless piece of shit” over and over again has a big impact, no matter who you are. For many years I felt worthless and believed I’d never be good enough which chased massive self-doubt and failure after failure.

However, no matter how bad things got, I never allowed myself to be a victim. I always looked for how I might learn from each experience and use the lesson to do better the next time.

My father gave me a beautiful example how not to act, my feelings of being worthless created an insatiable desire to prove my worth to myself, and overcoming these feelings being worthless has led me to this moment, sharing with you today in hopes that may struggle may inspire you to overcome yours.

In the end, the perspective I now have gives me the ability to make these connections and see how everything that has happened, has happened for me. 

Final Thoughts

Several years ago, I made some really bad business decisions causing me to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, bringing me to my knees and challenging me in every possible way. I had risked it all and lost and those old friends “self-about, fear, and worthless” crept back into my life in a MASSIVE way.

To put it bluntly, I was scared SHITLESS and I had no idea what I was going to do. One day, while trying to pull myself together and I wrote down 3 simple truths that have become guardrails on my journey. They have brought me comfort and given me the perspective I’ve needed to move forward in spite of fear, doubt, and insecurity.

I want to share them with you today in hopes that they may help you through your fears and give you the perspective needed overcome whatever may be on your journey. They are short, simple and profound. Meditate on them and apply them to every your life and I promise they will help you create results beyond what you believe to be possible today. 

1. Circumstance doesn't create character, it reveals it.

2. Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.

3. Your life is your fault, it's happening or you, not to you.