S1 E26 - After The Storm

Welcome to the Broke to Woke podcast. Our mission for this podcast is to help each and every person out there in the world not only become a force for good, but also uncover those micro magical mental moments that help you become an absolute cerebral pyromaniac. Okay, folks, we're back. Brittany and I are wearing our cry shirts.

Cry shirts, preferably. Mine would have sleeves on it, though.

That makes the most sense.

Little sniffle roux.

Yes, that makes the most sense. So, Bernie, how'd you get over the challenges, the internal challenges that, you know, you and I were talking about? So the suicidal tendencies, I mean, that's. That had to come up in your life at that point?

I mean, it did.

You're thrown up in the trash can at work.

Yeah.

You're stressed to the max. You can't sleep, you can't eat.

It's so crappy because it's like everything volcanoes at the same time, you know, Lost almost all my staff. Lost the closest people to me. Turned, went with him. They learned since, but they turned on me. Like, this was like the father figure in my life at the time. Left.

Him.

You getting that your lawsuit was happening, mentally?

Three lawsuits.

Three.

Three lawsuits. And, like, lost almost all my money. It was just the worst and the hardest part was how people act when you're going through that. I think, what do you mean? People are idiots, and they have no grace. They have no idea what to talk to. They just go, well, did you deserve it? You're like, no one deserves that. Some really smart, sweet, like, close to you people, well, what did you do? And you're like, oh, my gosh. So it doesn't matter how dominant the personality is or how whatever, we all have feelings, and it can be really, really difficult. And then I love God. I'm a Christian, always have been. Did not have some people, quote, unquote, in the church that were kind. And I even had somebody really close to me who. Who knew that I would be dead, physically, not alive.

Killed by this person, and still said, you shouldn't leave him because God hates divorce that much. And that was the hard thing to deal with, was these quote, unquote, close people to you. And that's why it's so important to know God yourself. What would a loving father want for his daughter? And that was literally the phrase that kept me alive, was that. And I held onto that. So I can tell you, there were days that were so dark. I lost the vision for my future. I had lost myself. I didn't want to live anymore. And it was bad That I lived in a condo on the 14th floor. And I thought about jumping off so many times, so many times.

And I did the whole.

Walk up to the whiteboard. Thank God I had a whiteboard in my condo. I've got a whiteboard in every building that I own.

Do you?

Oh, yeah. I still have one in my house right now. And I went up to it, and my little sister would force me to say, what is working in your life?

What is working in your life? And again, sometimes it was, I have legs. That's it. That's where that came from. It's like that's literally all I have. I have no friends. Most my family has turned on me.

I had no money almost. I had nobody believing anymore. All my investors were so mad because they were worried about their own money. They. They never freaking lost anything. They're all fine. No one lost anything but me. But when you're down, it's interesting. It's like all the people who are for you start to feel like vultures because they start caring about themselves. And it was sucked, man. Yeah, it really sucked. I didn't get one day off.

But you can overcome.

Suicide.

By starting over and starting to create a powerful vision for your life. You know, I came up with something weird. I've never shared this before. Tell me if you're suicidal or have a season of. It doesn't mean it's like in you or whatever way. Most people have dealt with those thoughts at some point in their life. So just have a strategy. If you've ever had suicidal thoughts.

Don'T tell yourself, don't kill yourself. Da, da, da. Just be like, all right, you can kill yourself, but first you need to do that thing, Whatever it is. The thing is that you want to do before you die, you should go do it. And then be like, you know what? Before I go, I also got to do this other thing, and then I should do this other thing. What's cool is as you start to feel progress, even if it's just like being completely present in a conversation with somebody, having really truly presence, because you're like, this could be my last words. What's interesting is in that presence, you're sensing human connection. You start to sense love, you start to sense purpose, and you stop wanting to kill yourself. I know it sounds weird. Again, it didn't last forever, but it was just. It was my thing. I'm like, you know what? I still haven't written that book. Can't do it until I do that. And so you start developing what you lose. And the number one thing with suicidal thoughts and depression is you don't have a vision of the future and you're talking to Ms. Live an intentional life. And I still dealt with this. I taught classes on it, and I still dealt with this. So I did my own little homework. I literally went back and reread my old posts, and I was like, all right, you're making a freaking vision board.

Yeah.

It was so hard because every vision I'd ever had was going to be with him. Had him in every picture. Time to start over. Okay, there's a different picture. That is. Sucks, man. Ugh. But you've got to keep going because many are called and few are chosen. And when you're tied to someone who chooses to jump off the train, you can't stop them.

Yeah.

You cannot force another human being to stay in the calling. Even if your calling was for to be together, God will redeem it. You know, that was one of the assurances was like, he left me first. That's what God. I felt like God was saying. And it was like, I still don't even understand exactly what all happened. That's the mind effort. It's like I don't even know every single part of exactly what happened. And I had to surrender it. I had to say, lord, I'll know. It could be 20 years someday I'll know. But I do know that I was spared from a lifetime of pain, however short that lifetime would have ended up being. But.

Yeah, that's my strategy. That's what I've got. Find a way to develop some kind of a vision for the future.

The crazy part is, I think that's gonna. You say that might sound crazy, but it sounds so simplistic. And I know how profound that is because that's helped people in my situation and other situations. Because when you have overwhelming odds.

And everything is against you and you're just there and why. Why am I still here?

You have to start going. All right, let me just take this one step. Yeah, just this one tiny. This is meaningless. Let me just. Oh. All right. Well, since I'm here, if I've gone this far, let me take that one more step and make sure I do this thing beforehand. And you're right. I think it's. I think it can help. And.

I really hope people know your intention with this is from the purest of hearts.

And from just the biggest ball of love that you are and a creative mastermind. Because I want you to think just from a business perspective and the personal Perspective and the friendship perspective. You and I have the opportunity of doing so many things in the future, and we wouldn't have been able to do that if you and I weren't here. And the people that we're going to be able to help and the things that we're going to be able to create and the visions and the futures. Amazing. And then all the people that can be helped from there. And it's just this amazing amalgamation of incredible opportunity. That's what spurs from the darkest of nights, as you've mentioned, with every.

Path that we think is going to stop and it's going to end and we can't walk down. It's like there's always a way.

There is always a way.

There's always a way. We don't want it to be. A lot of times we don't want there to be a way. It's easier if there's not a way, right?

Oh, we tried. We tried, tried. No holy sounding excuse why it didn't work out.

It is. But you know what? The few people that are going to continue to try, the ones who are crazy enough to think that they're going to change the world are usually the ones who do.

You know that quote's on my door.

It's on your door because you know you're going to change this world.

Crazy enough to think I can at least.

And therefore, that's what's gonna happen.

If this story that I've never shared before, even as a slobbery mess, can help one person understand their worth, understand that no matter what, how compelling, whatever the person on paper who is supposed to love you, no matter how compelling it sounds. Cause they know you.

Yeah.

You know.

Know your worth. You are a child of God. You should be treated like one. You're nobody's doormat. You're nobody's punching bag. You're nobody's place to dump all their junk on. You are an amazing, worthy child of God. And you are deserving to be loved. Doesn't matter what you've ever done before. You are deserving. Even if you've lashed back out, too. It's called provoked. It happens.

You're going to lash out.

It does happen. Of course, it doesn't mean you deserve to continue to be a punching bag. Verbally, emotionally, or physically. It's all horrible. Gah. Horrible. So you will rebuild. Yep, you can. And you call back, say, God, I ask you to redeem this, and he will give you something better and someone better.

So, yeah, that's the part that we might not think is even possible.

The thing I didn't think was possible was to ever thank God for that experience. You can see I'm still like, oh, I still cry that it was horrible. And I did. I did. I still thank God because.

Even if it wasn't just even about me, in the following three months, after my divorce was finalized, I helped three women not kill themselves. Like, literally about to jump. Like, literally about to shoot, pulling triggers. And they didn't do it. Because when you go through something, you now have a grace to understand what's happening inside someone. And you can say just the thing that stops them because, you know, you have the stripes to prove that you get it. And I knew exactly what somebody had said, how they felt. I understood and was like, this is how to beat that. This is how to overcome that. So not everything you go through is for you. You have to understand that sometimes you're allowed to go through it because you're strong enough to live through other things that other people would not be strong enough to overcome. But you'll be able to have the lesson to pour into that person who's not as strong.

And that's it. That's like. That's the most profound thing I've heard all day. I'm serious. Because you are strong enough to do it. You, me, other people, when you're going through something, realize that my friends really let that sink in, that the only reason it might be happening is simply because you are the strongest person that can be chosen to do that.

Maybe you were picked to go. This person is strong enough to do it. There's a lot of Bible characters I could probably name. They were chosen, singled out, hand picked, if you will, to do certain things that no one else could do.

I think you're absolutely right. I think that's, in a way, if we. If we have. After the grief, you have to have the grief. That's okay to have the grief. Like I talked about, the realization that, yep, you're in pain, you're in torment, you're in torture. It's scary, it's terrifying, it's frustrating, it's horrible. But after that grief, to be able to know and if you can sit back and think and figure out a way to find the privilege of it happening for you, it's crazy. And not to you. That's my least favorite quote, but it's my favorite quote, one of my favorite quotes, because I hate it so much, because how true it is. If you can make that shift and realize, yeah, it's happening to me for me, because I'm strong enough to help someone else through this. Because I'm gonna know you helping those women are now alive and happy and happy because you had all that on your shoulders, all this pressure holding you down, and yet you grab and you pull and you go out, you come out, you take that one step that seems irrelevant, you know, and then you just do another one, and then you do another one, and you refine your purpose and you refine your vision.

I want to point out how profound the one step at a time is when you're going through something really big and really traumatic. The hardest part is to not get lost in all the things you have to now figure out. Like, I can't imagine all the things you had to figure out because you were so tied to your nephew and all these plans and all these fears and the projections. Your survivor brain is trying to say you're gonna die. Like, all these things, and then you get lost in it. And when you're that stressed, like, exhaust, like, all the things worried, you have to just say, I can only take this one step. And that's what I had to do to even, like, get to putting my clothes on to then make it to work. It's like, all I have to do is go brush my teeth.

Yeah.

All I have to do is get in the car. All I have to do is go up this elevator. That's it. So you just. The one. Next thing. Be present, be present. Recognize. Look at your hands. Am I currently in danger?

Yeah. Yeah.

Am I about to die right now? No. Then you are okay. You are okay. Pull it back to center. And I want to encourage people. You know, you go through things all the time. Like we said, it's not always for you sharing your story. I didn't want to share this story with y'. All. Of course I knew I was gonna cry. Probably. I didn't feel like it.

Big cry baby.

I didn't feel like it. It's still hard. But if it helps one person in the world, which it will, if it does, it's not even my business to know, necessarily. I may never know, but it will. I may get haters from it. I probably will.

That's true, too.

The point is, whatever you've overcome, if you can possibly help someone else through it, then it is your responsibility to share.

Love it.

More sharing to come.

More sharing to come.

More ideas, more dreams, more hopes and more bridges. More mental hurdles, my friends and listeners, to help us all become woke. Because that's the goal and the mission of this podcast. So Brittany, thank you for sharing this day with me.

You're the best.

I really appreciate it. Folks and friends, thank you so much for listening and for watching. You guys rock.

Thank you for listening to the Broke to Woke podcast. You can learn more at geforcemastermind.com or by following us on Instagram @GeForce mastermind like the Broke to Woke podcast, Click the link in our description to join a Mastermind with other force for good entrepreneurs just like you who are taking their life and their businesses to the next level.