Use These Key Things to Adapt when Facing Adversities in your Life Feat. Rene Nelson

Imagine you're sitting in a doctor's office and your spouse or loved one is told, I'm sorry, you have terminal cancer and you have less than six months to live. What would you do? Would you panic? Or would you have peace? I'm going to teach you five keys today to clarify your mental mindset and how to deal with adversity when it hits. Let me share my screen with you. This is my husband Bob, and Bob and I have been married for 30 wonderful years. On January 5th of 2021, he was diagnosed with stage 4 bone cancer, and his doctor told him that he has six months to live. At the time that the doctor was delivering that news to him, he looked right at me and said, go home and get your affairs in order. And I thought to myself, so what now? What you see? So what is the beginning of the process now? What is the action that you take? We all know the amazing Jennifer Carroll, who has taken a year off from genius. But Jennifer's mantra was bend over and take it like a man, unlike Jennifer's husband. My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer two times previously and he beat it both times. But this time it's come back as single cell carcinoma, which is a fast and aggressive bone cancer in its terminal. When the news was delivered to me about my husband's health and what was coming ahead of us, I decided that instead of being in a state of adversity, I wanted to thrive. We all know our beloved leader, Joe Polish, decided to take a sabbatical because his friend Mark passed away. Mark had everything. He was active, he was healthy, he was 59 years old and he was rich. He was worth $300 million, but he died instantly. As a high achiever, how often do you put your clients needs ahead of your own? How often do you put off things like going to the doctor, getting into shape, updating your will, or getting your financial affairs in order? In 2015, I had a client whose husband passed away and he had always managed their money and their real estate portfolio. Right after he passed away, their property manager embezzled $30,000 and skipped town. A few months later, my client was sued for over $900,000 for a mistake that this property manager had created. After watching all the pain and agony that my client was going through, I decided to write a book called They're Gone, and it's a survivor's guide to help women deal with their financial affairs and their real estate portfolio when their spouse or loved one passes away. When writing this book, I decided that I wanted to make sure my own financial affairs were in order. So my husband and I updated our wills and we created a plan to free and clear our house and we put all of our assets into a family trust. I had no idea at the time how later that would give me the financial strength that I needed. I'm going to teach you the five keys that you need to know in order to survive adversity.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

The first one is Planning for today will give you strength for tomorrow in 2018, while training for a four day backpacking trip through the Arizona desert, I developed a pain in my chest that took my breath away. I knew I had a benign lump suddenly, so when I returned from the trip, I went to a surgeon and I asked her to remove it. She called me several days later and indicated that it had morphed into stage three breast cancer and she was referring me to an oncologist. When I met with the oncologist, he told me that we had to be fast and aggressive to beat the cancer and within days I had a chemo port inserted into my chest and I started chemotherapy Within a blink of an eye. I went from being a healthy, successful commercial real estate broker to fighting for my life. I had four rounds of chemotherapy, I lost all my hair, I lost all of my energy, and my oncologist told me to stay home from work to protect my immunity. After my last round of chemo, the surgeon called me and indicated that she had taken my case to the tumor board and that they were recommending a double mastectomy in order to ensure that the breast cancer did not come back. I could have been disappointed and depressed. I I had just survived six months of chemotherapy and I was exhausted. It was a grueling experience, but for me it was just a small bump in the road. When my surgeon told me that I needed to have a double mastectomy, my next question was so what now what? And my now what? Was what day do I show up for surgery? How quick can I recover? And how quick can I go back to the life that I crave? I also experienced total financial peace during that process because of the prior planning that I had completed with my Husband. I was able to take the 12 months off of work and recover and take care of my health. So ask yourself, are you prepared for adversity? When my husband's diagnosis of cancer was shared with me, I knew I had all of the pieces of the puzzle put together. But taking care of a sick loved one is exhausting. My life changed overnight. In the last 30 days, my husband's health has changed drastically. He's had to be rushed to the hospital three times in an ambulance. He's had 10 blood transfusions in over 12 days. His first round of chemotherapy pushed his blood sugars above 800, which is in a stroke level. He developed a blood infection which he was hospitalized for over a week. I actually broke into the hospital and stayed in his room for five days to guarantee he was coming home. When my husband and I were married 30 years ago, we purchased long term health care plans. His premium is $3,000 a year, and for that he now receives over 60 hours a week of skilled in home health care. If I had to pay for that out of pocket, that would cost me $11,180 on a monthly benefit. So save yourself some heartache and reach out to a smart financial advisor like Jim Doo who can help you plan ahead for long term health care and plan for future adversity. Key number two is develop unbreakable grit. I love the Navy seals. They are trained to rewire their brain to not freak out in a time of fear. The average Navy SEAL trains one year before they even become a Navy seal and most drop out because the training is too tough. Even after they become a Navy seal, they train every single day. In my morning training ritual, I get up every morning for the first hour and and I watch Ben Hardy and Evan Carmichael YouTube videos. My goal is to arm myself with positive thoughts so that I can fight off adversity. During the day, Ben talks about training for your future self. What do you put into your mind every day? Are you training for your future self? Key number three is be grateful even in the midst of darkness. The day my surgeon put the chemo port into my chest, I. I sent her roses because I was so grateful for the opportunity that she was giving me. She was giving me a second chance at life. The amazing author BJ Fogg, in his book Tiny Habits, mentioned that every time he changed his mother's bandage, instead of complaining about Kaiser Permanente, he would remind himself and his mother of his fond childhood memories. The day my husband and I came home from his appointment, I made a two Page list front to back of all the fun things that my husband and I have done. And I remind him of that every single day. Key number four is build your tribe of warriors. When I was going through chemotherapy, I read Sage Levine's book, Women Rocking Business. Sage is a brand new Genius Network member and amazing at empowering women. Her book teaches you how to create a thriving life and do the work that you love. I highly recommend her book to everyone in Genius. Sage's book was inspiring and helped me realize that I hadn't even scratched the surface for my life. I started mentoring other female real estate brokers that wanted to get into commercial real estate. And today those brokers are now helping me with my business while I take care of my husband's health needs. Key number five is be forward thinking and dream big. When I was going through treatment, I was always forward thinking and dreaming of my next big adventure. Within 12 months of returning to work, I closed the two biggest deals of my career and I went on a five day backpacking trip through Yellowstone with a 45 pound backpack on my back. The Genius Network is a room full of doers. There is someone in this group right now that can help open a door or solve a problem for you. So here's what you need to do. Make a plan, take your first action and reach out to that Genius member before this event ends. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Make that decision right now to deal with what you've been putting off and remember so what is just the beginning of the process now? What is the action that you take? So go out, take action and make it a great day.

The notion of mindset, you know, is extremely well documented. Carol Dweck spent her career proving that what she calls a growth mindset becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The growth mindset says no matter what skills I need, I can get to achieve my dreams. And the fixed mindset says I'm limited by my iq, income, station in life, what have you. And it's like that old line, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. So just start thinking you can. And very hard evidence proves you'll do it. And the question is, how do you do that? How do you do that? Well, let me give you my answer before I get into talking about attention. You do it through connection. And that's why coming together here is so wonderful. Tell you a quick story because you know it's okay to hope for the best when things are going well, but when they're not going well, that's when you need a method, when you need a recipe. And my nephew, one of the bravest people I know, is 37 years old. He went to medical school, fulfilled his dream of becoming an orthopedic surgeon, married the most beautiful woman, also a doctor, had the most adorable child, and got a dream job in Santa Barbara and was, you know, windsurfing every day and doing total hips and just on top of the world when he got diagnosed with als. And I just visited him a couple of weeks ago. He's now in a wheelchair. He will die before Christmas. He'll go to a hospice, and they'll give him some extra morphine, and he'll go to heaven unless we come up with a miracle before then. But what's amazing about him is how positive he feels, he says. And he can't talk much because of the als. Uncle Ned, don't worry about me. I've achieved all my dreams. How could I complain? And he means it. He means it. And I think, you know, you keep that in mind. You keep in mind someone like that who's dying a terrible, slow death. And every day he's talking about how great life is, and it's because of the force of connection, because he had all his friends, like 30 friends from Yale, come visit him a few weeks ago, and they're all talking him up and his beautiful baby, and every day he's celebrating being alive. And I think you want to keep that in mind, that it is the power of touching each other that brings out our best. You know, it is in connection that we find pretty much everything that we need and in isolation that we wither. And the beauty of technology today, as Peter so brilliantly pointed out, is that it allows us to connect so much more power than ever before in history. This really is the greatest time ever to be alive. It is not to say that bad things can't happen. My nephew Jake being just one example.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of the video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

But that as we work together, we will be able to solve problem after problem after problem, achieve victory after victory after victory, and we're only limited by our capacity to dream big. And, you know, I just. I couldn't agree with what Peter said more. And you all, you all are specialists in doing that. You all, the entrepreneurs, the dreamers, you know, I know some of you so well, and others, I wish I knew better. You know, someone like Dan Sullivan is just a dream maker, you know, and all of you sort of have embodied the power to take whatever notion you have and, and turn it into something real that changes the world. How cool is that? And you keep doing that over and over again until you can't anymore. And what does it all mean? I don't know. But I know it's positive. And I know what drives the good is really at its most distilled. The power of love. That's what we all need and rely on. Well, with that as sort of an introduction and a frame, let me now talk about attention. Because it fits so well into what Peter was saying. The resource that is diminishing in this world, the most precious resource in many ways that any of us has, is attention. Every day you have to decide where to focus your mind and when you have minds, like you guys do. By the way, I gave you a handout. The mind of the entrepreneur. And it's short because you like short. It's just bullet points. And you can see. Don't read it now, please. But. I know, I know you guys, but exactly when you have the idea of foric minds that you all do, the big decision you have to make every minute, every day is where to focus your mind. And if you're not careful, what I think of as a tin can surrounded by a thousand magnets. And your brain is like the tin can and you wake up in the morning and 1,000 magnets come on. And what does the tin can do? It just spins thousand magnets. It's attracted to every single one of them simultaneously. And you can spend a day, a week, a career spinning if you're not careful. So the skill now that we need to learn that really technology has brought us this opportunity. The great thing about modern life is you can do so much. The curse of modern life is you can do so much. So what you have to do is get really tough with yourself and prioritize. Decide where do I want to focus? What do I want to put my precious mental energy into? And I'm not here to tell you where you should focus, but I am here to tell you it's one of the most important decisions, decisions you can ever make. And you know, you say, okay, I'll focus on my business. Well, what part of your business and where do you want to put your energy. And what do you need to delegate the magical letter cde? Curtail, delegate, eliminate. What can I curtail? What can I delegate? What can I eliminate so that I will have sufficient focus to achieve my goals? You see, it's not infinite. Every day it gets depleted, really in cycles throughout the day. You cannot maintain a single level of focus throughout the day. And so one of the great skills for all of you to learn, for all of us to learn, is how to first of all choose what to focus on and next. Maintain focus, regulate focus, manage focus. And I'm basically a focus doctor. I've sort of invented a specialty when I got out of Medical School in 1978. I'd never heard anything about focus in medical school. And then I learned about this condition, so misleadingly named Attention deficit disorder. It's a terrible term. It's not a deficit, it's not a disorder. It's a trait that many of you have. And it's associated with having lots of ideas, lots of energy, thinking outside the box, being an inventor, a pioneer, it's really add people who colonize this country. If you think of it, who in the world would come over here in 1600 in a boat? You had to be some wacko, kind of risk taking, visionary, dreamer, pioneer. And that's our gene pool, and that's a lot of you. And the doctors, the medical establishment that likes order decided to call it a disease. So it gets called Attention deficit disorder. But quite the contrary, it's a tremendous asset if you manage it right. If you don't manage it right, it's the prison population. But if you do manage it right, and the way I explain it, it's like having a Ferrari engine for a brain. You've got this incredibly powerful engine, you're a champion in the making. Ferrari engine for a brain, but with bicycle brakes. So you gotta learn how to control the power of your mind. Sounds simple. It's not simple. You need to learn to control the power of your mind and that Ferrari engine in order for you to win races. You need to learn how to strengthen your controls, not to make you a normal corporate citizen. I quite agree with Joe. The life is sucked out of them. But to make you like Shakespeare and Mozart. Shakespeare and Mozart wrote within extremely confining structures, extremely iambic pentameter, Shakespeare, Mozart, very tight musical forms. And because of that structure, because of those breaks, those boundaries, they were able to create infinite variety. So make friends with the structure, make friends with the controls. It will potentiate your creativity, it will take your business 10 times higher, as Dan is helping people do every day.

What if I told you that there wasn't a personal or business problem in the world that couldn't be solved by five words? I'm curious, by a show of hands, how many of you do things you don't want to do? Really? Raise your hands. Yeah. All right, cool. Yeah. Three years ago, I'd have raised my hand as well. But today, I'm going to share with you the five words that completely transformed my life, tripled my net worth, and allow me to show up in a big way. For those who count on me.

I.

Want to be very clear. This was a very expensive lesson to learn. It cost me my money, my health, and my life. It cost me everything. But today, it's only going to cost you 10 minutes of your undivided attention. So let's dive into how a series of misfortunes followed by a life altering terminal illness has brought me more joy than any other life experience to date. I'm going to take you through a quick journey, one that lasted over three years in real life. But I'll do my best to summarize in just a few minutes. Imagine yourself. It's 2019. Your entire body is shutting down. You have major issues with your left lung, liver failure, thyroid failure, kidney failure, and brain edema. None of the 196 doctors you've seen could tell you how to fix what's wrong.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Only that you should get your affairs in order and plan for the worst. At this point, you'd spent almost a million dollars out of pocket and over 9,000 hours spent on trying to heal. Fast forward to 2021. Nothing changed. Every day is torture. At that point, you're just praying for death. A few months go by. The date is March 23, 2021. You finally get a moment of clarity. You decide to talk to your significant other. She's actually in the back, right over there. You say, my love, this isn't getting any better. I'm draining our finances and being tortured to death for our family. I think I'm going to kill myself. It was the only sense of control you felt in years. Now, if you told that to most people, they'd try to lock you up in a mental institution. But your partner didn't. Instead, they told you, I love you and I understand, but let's spend the next 30 days getting ready. Let's stop trying to heal and only do things that you find fun. After those 30 days, we can make a decision as a family. And over the next 30 days, you do. You get your affairs in order. You shoot videos for your mom, your brother, your partner, your friends and your team. You want them to know that they will be taken care of and not to worry about you. After you pass, you get a will and a trust. You talk to your employees about what the business is going to look like when you're gone. You do several hours of research on what the most painless way to kill yourself is. It's heroin. It is heroin. Yeah. You also start doing things you've always wanted to do. It's hard to imagine the free time you get when you stop trying to save your life. This is the best 30 days you've ever had. You finally get to do everything on your bucket list. You get to have long, deep conversations with your partner, your family and your friends. The type of conversations you can only have when you know the end is near. You feel the most free you've ever felt, like you opened the door to the torture chamber room. You start to live by the five words that I'll reveal to you in a minute. And the craziest thing happens. You start to feel a little better. Not 100% all at once, but little by little, enough to postpone killing yourself. Obviously, I'm here. Fast forward to one year later, which is around today, and I am almost 100%. Over the course of your three year ordeal, you get a gift that sadly, many in the many people in the world do. You get to find rock bottom, the place where life doesn't have value anymore. And you find five deceivingly simple words that have solved every problem you've ever had. Are you ready for the big reveal? Good hooks, right?

Drag it out a little longer.

The biggest question you ask yourself before you do anything now is, does this bring me joy? But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. And I have a framework that I'll share that once you apply it, you'll learn how to think about it and start using it daily. It will make you wonder how you lived your life any other way. Here's the framework. It's Very simple. You ask your question, does this bring me joy? If not, can I delegate it to someone that will find joy in it? If not, can I personally reframe it to find joy in it? If not, get rid of it like your life depended on it. So let's apply it to five real life examples. The first example, how many of you hate firing people? Raise of hands. Come on, there's got to be more than that. How many people hate firing people? Alright. Yeah, me too. Right? So I ask myself, does this bring me joy?

Hell no.

Right?

Hell no. Can I delegate it? Not sustainably. Does it need to be done?

Yes.

So how can I reframe letting someone go to bring me joy? Here's how I did it. I hopped on a call with someone recently that needed to be let go. I asked them, hey, is this job bringing you joy? You know what they said? Hell no. Right? I said, that's great. That is great. Let's figure out what does bring you joy. What do you want to do? It just happened that they've always dreamed of working for one of their heroes, who I happen to be friends with. Actually met them here at Genius Network. I made a quick call and I got that person their dream job. Till this day, they still thank me. I now do this for every team member transition. Are there any team members that don't bring you joy that could find joy at another job? My second example, who here hates working out? Okay, yeah, me too. I know it's hard to believe with this buff ass body, but seriously, it brings me absolutely no joy and I can't delegate it. So I had to reframe it. I decided to find an activity that I really love doing in order to motivate me to work out and really get better at it. That's when I discovered that I love rock climbing. In fact, I took third place in a super intermediate climbing competition which was one of the most joyful experiences I've ever had. Yeah. Is there any physical activity that does bring you joy? My third example. How many of you have daily chores that you hate doing? No, seriously, how many people? Okay. Yeah, quite a few. For me, it's laundry, but I used to pick up that basket and load up the washer like I absolutely had to do it. You could try to delegate it to your spouse. I really, really wouldn't recommend it. I tried it and I'm not sure our relationship is still recovered. But I do have someone who comes to the house, they do all our laundry now, put it away and even do other things. Around the house that I don't find joy in. And you know what? It's not super expensive. Is there anything in your daily life that you feel doesn't bring you joy that you can delegate? My fourth example. How many people here have someone in their life because they feel obligated to or because they feel like they're supposed to? A brother, a parent, an old friend, or a business partner? For me, it was my dad. I tried my entire life to fix things with him. I had a lot of child protective services called on me as a child. It's safe to say that I did not have a great relationship with him. At first, I tried to delegate to a counselor. Didn't work. Then I decided to see if I could reframe it. And maybe I was the one who was the problem. But in the end, it brought me more joy to cut them out. Everyone says you have to fix a relationship with your parents. However, nobody tells you the joy of letting them go. Is there anyone in your life that would bring you joy to cut them out? My fifth and last example. My last example is a client. I'm sure we all have that. There was a client my company had when I was sick that really didn't bring me joy. They were late paying. They always complained. They were incredibly stressful. You know the type. However, they were a huge client. They were paying us over half a million dollars a year. That client would always take credit for all the success, but would blame us for for all the problems. I tried delegating to the team, and that definitely didn't bring them joy. Then I tried reframing it to thinking maybe we were the issue. But again, in the end, it was hard as hell to fire a client that's paying us over $500,000 a year. However, it bought me things that money can't. I bought my soul back. My team members got their faith back in me. I gained more happiness. And of course, it brought us a shitload more money. We filled this client spot with three other clients at the same price with the same amount of team members. Because good clients take less work, we tripled our profit from firing a single client. Are there any customers that don't bring you joy? The main point I want to drive home is to start eliminating or delegating things that don't bring you joy. When you walk out of here, just find one thing that you're currently doing and ask yourself to be like my hero, Marie Kondo. Does this bring me joy? If it doesn't, ask yourself, is there a Way for this to bring me joy. And if the answer is no, cut it out. And if you're feeling bold, do it again and again and again. Watch how your life transforms, your income increases and you become more wealthy in time. Happiness, freedom and of course, money.

You know what? I love this too. I mean, this is where I try to be sneaky with people, is you sell people what they want and give them what they need. Because I think how many of you thumbs up are finding this very valuable? Now obviously because of all the comments, you'll have to read them later. Sachin, I know it's hard to focus and read comments at the same time. That's a good way to keep yourself distracted. That being said, it just reminds me right now with what's going on how important it is to have these sort of discussions. And you know, because a lot of people get so caught up in their businesses that they are not, I mean, we are the. I go back to the million dollar racehorse. You know, if you're, if you had a million dollar racehorse and every time that horse ran a race and won, you'd win a million dollars. You wouldn't shove fast food down its throat, sleep, deprive it, overwork it, you give it the best food, the best nutrition, the best trainers, the best nature. There's all these other things that could be missing. So in your own life, what have been the two or three most important things you've done to maintain and optimize your health?

All right, great question. There's so many, but I'll try to narrow it down to three. So one thing is time in nature, I think that is very overlooked, super, super powerful and when possible accessible to all of us. And we should prioritize spending time in nature, particularly time in nature. I want to emphasize in nature, not darting through nature, not running through it on a trail. And even if you do a trail, take some time to sit with nature and feel the tone, feel the sounds, feel the earth, get your feet on the earth. That's super, super important. Very, very overlooked. And I think it's where some of our best ideas come from, unlocks our brain. So really simple, fun fact. If I stare at an image of nature on my screen, that image is flat. No matter how realistic or high resolution it is, the details in that image are completely flat because my screen is flat. But when I look at a forest, there's dimensionality to it. And that dimensionality gives nature its fractal properties which unlocks our brain. Our brain is a fractal and if you don't know what that means, you know, it's beyond it. Look it up. It's super, super powerful. And that's a whole different conversation. But nature heals our brain unlike anything else. It heals our body. Anything unlike anything else we have. You know, if you look at a tree, the tree, the branches of a tree look exactly like our lungs because we're built using the same mathematical equation. So healing has to occur through nature. One of the most powerful lessons I learned through nature, and this is relevant to all of us, and, and what I teach my clients is that your health is like the trunk of a tree. Right? Nature has billions of years of experience on us. And so if we observe it as a metaphor, it teaches us so many things. Your health and you are the trunk of a tree. The branch of a tree can never grow bigger than the trunk. If it tries to, what happens? A tree splits in half. And most of us are trying to build our businesses bigger than we are. And when that happens, our lives, our relationships, all these things start to split in half. If you focus on you and focus on your own personal growth and grow the trunk, then all the branches can grow bigger. So that is why health to me is so important. Our mindset, our health, our self care rituals, you know, how we reflect that love back onto others is such an important part of our existence. And I have learned a lot of these lessons just by spending time in nature. And when you are in nature, you are going to unlock your right brain. Pay attention to patterns, colors, shapes, zoom in on things, actually get close to the tree and look at it because that will unlock these patterns in your brain that haven't been, that you can't unlock by staring at a screen. Another thing is what I do personally are incantations and chants. So the one that I specifically do is called the Hanuman Jalisa, which is a Hindu chant and there's thousands of different versions of it, but it's 40 verses and it basically is the scripture of all self development. So Hanuman is the monkey God. If you ever studied Hinduism, he's, he's a monkey and he's a man kind of mixed together. And he is the eternal servant of God. He is God's breath, that's how he's described. And so this chant, it basically describes his attributes and characteristics, but it's sung in such a way where the vibration actually creates that reality for you. So this is why, like just a little side tangent, the English language is, is a very interesting language. It's One of the most difficult languages to learn because semantically, English is a very broken language. So think about the word buy. The word buy can be used three different ways, right? If I have a button that says Buy now, that could also mean Buy now, right? So the English language is very, very ambiguous and semantically broken. So sometimes other languages, like Sanskrit, are perfect languages where the vibration of the word actually creates the matter that's associated with that word. So the language in which you speak or think actually makes a difference in the reality that you're going to create. I know that's kind of a difficult concept to grasp immediately, but it does make a big difference. So when you can speak or think in a language that has zero ambiguity to it, you're more likely to create the reality that you're trying to create. So that's called the Hanuman chalisa. And I can certainly share a link. You don't even have to. It's so powerful that you actually don't even have to understand what you're saying, because the vibration from the words actually creates those characteristics in you. So it's pretty powerful. A lot of famous people, Barack Obama, used to carry a little Hanuman in his pocket. So he was an avid follower of Hanuman. Um, and then the last thing I would say, if you're giving me three, is be a kid again, so be curious. Children love to play with things. They approach things with curiosity. They're, you know, they have. They have a beginner's mind. And if you could do that right now, especially. I think that's a very valuable skill set. You know, let go of some of the preconceived notions, some of the limiting beliefs that we have. Like, one of the limiting beliefs could be, you know, I've been sick for five years. It's going to take me five months to get better. No, I mean, think about this question I ask my clients is, how many days into your vacation do you feel amazing? And they're like, oh, three days. I'm like, well, there you go. You can feel better in three days if you want to, right? It's not your body that's broken. It's not your body that's a problem. Stop blaming the body. Stop testing it, poking it, prodding it, and assuming that it's not doing its job. You've got to create the right environment, the right thoughts, the right circumstances in order for it to heal. I mean, everything that you've done up to your life, up to this point, and I know I've made a Lot of stupid decisions hasn't killed me. And that's how resilient we are. There's nothing more resilient than our bodies.

Okay. It is wonderful to be here at Genius Network and see all of your shining faces. So everyone in the room here is an optimizer. So let's take a moment and imagine your perfect way of being in the world. Maybe for you, your perfect way of being is calm and in control. You're planning, you're organizing, you're. You're in control of your day in your mind. Or maybe your perfect way of being is compassionate. You're caring, you're empathetic, you're listening. When you have a conversation with somebody, you want them to feel like the only person in the room. Or maybe your perfect way of being is maximally productive. You are laser focused on what needs to get done. You do what's important, and you do it in less time every day. So all these ways of being are amazing, but we're not all these ways every day. What if there was a technique that could help you get there each and every day? And there is. It's called meditation. So most people think that meditation is just kind of letting your mind go blank. It's not. Meditation is a practice or a training that leads to healthy and positive mind states. Sounds pretty good, right? Practice that leads to a healthy mind. There are lots of different forms of meditation. The most basic one is a focused attention on the breath. In focused attention on the breath, you focus your attention on your breath, your mind wanders, which all our minds do. You notice it and you bring it back to your breath. So you focus on your breath, your mind wanders again, you notice it wanders, and you return it to a neutral object. This very simple, simple thing has profound impact. So the first thing you notice when you start to do this exercise is that you can take your mind off of your thoughts, which are often negative, repetitive, and stressful, and put them on a neutral object. This is huge. You can actually have control over your mind. Most people just sort of feel like every day your mind has stuff going through it and it's kind of thinking you. But with meditation, you learn that you can have control over the contents of your mind. You can get off the thought train. And once that happens, something really amazing happens. If you recognize that you have control over your mind and the contents of it, you can also make decisions about what's in it. And you don't need to be defined by it. You realize that you are not your thoughts and so all those stories that you may have about yourself and what you're capable of and what your limitations are on the world around you, this can go out the window. You can make the choice about what's inside your head and then you realize the same thing can happen with your emotions. If you feel an emotion, it would in the past trigger an uncomfortable thought, which triggers more uncomfortable feelings. With a meditation practice, you realize that you can get off the emotional roller coaster, that rather than having a feeling and having it, you can simply experience it as a sensation, let it rise and let it fall and not give it the attention to control your life. So as an example, you are an employee and maybe you just made a big mistake at work. Your boss starts walking up to you and you feel your heart rate starting to raise and your breath is getting kind of shallow and you don't realize it and you're realizing you have all sorts of sensations of fear and shame and guilt and this really sucks, these feelings. And so maybe you'll just blame your colleagues so you don't have to feel this stuff. Well, if you have a longer term meditation practice, you can begin to start to work with those feelings and as they start to rise, not be ruled by them, not be triggered by them, and then make a more appropriate choice in that scenario.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Another place where meditation has fantastic impact is in your productivity. So you may not realize it, but every time your mind wanders off task, you're actually micro procrastinating. Each and every one of those little mind wanders is actually something that and it's sucking up time from your precious day. So one of the things that I noticed when I started meditation practice is I got incredibly efficient early on. I had a long format essay to do and I was the boss of a company. We sat in an open office. Everything was distracting me because everybody's problem was my problem too. So I was writing this long format essay, which normally took me a few hours, and everything was distracting me. But once I started a meditation practice, those long format essays just became really efficient because each of those distractions I could say, nope, don't care. Back to the task at hand. You're a distraction, don't care about you. Back to the task at hand. And I finished one of those things in 45 minutes. So all of these great benefits that we've discussed, improved productivity, better emotional responsiveness, they actually have corollary changes in your brain. Meditation makes real change in your brain. So let's dive into our brains to find out how. So let's start at the top. One of the first ways that meditation can change your brain is it affects your prefrontal cortex. Fantastic news. We have this area at the front of your head called your prefrontal cortex. It's your attentional control center. It helps us plan, it helps us process and organize. It's amazing. Bad news, as you age, your prefrontal cortex thins. Good news, if you are able to maintain a long term meditation practice, you may maintain the thickness of your prefrontal cortex as you age. In one study, a 50 year old long term meditator had the prefrontal cortex thickness of a 23 year old. Meditation can also help you down regulate your amygdala. So if you remember in that example with the employee when his physiology was flying all over the place, well, that was his amygdala in hyperdrive. Meditation helps you actually calm and down regulate your amygdala so you can calm and manage your body's emotional responses. Meditation also can increase the volume of your hippocampus. The side of your brain, right there, right in the middle, your hippocampus is the area responsible for learning and memory. And who couldn't use more learning and memory in their life? Meditation also impacts your temporal parietal junction. Why does that matter? Well, your TPJ is an area responsible for compassion, empathy and perspective taking. And a meditation practice actually impacts that area of your brain. Meditation can also, and this is the coolest one to me, eight weeks of meditation can increase the density of your gray matter. Why is that meaningful? Well, Einstein had more gray matter than the average individual. Just saying. So if all of these things are so amazing, why don't more people meditate? We saw that only a portion of you do it. And the ones that do, fantastic. But the ones that don't, why not? Or why do you start meditating and then you stop? Well, it turns out that meditation is actually hard to do. There's no one sitting inside the black box of your mind to tell you what you should be doing in there or to guide you and coach you. And we wanted to change that. So we set about a few years ago to create a Tool called Muse that would actually give you real time feedback on your mind during meditation so you could know what was going on in there when you were focused and when your mind was wandering. As you heard, it's been used over millions of sessions, hundreds of companies and institutions. And then we stood back and we said, we want to really ramp this up. We want to build something new. And today, for the very first time on stage, I'm going to present to you. Muse 2. It's a beautiful, slim little device, slips on just like a pair of glasses. It has sensors that track your mind and your body during meditation to give you real time feedback to start, deepen and enhance your practice. So those of you who Muse1 will know that Muse1 had EEG sensors to track your brain during meditation. Muse2 adds sensors that track your body, your breathing and your heart to give you real time feedback on your brain and body to guide you into a deeper practice. So Muse's body sensors track your body's movements to guide you into stillness and to help you find a pain free posture for meditating. For a lot of people, this is the first place to start. Muse2's breath sensing technology tracks each and every one of your breaths and guides you in breathing exercises to calm yourself or to energize yourself. Within this very same device, there's also a heart sensor that tracks the beating of your heart and gives you real time feedback on it. It's a beautiful experience. It's not simply a number on your wrist. You, you actually hear the sound of your heart translated every beat into the beat of a drum so that you can tap into your heart's rhythm and learn what helps you calm it. Our classic brain feedback still in this device, actually lets you know what your brain is doing during meditation, gives you real time feedback so you hear when your mind is wandering and when you're focused. The metaphor we use is your mind is like the weather. So when you're thinking distracted, you hear it as and it guides your brain into calm. So not only is there real time feedback that actually guides you into an ability to harness and hone and calm your brain and your body, but there's also data, all this rich, beautiful data that's actually showing you what your brain and body is doing so that you can understand it, track it, and improve it. It's like having a little coach right inside this device. So meditation is amazing, but you need to actually build a daily practice. So we have a motivational architecture in there that helps you build a practice and even Lets you schedule your meditations because meditation really is amazing. It's one of the best things you can do in your life. But so few people actually do it. And in order to get this benefit, you need to actually do it each and every single day. It's like going to the gym. You go to the gym for your body, you go to the gym for your mind. And when I asked Joe why does he meditate every day, what are the benefits that he experiences, he said that meditation helps me respond versus react. So you owe it to your mind and your body to teach it how to shift its responses so that you can live more productively, more compassionately, more happily, and so that you can make the choice of how you want to show up in the world every day.

The question is around when you said.

You were, you know, you woke up.

In the hospital and they told you.

You weren't going to walk away and you had acceptance.

Do you. It's a two part question. Number one is, do you believe the reason you were able to recover was.

Because you accepted it?

And then second is, you know, I'm.

Guessing you had that mindset going in.

Where a lot of people aren't going.

To have that type of mindset.

So what would you say is something.

People could do if they woke up in that situation?

They didn't have that type of mindset.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for those questions. So the first question, I already forgot it. Say it again.

It's do you believe that because of your mindset?

Oh, the mindset, yeah. Yes, yes. And by the way, I do have brain damage from the accident, so that the struggle is real.

Well, the acceptance, you said I woke up.

I accepted it.

And I find that difficult.

Personally, I'd love to know, is that.

Why you believe you recovered? So, yes, I believe very much in the mind body connection. And to elaborate a little bit on the story of when that happened, the doctors came in a week after I was in a coma for six days out of the coma. And every day I was talking to psychiatrists and physical therapist and occupational therapist and the doctors called my parents in a week after I was out of the coma. And they said, we're concerned with Hal. We believe that he is in denial because every time we talk to him, he's always smiling and laughing and telling jokes and making us laugh and he pretends to be happy. And they said, that's not normal. That's not normal for an accident victim that's being told he's never going to walk again. They go, he's just delusional or he's in denial. And ultimately I wasn't. I then explained to them, no, no, no, I accept all the things I can't change, so I can't change this. So I'm genuinely choosing to be happy over the fact that I'm still alive and all these other things. The other thing that I did is I said, look, I know the doctor. I told my dad, I said, I know the doctors say I won't walk again, but that's only their opinion. That's their best guess. I said, I'm committed to walking again no matter what. There's no other option. And yet simultaneously, I know that there's another option. I might not walk again. So it's this interesting kind of dichotomy where I went. But until proven otherwise, I am putting all of my energy, mental, emotional energy, into walking again. I think about it all the time. I pray about it all the time. I visualize it all the time. I tell my friends that it's going to happen all the time. And if it doesn't, well, then I can't change it and I'll be at peace. So again, most people, I think they want a sure bet, right? And so it's like, well, the doctor said I won't walk again. So I can't invest energy in believing I will or I'll set myself up for disappointment. It's like, that's not the only option. You could actually put all your energy into walking again. And, by the way, apply this to anything. Put all your energy and expectation into what you want while simultaneously accepting the possibility that it might not work out as planned. And maybe that's for the best in the end. Who knows? But, so the point is, a week after that conversation, the doctors called. They came into our room with X rays that I had just taken that that morning. And they said, we don't know how to explain this, Hal, but your body is healing so fast that you're ready to take your first step in therapy today. And even for me, I was blown away. I was thinking I was like a year away from that, right? And this was three weeks after I was found dead, after my femur broke in half, my pelvis broke in three places. And I don't have a graph to show you. Like, look at how my positive expectation and my healing parallel each other. Like, I don't have that graph. I just have the anecdotal evidence. But here is just one more piece that brings it home is just under 5 years ago I was Diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. And I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. It was leukemia, so it was blood cancers through my whole body, and it was a 20 to 30% survival rate. And the day that I was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors told me, you have a 20% to 30% chance of surviving, which if you flip that, it's a 70 to 80% chance you are dying and you're leaving your wife and your kids without a dad. Right. And of course that crossed my mind, but when my wife was out of town, I had to call her and tell her over the phone my diagnosis. And she's bawling her eyes out. And I said, sweetheart, I know you're scared, but I want you to know I'm not scared at all. In my mind, there is a 100% chance that I will be in the 20 to 30% of the people that survive this cancer. To me, there is no other option. And I will be the happiest and the most grateful I have ever been while I figure this out and I figure out how to heal. And so, again, I don't have a graph that shows the correlation. Right. But I was in remission within a month. The doctors once again, were like, we can't explain this. And so having it happen multiple times, I just really do believe. And I know it's a long answer to your question, but I believe so much from my own personal experience on multiple occasions, the car accident, the cancer and even others, the mind, body, connection, and that we create our reality, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we create our reality. So I hope that's helpful. And then. I'm sorry, the second. Oh, the second question was, how do you help somebody to kind of get there if they didn't have that background?

Yeah.

Maybe.

A tactic or in some way.

Even if it's picking up a book.

Or something, to get you in that.

Space where if you are laid up.

You know you're going to have that.

Wherewithal to look at it from a different perspective.

Yeah. So what'd you say?

The Miracle Morning Book is a good place to start.

So it is. I'd be biased to say it, but it is. But here, I guess here's the point and you actually said it. It's sharing a resource from a third party, typically, that is very influential. So. Right. Meaning that if you try to tell somebody that you know and that knows you how to think differently.

Right.

Usually we all know how that goes. Right. It's usually like in one ear out the other, like blah, blah, blah there. I'm not hearing you. And so for example, I. Whether it's a book that you've read or like I have my keynote, my keynote is on YouTube. So if you type in Hal Elrod, the Miracle Morning keynote, that's kind of an easy way where someone, because a lot of people don't read and they're not going to get through the whole book if you just send them a video like that, right? And the video, it shows pictures of me in the hospital, in a coma, pictures of my car wreck. So it's pretty impactful, it's funny, it's intense, it's dramatic, it's right. And you get that lesson about the five minute rule and they can't change it. Like all of that is in there. And so again, I know it's like self promotional, but I'm just saying that that would be, I would share that video and go, hey, look, this guy went through something horrific and he had this mindset that allowed him to defy the logic of doctors and heal and be happy the whole way.

Right?

So that's an example. And again, if you can find that video or other videos that you could send to anybody and get them to watch it, that could shift their mindset. I think that's one of the best ways to do it. Rather than us trying to, no matter what we say, they are going to view us in a certain light and that may or may not limit our influence on those people.

Love it.

Love it, man. I'm gonna actually find that video and.

Share it at our next team meeting.

So appreciate you.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, brother.

Gina did put the link in the.

Chat to your movie as well. So before there's any problems in your.

Life, go ahead and watch that and.

Have the resources ready.

Reaching impossible heights by embracing discomfort. I want you to think of a goal or dream that you've been wanting to pursue but haven't. It could be learning a new skill. It could be doing something new in your business. It could be taking on a new hobby. It could be recording your first YouTube video. It could be doing a 10 minute talk. What haven't you done? But deep down you really want to do Right now I want you to write it down or keep it top of mind during this talk. Now, this goal or dream hasn't been started or moved forward because in your mind you may be saying the following. I'm not worthy, I'm not ready yet. There'll be a better time. I'll do it in the new year. I'm not wired that way. It's not my personality type. It's too scary. It's too much into the unknown. I don't want to be judged by others. My anxiety is too intense every time I think about doing it. Can you relate? I want to share something with you that's changed my life. Three life changing secrets that allowed me to reach out and pull my dreams toward me that you can use as well. My dreams that I've achieved include dream life, dream wedding, dream puppy child, dream honeymoon. Italy was fantastic by the way. Dream home, dream network. Just let that one sit a second so you guys can see a couple of faces there. Amongst other dreams, including dreams around family, business, health, lifestyle. I want to tell you about something that happened at an Orlando mastermind. This was about five, six years ago.

And.

I was new to the personal development space. I was new to the thinking bigger space. And somebody by the name of Trish turned to me. She said, dan, I know somebody. Her name is Sharon. She got me on podcasts, she got me on stages and she was very reasonably priced. I was like, wow, that's amazing. She's like, within about five months I was on a panel with Gary Vaynerchuk. She's like, wow, that's incredible. I told somebody who was invited as a guest, gentleman by the name of Akbar Sheikh, some of you may know him, met him through the clickfunnels world. I said, akbar, Trish got on stages and podcasts and, and within a very short amount of time had all the success. We then had lunch together the next day. It was a mastermind type of home setting, so it was casual. People were sitting all throughout the house during lunch. And she said, akbar, would you like me to give you an intro so that you can share your message on podcasts, on stages and spread your wings? He's like, absolutely, I'd love an intro. Then Trish turns to me and she says, dan, would you like me to give you an intro? I said, I'm not ready, but maybe down the road. Then Akbar turns to me and he says, dan, you're ready, bro.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

And in a snap of a second I said, I guess I am ready. It was this new feeling of doing something that I didn't feel ready for. Anyway, so I got the intro. I started month after month sharing my expertise on podcast Boy, that was a little uncomfortable. Getting on some stages sharing my expertise, that was a little uncomfortable. And coincidentally, maybe it was. Maybe it was fate. Within about four or five months, I hosted an event and Gary Vee was Kino. All because somebody believed in me, but really it's just me reframing it in me, believing in myself. Spring of 2022 sorry, spring of 2020, this is what Joe mentioned. In the beginning, my entire wedding entertainment, corporate entertainment and production company was, was, was done. The entire live events world froze very quickly after a short vacation of one or two weeks off. I'm sure many of you could relate of what are we going to do about was a decision to adapt to a completely new vertical. And we said, all of these schools need help. So with it, within a couple of weeks of hustling and trying to find decision makers within New York City, where I currently live, just for the rest of the month and then moving on to other places, I got an interview with the lead department head of New York City schools around technology. He said, could you do 20 to 30 virtual graduations? I said, what is in my head? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. But what is a virtual graduation? We never had a need for this. But I said yes anyway. And I've learned this and it's probably one of the best secrets to continuing to rise and that is resourcefulness. Who do I know that can help was going to be what we're going to figure out. So 2020, instead of 20 to 30 graduations, we did 65 in 2021. The new unknown was needing to do 75 virtual. And the new 35 livestream outside, without power, without Internet, just continues to throw this these new unknown scenarios. And so I'm going to. I'm going to show you what I call the mindset secrets and how you could apply them into goals or dreams that you're working towards. First, a quote that I couldn't agree more with. We suffer more often in our imagination than in reality. Secret number one, change the relationship you have with your butterflies. Butterflies, also known as anxiety, also known as overwhelm, also known as stress. I'll never forget Kobe Bryant. Rest in peace. By the way. Kobe Bryant said, I used to ignore the emotions inside of me. I used to try to push them to the side and continue through playing my game. But it wasn't until I acknowledged them, I felt them, accepted them, saying that I see you, I feel you. That he was able to confidently move forward and become used to those emotions. So change the relationships with what you have inside of you. This is a big shift for me. Oh my goodness. This feeling inside of me is going to bring me back to comfort. Nope. I'm going to move forward and treat it as what growth feels like. Secret number two. Coach yourself in the moment. As I alluded to earlier, Overwhelm is mostly self induced. Oh my goodness. How are we going to do 104 events in four weeks? This is so much Da da. That was all in my own imagination. How can I be resourceful? How can I think through bringing it to life, making it possible? And now I almost laugh at Overwhelm. So I'll coach myself in the moment. I'll imagine a miniature Daniel up here above my shoulder. This is a true story. I do this all the time and that Daniel is coaching me. Daniel, do you need to be anxious or overwhelmed right now? Or is it just something new or unfamiliar and it's just your body trying to bring you back to comfort? Resourcefulness solves all problems. Such a big aha moment for me. Your genius network can help you solve your problems. Secret number three. Sometimes you need someone to believe in you. For you to believe in yourself. Now, I want you to recall the goal or dream that I told you to think about in the beginning. Do you feel any different about it now? Now here's how you use secret number one. Change the relationship you have with the butterflies. And remind yourself that those emotions are what growth feels like. Resourcefulness or who not how allows you to skip overwhelm. Ask yourself, who's the master of this domain that can help me? Using secret number two, when the go back to safety, emotions come around. Stop. Coach yourself. You say self. Are you really overwhelmed? Are these emotions only happening because I've never been here before? I got this. It's new territory, but I'm going to do it anyway. Using secret number three. If someone who told me that I'm ready changed my belief in the matter of one second, I'm here to tell you you're ready. The three secrets are. Change the relationship you have with your butterflies. Coach yourself in the moment. Sometimes you need someone to believe in you. For you to believe in yourself. And that someone can change your life. Sorry. And that someone can change your life. I'm here to be that someone for you. You are ready. You got this.

It is really interesting how many people's businesses and what they end up doing for a career has absolutely nothing to. To do with what they ever thought they would land into. It's like these strategic byproducts and a lot of it comes out of total adversity. And for areas of life that not only don't work, that are totally broken and you're forced to take a path that you would never typically want to go down, and there you are. And then your ability to parlay it into something. So, like, when did you first record a video and put it up and get feedback either from your friends or it just dawned on you and now, you know, you've got literally millions of people that, that watch you on probably a daily basis, right?

My first serious video because I was still, you know, I was kind of a social media YouTube guy at the time, back in like 2006. And so you stream back then. And so I would just stream regular stuff while I was playing football. I would go on. But it was very rehabbish, as I would say, you know, like, I was very inconsistent with my lifestyles. And the first, I feel like, rehab time video that I was like, committed to it, I remember I was still living in my mom's house. I was living in her guest room. And it was called. I'm trying to think of the name. It wasn't called Faith. I think it was called Faith It Out. I don't remember the title, but I think it was called Faith It Out. Is it still up or did you take it down? No, matter of fact, it's not called Faith It Out. It's called Free Yourself. That's what it was, Free Yourself. And I believe it's still up. If you dive back into the YouTube files, it's still there.

Okay.

And I was recording on my imac that I had in there. And back then I would like. I mean, I was just trying to be so perfect, like, you know, just trying to make sure everything was right. And so when I look back at those videos, I kind of cringe. But at the same time, like, man, that's where I started at, you know, so that was my first time doing that. And then got to a point where I just started picking up my office and just start speaking from my heart. And I didn't have like, you know, some. Cause I used to think I have to have this production. I have to have this and that, and those things are awesome and incredible. But I realized I just needed to have my truth, my reality, and just. Just my soul to pick up a phone and inspire people. And so the videos that started to go viral were, you're perfect for the heart that's meant to love you and know your circle and those videos, like, because at first I was getting, like, you know, maybe, I don't know, 100 views. And that was a lot for me and for people out there. If you're impacting 100 people with those views, that is a lot. But to see it now is just incredible. And those videos went viral. And those videos went viral. After I officially quit football, literally, like, two months, I was still trying to play arena football. I was still trying to hang on. I let go of that. And I kid you not, Joe, like, two, three months later, those videos took off.

Why do you think that is?

I just think that, you know, just with my fan, I just feel like it was just God speaking to me, saying, you know what? You're trying to hold on to this thing out of fear. And I was. I was fear of financial security. That's how I was getting paid. Fear of my identity, like, who would I be without football, even though I didn't love it no more? And I think a lot of people, we hold on to things that we. That we don't love anymore. We aren't in love with those things anymore. Out of the fear. And so when I let go, it was like, okay, you're taking a step. And now the rope bridge was cut off, too. So I had no. I couldn't go back. You know, I couldn't go back. The rope bridge was cut off. And literally, people thought I was crazy. I mean, my friends thought I was crazy. My mom and my dad kind of thought. They didn't say it, but I know they were like, are you sure? Because I had a family to provide for. And I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I don't know what's gonna happen. But I know this is the purpose for my life, because when I was on that stage. Stage, I'm not gonna go through that whole story, but when I was on the stage speaking to 3,000 kids, my very first big speaking engagement, I didn't want to do it. I was nervous. And on that stage is where I found myself, because I prepared the whole night before. I prepared this long layout. I knew it. Like I always say, like a rap verse. But soon as I stepped on stage, I went blank. And at that point, I was like, I can either sink or I can swim. And I said, God, use me. So. So a lot of people ask, like, where do you get your speaking from the heart style and just your passion? It was in that moment because I had nothing to lean on except my story and myself. And, you know, with kids, you can't fool kids. They'll let you know, like, quick, you know, a youth. And at that moment is when I realized, like, man, I still had confidence in the midst of fear. I still had power in the midst of my weakness at that moment. So I said, this has to be what I was created to do in my life. And at that moment is when I made those calls and called my coach, told them I'm not coming, called my friends, called my parents, and that's when rehab time really started. Wow. Wow.

So let me ask you about. Because you weave a lot of God into your videos, and I always tend to try to bring it up because I sit and think of who are the listeners here that are atheists that don't resonate at all with God and my background. I was. My mother was a former nun. She actually left the convent because she had gotten ill and met my father in church and ended up getting married. And I was raised Catholic. And my experience with it was very negative. And even to the point where this whole notion of God with all of the being molested as a kid, my mother dying, lots of abuse, lots of things that happened. You know, it wasn't until later in adult life where I realized I have a real issue with this whole God thing. And even though I spent thousands of hours of my life praying and going to church every day when I went to Catholic school, I just could not feel this connection with this source. And so to this day, I always am a little suspect when someone is so hardcore about what they think God is, because there's many different perceptions of that. The real question is to not go into trying to describe God because you're going to have a million different versions. It's more about faith. So what does God mean to you and where does this faith come from? Because I think a lot of times people have a real. Your message is, I don't care what anyone. If they're religious, spiritual, atheists, there's so much good in what it is that you share. And what I don't want to do is have someone either cut themselves off because they're like, oh, they hear this charged word, which is very positive for some people and extremely negative for others. So I'd love to get your perspective.

On that for sure. And I always tell people, like you said, I mean, people who follow me, I've Had Muslims, atheists and everything. And I think they look at the message and take what they need and leave what they don't. And they respect my beliefs. You know, that's what I'm always a respecter of people's beliefs and only can speak about just in my life. Of course, I was raised around it. My dad's a pastor and my grandmother, all those things. But it wasn't until two situations happened in my life that really made me draw me closer to God. One was when I was six, seven years old. I had a real bad asthma condition. Of course, it's a lot better now with more knowledge I have. But living in New Orleans with that humidity, I mean, I'd take breathing treatments every night. It was bad. It got to a point where I was coughing so bad that my blood vessels turned white. I mean, my white around my eyes, my blood vessels popped, so all the white was red. And so I would go to school, and that's the first time I get bullied. Second grade, they're calling me, like, devil boy, all these things. And I was sick, and my mom, you know, my mother didn't know. The doctor gave us a suppressing cough medicine, which made it worse. And my mother said, you know, something. Told her, good God, you know, for her. Told her, you know, through a friend, like, hey, take that baby to the hospital. Like, literally on the way to the hospital, I get there, I get in the er, and I still remember, like, it was yesterday. They put me down, and my mom leaves the room, and there's this one guy across the table. His son had just got shot. And I stopped breathing, you know, stopped breathing. Gone pretty much. And the only thing I remember is them bringing me back. But the guy was watching me. Went and told my mom, and they brought me back, whatever. Like, that at that moment is when I felt, like, just my connection with God. Honestly, just in that moment, I felt him. It's kind of hard to explain. I couldn't put it into words, but I felt him in that moment. And another moment was, of course, just me hitting my rock bottom and just me giving me this purpose. Like, you know, it's so hard for me to experience, like, rehab time, how everything is going on and things like that. But only that I can say is I just know it's the call that God has for my life. When I speak, I feel like he's flowing through me and all of these things. I mean, I think I'm an intelligent person, but I don't think I'm as incredible as People may put it on me. I think it's just the incredible God that I serve, you know, so that's what God is for me, like just my experiences through life. And when I look back, my faith isn't built upon, like, what could happen in the future. My faith is built upon what has happened in my life. And so every time I look back, and people can call it coincidence that they believe that or whatever it may be, but every time I look back in my life, everything added up to this moment. I had to go through the NFL. I learned so many things to put me in this moment. Friendships that it's just so hard to explain, even how we met, you know, everything had to happen to get to this moment. Every time I look back, you know, my faith just gets stronger and stronger from that. And so that's what faith means to me, honestly.

Yeah, well. And I think to be void of faith in any particular area, not that you can't get through it, just it's a heck of a lot more painful. Right. And what's interesting too is because of so much time that I have spent in recovery and with people that there are, I see some people that should believe in God, they hate the notion of it and they hate people that even have that belief. And so part of it. And there's so many people that are quote unquote religious that, you know, let's take Jesus. Even though you can look at God as many different sources where they seem to be the antithesis of what his message appears to be, you know, which is totally non accepting. And so I think part of it is just, just accepting others and accepting yourself without having to be like, oh, you know, I'm going to invalidate that person because of that. Because it's real easy to point fingers at any part of a person or what they do that you don't like. And if you want the world to change, good luck with trying to change the world. You got to change the way you look at the world, the way you experience the world.

And so I even think too, I mean, just to like, I mean, love, I mean, I think love is of course a universal language. And that's something I try to get people. And it's funny you said that because. And it's true, you know, even when it comes to Christians, and I say this all the time, is that, you know, we could be some of the most judgmental people ever. Like, even with myself, like you go to my page, it's like, Trent, you know, you have. I have one lady Tell me I don't dress Christian enough. You know, I'm like, what is that? You know, I wear sandals, you know, so I see so much judgmental stuff, and I think it's. It keeps people away. But I always say this to. Just. To, you know, believers that I talk to. I say, you know, don't let the imperfections of man keep you from the perfection of God, you know, And I think you have to understand. And then we blame. Even me, I blame God for my situation so much. I blame God for this. I blame God for that. But I was never taking the responsibility. I mean, we live in an evil world with people who do certain things, you know, and we have to take the responsibility also.

So I remember when we were doing yoga at my house a few. Few months ago, and someone out of the blue just starts saying, yoga is like some. And it's like, we're doing a yoga class, you know, with my friends.

Yeah, I'm just like, honestly, that's my best connection with God. Everything is what you make it. I feel like personally, you know, whether. Whatever opinion, whatever, everybody has an opinion. You know, people tell you that some water is bad for you. I'm just like, what? So, you know, everything is bad, you know, so you just have to take your experiences for yourself. And I think as long as you operate in love, man, I think it works out awesome.

What's the mission currently behind rehab time?

Just to renew every heart and body. You know, I want to give people worth. That's my thing. I mean, know your worth tour. But I want people to understand that they have worth. I mean, that's my message. Regardless of what's going on outside of you, I want you to know that you're an incredible person. Don't let what's going on outside of you define what's inside of you. So that's my mission, man. Just to get people to understand their worth.

Yeah, great. What are some of the most valuable life lessons that you've learned?

Oh, man, I think one is facing your reality. I can share this. The three R's. You know, facing your reality is one. And I always say, you know, you'll never win your award by running from your battles. I talked about it at the tour. I think so many times we run away because of fear, whatever it may be. But when you step and face whatever it is, that battle or whatever, that fear, you overcome it. You realize you gain a strength that you never knew you had. You know, So I think a lot of people, a lot of times we need to face our reality, whatever that is. You don't have to become your reality in that sense, but you have to face it, you know, and you can grow from that. I think another lesson was release. You know, whether it's friendships, and I don't always promote that, but release the toxic things from your life. You know, people say don't burn bridges. I definitely agree, but I feel like there are certain bridges you need to burn that you can't afford to go back to. So releasing things from your life, it taught me that I had to change my environment. As I always say, you don't blame a flower when it doesn't blossom or bloom. What do you do? You fix the environment. So sometimes it's not always you, sometimes it is what's around you. And so I have to change that. And last, just repairing your life, whatever that means to you, whether it's seminars, whether it's mentorship, whether it's digging up the bad seeds that's been in your life since you were born that was given to you, and digging up those things and replacing those things with seeds of faith and seeds of power. So I go through that pretty much every single day. I think that's what my struggle has taught me, and that's what I try to teach other people.

Explain. How could someone use this as an analogy, for sure?

Well, I like to call it the world's ruler. And I think the world. World's ruler. And I want to say the negative things you use to measure your life, because you do need to measure your life in some aspects, for sure. But I think we. A lot of times I'll ask this question. I'll ask you the question. So, like, for you, or if it even is an answer, like, what's enough? You know, everybody says I'm not enough. And so, like, what's enough? What's the definition of enough?

Boy, the definition of enough, I guess, would be getting to a place where I would feel like a contented achiever. Like, I love achievement. However, most of the time, the world's greatest achievers live with the highest levels of dissatisfaction. And so enough is like a finish line. And it's an interesting question because for me, in my life currently, and this is my current level of consciousness, I'm trying to settle into the journey, not trying to arrive at some sort of destination because it's never done. You're never going to have enough. I mean, ask a room full of millionaires, how many of you don't need any more money? No one raises their hands. I Mean, it's always perceived that I want more, this I want more.

And that's exactly right. I mean, that's exactly what I see is embracing the journey every step of the journey way. And that's the question I ask a lot of people, because they always say, I'm not enough or I don't feel enough. And I say, well, what is enough? Like, what's your definition of enough? And usually the answer they give me is a definition that the world is given. So if it's social media, I need this amount of followers, right? I need to look this way. I need to weigh this much. And I said, so is that what you want? Or is that what the world wants? And usually it's what the world wants. And so I tell people all the time now, and it's like, I'm at, like, with measuring. I say, you are enough. Who you are, you know, it's just a journey. Life is a journey. You know, you're gonna hit highs, you're gonna hit lows. Your finish line, I feel like, is when you take your last breath, you know, and even then, you have a legacy that lives on, that keeps going on. And so I tell everybody to stop measuring your life with the world's rulers and break it and just accept yourself, appreciate it, protect your peace. Understand that life is not about perfection, but progression. And so that's where I'm at with everything. I just really embrace it. And I think people really understand that, because that was me. Like, I was like, even with. You know, when I was in the NFL, I had the most money in my life. I was the most depressed at that time, the most money in my life. I was the most depressed. And so I realized that couldn't bring me joy. The relationship that I had then, it wasn't good. I realized that couldn't bring me joy. You know, nothing was bringing me anything outside of me until I owned everything inside of me. And so I said, you know what? I don't know what I'm chasing. And I was in Fiji. I talked about this. I was in Fiji, and I learned this lesson of appreciation. And this goes right with this ruler as far as measuring your life. I was in Fiji. And make a long story short, I was staying at a resort. I was speaking out there, and this guy named Eli, he works there, and we had conversations every night pretty much. And I guess he got comfortable with me. So I was throwing away my food, and he was like, man, you're throwing away all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, I am. I'M full, you know? And he was like, well, you went out there and you played rugby with the kids and everything. He's like, what were they playing with? And I was like, they were playing like a water bottle. He's like, they had no shoes on. Nothing. I was like, you're right. And he's like, just to make a long story short, Trent, he's like, what you think is trash is really treasure, you know? And he said, it could be used for something else. And I was like, man, that's deep. And I said, well, let me ask you this question. You guys live in a third world country. You don't have much as far as to everybody else, right? He's like, no, let me stop you. We have everything we have. And he's like, that's appreciation. When you learn to appreciate everything you have in your life, you realize you have everything you need. He said, because every time you hit some type of level, he said, you should have goals. Like, have goals, but still appreciate the journey. As you said about accomplishment, I feel like it's great to accomplish things, but it's more power in the attempt to accomplish and taking that step. And he said, you know what? If you always you're going to hit a goal, you're going to say, you know what? You're going to hit a million followers. I need 2 million. I need 3 million. It just keeps going on. And you're teaching yourself that you're not enough. And so I learned just appreciation just for where I'm at. And so make a long story short, that's why I tell people to break the rulers of your life and just appreciate your life and enjoy everything that goes on. You hit a goal, great, keep going. Things like that, but don't get to the point where you feel like, oh, I need more, I need more, I need more. Because you're teaching yourself that you don't have enough. If you look inside your heart and your life, you have everything that you need. I feel like, yeah, I love it.

Okay.

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