I Shifted My Identity in 6 Months and You Can Too - Identity Shifting

Yep, I was fired on my day off. That's actually a true story. It's not just from the titled movie Friday from the 90s. In 2014, I was let go from my role that I had poured myself into. And that loss was a wake up call. And it taught me something critical. When I received that phone call on a Friday afternoon, by the way, I was sitting in a parking lot of a private golf club that I was going to have a three day weekend with my younger brother and playing golf all weekend. I learned on that phone call that my role was eliminated. I was beyond shocked. My performance was exceptional. The company had just given me a six figure stock reward less than a few weeks earlier. When that phone call finished, my phone went dark. Hundreds of emails were erased from my phone, from my inbox. The text messages started flooding in like, what happened? What's going on? And I immediately started to tell myself that I was not good enough. I was creating this new identity of myself in the moment. Even though I had won more multiple leader of the year awards, I'd received multiple bonuses and stock rewards and all of these accolades, none of those mattered because I started telling myself that that was the phony version of me. They found me out. They discovered really who I was. That was my new identity. Because of one phone call. But in reality, we all know that that's not really the case. But we feel it in our body, we feel it in our bones. We feel it everywhere. Your identity shifts when bad things happen. The great thing is we can overcome that. Think about it for a second. I receive a phone call in the parking lot of a private golf club where I'm about to have a great trip with my brother. And yes, I was fired on my day off. I get that. But everything started to change. I couldn't sleep that night. Nonetheless, I played golf the next day with my brother. I remember being on the golf course thinking that I was having a stroke. My vision narrowed. I got really tunnel vision. My. My hands went numb. I was profusely sweating. I was having only the second migraine that I'd ever had in my life. I was absolutely miserable. I thought that I was having a heart attack, but my brother wouldn't take me to the er. He said that I was in the process of having a panic attack. I'd never had a panic attack. So just because in 24 hours from going from a senior leader, a senior vice president with tons of accolades, tons of rewards, all these great things that had happened to me the previous seven and eight years inside of this organization. It only took 24 hours for that to change. That's how powerful your identity and self limiting beliefs can be. And in hindsight, it's easy to say that I was certainly changing the narrative inside of my own head. But I did it without even knowing it. At the time, I didn't have any real world experience about identity. And honestly I didn't have any worries. I was a constant saver, I was an avid saver. So financially it wasn't going to be an impact for a very long time. So what was I really worried about? I mean, even within hours of that, news of me being terminated, it spread across the industry. I received several messages from people saying that they have job opportunities they'd love to talk to me about. I was still going through the whole panic attack mode. And once again, that's the power of identity, good and bad. I created all of these fear based scenarios in my head and these of course were worst case scenarios. And the data is overwhelming that when we have things that we're worried about that I think something like almost 90 or over 90%, that an overwhelming majority of those worries never come to fruition. So what are we really going through in our bodies and in our minds that we believe these things that are highly unlikely to come true will actually come true? I realize now that I had the power all along to change the narrative, but I just wasn't equipped with how to do it. The world often tells us who we are, who we're going to be, and more or less who we're going to be tomorrow. Sometimes it's our company, sometimes it's our spouse, sometimes it's schools and universities. People tell us what we should be doing and that's not necessarily living authentically to yourself. But what if you knew in three to six months you could shift your entire identity to a new version of the future you? Many of us reach a point where we realize that who we are today no longer fits where we want to go in life. And life will do that to you. Sometimes it's the people you surround yourself with, sometimes it's the groups of the organizations or your employers, those types of organizations that shape you into being something that you are not. And if you want a different future, it all starts with your identity. So let's talk about shifting that identity. This isn't about changing what you do, but it really is about redefining who you are. At its core, identity shifting is about stepping into the future you. It's a powerful process of aligning your present Self with the version you want to become in the future. There are several steps that you can take, and these are simple steps that you can start today. The first is you have to agree to answer the call to change. For you, it might be, man, I feel stuck. I feel like I'm in a rut. I can't break out of where I am. I can't leave this company because I need this job. I need this money. It could be something along the lines, creating the same daily patterns day after day after day. This is what I call the default future. And many of us have been caught living in that. I certainly was. And sometimes the need to change sneaks up on us. Sometimes it comes via a phone call, sitting in a private golf club parking lot saying that your services are no longer required. Or maybe you just feel this uneasy undercurrent of dissatisfaction or misalignment. No matter how hard you work, something just isn't clicking. Answering the call to change and about doing more, it's about becoming more. And before you take that action of becoming more, you got to recognize that you really, truly want to change. And for me, that major wake up call was in 2014. And at the time, I thought I was going to retire from that company, from that organization. I was doing extremely well. I loved my team, I loved the organization, I loved what I was doing. I was really at the beginning stages of coaching and developing others. So when I was suddenly out, it became like a significant loss. My first reaction was to do what most of us would do. I got angry once I got beyond the shock. But in reality, ultimately, that shock, that anger, that event, was the spark that pushed me to stop settling and conforming to what others wanted me to be. And if I hadn't answered that call to make the change, I could have stayed stuck. I could have stayed in that bad identity. If you're watching this and you're thinking, yeah, you know what? I know that feeling. Maybe it's burnout. Maybe it's that feeling of just being stuck, that regardless what you do, you can't get out of where you are today. Consider this an adventure, a call to change, because it is a powerful truth. Discomfort and pain is often the best signal that change is required. Because change doesn't happen till the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. And these feelings are not something that you want to avoid. They're your mind telling you that it's time to shift your identity, to shed that old version of yourself and embrace the person that you want to become. So what are the basics of shifting that identity? It's not just about changing habits or setting goals. Those are important. But it's about tapping into a different way of being where you embody the traits, the behaviors, the mindset of that person you want to be in the future. Identity shifting involves a few core steps. First, you have to define the desired self. Who is it that you want to be? Start by creating a very clear image of that person. What does this person do? What does this person believe? What does this person feel? Think of it as almost mapping or a gps, to being the future version of yourself. The next thing, you have to align the daily actions, the things that you do every single day. You have to begin to act like that future version of yourself. And I'm going to tell you, this isn't easy. This is actually a step that was really hard for me because I kind of felt phony. I knew that I wanted to be a speaker. I knew that I wanted to coach others in groups and be on stages and tell stories of recovery of trauma and all of the things that I've done with over the last 10 or 11 months. But people kind of made fun of that. People were like, who are you trying to be, Tony Robbins? No, I'm trying to be the next Michael Clegg. I'm just being myself. I'm being what is naturally me. But for the people around me, they didn't recognize that version of myself. And unfortunately, some people, some relationships will be lost because of that. The last thing that you have to do is you have to break through the old stories, break through that old version of yourself. For me, it was the conforming to that corporate environment, to that corporate style. And I thought at the time I was being who I was supposed to be, but I wasn't being who I wanted to be. And that was the difference. And it took me getting fired from that job to really realize, and by the way, almost 10 years from that moment to get to be who I want to be now. It doesn't have to take you 10 years, especially if you follow some of these steps. All of us have a personal turning point and the power to reframe our past. Reframing is such a critical part. Looking at that termination in 2014, we wasn't a bad thing for me. In fact, it was a blessing. It was the push that I needed to start taking the steps of being someone different. The journey's never easy. Everyone says, oh, it's all about the journey. It's not about the destination. Well, that shit's hard. I'm not gonna lie to you. But powerful shifts do happen once you have life's challenges. And I had another crazy challenge. And unfortunately, an awful accident that happened to me in 2023. And when I experienced the trauma of a fatal accident, that fundamentally shifted my perspective. And not only that, but I lived in the moment of that accident for several months following that. And it wasn't until I was able to reframe, why did that accident happen to me? To that accident actually happened for me. That was the moment that things really started to change for me. And I'm not saying that because someone had to lose their life for me to have a better one. No, not at all. I can't change the actual event itself. The event happened. I don't control those things. But what I controlled was the meaning of that event and really culminating. Everything that's happened since 2014 through 2024 has happened to me because I started recognizing how did all of those negative events or all of those obstacles, all of those things that I had to overcome, how did they happen for me? What is the meaning? What reason did those things happen? To help me become the future version of myself. And reframing is a practice like anything else. You take a painful experience, and you use them as fuel. You move from being at the mercy of your past to seeing it as something that you can learn from. You know, lessons are repeated until they're actually learned. So until you start trying to shift that identity or reframing your past once, one of the most difficult things to do is to adopt the new version of yourself, because you will feel phony. But it's a powerful exercise once you start the reframing practice and identifying what's the meaning of that. Maybe you were fired. Maybe you lost a loved one, but maybe those are the things that can be the fuel to becoming the future version of yourself. And when you're able to see that and do that, that is really, truly when the magic starts to happen. So how do we dive into what they call shadow work to overcome those internal roadblocks that we build in our own minds? Because our fears, our limiting beliefs, the lies that we tell ourselves, those things are hidden inside of the shadows of our brain. The things that we feel when we get that icky feeling or that sensation that we're not doing, the things we're supposed to be doing. Could be guilt, could be shame, Any of those emotions, Those are the things that are hidden in the shadows, the things that you don't want the people you care about the most to know about you. That's what's called shadow work, is identifying how to bring those things to light for your benefit. Often what keeps us stuck isn't a lack of desire. It's the unresolved feelings that we have, unresolved fears, unresolved stories that we tell ourselves that in most cases are not even conscious decisions that, that we're making. They are subconsciously in your brain. Like for a practical exercise or a takeaway, something that's applicable today. Try this simple shadow exercise by writing down three limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Look at each belief and ask yourself, is this really true? You often find that those beliefs only have as much power as you actually give them. And the key is recognizing them and consciously, not subconsciously, consciously choosing not to believe them. The next thing you have to do is really, truly visualizing the future self. It's a powerful tool, but a very simple and impactful one. If you spend just a few minutes each day visualizing about the future, you. For me, it was, you know, a year ago. I visualized being on a TEDx stage telling my story of the accident, the story of recovery, the story of overcoming trauma, the story of reframing my past, and all of the things that I've learned over the last 12 months. Because when you do that, you start to submit this image in your mind of truly who you are, picturing that future self, how they walk, how they speak, how they talk. Vision yourself in that boardroom. Visualize yourself on the stage. Visualize yourself having that difficult conversation. You're creating a blueprint in your mind that starts the shift that works for you. It's helpful to imagine the habits that you pick up. You know, are you going to the gym every day? Maybe today. You haven't gone to the gym in two years. But your future version of yourself is health. You see yourself eating healthy food. You see yourself in the gym working out. You see yourself looking at the mirror, flexing by yourself and looking great. Like those things begin to cement itself in your mind, your behavior start to change. The feelings about health start to change. It's no longer a burden, it's gratitude that you have of that healthy version of yourself. And when you do this consistently, you're conditioning your mind. Just as an athlete conditions their body, the next thing that you have to do, and this is a really important part, is consistency and patience. Change is not going to happen overnight. I've had massive change over the last 12 months, and it's not until I Write down the progress that I'm making until I truly get to see actually how much progress I've really made. Some of that has come through consistency and I've had moments where I was very inconsistent and then I took a step back, I started journaling again and I go, holy crap, these are things that I wasn't doing. And it was a consistency that I was lacking. You're going to go through seasons inside of this journey of growth where you just don't feel like doing anything. Give yourself grace, have patience. It's okay. You will be back because you're going to hit roadblocks, you're going to hit doubts, you're going to have slip ups. I started this 66 days of cold plunging and I think I got to day 13 or day 14 and it really started to get a little bit colder this time of the year and I didn't do it. And then I didn't do it the next day and the next day. Then I got sick and I didn't do it for two weeks. Guess what? I just started all over 13 days ago. And now this morning I was on my 13th day of cold plunging again. I gave myself grace because it is part of the journey. Because it's not about perfection, it's about progress. Because the process of shifting your identity and creating this future version of yourself is really transformative. And the best part about it is that it's accessible to anyone willing to put in the effort. And in just a few months, you're going to look back and you're barely going to recognize who you are. You're not going to recognize the person that you once were. You're going to use the data and the information, the lessons you've learned from that person that you once were. But that's no longer who you're going to be. And you have the power to do that yourself. So if you're ready to answer the call, redefining your story and start building the future, you just start today.