John Assaraf shares how he turned childhood struggles into fuel for change. Immigrating to Montreal at five, he struggled in school, then used that inadequacy to drive intense self-study. After two divorces, he learned relationship skills and built a lasting marriage, and tackled addictions to alcohol, sugar, and laziness through disciplined, incremental actions.
Questions this video answers
Israel
Five years old
Eight years
Twelve years (partner relationship stated as 18 years)
Chapters
Hey, great day to you. Many of you know that one of the places that I come to to be inspired is the beach. And for whatever reason, this is one of the places I feel my best. And so I like to come here as often as possible. And in these moments of inspiration, when I have ideas for what I want to write about, what I want to reflect upon, what I want to meditate upon, what I want to teach, I just get these bursts of ide. And today the burst actually came on the way to the beach. And I was wondering, you know, how I've become, who I've become. I'm not talking about, you know, coming from the ocean, etc. I'm talking about character. I'm talking about my life. And I thought I'd share the thoughts with you because I think it's pretty relevant. And many of you know that when I moved from Israel to Montreal when I was five years old, I didn't speak the English or French language. And I was put into first grade and it took me about two years to learn English and French. And by that time I was already starting to feel like I wasn't smart enough. And I actually thought I was dumb because I sat there for months on end looking at the ceilings and looking at papers. I had no idea what, you know, what was on the paper. And because there were 50 plus kids in every class, teaching just couldn't invest time in me or anybody else for that matter. And so I faced feeling like I wasn't smart enough for probably about 21 years of my life, maybe 15 years of my life. But that's not the point that I want to make today. The point is this, because I felt dumb, I read thousands of books and did hundreds of courses. And because I didn't feel like I was smart enough, I took the thing that could have, I guess, made my life a mess and turned it into my fuel for success. And because I lived with parents that didn't have a great marriage, I ended up divorcing twice. But because of all of those things, I studied and researched and dove deep into who do I need to be to have a great relationship? What communication skills must I have? Who can I model that had a great relationship? And today, many of you know, I've been married for 12 years with my beautiful partner and wife Maria for 18 years. And so because of the environment, because I had two divorces, I dove deep into how I could. And many of you know that we didn't have money as a kid. You know, above and beyond the need for or the ability to pay for food. And because of feeling insecure and unsafe and having my parents fight about money always because of that, I promised myself that I would never ever, ever be in that position and I would never put my children in that position. So because of that, I learned how to always earn more than enough and take care of others instead of just myself so they would never feel that way. Partially why I do what I do today with you and with people in my communities, in my environment and through my books is because of my insecurities, because of my environment, because of all those things. I chose to rise above my story. I chose to rise above my excuses. I chose to rise above my circumstances because I used to drink too much alcohol to suppress and hide feelings. I chose and learned how to not drink. And I've been alcohol free for eight years because I ate way too much sugar When I stopped drinking alcohol. I learned how to quench or quelch whatever we want to say. I learned how to let go of my sugar addiction and I can go on and on and on and on because I'm lazy. I force myself to override that lazy side because I'm not disciplined or wasn't disciplined. I have learned how to become disciplined one little thought and emotion and action at a time. So because of all of those circumstances that I'm sure you can relate with some or many of them, you have to rise. You have to use that as your fuel, not your story or excuse. You see, you can go either way. You can be a victim of the because my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my boss, my circumstance, my, my school, my lack of this or lack of that, you can do that. It's just not going to give you the life you want. And so why not use your because of and make it your reason for there's your thought for the day. I hope it helps you.
