Workout: Life-Changing Experiences

I always like to say there's only two things that change your life. Either something new comes into your life, you know, a new possibility, a new opportunity, a new person, new luck, you win the lottery. You know something comes in and changes the direction of your life forever. Or something new comes from within, and you make new decisions for yourself. You set new standards, a new, deeper level of motivation or drive or hunger comes into your life. And by necessity, you decide to activate your potential again. I was. I like to say there's only two things that change your life. Either something new comes into your life, you know, a new possibility, a new opportunity, a new person, new luck, you win the lottery, you know something comes in and changes the direction of your life forever, or something new comes from within, and you make new decisions for yourself. You set new standards, a new, deeper level of motivation or drive or hunger comes into your life. And by necessity, you decide to activate your potential again as a person. The first time, some of you all know, was when I was a young kid and I had a breakup with the first woman I ever loved. We had gone to high school together. We thought we were going to get married. The relationship fell apart. And because my whole identity was tied up into her and the relationship, then I fell apart. When the relationship broke and I became, you know, a broken young man, I fell into depression, into suicidal thoughts. And so this is one of those experiences where you did not want it to happen to you. If you ever had someone break, you didn't probably want that. And it was just a really dark period of my life. And I remember in the depths of all that, though, I, as many of you know, I had a car accident. And I decided I really needed to transform. I needed to change my whole identity. I didn't need to, like, make, you know, I didn't just need a new morning routine. I needed to transform me. I don't know if you've ever been there where it wasn't like, oh, I need to change one habit. You're like, no, I need to change my identity. I need to become a different person. Because who I was was not someone who was, you know, fully who I really want to be. And so it's a transformation of identity. And when you make that huge shift in your life when you say, I need to change who I am fundamentally, that is always a pivotal moment. It is always a changing day. That is like a time in your life. I bet you remember some people, it happens when they graduate high school or they get divorced or the kids leave the house or they quit one job, or they move from one city to another one. It's like a total transformation in their life. But what makes that work or not work is whether within they now get clarity on the identity of who they want to be, what type of person they want to become, what values are important to them, how they want their emotional quality of life to feel, how they want to treat other people. In other words, when you get that changing moment, you got to be more intentional. Like, you really have to be way more intentional. Because the first time we go through something in our life, we're kind of bumbling through and just going through the motions or reacting. But transformation begins with a greater awareness to who we really want to be and a more intentional way of living, right? At least that's what happened for me. I said, I'm going to take control of my thoughts. And I got into personal development. I started listening to, you know, Dale Carnegie type tapes or like Napoleon Hill reading Napoleon Hill books, or Zig Ziglar or Aug Mandino or Tony Robbins, or, you know, Wayne Dyer, Earl Nightingale. I got really dorky into the personal development world. And I also studied psychology. I started studying, like, Alfred Adler and Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and a lot of people and philosophers as well, who helped me shape how to think about life, helped me realize life really is short, helped me realize that life is precious, helped me realize that either you are reacting in life or taken command of the wheel. And these types of things really helped support my transformation to becoming a happier and just a better man.