11: Facing Trauma with Tommy Breedlove

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

All right, well, welcome to another podcast of you must be out of your mind. I'm your host, Dr. Don Wood. And as you know, we always bring in great guests that have a lot of great material to connect up with what we're doing and, and what they're doing as well. And I've got another great guest today, Tommy Breedlove, and he is a podcast veteran. So we're excited to have him on here and share his story which really ties into what we do with performance and trauma. So welcome Tommy.

Dr. Donna, it is a pleasure to be here. My friend. Georgia to Florida connection. Excited? Very.

Good. Yeah, no, I'm excited. So I've heard a lot about you and I was excited to have you on because what you're doing sort of ties in and your story ties in with what we do. So as you know, we're very big into helping people who've experienced trauma in their life. Sometimes it's not always big T kind of trauma. You know, my second book I talk about, I called Emotional Concussions. Those are the teachers that were maybe a little bit harsh on you or a parent that was overly critical. They're not big T traumas, but they have an effect on your life. So you have a very interesting story on how you got to be where you are now. Do you want to share a little bit about, you know, your history as well?

Absolutely. So I had some big tea and some little tea. We'll call it big T and a little T small concussion trauma as well. I grew up in good humble beginnings I south side of Atlanta. Atlanta, good blue collar, hard working part of the country. And was going to be slated to be the first person from my family to ever Go to college. Unfortunately, I grew up in and around a lot of violence and a lot of abuse. And instead of going to the university at 18, I became what I hated. I became that rage, that violence, that abuse and committed a violent crime at 18. Was looking at seven years in prison. Thank goodness it was dropped to misdemeanors, but I was sentenced to two years and spent my 19th birthday incarcerated. Wow, wonderful thing happened to me there. The first real male mentor appeared in my life and he was an African American gentleman. Decided to cross Rachel boundaries, which was amazing because that doesn't happen very much in those institutions. And mentored me, held me accountable. Basically was an angel in my life. Called me Youngblood. And he goes, youngblood, you're not going to become a part of this revolving door system. And with his help and guidance, I got out, went to work for a nuclear waste container factory during the day, community college at night. Did end up at the University of Georgia and literally went from a jail cell to Deloitte, which is one of the largest public accounting and financial consulting firms in the world, in three years. Here comes the second T. Unfortunately, coming from humble beginnings, I thought that money, power, success, prestige, corner offices, shiny things, fancy cars, Rolexes. And I checked all those boxes and at 36, they never filled me up, they never made me happ. I thought they were going to make me happy. They certainly allowed me to experience life and to, you know, obtain status and prestige in the corner office. But when that didn't light me up, I turned to all of the darkness that you hear so many men turn to think. Wolf of Wall street lifestyle. Woke up in a ditch at 36 and think, my God, how did I get here? And I didn't think I was going to get a third opportunity. That was number two. So at that point I decided to make me my full time job. I'm talking about coaching, mentoring, therapy, unwiring. Why did I feel alone? Why I never Tommy, why was that? This arrogant guy, life of the party guy, the fun guy to be around. But I was never actually me. And the most amazing thing happened to me in three years is I never planned on leaving the financial world and writing a book and running the legendary life movement. But when I started transforming my life and living truly who Tommy is with self confidence, self love, self respect, peace of heart, I went from being one of the most disliked people in the firm to one of the most beloved. My income doubled. I went from junior partner to senior partner to elected to the board of directors and an owner at 39. Most of the people in their 60s. So all of these great results were happening. But more importantly, it was about the fulfillment I had in my heart. The self love, the self respect. My marriage went from life support to strength. And most importantly, I just felt good on who I was. And that's when my network of entrepreneurs and executives started reaching out to me. And I thought we were going to do business deals together. No, they didn't want that. They wanted to grab a beer or go for a walk or coffee and talk about how I did it. Like, what have you done? Because we've seen just this pure change in your heart and who you are and your success. And through their. Through their love and guidance, you know, we started the legendary life movement. Wrote a book called Legendary, and it became a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. Sold my equity in the firm, and here we are. Dr. Don. That's my story, brother.

Wow. Not very much, no. Just a little. Little history. That's awesome. That is so cool. Well, I know you. You got a little tickle in your throat, so take some water anytime you need to take a break.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate that.

That was a great explanation. And it's really interesting, Tommy, because one of the things that you said, which is what I talk about in our program, is trauma has a major effect on the way we run our lives. So my wife had trauma, and I talk about her story all the time. So she had a lot of trauma as a child. Now, she didn't get into, you know, the drug world or alcohol world. She was just living in fear all the time. And I had none of that. So I had this idyllic childhood. No fear. I played hockey so I could protect myself, so I didn't get bullied or picked on. And. But what you were talking about is how even though you were doing well financially, you weren't enjoying it. And it's one of the things that I talk about. My wife, right? Even though she was not living in the world, she was as a child, she had me as her husband. She had three beautiful children. We had a successful business. She wasn't enjoying it. And it wasn't an obvious, like, I'm not enjoying it, but I could tell. And I kept thinking, well, I've got to just get more money, maybe a bigger house and more vacations. I kept thinking it was me not providing enough. But what I discovered, Tommy, through all the stuff that, you know, I've worked on now and understand, it wasn't that at all. It was fear. Because don't get too high, don't get too excited about it, because you know what's going to happen. You're going to get hurt again. She was protecting herself. She didn't know it. It was a subconscious protection because when she was a child, sometimes things would go okay, and then when dad would lose it. Right. It would crash again. So she was even trying to protect herself against that. And I was on another podcast, Ben Greenfield's podcast, and a. A gentleman came on who's a NHL hockey player, very, you know, well known, and he called in and said, oh, my gosh, you're describing my wife. You know, we're millionaires, we fly on private jets, we have everything in the world. But my wife is not looking like she's enjoying it. And she's not ungrateful. You know, they had a good marriage, but at the same time, not feeling that excitement that he was. And it was all coming. She had trauma in her childhood as well, so that's where a lot of it is coming from.

Agreed. And what I want most people to hear is I think a lot of us who have that fear or that anger or are scared or worried or wonder why we're not happy or fulfilled or why we're not as joyful as we could be, I think we feel alone.

And we don't know what to do, how to do it. And for a lot of men, I'll just talk on men, they won't ask for help. They think they have to walk this life alone. They think they have to do it alone. And they're the only one who has these thoughts, fears, desires, or insecurities. And at the end of the day, we're not alone. There's millions and millions and millions of us out there. My wife was raised like you, loving, abundant, you can do anything. Family. And for me, I never dealt with that story. You know, I was told at a very young age that I was worthless and not lovable and basically a piece of garbage. And I believed that story. And it wasn't until anything that was taught to us or we believe or wired into us, or we can always unwire it. Unbelievable. And rewire our subconscious. And so that's what I've been working on for the last 12 years. I can honestly say 9 out of 10 days, I'm living with a filled, abundant, loving, grateful, glad to be here heart. And so we can't unwire it, though, but we're not alone. That's what I want people to hear the most.

I think that that's a great Message, because that is so true. When my wife. When I first met my wife, I thought the way she. Because I never experienced any of that. I thought it was unusual what she was experiencing. And it wasn't. It was. My life was the unusual one.

Hers was typical, right?

A lot of abuse, a lot of trauma going in. In the household. She felt like she was the only one experiencing this. So, you know, when she sort of shared with me what had happened, you know, during her childhood, she swore me to secrecy, don't tell anybody. I don't want anybody to know. And I was like, but why? And she would say, well, people will judge me. They'll judge my family. That's the biggest part of the trauma, is that they're afraid to share because what are people going to think about them? And so they cover it up and don't talk about it. And like you said, men, it can probably be even worse at times because, you know, there's that feeling of I've got to hold up the image. I've got to show that I'm the strong one. And they don't talk about it.

Correct. And I want people to. Again, they're not alone. We all, not all of us, but a lot of us have, again, the story that we tell ourselves, and the story is just not true. And, you know, it's interesting, you were talking about letting people who don't matter matter. Like they're going to judge me. You know, we've got to fit in because we're tribal speakers, you know, for the most part. What. When you open up and you're authentic without emotionally vomiting, I'm not really in the emotional vomiting space. But when you become authentic and you share your story, it gives other people permission to share their story as well. And we can't go through this. You know, I'm a fan of this statement. Isolation is the enemy of excellence. And that's what the whole. We don't want you just to have a legendary business and success. We do want that, but we also want you to have a legend life, legendary relationships, legendary friendships, and feel that, you know, that when you look in the mirror, I want you to see an ally and not an enemy. And so that's really some of the principal core principles that we stand on with this entire movement. But when we actually open up, people are craving authenticity more than ever. They're craving connection more than ever. You know, it's. So the news is not good. The, you know, the social media is all nonsense. And so we're craving that connection and I think when we're authentic, a, it frees us from that story and we can start rewriting, telling ourselves a new story and starting from this day forward. But it also gives people the gift of going second so that they know they're not alone.

Yeah, it's a great point. And being authentic is, is fearful. Sometimes people are afraid. They put these masks on. It's all, you know, part of covering up who they're afraid to show. I had a good example. I had a lady, she was a coach for women. She held women's retreats. And, and so what she said to me when we sat and did, you know, our session, I do a four hour session. And one of the things that she said was, I feel like a fraud. I've had all this trauma in my childhood. She says, but if I start to try to talk about it in these retreats, I'll break down. So she says, so I don't talk about it so. Because I'm afraid, like, what are they going to think of me if all of a sudden I'm their coach and I'm trying to lead them and I'm falling apart. But I know I do a good job. I really do help these women. I don't feel like a fraud that way, but I don't. Just like you said, I don't feel like I'm being authentic. And what was fascinating is after we went through our session, I saw her about three months later and she shared with me, she said this was amazing because the, the session that we did has such an impact on me. She says, I was doing a retreat and I was, as I was standing up there talking, she goes, all of a sudden I realized I was sharing my trauma and it was so easy for me to do it. I didn't have that fear anymore. And so she didn't even know that she was doing it. She just eased right into it. Those blocks that we put up are not necessarily bad things. It's not that we're trying to be, you know, inauthentic. The problem is, is that our mind is trying to protect us. So many times I hear people say, oh, I sabotage myself. And I go, that's impossible. The brain's not capable of sabotage. It's survival based. It's protecting you. So that what she was doing was not sabotaging, was basically protecting. Stay away from the danger.

Love it. Fight or flight, right?

Yep. So as long as she didn't have to share that she was protecting herself. That's not sabotage. That's the mind Saying if we go down this road, we could get hurt. So be inauthentic. If we have to put on the mask, put on the. The games. Right. And then that looks like. And then you see afterwards, somebody is like, oh. And you find out that they weren't being real with you, then you judge them, which is exactly what they were afraid of. So the biggest thing, and what I love what you're doing as well is, is sharing that, coaching them through it because of your story. I didn't have that story. You did. My wife did. More people relate to her story and your story than my story and your wife's story. We had unique childhood and very, very fortunate to have that. But that's not the norm.

And I, you know, and what gives. I tell people this and this was working with great therapists and coaches for the last 12 years. What I realized for me is I was running from rage and running to peace because that rage kept me alive for all of those years when I was a younger person. And I don't want it, you know, that, that I'm grateful for that. It protected me back then, but now I want to feel, you know, live with a peaceful, loving heart. And I like to tell people every day that I'm no sage of the stage or guru. I'm the person who gets to talk in the mirror all day long and work on this with people. And, you know, my background gives me credibility big time in the financial success space. And we're going to make you successful in business and make you successful with money. But more importantly, we want you to be successful in life. And know that I'm walking this journey side by side, ar by arm with you to work on that peace of mind, that fulfillment, that presence, that happiness, that joy, and living in a place of abundance and not fear. And so I always tell people I'm walking this journey right there with you.

Yeah. And that's what they relate to. It's really because with my wife, the fear that my wife had about anybody knowing her story, now everybody knows her story and she's. There's no longer that shame and guilt about it.

Yeah. It makes you human. Makes it. We're human beings going through this and we're all, by the way, going to end up the same way. So can't take it too serious and can't. And I want to have some enjoyment while we're here as well.

Exactly. And that's the thing. We should be enjoying life. But it's all of those fears that are protecting us from it. And it's not in a negative sense trying to protect us. It's. That's just the way the brain works. That's right to move towards reward. As long as there's nothing that looks like pain on that path.

When it comes to success and money have living both sides of the scale. When I was scared and thought I was alone and didn't know why I felt the way I felt and you know, was unconscious, it wasn't. I was malicious. Money is a magnifying glass of that and it just magnifies, you know, to the world your impact and goodness or your fear and insecurity. I mean, we see it all the time played out at the macro level with very, very, very successful people in business and success and life and sport and music. But you wonder why they have these major integrity breaches or failures is because the, you know, it's magnifying their insecurity, their fear, their worry and their, their aloneness. And so I like to say money is, and money and success are magnifying glasses of wherever you are, wherever you go, there you are. Right.

Yeah. No, it's exactly true. And I'm sure you do too. I know a lot of people who have had tremendous financial success and, and you see, and everybody looks at that and go, oh, that's the world, you know, flying the private jets, having all the money, all the great cars, and yet inside they're totally broken.

Correct.

You know, they're doing all the wrong things or drinking too much and cheating on their spouses and all of the things that they shouldn't be doing that people look at and think, oh, they've got the world at their feet. But they're not happy.

No, no. And hey, I got all the success, why am I not happy? And then you start that voice inside your head gets really loud then. And that's why we turn to numbers, for lack of a better word. Yep.

And so you see it all the time. So when you're doing your retreats, what does that entail? Like what kind of retreats are you doing? How do you work with people?

Yeah, we're not for everybody. We're typically for people who are ambitious and driven and we take them through a four day full immersion. So what's hard for those type of people is to step away from their life, step away from their business, step away from their responsibility. And it's a four day full immersion. And it's all about clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity and self mastery. So when they leave them, I want them to be crystal clear. On who they truly are, where they're going and who's coming with them. And so it's literally a four day immersion for men and women to be, to know exactly how to become the masters of their mental state, their emotional state. We say it's like we want them to be, again, not only successful in business, not only successful with money, but successful in their relationships, successful with themselves, successful in their communication, successful in their friendships, and so truly building and living a quote, legendary life. And so when they come to come to us and what they realize is, and we don't do any weird stuff, we don't go sit in the woods and rub each other's shoulders, bounce up and down, there's no cold tubs, walking on fire. It was none of that stuff. It truly is just a four day full immersion in the beautiful North Georgia mountains of knowing thyself. And that's the number one failure I see in leadership is truly knowing thyself as self awareness. But again, when they leave there they will be crystal clear, both in business and life. And it's by far the most powerful thing we do. So I love it. Thank you for letting me share that.

That's awesome. And that's really what people, they don't know how to do that. I always say the reason why people like you exist, right, Is because why does Tiger woods have a coach, right?

Multiple golfer, multiple.

But the whole thing is, is we can't sometimes see where our mistakes are. We sometimes need somebody to help us through that.

I totally agree. And I, I am in the self development, leadership, self mastery business. I am currently working with two coaches, I am currently working therapist and I, I run mastermind programs for executive and entrepreneur. I'm in two of them. So I'm walking the walk as well. And so for me, I always want to sharpen my pencil in business and systems and marketing and all of it success, but also in life. And so I buy what I sell. I walk, you know, I walk the walk. I don't just talk the talk. So I'm currently working with four or five people myself. So I think all of the greats, if you truly look at them, work on their inner game and their outer game. You not only being competent and confident in what they do and mastering that, but also mastering thyself. And so that's, that's the space that we live in.

And that's great advice because a lot of times people feel like, like we talked about in particular men, right? It's very difficult to go and ask for help we're supposed to be the person that's holding it all together.

Yeah.

And that's the, that's the great part about being involved and going to, you know, a retreat like you're holding, it gives you that chance to be vulnerable. Right. Because sometimes you can't be vulnerable with sometimes the closest people around you at times because of that fear. And you can break that down and realize that it's not, you know, a fault. Right. To have fears. Right. It's human.

That's right. And I think, I think also it can be very, very difficult for ambitious and driven women too because then they're always have to be perfect. Never let them see you sweat. Right. Not only be class at home or world class wife or significant other, a world class mother, but also world class in business. And never let them see you sweat. And that perfectionist thing that we, we see. And I think it's also difficult. I think I've seen it be tough for women and men in this space and, and when they come to something and they get crystal clear and they learn simple tools, techniques and, and systems to really master their mindset, master their emotions, be proactive and not reactive, but more importantly gain Clari phases of their life. It's so freeing to watch these men and women leave these events, I mean, and just on a complete high, but a good high, you know, through knowledge and work and, and doing this. And so that's why I love this work so much.

Just seeing the transformations, like I, I see it all the time. I'm sure you're seeing it all the time. You know, talking about women. I had one lady who had come in and one of the top, top salesperson in her organization and by a good margin too. So it wasn't like the, you know, second place was a little bit, but quite a bit behind her. But she said, she says my fear is I feel like I'm swimming with sharks and I'm afraid to let my guard down. I feel like that makes me vulnerable, that makes me, you know, that's dangerous. So she says, I put on this air of I'm tough, I'm strong. She goes, but that's not really who I am, but I'm afraid to be who I am. And she didn't have big trauma either. So where this was coming from, you know, was somewhere in her, probably in her childhood about that fear. And anyway, just going through the program, what she said was it totally changed her ability to be vulnerable and it wasn't as scary as she thought it was going to be. She tripled her sales over the next few years. And because she really then hit her stride. And that's what I talk about is that when we all have another gear, how do we reach that next gear? And so if you talk about it, one of the things that I talk about, because I work a lot with professional athletes and you know, things like that, and I love watching it in sports because it's so quick to measure. You can see it. What I say actually happens is especially when we have trauma or we have some of these things that are affecting us, whether these are the emotional concussions, they're actually affecting the ATP, the mitochondria in the cell. So energy is being withheld because it's being used. And I always talk to people, how much energy does it feel like this kind of trauma is draining from you? Because that affects our performance. And that's why we called our program a performance program, not trauma therapy. And so what happens is, is that when we release that, we perform at a higher level. So we've got all kinds of examples of people after going through the program within weeks, can break a world record, can. Can win championships because that energy freed up. So that's how powerful it is when you get that whole mindset changed.

Man, I couldn't agree more. And I've seen so many world class and badass people in business, sport, athletics and music.

Who are. And it stinks emotionally or mentally or spiritually weak, right. You. And you can be all. And. And not just be confident and world class in your sport or sales or music or whatever it might be, but you can be world class and badass in life too. So that's the ultimate goal, right? Yep, yep. Ultimate goal.

And so again, the one thing that you talked about, which I share as well, which I think is so important is I had somebody tell me this is again, when I was probably in my 20s, he said to me, the hardest line you're going to ever walk in your life is the line between success at home and success at work. Because you can become highly successful at work at the sacrifice of your home, or you could be highly successful at home and be broke. Right. And so finding out how to walk that line is so critical. And without a coach like you or somebody doing what I do, you right. It's very difficult to find it. And. And it's like you're walking in the dark.

Yeah.

Shine that light for you and sort of show you the way. Right. It's really powerful.

Couldn't agree more. And it's about quality over quantity. You know, the quality of time that you spend on yourself, the quality of time you spend with your family, the quality of time you spend with your friendships. And when you're there being fully there, not thinking about work, and when you're at work, you're thinking about home. Home and vice versa. So there is a way to, like you said, unwire all this, but there's always also a way to reconquer your time and live your best life as well. Because we all have the same 24 hours and seven days a week, every week, God willing, that's the most precious asset we have, right? And who knows how much time we have left. So we have to have to have to seize this moment, seize this day.

And one of the things that we're doing now too, Tommy, is we're doing brain mapping. So we're actually seeing the physical changes that happen in the brain. And it's fascinating. So we, we did a study, a small study, where we took people from about 15 years of age up into their 60s, and we took them through, we brain mapped them before our program and then 30 plus days afterwards. And what we found is, is that when you can get this trauma released and you can then get the person operating, staying present more, it changes their performance. And so what we found is an average of about a 46% change in brain plasticity.

That's awesome.

Which is amazing.

That's awesome. That's real tangible results. I love that. I love it, love it, love it, love it.

And so, so that's one of the things that we're really excited about is because we have people go through our program, and I'm sure you do too. And they'll say, yeah, I feel better and I'm excelling and I'm doing this.

This.

What I love about the brain mapping is we're actually showing some physical evidence. This is why this is happening, right? When the brain can expand like that and, and that plasticity, just like you're saying, is we can rewire everything, everything, right? And you don't realize you're not stuck in this pattern. So you look what you grew up in, right? And to what you're doing today, right? Where people would have, probably when you were 18, 19, when you got incarcerated, people would have just written your life off and they would have said, well, we know where this guy's going, right? We can chart the rest of his life, right? But that's not true. Look how fast you turned it around and then still had another lesson to learn.

And still learn them every day. Right. And what I love about this, it doesn't matter, like you said, if you're 15 or 70, it's never too late to do that. Unwiring, to do the work, to. To work on your neuroplasticity, your brain muscle, your heart musc, your soul muscle. It's never too late to start. And I. That's why some of my favorite. I mean, we've got people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. But some of my favorite are in their 60s and 70s. That's the best. It's absolutely the best. When they're still wanting to sharpen that pencil just a little bit more and be successful in life and in business. I just love it.

Well, science is proving that the brain continues to grow, right? Where the problem is is that people hear about Alzheimer's dementia, and the assumption is, is that. That, you know, the brain is deteriorating once you get older. That's not true. What I have found from Alzheimer's dementia, the reason that's happening is because the brain has been stressed for so long that I believe what's actually happening is, if you think about it in terms of wiring, it's not a great metaphor, but it's basically what it is, is the wires become frayed. They've been firing for so long and so hard.

Hard.

It's not supposed to be doing that. So if you're in that stress mode for most of your life, it's going to affect your physical health, but it's also affecting the brain. And the brain is getting overworked. And then that's when it starts to break down. But even then, we can. We can still make improvements. All we have to do is start focusing on making changes. And the brain's designed to heal, the body's designed to heal.

Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Just people. I. I can't. I mean it. I don't know why people don't believe they can't have it all, right? They can't. They literally can't have it all. And I'm. I'm the only one who thinks this, or I'm stuck here or it's too late. I'm in my 60s. I. It's just so inadequate and so untrue. It's so frustrating for people like you and I. Like, we. We know how to do this. Just, Just come on. Come one, come. All right. Yeah.

Well, it comes down to program programming, right? The 400 years ago, the Jesuit priests said, give me a child until they're 7 years of age and I'll determine the rest of their life.

Which is amazing.

Yeah. Because they can program them and then they'll get stuck in that programming for that first seven years. Because that early development in childhood is so critical. And this is why one of the things that I always talk about with parents is you have to understand how those first seven years are so formative for them. Them. And even with the best of intentions. Right. We can have an effect on them, on how we say things. Because a five year old doesn't have enough life experience to understand what they just heard. What they're interpreting is, you may say something one way and what they're hearing is, oh, they don't love me. Right. Or I'm not good enough or I get everything wrong all the time.

Time.

So I had one lady as an example. She came in and she said, I have this constant procrastination. She goes, I don't know why I procrastinate. She was successful, so she had her own business. She was doing very well. But she goes, I always procrastinate. What happened is, is her mother was a principal at a school. And so when she started, we started to review her life and her childhood. She goes, every time she would have to do her homework, her mother would make her bring it to her and she would take out a red pen and underline it, all the mistakes. So was the mother trying to hurt her? No, the mother was trying to point out. But a child is hearing, I keep getting everything wrong. I never get anything right. So she wanted to avoid that criticism. So if she could put it off to the last minute, it was too late to redline anything. You just had to do it right. And she could avoid the criticism, avoid the mistakes.

So just something so simple and that. This is why, this is why she procrastinates. It's literally this. And again, that's a story. She's been unconsciously. I like to say the work that you and I are doing is going from ignorance to awareness and awareness to transformation and eventually master mastery and leadership. And leadership's teaching it. So I. Once you go to awareness, what you do with that awareness, it can become the shame monster that holds you down or the catalyst that catapults you into transformation. It's your choice ultimately what you do with that. Right. So you have. Now she's aware.

Now she's aware. And it never had occurred to her. I'll give you another good example. Is that a. A lady who she. I said if you had any Trauma in your life. We were doing actually a group presentation. She came up to the front and she was like, well, I haven't had any. And you know, I had a life like yours. And I said, that's fantastic. And I said, is there any event that you can think of that was disturbing? You know, one of these emotional concussions? And she was like, well, you know, she sat up there and she says, not really. She goes, okay, yeah, I can think of one. And so, and I can see her as she's starting to think about it, her eyes are starting to fill up. And she says, I was about six years old and she's as in church with my family. And I was talking and my grandmother took out her hairbrush and she hit me on the head with it and said, stop talking, you're in church. And then the waterworks came. She started uncontrollably sobbing. And when she could catch her breath, she goes, I lost my voice that day.

What did a six year old here? We don't want to hear you. Right? And so she says, I never speak up for myself, I never defend myself. I get pushed around all the time. And she had never made that connection. That was her mother, grandmother trying to do that, that, no, she was just trying to discipline her. But it was the method that the, the grandmother used that the child interpreted right com with no life experience. You can imagine how if you have really very little life experience and this person who's an authority figure in your life says something to you, you can see how easily that can get misinterpreted. I always talk about it like, remember the game we play as kids where you'd whisper in someone's ear and then they had to pass it on. By the time it got end, it was completely different, Right? That's that story.

That's what happens and the story. And I know Dr. Renee Brown talks about this and I had a mentor appear in my, I've had these mentors appear in my life. At 36, when I was going through my transformation, he asked me, he looked me right in the eye because I was telling myself a story and it was a big story and a juicy, untruthful story. And he finally looked at me and goes, tommy, do you want to live your life or do you want to continue living that story? And it's amazing. Like you said, her story had gotten, was unconscious, but it had gotten so big and she lost her voice that day. And again it goes back to what life do you want to live? What story do you want to tell yourself and how are you going to unwire your heart, brain and get to that part of life that's going to make you happy and healthy? And so I love that. I love that story so much. Thank you for sharing that, Doc.

Oh, you got so many. I'm sure you do too. It's just, you see that transformation, it's just like, like they hadn't thought about that before because they got stuck in that story.

Yep.

And then the. Your mind constantly uses your experiences to filter through so that it can then determine how to respond to what's currently happening. Yeah, and one of the things I found in my research was something called the time slice theory. And the time slice theory said, is consciousness streaming. It was developed by two scientists at the University of Zurich work. And what they said is it feels like it's a continuous flow of information, but it's not. Your conscious mind is not getting the information in real time. Your subconscious mind does. So your subconscious mind takes in all the information that's coming in right now, processes it, and then sends time slices, like clips from a movie reel to your consciousness. And there's a 400 millionth of a second gap in between the slices. So what that means is your subconscious is taking it in, processing it, and then sending it through to your conscious mind. But it's already filtered through your life experiences to determine, have we seen this, heard this, experienced this before? And when it does, it responds to it before you're even consciously aware of it, of it. And that's where the issue comes in. And that's why we get into these habits and behaviors unconsciously. It's because of that time slice theory. And what I say happens is in that 400 millionth of a second, your subconscious mind's doing a Google search. What do we know about this data coming in? Does it look like, sound like, feel like something we've seen before? And if it does, then it starts looking at old data from years ago and responding in real time to that. That's what I call glitch. We glitch and we have error messages constantly. But the subconscious mind is survival based and it's in charge of survival. So if something comes in that looks like a survival threat, that logical, reasonable, intellectual part of our brain gets overridden.

I couldn't, I can't agree more. I love that. And, and for me, I am constantly, constantly, constantly inundating my subconscious through intentions, through vision work, through meditation, through what I allow into my eyes and ears.

Constantly to hopefully unwire those that Those glitches and messaging you're talking about. And I have seen an incredible amount of difference in myself and others doing the work you're talking about. So it's, it's out there. It's just whether people will use their only power that have choice and choose to unwire that unconscious to, to, to be again an ally and not an enemy.

Right, Exactly. And the way I explained it is your subconscious mind doesn't think, it responds. It's programmed to respond. So all the programs that have been built in is not a thinking process, it's a response process. And so it's the conscious mind that thinks. But the conscious mind doesn't control. Right. Survival threats. It's overridden by the subconscious. So the best way that you can, if you want to change the way you're doing things, just like you said, you have to consciously start thinking about things the way you would like them to be. And your subconscious mind is fully present. It only sees things that are happening now. So that becomes real to it. You can, if you program your mind consciously by saying, my world is terrible, I'm always doing everything wrong. Your subconscious is taking it all in. So what you have to do is see the world differently and intentionally focus on what is going right in your life, what you can change in your life. And your subconscious will follow and build the program for you. But it doesn't.

I've been on a news fast for 12 years to eliminate all that negativity around us.

Yeah.

And that's why for children, just look at what's happening to children in the world we live in. And so if they're living in a world, in a home with this. What was happening to my wife? And it sounds like it was happening to you. She was living in this constant state of fear. She looked at me one time and she said, you know, she looked at my old report cards from school and she goes, school was so easy for you. That must have been nice. And I was like, well, of course it was easy for me. Right. I could go to school. I didn't worry about what happened to me last night. I didn't have to worry what was going to happen to me if I got home and dad was there. I said, you had nowhere to land. You were in constant flight. That was exhausting you. How much energy were you losing on a day to day basis because your mind was in a fear mode. I didn't have that. So of course it was easy for me. But it's easy for everybody if you can change that program and rewire that programming to seeing things differently and stop that trauma loop from looping.

That's life changing, life changing and life altering. And you know, your internal results will determine your outside results too. And so what you'll experience not only from happiness to love, to intimacy, to relationships, to friendships, to who you allow around you, your boundaries will be stronger. The word no will be used more often. And ultimately we'll will. It will lead to external success as well. So I'm totally, 100% with you.

So here's an interesting thing. I work with professional golfers, and one of the things I say, and this is really interesting, I wrote about this in another book and I said, do you think you need to be confident to play good golf? And they'll all say the same thing, yes, I think I need to be confident. And I said, what if I told you you don't need to be confident to play good golf? That flies in the face of everything they've been told. They said, I don't need confidence. I said, I didn't say you didn't need it, but you don't have to have it to be the golfer. I said, confidence is a byproduct of your skill. You have skill, right? Your skill is at the top level, right? There's only a few hundred people in the world that can do what you do, right? You don't need confidence. But you, right, you've got this skill. There's nothing you can't do on a golf course. But if you put confidence in front of your skill, you'll chase confidence. But you don't have to chase your skill. You've already developed it, right? Confidence will leave you at times. That's when you have to rely on your skill. That optimism that everything will work out if I just keep relying on my skill, that takes all the fear. Because you don't have to worry about what happens if you hit a bad shot spot. So what I says, you can hit a ball into the woods and hit a ball in between two trees six inches apart, and get the ball back out in the fairway, maybe even onto the green, still make a birdie, right? There's. There's nothing you have to fear on a golf course if you have skill.

And it really allows them. So I worked with this one guy. He was right. After I worked with him, he was playing in the tournament. After three rounds, he was leading, beating by five shots. First shot in the fourth day, the final round, he hits the first tee shot out of bounds. And this caddy looks, has his hand him another ball, looks at him and he goes, are you just smiling right now? And he goes, yeah. He said, in my mind, I just heard Dr. Wood say, your ball and your confidence just went out of bounds.

He's got skill. He striped the next ball right down the middle. He's not going to do that twice in a row unless he starts doubting himself and starts thinking about, oh, no, my confidence. What just happened? Forget it. You don't need it.

You just need it. Rely on your habits will become your outcomes, and what you believe will become what you receive. Correct. It's so funny. He just laughed it off. That's great.

But that's the key, is if they can do that, right? As opposed to thinking, oh, and I'm sure if you heard the announcers on, you know, on. On the golf broadcast would be saying.

Oh, here we go.

What's going to happen to his confidence? And that's being trained into them that they need it. What I'm saying is, no, you don't need it at your level. There's no way you need that same thing with anything that you're doing in your. In your life, right? You've got, like, what you do to help these people is skill. That's not about confidence. That's about your skill. You've honed a skill over so many years, right? So if somebody came along and said, tommy, I don't think you're doing it very good. I don't care what you think. I know what I'm doing.

That's right. In real skill, you're not going to.

Convince me of that. Right? But people who have not understood that. Right. Could easily get their confidence shaken, and then all of a sudden they start doubting themselves. That's where all the problems come in.

Right? Agreed. We let that. I used to call it the Tommy go round.

That's. That's when that will just start spinning.

And that will just doesn't spin very often, very much these days.

And then it's that fear of losing. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was when I was about 13, a tennis pro who was teaching me, who was a mentor of mine, he said to me, you really want to be a great tennis player, don't you? And I said, yeah. And he says, okay, I'm going to tell you the secret. And he starts to whisper. Whisper, right? Like he doesn't want anybody else to hear this. Right? And that's what I'm thinking. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm gonna get this wisdom right. This is phenomenal. And he looks at me and he says, lose a lot. And I said, I don't understand. Why would I want to lose a lot? He says, because you're playing in divisions that you can win. He says, you're not learning as much as you will. If you go and play in the 15, 16 year old division, the game's gonna be faster. You haven't seen that speed and that power. Power. But if you get and play in it right, you'll adjust to it very quickly because you're a good athlete. And I. And then he said, what will happen is you'll start to be able to learn how to win in that, but you're gonna have to lose a lot in order to challenge yourself. That's the fear we all have. If I go playing the 15, 16 year old and I lose in the first round every time for the next six tournaments, right, what are people going to think of me? But I didn't care there, like that was a great lesson for me. So I went and played against older people who are bigger and faster and better. And you had to sort of lose.

And that I am so. And I still do that to this day. I still run with, you know, I surround myself with the elite who I call the exception. They're not the norm, they're the exception. And it's literally because I just want to constantly be better in my craft, constantly be better in business and creating, constantly be better in life. And I, I still practice that till this day. And I might not measure up, but I'm working damn hard to be elite and be the exception myself, perfect and.

Lead a legendary life. Friend.

That's the, that's the. I have written an aspirational book and what I love about the title, legendary, it's given to us, if we give it to ourselves. People laugh us so we can, we can be an unbelievably great legend or not so great legend. And it's up to us to ultimately choose. And I love that. Societies, our communities, our ecosystems, for lack of a word, either grant us that word or they don't. So that's what I love that word so much.

So you've got your book out there. It's a best selling book, right? What else are you working on that would, you know, people would like to hear about?

Well, I can't. I'm so excited. We're putting our 2023 retreat and experience calendar together. We're going to do some unbelievable legendary life experiences. And those are going to be around. Think nature, sport, advent. But it's all about again, self mastery, leading thyself, knowing thyself, and being crystal clear on who you are, where you're going in the tribe. We want to be the we say we want to be the family you choose to do life and business with and surround yourself with other legendary people. So we've got a retreat coming up in January for the women. We've got a retreat coming up in February for the men and in March for the men. And got a bunch of fun experiences coming up. So check us out. And if you want to get. By the way, if you're not a reader, I will read my book to you. It's on Audible.

Wow.

I will read it to you on audible. So I love it. Check the books at all your favorite bookstores. And we're just super thankful it's become a Wall street journal in USA Today bestseller. So super excited to see you. Come check us out.

Awesome. How do they get a hold of you? Is there any other way to.

Totally. I'm going to say the easiest way to get a hold of me because it's not just me checking. This is three other people would be tommyommybreedlove.com and it will 100% be read. We'll give you our calendar of events. You can join us at a retreat. You can join us at an experience. We hope to see you in 2023. I'm pretty much taking the rest of 2022 for speaking and getting clear on 2023 and some travel, so I'm excited about that. But we're about to lock and load 2023, so hopefully we'll see you at a legendary event then.

Awesome. Sounds good. Well, I encourage anybody. Check Tommy out. It's he's the real deal. It's, you know, whatever you're going to learn from Tommy is real. So that's fantastic. I appreciate you coming on the you must be out of your mind podcast and I look forward to following up and continuing our conversations.

Dr. Don, I'm humbled and grateful to be here, brother. And thank you for having me.

Thank you. Thanks, everybody for listening and we'll see you on the next you must be out of your mind podcast. And there it is.