Tragic Hero: Rising From Traumatic Past Experiences With Wally Bressler

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart and your attitude. And welcome to the Gap, the Get Attitude podcast. I'm your host, Glenn Bill, international best selling author, keynote speaker and all around, your attitude coach. Welcome today. Welcome. We got a fantastic that is coming to us for those of you who feel like, man, you know what, Glenn, My life has been bad, I've been crapped on, it's been tough. I don't know that I can come back. We have a person that has written an incredible memoir and I just love this book. It's called Tragic Picking up the Pieces. And his name is Mr. Wally Bressler and he reveals the most harrowing secrets of his childhood. From surviving sexual, physical and emotional abuse to escaping the gnarly roots of addiction that claimed his life at a young age. Through a transformational story that emphasizes the importance of dismantling the victim mentality, Bresler challenges his readers to venture through the pain of their past so that they can take a radical responsibility towards the future. Wally and I have spoken on the stage together. We were just down in Texas earlier this year. He is an author, a speaker and a coach. He is a master of phone sales. So he's got so much to talk about, but hopefully we'll be able to give you guys some tips and attitudes on what it takes to become a master phone salesperson. You know, in this world that we live in, so many of us are running Internet based businesses and it's about AI and it's about email blasts and it's about drip email campaigns. And I still believe, and I still do believe that the phone is probably one of the best ways for you to connect with customers, potential customers and clients. And it's a gateway to a lot of funds. Why? Because it is a skill and a technique that is not used much anymore. So without further ado, I want to bring up my good friend, one of the best real estate coaches in the Nation and Mr. Wally Bresser. Wally, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Thank you, sir. Honor to be here. And thanks for the very generous and kind introduction. I appreciate it.

Good to be here.

Yeah, that's great. So let's just dig right into it. The book you just got, you just released the book and certainly a lot of people are always like, oh my God, I want to write a book. I'm going to write a book. I might write a book. No, I'm going to write A book. And then all of a sudden, boom. Did you have that same experience?

You know, I think, yeah. I mean, a lot of people want to write a book, and I wanted to write a book. People like, hey, you should write a book. And I thought about it and I thought about it, and, you know, there were just some things going on in my life personally that I actually detail in the book that kept me from pulling the trigger. But it was interesting. I. Talking about attitude, I, you know, because of the things that had happened when I was younger and a lot of bad choices I made as a teenager and adult, you know, I had really created a belief system of obviously not being good enough. Also shame and sadness. And I just. I'm like, nobody wants to hear my story. And then I just was trying to hide from people, and I decided one day, I'm like, I'm just not going to hide anymore. When I went and I told my story on all my social media outlets because, you know, when you share the things about you that you're. That you might be ashamed of or that you don't feel good about, two things happen. Number one takes all the power away. Right? Nobody can say anything about you that is bad because you've already taken full responsibility for. The other thing is the level of empathy you get from people is staggering because so many people have gone through a lot of the things that I've gone through and other challenges that people have gone through. And so once I did that, it really was like, oh, my God, I really have to tell my story. And that's really what led me to going ahead and writing the book. I mean, you've written a book before, so, you know, it's no. No small project. And, you know, I probably read my book 30 times editing it and. And getting it ready, so. But yeah, I worked hard on it. Took about a year to get out the door, but I'm happy it's out there.

Awesome. So tell me, what do you think the definition of attitude is? What does attitude mean to you and how would you define it? And who was your first or your best attitude coach in your life?

So I would define attitude as the choices we make and how we are going to handle the things that are thrown at us in life. Right. We have 100% control over our emotions and our responses or our reactions to the things that are thrown at us in life. And in my opinion, your attitude about how you go about that is 100% your responsibility. And it really dictates, you know, how your life is going to be not just, you know, Gary D. Rodriguez is. We know Cliff Freeman, obviously, both of us, you know, Gary Rodriguez is a business and life coach. Is an interesting thing is his life happens from us, not to us, life happens from us. So we get back or, you know, we're sending out. And so your attitude, how you handle things, how you respond to things, how you treat people in certain situations is ultimately going to determine what happens for you there. My first attitude coach or influence for me on attitude was a guy named Bob DeMello. He was, he was my first coach and he, you know, I remember I was seventh grade is to get up in the morning and walk to school at about 6 o' clock in the morning and went to weightlifting. And Bob was a really, really good coach and he taught me a lot about life and being a good athlete. I remember he left teaching to go become an insurance agent. And you know, you've been in a sales forever. You were, when you become a salesperson, organizations do all kinds of personal development for you. And so he really brought back a lot of great skills and strategies about how to be successful in life and in sports from that. And you know, he really shaped a lot of who I was as an athlete. In fact, I'll tell you a quick story just to kind of give you an idea. You know, I did not have a good childhood, a really rough childhood. I detail it in my book. And I had low to no self esteem, lots of self loathing, and just did not feel good about who I was in general. No confidence. And so my junior year in high school, he's like, hey, you got to come out for the track team. I'm like, okay, I've never done track before. Now when I say track, I mean the shot put. I wasn't running. I mean I'm, you see me, I'm not a small man. So anyway, I played football in high school, in college and did track in high school and college. So Bob's like, come out for the track team. I'm like, okay, so I threw the shot. But to qualify for the state meet you had to throw 40ft. So third or fourth meeting I threw 40ft. And then so he got us ready for the state meet. I qualify for states. My first series is, hey, let's listen to this visualization audio. So we listened to a visualization audio from an Olympic weightlifter and how he had lifted the most in his life by visualizing things. So I'm like, okay, I wish, knowing now what I know then I wish I'd Put down a larger number. But I said, okay, I want to throw 44ft 10 inches. I wrote it down on my sneakers. I looked at it everywhere I walked, I looked at it. Mental picturization. We get to the state meet, we get there and I uncorked one that I knew that was farther than I ever thrown before. And I ended up coming in second in the state my first year. And so I'm walking out. He goes, I saw when you walked in tonight that you were ready to go ahead.

What did I throw?

And he pulled out the. She goes, we threw 44ft 10 inches. Oh my God. And so, yeah, it was crazy. I get goosebumps still talking about it. So I just, you know, that just really, even though there were other things I dealt with along the period of my life that weren't great and bad decisions I made, you know, that's always served me about attitude. You know, I'm saying, and I'm controlling how I'm going to feel about something and what I'm going to do about something.

I love it. And so gappers, you know, I think lesson number one with Wally is the power of visualization. What a powerful story. And if you're sitting listening today, my question to you is what are you visualizing for your future? Like, what are you going to write down on your sneakers? Whether it's income, whether it's relationships, whether it's weight, whether it's drug addiction or alcohol addiction, making those numbers 0, whatever it might be. The power of visualization so, so effective as described by the great Wally Bressler. Wally, when we talk about traumatic childhood, you do touch on it in your book. What's your best advice for those of us that had a really rough way to. With all the different forms of abuse that can come. And let's be honest, I'm not so sure that the abuse problem isn't even magnified more now than it ever was before with what's going on in the world. So what's your advice? I guess number one to those people listening that have suffered that abuse just like you. And what's your advice for those people that maybe know something's going on with somebody else, but they're not directly involved, but maybe they could help Just so those two questions for you.

So it's kind of a two parter here. For me. The first thing is I think you have to accept the fact that it's not your fault. Yeah, you know, we, a lot of us engage in a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. Over things that happened in the past that we did nothing. You know, I was sexually abused. I was at 10. I had been a food binge eating disorder since the time I was 6.

My parents used to send me to.

Bed without dinner when I was 3, 4 and 5 years old.

You know, I started looking at pornography.

When I was 11.

I started having sex when I was 12. I was bullied all the way until 13 or 14.

So, you know, created a tremendous amount.

Of shame and guilt in me. And so it took me literally until I know, Probably I was 49 years old to realize that, you know, those things weren't my fault.

Right?

I mean, I had to have responsibility for the decisions I made along the way, things I did to hurt myself and other people. But it wasn't because I was trying to be mean or hurtful or malicious. It's because I just. I hated myself. And I just did not have a good operating system for how I was going to take care of things.

So the first thing is, is you.

Got to say, listen, I. I accepted the decisions that I made, but the way I'm emotionally, psychologically, mentally is not my fault, okay? Now, second thing is, I call it, you got to get radical.

The first thing is you gotta. You gotta get.

You have to have radical responsibility to take radical response.

Pardon me. Yeah. Radical honesty.

Forgive me.

You gotta have radical honesty.

You gotta be honest with yourself. There's some things that are just not right, okay?

You have to, you have to look.

In the mirror and say, you know what? These things are not good. My weight, I got up to £480 at one time, okay? I was addicted to pornography. I was addicted to sex. I was addicted to money. I've probably blown about $5 million in my lifetime. You know, I really hurt my children. And I was, you know, I cheated on my ex wife four times. I had to get really honest about the fact that I was making lots of horrible decisions. And I had to go and look and find out where those horrible decisions were coming from and at least identify the fact. You know, I'm gonna be honest with myself. You know, I'm in a bad place because of these things. The second thing is, is radical transparency. You know, this is kind of like, you know, the 12 steps for, you know, the, the, for Alcoholics Anonymous or Readers Anonymous.

One of those things is going and.

Apologizing to people for what you did to hurt them.

You know, you've got to be radically.

Transparent and say, hey, listen, I did this. I own that I did this, and I See how it affected you. And I'm sorry about that.

Yes.

You know, and not just that, but.

Also, you know, having conversations with family.

Members and letting them know why you turned out the way you did. I mean, one of the first conversations I had as I was healing was.

With children to explain to them what happened, you know, and, you know, why I went to prison and why I did the things that I did and.

Why I wasn't a good dad for.

So long and accepting responsibility for that. Right. And then the last part is radical responsibility, which is, you know what? If this is going to change, it's going to be me. You know, we're not going to wake up tomorrow morning thinner, healthier, happier, wealthier. Just not going to wake up and have that happen. Right. We've got to take responsibility for the action, for the actions we need to take to get the results we want. It's not easy, but it's a lot easier than living in pain for four decades, if that makes any sense. So radical honesty. Be honest about what you need to change. Radical transparency. Make sure you tell yourself and other people that, hey, you know what? I'm being real with you. I owned what I did. This is why I did it, and I own why I did. And radical responsibility. Some things have to change, and you've got to take action, and that's the only way it's going to change. Otherwise, nothing's going to happen, and it's.

Going to get worse and worse for you.

I love it. So how did you make millions of dollars?

Well, believe it or not, I've lost.

Everything four times in my life from making bad decisions.

So part of the way that I.

Made millions of dollars was learning lessons from some of the dumb stuff I did.

But, I mean, you know, I worked, I went to college, got a great college education. We talked about this before. You know, we both played college football, and I graduated from a great college. And then I, you know, I went into the mutual fund industry, and I was making about 100 grand a year by the time I was 28. And, you know, I got in the real estate industry when I was 30. And then, you know, through sales and, I mean, I sold, what, 72 houses my first 14 months in the business and then helped grow a real estate organization. And then I've been coaching pretty much straight through since probably 2006.

Cool.

So. And also, you know, doing sales for my own business and doing sales for other people, real estate and, you know, being an entrepreneur, you know, I was doing real estate investing for A while, you know, I'm saying yes. Yeah.

So that, so a lot of hard work, a lot of phone skills, a lot of sales, a lot of probably early mornings and late night and you amassed a fortune or you amassed some high income and then you gave it, you gave it all away to strippers and porn sites.

No strippers. Well, you know, I mean, so you know, you know, I mean, you know. No, yes and no. That wasn't really the big issue. I gave it away, believe it or not, to people, because I wanted them to like me.

Oh, there you go.

I'm spending money on things I shouldn't have spent money on, you know, and even my family, you know, I, my, you know, my ex wife had a friend and you know, she wanted to live in a neighborhood with her friends and I wanted to make her happy. I was a pleaser, so. And I bought a $440,000 house and I went and bought a BMW and I bought her a brand new Town.

And country minivan, you know what I'm saying? And just a truckload of money, like a knucklehead, you know, bought a motel.

That I shouldn't have bought. And so I just, you know, I was just trying to, you know, to, to. And mostly just trying to outrun the.

Shame that I experienced in life.

Right.

You know, and so that I did spend, spend a lot of money on food. In fact, during two years when I was still addicted to food, I spent $48,000 on food.

Wow. Like fast food or good food?

Not good food. No. I mean the people at Uber Eats and Doordash loved me. Right, right. So you know, when you're in it. And I had an addiction to money, which means it came in. And as soon as it came in I was like, I gotta spend this, I gotta do something with this. Let me shower people with gifts, let me buy stuff for people, let me do dumb stuff with it. And as soon as it came in, went on, I mean, I was living paycheck to paycheck while I was making a quarter million dollars a year or more. It was really bad.

Right. And so many people with financial problems it does stem from. I don't feel like I'm worth what I'm making. Right. And so the only way to self correct this is to get rid of it all and repeat and repeat the cycle. What? Talk to me a little bit about food addiction. We could have somebody that's suffering from food addiction right now on this, on this podcast, like try to like encapsulate it, give us a Food Addiction 101. Because it's, you know, obesity is everywhere in America. I think we got to be the most obese society that there is. But, like, what. What have you learned about being addicted to food and, and, you know, binge eating and all that? What, what. What's your. What's the diagnosis? And then what's the cure for people?

Yeah, great question. So I'm just going to take this a little. Take it out a little further. Maybe 10,000 foot. You know, any addiction is a response to pain.

Okay.

I saw on TV, this. This guy owned a. There was a commercial for a. For an addiction center.

And it is exactly what he said. He says when people come in and say they're addicted, I don't say why the addiction, I say, why the pain.

Right.

So any addiction is a response to pain, and it's an avoidance strategy.

Excellent, excellent.

So you have alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, food, smoking. You also have procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing, you know, all kinds of things that.

Are, you know, would not seem to.

Be addictions, but are, you know, even imposter syndrome and addictions to money. So.

Right. Does that make sense?

I mean, there's no shortage of. Of reasons that people are an avoidance strategy. So, you know, food addiction is interesting.

Is really, you know, food and food. Food addiction is really, you know, it was the very first pain. What's the word I'm looking for here? Pain management strategy that I was made available to. I mean, I don't know. You grew up in an Irish Catholic family, right? Yes, I grew up in a Roman Catholic family. When you grew up in an Italian family, there's three means of communication. Food, getting yelled at and getting hit. So one of those three, you know, modes of communication. And so food was a big thing in my family. You know, I mean, my mother's motto was that if you go from the table hungry, it's your own fault.

Right.

There is nobody. There's one person was my Poppy, my dad's dad. Well, my. My mom's a mom, but for the most part, everybody in my family is obese. That I'm genetically related to.

Yeah.

My parents suffered from anxiety. They both smoked. My dad drank a lot for a while. We were all overweight. And so food was, you know, basically it was a pacifier for all of us.

Yes.

But for me, you know, you know.

When you get sent to bed when.

You'Re 3, 4, 5, without food, it creates a tremendous amount of fear of being hungry in you. My parents weren't trying to Be mean. They weren't bad people. That's just what they were raised on, you know, that's how they treated it. So I remember my first day of first gr. David Carranine kung fu lunchbox. Remember, David carried. He was on the front. It was. Whoever he was.

And.

And so I remember it was snack time that day. Kids brought in the milk, we got our milks, and everybody else ate their snack and ate my entire lunch. And my snack, ate everything. Yes, because I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to eat. And so that. And then. And then it turned to sneaking food. And then. And then basically whenever I was having a tough time, I would eat.

Now, being a high school and college football player was easy for me to hide when I was eating because I was busy.

Yeah, I was athletic. I was a big guy. I mean, when I was in college, I played defensive line. I was 6, 3, 2, 80. You know what I'm saying? I was a big guy. You know what I'm saying? So.

And you were.

Yeah.

You were rewarded for it.

Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, when the coach says, you know what? You could be one of the best.

Players we've had at our school, I'm.

Like, yes, I could, but. And then you get out of football.

And the next thing you know, you're still eating the way you are, you know, and.

Right. And so.

And so.

But interestingly enough, you. Most of the time, you're eating, you're not eating because of physical hunger, eating because of emotional hunger.

Mm.

Emotional hunger. It's very similar to physical hunger. Right. You still get the same feeling in your. In your stomach and whatnot. But the difference is real hunger kind of comes on over time. Emotional hunger comes in like that. And, you know, it was interesting, while I was working on myself and getting better, I was talking to a psychologist. Pardon me, a psychiatrist, and said, hey, let me ask you a question. I said, how is it that I can eat a full meal and then an hour later I want something like shrimp scampi? She's like, well, you know, you've been training your brain your entire life that food is a safety mechanism. It's a safety blanket. It's how we get protected. And so our brains work on neuroplasticity.

Whatever we tell it to do, it's going to do. And the more we do it, the more, you know, ingrained it gets.

And so she said, basically, what's happening is even though you're not hungry, your brain's like, okay, anxiety is going to come again. Fear is going to come again. So why don't we just eat and get ahead of it on its own?

You know what I'm saying?

So your brain, you train your brain to protect you. After a while it's like, okay, we get it, let's protect. Oh, you know what?

Oh, we got this.

I have this urge to eat. I have this urge to smoke or do drugs. And it's sometimes it's not even because of a trigger, it's just because we're so used to protecting ourselves with that addiction that it just, it like, okay, it's been an hour, but let's do it anyway.

Wow, that's powerful.

Yeah, right. Yeah. And so the solution part of it is you've got to recognize when these emotions come up, you know, T Harv Eker, you probably millionaire mind. Yeah, right, Becker. So he talks about tfar thoughts, feelings, actions, results. Like we get a thought triggers us, we're supposed to feel an emotion. And then either we take an action or there's inaction, which is still an action, and then there's a result. Yeah, but people who are addicts, people who are avoiders, they go thought, let's not deal with this emotion.

Procrastination, thought drugs, thought alcohol, thought food.

And let's not even deal with that emotion. So if you want to overcome any addiction, including call reluctance or what causes call reluctance, you've got to let that emotion come up and you've got to let it pass. And the best way to do that is through mindfulness, which is really just.

Focusing on the present.

Right. Because we get freaked out when we think about the future and all the bad things can happen, all the anxiety. Right. And there's lots of sadness and depression when we think about the past. But if I'm focusing on what's going on right now, I can't focus on either of those. And I teach people box breathing. You know, in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.

Right.

And that takes you out of your, your fight or flight instinct and into your rest and digest, which is where you're cool, you know, I'm saying? And if you practice that enough, eventually on the good side, your brain takes over there too, and eventually won't let all that crap come in, but you got to work at it.

What landed you in prison, Wally?

Bad choices.

Yes.

Yeah. So pretty much, yeah, Great question. So you know, when, when you live a life full of self sabotage and you're addicted to so many things, when people are addictions, they. We. Well, first of all, we stop developing emotionally.

Right.

We stop developing emotionally because we're numbing.

All of our emotions.

Right. Brene Brown says when you know one emotion, you numb them all. I mean, I can't numb pain and not numb happiness. I can't numb, you know, sadness and not, not, not, not numb love. Right. So you numb everything. So, you know, I'm spending my entire life dealing with all these addictions, spending a stupid amount of money, eating as much as I want, having sex with whoever I want, watching pornography, you know, and then living in shame every day behind that. And, you know, I was spending, making. I want to make money. You know, I had an opportunity to do some real estate investing in 2005 and 2006. I was doing really well in real estate. And, you know, at the time, this was, you know, 2005, 6. This is the wild West. If you could fog a mirror, you.

Could get a loan.

Yes.

You know, the guy that I was working with worked for Countrywide. He's like, there's all kinds of flexible loan systems out, the programs out there. Let's go ahead and let's go buy people's properties that are in distress. We'll pay off all their debt, help them improve their credit.

They can buy their home back.

Yeah. What we did. But unfortunately, he was taking advantage of those flexible nose loans and was basically lying on mortgage applications.

Yeah.

And whatnot.

And, you know, I.

And here's the thing, man.

My name was on paperwork. I did stuff.

I didn't ask questions. I looked the other way on stuff. So I have to accept full responsibility for what happened.

Sure, sure.

But, I mean, I wasn't trying to steal money, but I wasn't exactly trying.

To do things to stop it. And so he ended up submitting about $15 million worth of loan applications to multiple banks. And, you know, people lost their houses because he stopped paying mortgages. And he was going to casinos and buying cars and doing dumb stuff with it. And so the FBI called and said, you know, he called and said, hey, the FBI wants to talk to us. I'm like, why would the FBI want to talk to us? He said, well, seems what we were doing was ille. I'm like, mike, I asked you if it was legal. He goes, I know. So, you know, I hired an attorney in 2008. It took me five years to figure out if I was going to prison or not. And I got one count of mail fraud, and I spent 366 days in prison.

So that will affect your attitude?

Oh, it will, indeed.

I'm guessing it wasn't hardcore prison, but it's nonetheless, it's still bars, right?

I was in prison camp, you know, I'm saying, I mean, there's no walls around it or anything like that, but it's still prison, right? You know, you're treated like a prisoner, you know, I mean, you have really no rights or very few rights, you know. I'm saying they'll treat you the way they want.

If they want to take your stuff.

And throw it around, if they want to punish you, they'll punish you.

You know what I'm saying? And you know, in, in prison's kind of like the bizarro world. And outside, you know, you're, you're innocent until proven guilty. In prison, you're guilty until proven innocent, right?

Here's the thing.

Like, you know, if you're in a room, you know, because there's guys, there's rooms, or there's like, you know, two room, they're like cinder block rooms, probably eight by six, about, you know, six foot high, cinder blocks with bunk beds, couple lockers. You know, you're selly, that's what they call him.

If he screws up, you get screwed up too. So if he has tobacco and he.

Doesn'T own it, then you both go to the shoe until they find out who owns it.

Wow. So did they lock you in your room?

We got, at night. So we got locked in at night and not in a room, but we got locked into the, into the, the sleeping area that you know or the, where we lived.

Okay.

Every, every day we got locked in from 9 o' clock until 6 o'.

Clock the next morning.

And was, was there more than just you and your roomie there?

Oh yeah, there were probably a little over 350 people in the two different sides of the camp.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, mostly. Most, about 80 of the people there for drugs. Some of them, some of them were there for, you know, white collar crimes or, you know, one of the guys that was there was, was, was there for stealing corn, right? Stealing a lot of corn and taking it across state lines. You know what I'm saying? I mean, there's some dumb stuff, but, but mostly mostly drugs. I mean, meth was huge, you know I'm saying. And so a lot of guys were there and you know, the government, you know, when they, when they created, when Rudy Giuliani worked with the government to, I believe when they created the RICO act and started using, you know, the.

Ability to take down a bunch of people through association, they Started applying that to the drug thing. And so, you know, they find some guy that had, you know, 4 grams of meth on him, and they'd say, hey, you're part of this ring.

We heard you take a phone call.

From the big guy.

If you roll over on him, we'll.

Give you a lighter sentence. And so guys were going to prison for not even doing a whole lot of stuff there, even though they did.

It, you know, so. Yeah, and it does. And, you know, interestingly enough, I did not work on the things I needed to work on.

I lost a bunch of weight, which I gained all back when I got out, but I didn't work on all the mental and emotional stuff. And so when I got out, I went right back to making bad decisions again. In fact, I started dating somebody. And I so badly wanted to be in love, and I so badly wanted to do a better job than my marriage that I looked by all the red flags and very toxic relationship. I was with this woman for four and a half years, and she took engagement ring from me, and we were gonna get married. She was supposed to move down from.

Illinois to be with me.

And.

Basically, I broke up with her.

Because she wouldn't come down. And then the two days later, I found out that she was married the entire time we were together.

Wow.

Wow.

That she had lied to me about everything.

And so for me, that was like, you know what? This is the last bad decision and the thousands of bad decisions I made. And I decided I was gonna take my own life. And, you know, a. A very. You know, literally sitting right here in my house in a. In a leather chair, and I was looking out the French doors, looking at the. The light on the garage, and I'm like, you know, I don't have a gun. I'm a felon. I have a gun. I'm like, I couldn't take all the medicine I had. It wasn't enough to kill me. I'm like, you know, maybe what I'll do is I'll call the police and run after them with a knife, and maybe they'll shoot me slitting my wrists. And then God's like, hey, you remember your dad died?

Remember how crappy it was?

You know what I'm saying? Like, me dad when I was 23, like, you're gonna do this to your kids? And I said, no. And so then I decided I was going to work on myself. And I was 49 at that time.

Wow.

So, yeah.

What's the best attitude lesson that you learned in prison?

Wow. You know what I think getting into, you know, you have to, you know, and I think, you know, Dale Carnegie talks about this in not how to win friends and influence people, but he talks about it and how to stop worrying and start living.

Right.

And one of the things he says.

Is you got to live in day tight compartments.

Right?

Right. I can't do anything about yesterday. I got nothing to do about tomorrow. Let me just do the best I can for today and not worry about it. Just get into my daily rituals and do what I need to do and just focus on doing everything. I'm doing the best I can at that moment. And just have an attitude of gratitude.

If you will, for what's going on and for the fact that, you know what, you still have a bed, you still have a pillow, you're still eating, you still have clothes. You know, I'm saying. And, you know, your family is still taken care of. So, you know, it's the attitude of gratitude and you're just doing the best you can to get through each day and not worrying about what happened yesterday, what's happening tomorrow.

Was there a. Was there a inmate there that either took you under his wing or showed you the way? Or was there, you know, an inmate that was an old philosopher? Or was there a guy that you were particularly, particularly, like, drawn to and you're like, this son of a gun's got some good stuff. I'd love to know his name. And what did he teach you?

It's interesting that you asked that question. You know, I. You know, when I got There, I weighed 480 pounds. And, you know, I basically gave them the clothes that I was wearing and.

Said, you can throw these away because they were just a mess. And. And so they gave me a white jumpsuit and a T shirt. And the jumpsuit only went up to, like, my belly button. I couldn't get it over my stomach. Oh, and they give you these slippers, and they're like, you can't wear these too long because they're just for transition. And so I got there, I had no shoes. You know, I had to get rid of these. And the commissary didn't open until Wednesday. I couldn't get my boots because it was Labor Day weekend.

And so for the first time in.

My life, I did not have shoes to wear.

Wow. I mean, of all the things, you think, I could not find a pair.

Of shoes that fit me.

And so there was a guy there, and this isn't the guy that helped.

Me, but the Christian group there Was really good. They give everybody, whether you're a Christian or not. Everybody got, like, a bag full of toiletries and all kinds of other stuff. And so the guy brought me a pair of sneakers that fit me. I had size 14 sneakers. These sneakers had been worn by probably no less than 10 guys. My gosh, one of them had laces. One of them had boot laces. And those are my sneakers for about a week. And I was very grateful for that, but just helping you understand, you know, the, you know, having an attitude. But there was a guy named Rex there who'd been in for 19 years. He had four, five, six years more years to go. And, you know, I used to walk up to Rex and be like, hey, what's he. I go, what's up, Rex?

He would say, your paycheck.

And my blood pressure, you know, and.

You know, he had been down for, like, 19 years, and he just.

He had a really good attitude and definitely, you know, a believer. And, you know, when I was having tough times, you know, he would sit and talk with me and just say.

Listen, you know what?

You just have to make the best of it.

You know, the hardest days were, like.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, you know what I'm saying? And he's like, look, he says, you know, this is not up for everything. This is not terminal. Eventually, this will be over someday, and you really have to look at it that way. You know, I'm saying that it's all going to end someday, and you're going to go back into your life and you can go ahead and do all the things you want to do.

Right.

Oh, you know, but he. You know, whenever he needed to talk.

He'D sit and talk with me.

He told me his story. I mean, he tried to kill himself right after he got to prison, and, you know, somebody came and saved him. And so it's just. It's interesting, you know, how you can go from somebody who, you know, he was the same. He was addicted to meth. He was cheating on his wife. He was making meth and selling it. And, you know, now he's in prison. He's one of the most respected guys there, you know, I'm saying, and treating people well and people looking to him for advice and direction and support, and, you know, he was definitely one of the guys that helped me get through that, for sure.

Wow. What. You had mentioned that you were bullied as a kid. Like, give us a story of the, you know, what. What bullying incident affected your attitude the most? And how did you learn? Because, look, at it's happening. Right. People right now have kids that are being bullied. There's kids that might be listening to this that are being bullied. Like, tell us. Tell us that one instance where, you know, where that happened. What was it? What happened? And what are your thoughts on bullying? And how could you, because of being bullied, how can you help those who are seeking answers to move past it?

Yeah. You know, the kids down the street, they made up a poem about my.

Family, and it was the Nut family. So they called me Walnut and my mother Chestnut and my sister Peanut, and they had made like a whole song and rhyme about it. And they used to say that every time they came to see me.

That's rough.

And.

Yeah, because I. And because I didn't have any, you know, any emotional management, you know, they knew they could get a rise out of me. You know what I'm saying?

Yes.

Interestingly enough, my parents never taught me to protect myself physically. Although they did take me to this funny story, and it's funny now, but they took me to karate, gave me classes, bought me a gi, and as soon as they dropped me off, I went over to the bowling alley and bought candy and played video games for the hour and then came back and waited for them. But, you know, I. I didn't learn how to protect myself physically, so I learned how to protect myself verbally. So I became, you know, for lack of better word, a verbal assassin. Like, I could say anything I wanted to.

To hurt you, but you, you are very witty. You are very witty.

So appreciate that. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

So people like, like, you can't hurt my feelings. I grip a fat kid. You know what I'm saying? So. But I kid. But. And half kidding.

So anyway, we were out one day.

You know, when you're younger and you're bullied, you want to be included so badly, right?

Yes.

You know, and here's the thing. If anybody's listening to this, like, we get. We get it. We get approval two places because we spend most of our time there. We look for it at home and at school. If you don't get it at home and you don't get it at school, it really. It really strengthens our need for approval and our need for, you know, acceptance. So high. And this is why I call. Reluctance is so pervasive in sales.

Interesting.

60% of salespeople have a very, very strong need for approval and acceptance and to be liked. And they're not going to put themselves in a situation where they could be rejected or not. Like, so they're not likely to pick the phone up because of that. Okay. And newer sales people, it's like 89. And only. Only 27 of the top 10 of sales people have sales car reluctance. So anyway, I digress. But somebody. We're playing in the road and we have their bikes and we're taking turns jumping. Okay. And we decided that we were going to jump over each other. They're like, you go first.

Okay, no problem.

So I laid down, but instead of jumping over me, they rode their bikes over me.

That's tough.

That was horrible.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, they literally, like, not. Not width wise, like lengthwise, you know, I'm saying near my face. And it was.

It was a pretty horrible experience.

I mean, you know, I had a lot of nightmares anyway, but that was a pretty horrible experience.

Wow.

You know, I have a couple of.

My kids have been bullied. And you know what I've learned is, is that people bullying you has nothing to do with you.

It has zero to do with you. My mother used to say, well, they wouldn't bully you and play. They wouldn't teach you and have fun with you if they didn't like you. Yeah, they would. In fact, they would because they're angry, terrible people. That's why. But, you know, she thought it was because they were investing the time in.

Me that, you know, people were bullying you.

They're bullying you out of the fact.

That they don't like themselves.

Right, exactly right.

They have misplaced anger.

They're projecting their feelings and they're hurting.

You because they're hurting.

Right.

Hurt people.

Hurt people.

And, you know, there is something to be said about standing up to a bully, but also doing it in a nice way. You know what I'm saying? And so if kids are bullying you, you know, walk away if you can, you know, don't engage them because they want you to engage them, but don't personalize it, internalize it. Right. Because we don't need anybody's acceptance in this world except for our own.

Yes.

I've been telling my kids this forever. You know, I'm saying you don't need anybody. You don't even need my acceptance or your mother's acceptance or approval. Only one person after approve you, and that's you. And somebody not liking who does not.

Make you not likable. Somebody not loving you does not make you not lovable.

Right.

I love it. Yeah. That's so good.

Yep. We don't need other people's. Approval and acceptance.

We just have to have it of ourselves.

And here's the thing. If somebody's really bullying you, tell your.

Parents and them do something about it, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Like bullying. Bullying my kids, you know, it was.

The wrong thing to do because I was bullied as a kid.

You know, you. You picked on the wrong kid to make fun of, I'll tell you that much. You know, because I spent a lot.

Of time in school sticking up for my kids, you know, so, sure, that was me.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, in the terms of success and in the terms of people hating winners. Right. I mean, there's. We have a lot of very successful people that listen to this podcast, and as I talk to these folks, and they go, God, I've worked so hard. I've done so much, and yet there's still people out there that are backstabbing me. That. And I try not to let it affect me. And I try to say, guys, it's all them. It's not you. Right. And so.

Yeah, well, especially if I may say something, and because you operate. We've only met once. We spent a couple days together. We had dinner together. And, you know, you are clearly salt of the earth. You know, you. You come from a position of. Of. Of a high level of service. You know, you're a believer. You know, I'm saying you definitely honor your relationship with God, which I really respect, and I think you treat people the way that God wants us to.

Treat people, you know?

Yes.

So.

But the problem is, is. And I try and do that now, too. The problem is, is when we do.

That, and you have, you know, when we do that, it also leaves us open to be taken advantage of. And even though we don't want to be hurt by stuff like that, sometimes it does hurt us because we do.

We do serve at such a high level and want really zero in return.

Sure.

You know, and now that we're doing things for gratitude reasons, like, I'm not.

Doing something nice so I can get.

Thank you. Like those people that get upset when somebody doesn't wave back when they let them in, like what you did, you.

Let them in, so you get a wave.

I mean, really. But, you know, I'm saying we're not doing it for gratitude. We're doing it because we want to help people. And it's just tough when you're like, hey, I try and conduct myself as a good person and take care of people. So when people say stuff about me, you know, it sucks.

And usually we don't let it bother us, but occasionally we're having a rough day. And that person said that about me, like, you rad bastard. But overall, you know, we don't want to keep us from moving forward and doing it again.

I want to take it back to your college football days. You know, that's. That's a big commitment. There's a lot. There's a lot to be learned. And it was obviously probably a time maybe where you were the happiest, most accepted, least bullied, and maybe been some of the best years of your life right before shit hit the fan, right? So tell me the attitude. Maybe that's wrong. What. What was the attitude. What was the attitude lesson of college football for you?

Well, you know, that's. Actually, I just got that yesterday from one of the coaches. That's the helmet for my college. I'm like, I want to represent. So I put that up on the shelf there. So that's.

Where did you go? Hamilton. That's right, yeah.

New York. You know, so here's the thing. By the time I was 18, I was a mess.

You know, I'm saying.

I mean, I really did not like myself.

I mean, I, you know, wasn't drinking a lot at that time.

I was in great shape because I.

Played football, but, you know, I was making money, wasting it out.

You know, my priorities at school were, you know, my fraternity, partying, having sex, and then, you know, pardon me, it was my football, then my fraternity, then.

Having sex and partying in school. You know, in fact, I got a 75 the first semester my freshman year, which is not bad when your mother's been an educator for the past 40 years of that time. She's like, I'm gonna make it real easy on you. You need to get a B or better. Know your classes in the second semester. There's no fraternity, there's no football.

Right. Miraculously, I got, you know, all bees are better, so.

Wow.

Yeah. Strange enough. But, you know, here's the thing.

It's an attitude lesson right there.

Yeah. Literally. Right. You know. You know, here's the thing. When your back's up against the wall, you can, you know, you can fold or you can fight, but, you know, I just did not like myself. I hit it really well, though, you know what I'm saying? I mean, small campus, and I was very fortunate. I let it all four years there, you know, I'm saying I was a college football preview magazine preseason All American my senior year. Had a lot of fun, made a lot of great Connections. But inside I just did not.

I hated myself. I was not happy.

Wow.

You know, I started having depression my junior year. I remember my senior year, I started.

Having anxiety because I hadn't had a job. I mean, I think we're roughly the same age.

Right. So when did you graduate from college? I graduated 90.

I never graduated, but it would have been, it would have been 90 if I did.

Yeah. Okay. So we're pretty much the same age, so.

Yeah.

Anyway, but the whole point is, you know, that was a double dip recession, second time, second worst year since World War II to graduate, you know, to get a job. So it was tough and I was freaking out. And, you know, I just, I did not like myself at all.

And I hated, you know, I hated being there. I almost left to my book. I tell the story about telling one of my position coach Paul 80. I'm like, I want to go. He's like, what are you stupid? Why would you leave this?

You know what I'm saying?

And so got me to stay and I'm glad I did. Some of my best friends on the planet are from school. But, you know, football is good because it made me show up every day. It forced me to focus on going and playing. And I didn't, you know, since I was lettering, since my freshman year, I didn't want to lose my starting position.

You know what I mean?

Sure.

So I, I fought through the sadness.

And the anxiety and the depression and.

I went there and, you know, played.

I mean, I probably could have done a better job, but, you know, it at least made me have to show up, up all year round for lifting in football. So even though it wasn't the happiest, I was in the best shape of my life at that time and it forced me to put on the happiest face that I could. And you know, college football is not easy, you know, I'm saying because, you.

Know, you're, you know, you're, you know.

You got double sessions before school year. You got two, two weeks of double sessions at least. You got, you know, you got two and a half months of a football season. It's, you know, and then, you know, you travel. You know, sometimes we left on a Friday, got back on late Saturday, you know, so your weekend shot, you're doing your homework, you know, whenever you can. I mean, it's easily, you know, probably with, with practice and, you know, it's easily probably what, a 30 hour commitment.

During the week, you know, if not more or more. Right. I mean, you played, you played D1, I played D3.

So, you know, but even then, you know, when we flew or when we traveled by bus or whatever, you know, we leave it Friday afternoon at like 2:00'.

Clock.

And then we're. We'd be on the bus all day. We'd go there, we'd have walk through, we'd have dinner, go to bed, play Saturday, shower up, eat dinner and drive back. We get back late Saturday night, you know, we'd have to be back at the field house on Sunday for conditioning or getting treatment and stuff like that. And, you know, so it required me to show up and use my time really wisely, you know, and it taught me a lot of discipline, for sure.

You know, but I was, I was, I was bullied.

Made fun of in college too.

Yeah, because it was an easy target.

Right?

You know what I'm saying? You could get a rise out of me really easily. And so I was an easy target.

So how, how do you deflect that? How do you, how do you. I guess you could walk away or you could punch somebody in the face. But if walking away and not punching somebody in the face or assaulting them verbally did. How did you learn to cope with that? Or did you just accept it and let it roll off your back? Is that probably the most healthy way to do it and just not listen?

I, you know, the biggest thing that I learned is that once you accept yourself for who you are and that you realize that you just don't need anybody's approval or acceptance, people can say whatever they want about you.

Love it.

And sometimes they would say stuff about me and I would agree with them, you know, you're fat.

I kind of am.

I need to lose some weight, don't I? Yeah, that takes all the power away from me. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So.

So when we talk about everyday hard work and rituals and not letting other people affect your mentality or your attitude, right. This gets into what you do. And Wally has coached some of the most successful salespeople in the nation. He has the trigger sales system. And we were down to about the last five minutes. So I just want to just finish with your thoughts for the people that are in sales. And I've always said, I don't care if you're a doctor, a shoe salesman or a dressmaker. Everybody's selling something. You gotta be. If anything, you're selling yourself on why what you're doing is okay. Talk to us a little bit about your philosophy or your attitude when it comes to sales and what that sales trigger system really means.

Yeah. And by the way, we've been selling since we were a kid. We want the extra cookie. We want 15 minutes of video game time. We want to date with the girl, we want to get into college, we want to get married and meet somebody. We're selling ourselves all the way through our entire life.

Right.

So like you said, everybody's a salesperson at one point or another. I think the most important thing, and it's going to take a second here, like so many people are going to help other people. I want to help other people. I want to serve other people. But what happens is a lot of people don't take care of themselves first and make sure that they're in good shape, which makes it hard for them to really serve at the highest level.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

I use that analogy or the metaphor of being on the plane. They're like, you know, in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, a.

Mask is going to come down. Put your, you know, even though the bag doesn't inflate, there's auction to put yours on first. Then you can help other people.

Yes.

Right.

So many people get into to real.

Estate because of time, freedom, money, freedom, location, freedom, like freedom. Cliff Freeman calls them three freedoms. Right, Right. And they want all that, but the problem is they put all of the stuff they need to deal with themselves on the side and focus on other people. And so as I'm working with other people, all my stuff is getting worse. And eventually my, you know, your brain's gonna be like, let's go. We get a deal with this, you know, So I think if you want to be an effective salesperson, you have to make sure you're taking care of yourself mentally, emotionally, psychologically.

Right.

You've got to make sure you're doing the training, make sure you're, you know, you're doing the things you need to do to be successful.

And then as you're taking care of.

Yourself and improving your skill set as you're focusing on other people, you make it about them and not make it about you. You know, my, my program trigger sales system helps people who have trouble getting on the phone and in front of a video camera identify why they can't get on the phone and why they can't get in front of the camera. By the way, it has nothing to do with the phone or the camera.

Right.

The only one's going to hurt you, Glenn, is if I throw it really hard at you or if you break it up into pieces.

And try and eat it.

Right.

Otherwise, this is not going to hurt you. Right, Right. So what it really has to do with what's going to happen on the other end of the phone, hurting feelings.

Rejection, not being accepted, not being approved of, all stuff that happened when they were kids. And so I teach people to go and find out what the actual reason is, and then I teach them how.

To Then.

You know, I deal with the pain. And then, like you talk about, basically change what they're saying to themselves, change what they're believing. You know, I'm saying. And it takes for most people, about eight weeks. But now when they couldn't get on the phone, there's people who can get on the phone and are having great sales as a result of it.

That's awesome. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you just heard from the great Wally Bressler. He is the author of Tragic Picking up the Pieces. If you're somebody that feels like they got some pieces that they need to pick up in their life, I'm telling you, you need to pick up this book. You need to go wallybrestler.com you need to engage, Wally. If you're somebody that's an entrepreneur, starting your own business, that has a business that's in sale. I've seen Wally on stage. I've watched him work. He's a genius when it comes to phone sales and really sales overall. So I would encourage you to look him up. Wally, one thing we always like to do is have you tell our gappers just in about a minute or so. We're down to about the last minute before we get on our next one, but I'd love you to just give your message of hope to those people, people that are sitting in their cars, that are walking down the street, that are listening to this podcast wherever they are, what's your message of hope for them for the coming year and for their life?

It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how bad things were at any point in your life. It doesn't matter what terrible, horrible things you have done or you think you've done. It doesn't matter how long things have been going on. There's still a chance for you to.

Create the life that you want.

I mean, I went through 40 to.

45 years of addictions to sex and pornography and money and food. And, you know, I left prison with 54 cents to my name in 2014. All of my kids have gone through a tough time. One of them, you know, tried to take their own life. I mean, a lot of bad things have happened in my life because of what happened to me and what I did. And, you know, now I'm sitting here in front of you telling you that there is hope and that, you know, you don't need to hit rock bottom to make the changes. You just got to make a decision that you want a better life for yourself.

I love it. Well, I. Thanks for your candor. Thanks for your compassion. Thanks for giving our people, I think, really the hope and the reality that through pain, you can become a champion and come out on top, which is what you're doing. And you're an inspiration to us, and we love having you. Wally Bressler on the Get Attitude podcast. We will see you on the next episode.

Thank you.