Workout: If You've Been Through Hard Times...

Never let your past or your circumstances limit your vision for your future or your family's future. Never let your past or your current circumstances limit your vision for your future. I know we already have some extraordinary people in this room, no doubt, who have gone through the worst of it. You had a childhood that sucked. You had a parent or caregiver who was not nice, who was unkind, who was abusive. You had that first business that failed, that second one that failed. You had that job where that person played politics and you got fired. You had that school experience. It was tragic. You lost family. You lost friends. Somebody important to you cheated, stole, broke your heart. This is the human story. I like to say there's only two stories in the human narrative. Struggle. We all share it and progress. And we've got to choose where we're going to live. A lot of people choose to live forever in their past or in the limitations and lack of capabilities now. So their vision, their future vision for their family and for themselves is so tiny because they think the problems of their past was so big. And they don't realize that there's millions of people around the world who had that same exact problem. That same exact problem. You're not the only one who got cheated on, who lost, who got stolen from. You're not the only one. It's so hard to tell. I. I mean, with the blessings of what I get to do in the world, I get the calls to inspire the kids, or I get the call to go to the kid or the person in the hospital. I get this call. And do you know how many parents I've had to say the hardest things to? You're not the only ones who've lost a child. Because when you feel like you're the only one experiencing life even in its worst, then life feels its worst. When you feel like you're the only one, well, I'm the only one who's going through this. No one understands. We're gonna talk a lot about that. Because your belief that no one understands prevents you from raising your hand to ask for help. Your belief that no one's ever been through it keeps you stuck in the past. Your belief that you're the only one who doesn't know how to speak good English, or the only one who doesn't know how to do finances, or the only one who's never started a business, or the only one who doesn't know how to do video on the intern. When you believe you're the only one, what you do is you stop when you Realize everybody has had that troubled past, that difficult moment, or that lack of capability in the moment, but they pushed through, they figured a way through. Once you realize that's true, that's hope. Once you realize that's true, that's empowerment. Once you realize that's true, you stop worrying so much about what happened and you start wondering where you can go. And once you figure out where you can go, once you see. See that you can travel to a greater vision, a greater future. Something comes alive. Something comes alive in you. And it's different than anything else, but you got to see past where you've been. A couple months after my colleagues at my accident, I went back to the house to just revisit and think about where I've been and where I'd come from. My mom and my dad, who really struggled to raise us, four kids, somehow raised us for years in that house. It was always kind of falling down. My dad, every year or so, my dad, my brothers would go up and put another rock up there on that column to keep the porch from sagging down and falling on top of us. There was an empty lot next door, which, of course, us kids thought was awesome. It was a field next to our house. When you get older, you realize it's called blight. We didn't know. All these empty, abandoned apartments you can see in the background, all empty and abandoned apartments. My brothers and I, we thought it was awesome. We'd go play. But about one mile and a half from that house is the Berkeley Pit. And if you know what the Berkeley Pit is, the Berkeley Pit is one of the world's number one Superfund sites. A Superfund site is an environmental disaster so bad they don't know how to fix it. And the Berkeley Pit is 1 mile wide, 1 mile deep, and it's full of toxic mining leech, meaning to get the ore out, they. They got to filter it, and they've got to use this chemical process to get it out. And then they put all those chemicals in a big pit and those chemicals in that pit, to this day, birds fly over land in it. They die. And it's about a mile and a half from where we grew up. And we're like, oh. Everyone around the community was always like, if that water comes down into the water table, we're all dead. Like, I always joke how everyone says, you know, some people grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Where I grew up, we didn't even get the tracks. I was like, that'd be nice. It was A tough place to grow up. And by the time we got there, you know, my parents were in that situation. But mom and dad diligently working all year to save money so that we could have Christmas like the other kids. My mom would work odd jobs throughout the year and save every penny so that she could make sure we had as many Christmas gifts under the tree because that was important to her because she never really had that growing up. So we didn't have much. I remember one winter the heat went out. And if you're in Butte, Montana, or anywhere in Montana, you know, when the heat goes out in the wintertime in Montana, it's life or death. It's 30 below zero with wind chill factor from those anaconda hills blowing in there. It's freezing cold. So my mom would go out to the garage when that heater died and she'd get our camping tent and set up our tent in that little front room. And then she would put in our sleeping bags and our parkas and we'd used to be camping. But one reason I share that is because, you know, they play the video before I come on stage and it's like, you know, the fancy people I've worked with, whether it's the presidents or the Oprahs or these fancy people, and, you know, some of you see me at big, huge events. Look at this big, huge event. Whatever, I share it because the truth is, that house, that could have also been a bad thing. That neighborhood that I grew up in, the people around me, I could have seen what was there, too. The alcoholism, the abuse, the challenges, the economic collapse, I could have seen all that, too. I did. I did. But for some reason, I could also see beyond it. And some of you right now, you're so trapped in how life is now or where you were or what was happening, that part of our day today will be working through these conversations because so much of your future depends on you releasing some of that stuff of the past.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the brendon show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity.

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Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today Please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.

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