185: Release Your Victim and Wake Up Your HERO with Wes Chapman

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Welcome to the Earn your happy Podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author.

Each week I'll bring you a guest.

Or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the Earn your happy podcast. And you guys, if you are feeling isolated, if you're feeling like you don't have a tribe of women like minded people to really help you transcend from where you are right now into the person that you know you are being called to be, or maybe you're getting that soul calling and you're not quite answering it yet and it's turning more into a scream and it's starting to make you feel even more awful than the thought of facing the fear around doing that actual thing. If you're in any of these positions, you have to join me this year at the Bliss project. It is March 2nd through the 4th in Newport Beach, California and it is going to be a life changing weekend. If you've been wanting to bust through your fears and really meet a like minded tribe of people, this is exactly where you must be be. If you're feeling called to this, I want you to go check it out@theblissproject.info right now. It's also in the show notes and who is this event for? You guys really want to get clear on if you're feeling called to it. I want to make sure that you know what is going to go on there. So if you have always had a desire to do something big, but you've always been afraid to follow through, if you feel like you don't have the tools or the expertise to take the next step, if you wish you had that tribe of supportive people, if you're ready to take that next step into the next level, but you have no idea what that's even supposed to look like, or if you just want to feel more fully alive each day and this is absolutely for you, if you want a deeper connection and understanding in your relationships, if you want to become more fulfilled in your own job that you have right now and in daily tasks, if you want to know the true desires of your soul and if you're ready to enjoy the journey just as much as the destination and truly, if you are feeling feeling called to expand your spiritual connection, we're going to be doing some incredible exercises, meditations. We have some awesome teachers who are going to come in and really give you the space to understand what that feels like for you. Because for everyone, it's so different. But to be able to do it together makes you feel even more connected than you've ever felt before. So if you're interested in meditation, if you want to create a solid foundation for all of your goals and dreams to be built on, or if you just need a mental reset, a confidence booster, and to really own own your own personal power, you guys, this is the place that you want to be. So there are still some tickets left, but they sell out fast. You guys, in this year will be the best bliss project that we've ever done. We have a really amazing team working on it and we're adding so many more things than we have ever done in prior years because I know that when I get the opportunity to put epic women into a room, I want magical things there so that you guys can truly have the tools to create your own amazing transformation and experiences. And you guys, what happens there is nothing short of miraculous. So if you're ready to create your transformation, if you're ready to step in, if you're ready to have your tribe, this is where you want to be. And I hope that you join us and that I get to meet you and hug you and see you there. So. Theblissproject.in fox I'm so excited you guys tuned in today because this guest is one of the most awesome humans I've gotten the opportunity to speak to. His story is so moving and quite mind blowing what he has been able to accomplish outside of the way he was raised. And I really, really enjoyed getting to chat with him. And Wes Chapman has a message all about waking up the hero and it's been adopted by thousands of people all around the world. He draws from a lot of his unique life experiences to deeply connect with people from all backgrounds and beliefs. He's the founder of a human project which is an organization that incubates creative, scalable solutions to systematic problems and gathers together the greatest minds to solve global issues in education, health and society. You guys, if you get the opportunity to listen to his TED talk after this, I highly suggest you go tune in and get ready because this is a very impactful Moving podcast. So let's get started. Wes, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to have you on today.

Thank you for having me on. It's an honor.

Absolutely. You know, I was watching your TED Talk and I was so moved by it, just how open and vulnerable you shared everything and just the information that you shared. So without getting into everything or if you want to, that'd be fantastic too. But I would love if you would share. We've got the time for it. If you would share with our audience just a bit about your past, where you came from and what you're doing now.

Yeah, I mean, that's a loaded question. But I will. I obviously want to provide value, so I'll make it a little bit about me and then talking about what we have going on. So the 30,000 foot view of my life really started even before I was born on this planet. There was chaos in my family tree and in my. In my conception. And the entire time I was in the womb, there was a lot of different things going on with my parents. And when I came into the world, it didn't take long for me to land in a hospital. And I was three months old in my first hospital visit. And it was with a diagnosis of that they call failure to thrive. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with what that means, it basically means a child or individual is lacking the basic needs of humanity. So, you know, the emotional side, the love, the caring, all of that, but also the physical side of nurturing and cleanliness and anything in between. And so at a very, very young age, my life was filled with trauma. And of course, the medical professors or professionals around were trying to guide my parents, young parents, to understanding, you know, the responsibility of having a child. And my father's response to that was to leave. So he left before I was 1 years old. And my mother married very quickly after, I think more out of necessity to survive than anything else. Not out of love or any of the other tangibles that we get excited about with marriage. And when she did that, she married an individual who was a very. Evil is the only word which I don't love to use. But what he proceeded to do to us for the next six or seven years of my life was horrific, was filled with every form of abuse you can imagine, from physical to emotional, sexual, spiritual, and everything in between. And to give the audience just a couple of points to understand, you've all heard the phrase in the doghouse. You've used it, you've heard it you kind of know the context of it. For me, it's very literal. For me, it's a very real thing because one of our punishments was to literally be put into a doghouse with a collar around our neck. And that was part of kind of reteaching us behavioral patterns, if you will. And he would also put us up onto a chain link fence and kind of tie us there and have us be there until we learned our lesson. Those are some of the physical abuse. And there were other stories that we could dive into if we choose to. But most people don't want to go too deep into that part of my life. And the sexual abuse was very similar in its torturous ways. It wasn't uncommon for him to bring his brothers over and his friends over and they would stand in a circle around us, force us to drink alcohol, and then throw pornographic material in the mix to see what we would do. Many, many of my childhood memories are waking up, you know, in the middle of the night, watching my siblings being molested and having this kind of very, very convoluted feeling of wondering if my turn was next and then hoping my turn wasn't next. As the eldest, I kind of had this, you know, innate nurturing desire over my siblings, but I also didn't want to be hurt. So it was a really kind of juxtaposed very, very early on in my life. In fact, my first, you know, babysitting role started when I was 4 years old. So I had this stewardship over my younger brothers and sisters. But then I also had my own, you know, survival instinct.

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Life for many many years and something that I came to this planet with was this ability to share my feelings, to share my emotions to be heard and at a very young age that started with throwing fits and crying and screaming and almost non stop. It was something that I was constantly trying to get some attention to the situation but obviously not understanding all the intricacies of what I should do. And those fits and those temper tantrums as they were labeled were something for my mother to kind of receive help for. And so I was going to doctors and professionals and play therapy and all these different things, and everything was kind of chalked up to, you know, my mom and my dad, biological father's relationship and, you know, the alcohol and the drugs and, you know, all the different things that we would say back in the 80s about, you know, what when children, alcohol syndrome or, you know, drug, baby or any of that kind of stuff. And so I was labeled in that aspect. But what that started was a medication and labeling process of my life, which also started visits, frequent visits to doctors. And those frequent visits to doctors were very consuming to my mother. And by the age of six and a half, she'd kind of had enough of the entire Wes experience, I guess you could say, and she left. And so by the age of six and a half, I was without my biological mother and my biological father. And, you know, at the time, that was like this most horrific experience ever. Now looking back, it was a blessing because I was able to get out of the insanely abusive experience I was in. However, I would deal with bouncing in and out of different places and abuse until I was 17 years old. Never sexual abuse, but physical emotional abuse stayed with me until I was 17. So while I was able to get out of one type, I was, you know, thrown into another. It was very. My childhood was very tumultuous. And so that's kind of the 30,000 foot view of the abuse and some of the things that went on, some of the byproducts of it, obviously, massive amounts of diagnoses, massive amounts of labels, massive amounts of conversations about my worth and who I was. By the age of seven and a half years old, the medical professional world had basically given up on me. My diagnosis at seven and a half years old, again, failure to thrive, all that stuff was thrown in there. But the long term diagnosis was basically I was too broken. I had gone through too much abandonment, too many forms of abuse. I was not going to be able to have any kind of foundational principles or foundational guidelines for my subconscious to develop. And they would hope that they could medicate me, put me in a boy's home, and I wouldn't come out and be some menace to society. And that diagnosis stayed with me for many, many, many years of my life. And it was something that was motivating and also disheartening at the same time. So that was kind of the journey. I dealt with suicide. If you read my journals, I was suicidal every day of my life. But I had 12 documented suicide attempts before I was 16 years old. So I understand that part of life. I understand what's going on there. Then there's a whole chapter of my life where I guess we could call it the rebirth, if you will, where I just started looking at my life and I started taking control. I started even owning things that had happened to me so that I could be in control and I could go through a healing process and I could actually start to live my life. And there's a whole section of content we could talk about in there. But what that ultimately led me to was gaining some self worth, gaining some identity. Eventually led me into the world of entrepreneurialism, which I was successful in and had a lot of blessings. There also had a lot of failures. But. But it now has led me to this world of working with individuals, both adults and children, who have gone through very similar types of trauma and experiences that I went through. Maybe not as extreme and maybe more extreme, but working with them to take control of their lives, working with them. I have a kind of a catchphrase of put the victim to bed, wake the hero up, instead working with them to do that exact thing. How do they own their lives? How do they stop being a victim both, you know, literally and figuratively, emotionally, spiritually, the whole, the whole gamut. And how do they wake up the hero inside of themselves and take that control and ownership of their lives? And so our youth program is a nonprofit. It's called a human project. We're now in 15 plus countries. I think we've got to update some of our marketing material. We had some new children come online in the Middle east of all places, which is its own crazy, its own crazy battle zone. But I travel all over the country. I've been in just about every state in the union. I've spoken in thousands of schools to thousands of youths, spent thousands of hours knees to knees talking to them, working with them. We run a summer program, a summer camp where we work with these children. We dive deep. We're very real, we're very honest. There's no B.S. you know, it's let's get to the root, let's fix these problems. And that's a human project in a nutshell. There's a lot to it, but that's in a nutshell. And then the adult program is called Wake the Hero and we have a community of individuals. The adult program is fairly new. I really focused in on the children and diving there because there's a lot of story as to how I got there in the process and through my rebirth of sharing my story and just kind of seeing how much pain is in the world. Children. Obviously I have two children of my own, but children in general hold a special place in my heart. I think that we're doing them a massive distance disservice in so many areas of their well being. And so I dove into that for the last six or seven years, but by, I guess you could call it demand, I don't know what the right word is. I've decided to start helping more adults and putting some communities and some evergreen programs online. So that's, that's kind of where I am, that's where, where I've been and that's as quickly as I can synopsis down and 10 minutes. So I hope that gives us some talking points.

I mean, I don't even know where to start because that is such. First of all, thank you for sharing that and I'm so grateful that you do share it. And I think I was listening to one, one podcast that I was hearing you on that you didn't end up even sharing the story until you were like 27, was that right?

Yeah, I was 26, 27 years old. I became a pro at, at deflecting the story because there was a lot of bullying that I got both in, you know, in the environment that I was living in. So in, in the medical facilities, in, you know, what, what people identify as the foster system. There was a lot of bullying that happened there and also in public school and other academic areas. I was bullied everywhere for, for, you know, disappearing for weeks at a time to deal with psychiatric treatment to, you know, not having a dad to l person, you know, who doesn't make sense as to why I would live with them. There was all kinds of things. So I became a pro at deflecting that storytelling, lying basically and figuring out ways that I could fit into the normal and not be persecuted for, you know, my parents decisions or people around me's decisions. So that carried with me until I was 26, 27 years old when I finally started to share my story. And you know, there's a time and place for everything and I tell that to everyone. I did not share my story to heal. I was already healed. There was a massive period between 16 and 26 of me working on me and healing. And so when I came forward sharing my story, it was really crazy to me because a Lot of people said, how can you be so vulnerable? How can you go so detailed? And especially when I do my writing, I go very detailed and very deep into the emotions, the experience, the environment, really sharing different things. And I didn't really think about it because I was new to that world. I didn't know any different. And now that I've been in that world, I've learned that a lot of people share their stories as a method of healing, which is great. I applaud you for sharing your story and doing that. But you're never going to heal from stage, it's never going to happen. It's a one to one experience, a you to you experience. And so it's been very enlightening to actually be backstage with some really powerful people who share their stories and actually have them kind of break down and share with me the pain that they're still experiencing from things that are 20, 30 years in the past. And then being able to walk them through the Wake the Hero modules and concepts and so it's just been an amazing ride and an amazing experience. I never saw this coming. It's still not anything that I'm like yearning for in the sense of celebrity or everybody know my name or I just don't care. What I really care about is how are we going to stop the pain that we're seeing in this world? And you know, obviously I don't know when this episode will launch, but just in the last 24 hours, what we've seen happen in the United States and just the carnage that we just experienced and the pain that was happening, you know, at the moment, before the moment and now after the moment, I just, I look at humanity and I just, I don't cringe. That's the wrong word, but I just get like, why, why do we have to live in this painful state of being when in the reality of life is that if we could just our inherent worth, we would have zero need for causing others pain or experiencing pain. It just wouldn't be a necessity of life in the ways that we're doing it. The self inflicted decisional pain. I think that pain and trauma in its own way has its growing periods, but there's enough of it just organically. We don't need to be executing it on each other. And that's something that I'm really passionate about and really excited about because I. Do you believe that we have the, the frontal lobe capability, if you will, of creating a utopia if we just have the knowledge.

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So you talk a lot about inherit worth and finding your worth. How do we start to tap into that when we are so, you know, because a lot of times we are like, you could have completely identified yourself as a victim for the rest of your life, and everyone would have thought that that was, you know, completely okay, and they would understand why. But where is that point that you even start to understand that you have it? And how does somebody who went through something like, you figure that out?

The first thing you have to understand, and this. This rubs people the wrong way, but I promise it's insanely powerful is that through any type of abuse. And I teach something called the Elmo effect, which is understanding that your brain, like, on a scientific. Let's, you know, take this down to the neuron level, only understands what it's experienced. Right. Like you. That's why empathy. Empathy is the key to everything. If we were all empathetic, truly empathetic, not just like, oh, I feel you, or oh, I'm sorry, but, like, completely had the experience and could be and could empathize with that. You know, xprize, which is. Is an amazing company, and we do a bunch of different things with them. Well, they're a foundation, I guess, not a company. But anyway, they are working on something called the empathy project, which is literally allowing human beings to experience things on a neurological level like abandonment, abuse, hunger, starvation, you know, name it, and then become empathetic to that situation. So really, truly Understanding empathy is something that's, we use that word a lot, but we don't truly understand it on a neuroscience level. And so one of the things that is, that happens with individuals is they, they judge their pain. We all want to say, like, oh, that person had this happen to them. So that's, you know, XYZ amount of pain and suffering. So I'm going to give them this much of sympathy. The reality is the brain, that's not how it works. In fact, Harvard just, you know, released a study and now the National Society of Psychiatry and Psychologists all understand this is that the number one form of abuse is not sexual, even though that's what everybody kind of can identify to, because it's the most horrific, it's the most uncontroll, like losing your power form of abuse. But the actual, the most damaging for the, for the mind and the psych, the psychology of the human being is neglect. And if we really start looking at that, there's a lot of neglect around the world. And so the first thing that I talk to people about is that, number one, understand you only understand the abuse you've endured. So it's relevant, it's real, it's doing something to you, it's controlling you. And the first part of taking and creating life that you want to live is control and not control. In a I'm a lord over you type control. Like we're not talking about dictatorship control, we're talking about self control. We're talking about self. Understanding is probably a better way of saying it, which is the first key to understanding your inherent worth. And the only way that you can own that control, the only way you can take that back is to take responsibility. And that's where people get all upset because they say, but you don't understand, Wes. You know, that person raped me. I had no control over that. You don't understand, Wes. This bad thing happened to me, I had no control over that. I lost this. And then I've worked with everything from, you know, divorces to sexual abuse to economic stresses. You know, it's it again. The brain only understand what it's gone through. So everybody has their, their own experiences with trauma. But the reality is, is that, that anything that's in your past now, if you're currently being abused or you're currently having a situation, this is a little bit different. But anything that's in the rear view mirror, you can 100% take ownership of that. You can 100%, for lack of a better word, and to ruffle some Feathers understand it's your fault, because with that comes the first step of control. And now you can own this and you can start working through it. For example, for me, when I had my shift and my life started changing, I was telling the story all the time inside my own head, not to very many people. In fact, there's only two or three people on the planet that even knew anything about my childhood until fast forwarding to 26 years old. I was telling in my. Every time I fell asleep, every time I woke up, every time I was alone, I was talking about the story of being molested, the story of being abandoned, the story of being abused. And anything that ever happened in my life, I would blame on that. And I lived that for a very, very long time. Specifically the sexual abuse. It had been, you know, seven, eight years since I had been sexually abused. But I used that story every day of my life. And one night as I was falling asleep, it was really consuming me. And there had been some other things that had happened in the day. And so I was kind of like blaming all of my life on this, this experience of my childhood. And it was kind of this light bulb that went off that said, wait, you're safe. You're in this bed, you're in this room. You haven't been molested in so many years, yet you continually keep telling this story. And this is literally the kind of conversation going on in my head. When are you going to stop telling the story? And when are you going to own that these actions you're taking, these are 100% your fault? This is 100% your decision. Yes, something bad happened to you, but let it go. And it was really. That was the start of the entire process of understanding that I had worth. And it started by me taking ownership of that trauma of that situation. And through that ownership, being able to, excuse me, being able to truly start to take back my power. And it's through power that we start creating this connection with what's always been there. I hate the concept of go find your passion or all the different ideas of finding something. First and foremost, you don't need to find it. It's not out there. It's inside of you. It's part of you. It's buried underneath all of your garbage, all of your excuses, if you will. But it's not something that's out there, out in the world. And I'm using my hands so it doesn't make sense for people listening, but it's not something that's surrounding. It's like Happiness. It's like, I gotta find my happiness. And it's like, like, no, like your happiness is in you. You need to let it out. And the same thing with your core and your passion and your identity. Like, those things are all inside of you. You're the one that's trampling them down and not allowing people to see them, including yourself.

So this reminds me of just, you know, especially. I literally can relate to this from the effect that I would say this happens. So now I'm this way, or now I have this. For me, it was, you know, I have massive anxiety and panic attacks. And this is just again, who I am. So it's really. That idea of this thing happened. Now I'm this way thinking that that is also your identity. So did you have something like that where it was really holding you back from something? And again, what were. What are some things to recognize and some steps that you took to move through those.

So the first thing I will tell you is I hate labels. Because any label, regardless of what it is, it starts with an L and so does another word called limits. So it's just limiting. It's very limiting. And I had every label you could imagine. Post traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety, ADHD, ADD. Like, I had them all. Bipolar, like, the whole nine yards. I was on almost 25 medications every day of my life for the labels. And one of the first things that I realized is that those labels create identity. I mean, some labels, okay, we can talk about it, I get it. But for the most part, we're labeling things because as the human nature, we're curious beings at the core level of the things that make us a species. We're curious, we're lazy. Like, these are things that work against each other in so many different ways. I mean, if all humanity could kind of get its way, we'd sit around, we'd eat a lot, we'd have a lot of sex. We'd do the easiest thing we could possibly do, and we'd be okay with that. Like, there's. There's. There's not anything. It's our frontal. It's our frontal thoughts, it's our perspective. It's some of these other things that push us. So having, like, it's almost like having two different kind of objectives going on. You have the frontal part of your brain that wants to create and do something because you have perspective. And then you have the, you know, the animalistic, the alligator brain, if you will, in the back that's kind of sitting there saying, like, eh, I'm Good. Like, I don't need to do anything. And then you have biology working against you, which is it wants to do as little as possible to last as long. So labels are something we throw on things so that we. We can just kind of cooperate with the biology of going on in our minds. And one of the things that you have to realize is that just as, you know, and I love, like, how we have these things come out in our marketplaces, you know, like the secret or, you know, all these other positive things which are great, and I'm not putting all that stuff down, although I think we put too much weight on them. But we. We say things like, wow, if I just sit and think about something, then positive things will happen. Well, the same is true if you think about, you know, I'm this label, or I'm this way, or I'm, you know, fat, or I'm, you know, not. I'm not strong enough, or whatever it is. If you can positively think your way into a great life, you can negatively create yourself a crappy life, or you can create yourself a trapped and limited life. And that's what labels do. So the first thing that I did was, was like, tear the labels off. I don't have anxiety disorder. I don't have post traumatic stress disorder. I'm not socially, I'm not full of social anxiety. Those are not part of who Wes Chapman is. And so anyone can do that simple exercise. I've worked with thousands of people who are diagnosed with anxiety specifically, and you look at it and then you start to tear down the walls. The first step is don't label yourself with that. The second step is, where is it stemming from? What, what causes that? Yes, there are some chemical things going on in your body. Yes, that stuff is real. Mental illness is 100% a legit thing. There are things happening. But why is it happening? That was the next step that I looked at. So I'm labeled with all these things. Well, why? What's going on? You know, I started to do the basics of serotonin and dopamine and, you know, and adrenals and like, understanding our organs. What does the liver do? What does the pancreas do? What does the gallbladder? Like, what, what. What is my body doing? And then that led me down a path of understanding health and understanding, you know, chemistry and understanding how to naturally work with the body to create certain things that I was lacking in. And, you know, fast Forwarding now, some 20 plus years later, I. It's hard for you to get Me to take an ibuprofen if I have a headache. I don't take anything. I don't drink coffee, I don't drink alcohol. I don't do any foreign substance other than things that come out of. Of the earth, other than things that, you know, I eat meat, all that fun stuff. But, like, I'm very, very picky with my food because I understand what makes us up as chemical beings. And so, yes, you may have anxiety, you may have an overstimulated part of the brain, you may have an understimulated part of the brain. You may have these things going on. But to just label yourself and say I am is limitless, very limiting. Or to say I am dependent on that's an addiction. And it does the exact same thing as all the negative types of addictions that we talk about. And it's limiting, it's slowing you down, it's stopping you from being who you can become. And so the first step that you have to do is rip the labels off. You are not anything. You're what you choose to be. If you choose to be that label, then I can guarantee you 100% of the time, you will be that label. I mean, it's very interesting. There was some research done in the the by Dr. Bruce Lipton, which started off with the concept of cancer patients. How people would be living with cancer for literally years, years of their time, of their lives. And something then would trigger and they would get sick. And, you know, it'd start maybe like, as a common cold, but then it didn't go away, whatever. And they end up going to the doctor, and then they find out they have cancer. And within three to six months, they're dead. And that started this conversation in the medical community about of why, why is that happening? What's going on? What's happening to the body? Is it literally just like these people have pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed, and then they, you know, it's just a timing thing. And so it dove down into science. They found it's not just a timing thing. Yes, there are some, but for a mass majority of the people, it was the thought process. It was the literal recreation on a cellular level of what their body was doing. When they didn't know they had cancer, Their body was fighting it. They were taking it on. Their body was dealing with it. Once they had cancer, had the you're gonna die label put on them, they immediately started reacting that way. And on a cellular level, which was fascinating to me when I learned this on a cellular Level their cells were recreating with that blueprint death, with that blueprint cancer. And it's fascinating which dove me down a whole thing study research of something I call bioworth of if we can have something as horrific as cancer. And the thought process of I'm gonna die in a year, the doctor says I have cancer, six months, whatever. And then that actually comes true. You manifested that into reality. Could the same be happening with mental illness? Could the same be happening with how we feel about ourselves? We have corporations and businesses and company. I mean, I was in that world for 20 years of my life. And I know what they're sitting there talking about when they're marketing and putting out a new Apple watch or a new, you know, pair of shoes or a new whatevers. They're not. You feel awesome about yourself so that you'll buy those products. They're making you feel like you're incomplete. And then when you buy those products, they somehow make your life more complete. And I don't think it was a conspiracy theory any of that, but what it's done is literally created a population that cannot function with its own validation and its own inherent understanding of its worth. Our worth is dependent on our things, which is changing the US on a cellular level. And so the same, the same concept of cancer and now you know you have it and now these individuals are dying. Same thing happens with labels. The same thing happens with self worth. It's if you believe something, you create it. And people will like jump up and down. If I say if you believe you can be a millionaire, you can be a millionaire. And like people will jump and scream. And I've seen it. I've seen people do crazy things at these conferences because someone on the stage is telling them if they dream of being something big, they can be that big person. But then when I get on stage and say, if you tell yourself that you're, you know, that you're schizophrenic or if you tell yourself that you're, you know, limited because of your race or because of this, you know you're going to become that. And they look at me and they're just like, that's the stupidest concept I could ever, you could ever say. And I'm just like, but five minutes ago, none of you in this audience are millionaires. But this guy said, you can all become a millionaire if you believe it. And that made sense, but now I'm saying you'll all have ADHD if you believe it. That doesn't make sense to You. And so, I mean, that's a pretty dramatic explanation of it, but it's very, very, very real. And now science is actually showing how that's happening. And it's fascinating stuff. I mean, we live in a really amazing time right now because science, and I call it science and Buddhism or whatever, like the old, old, old concepts of, of humanity and mind over body, we're actually melding and finding out like, this shit actually has some merit to it.

I love it. I'm actually obsessed with all of it because I am a walking experiment on all of it. So I do this same exact ideas. I was raised in a really restrictive religion and just I saw my mom have a panic attack and immediately said, oh, I have panic attacks and labeled myself anxiety, panic, panic. And for a long time, that was it. And the more that I fed it, the more that I got these labels and found new labels so that I could, you know, have reasons why I wasn't going to go get that job that I wanted. I had reasons why I wasn't going to go do that social thing that I was dying to do or go and get that career or be that person I wanted to be. The more I fed them, but the more I just. It's like I. Wes, I literally thought I was going to end up in a padded room at one point. And that's when I decided I was like, this is not working, working for me because, you know, I had gone on all these different medications and it was just getting crazier. And that's what I was like, this is not working for me. Let's try thinking the opposite way. Like, I didn't even understand what this was yet, but I just knew that I was going to end up in a padded room, basically. So that was the point where I said, okay, let's try this in reverse. So I love hearing. I just think it's so empowering to hear it. And also I love, you know, the different science and just thoughts that are coming out around it. So what is something for you right now? You talk about. So you were talking about Bioworth. What is something for you that you are most excited about, that you are really seeing a lot of results around?

One of the biggest things. I mean, there's a lot that I'm excited about, but I really am excited about this Wake the Hero community that we're building online and what I'm seeing happen there. And I mean, children are just. I mean, they're amazing on so many different levels, but on like a scientific level, their elasticity of their brains, you know, their ability to change is. I mean they just, they have a biological advantage over adults, which is just awesome. They can make changes instantly. I mean, and I've seen it. I've seen children go from, you know, dropping out of school, drugs, hating their lives, sexually active, cutting themselves, self harm every night, suicidal thoughts, the whole gamut. And then going through a summer and then coming back in. You know, they're straight A students, they're part of band, they're in drama, they're on the football team, they're like literal 180s. And I've always been really hesitant with adults because biologically it's so much harder and it's not as guaranteed, if you will, it's not whatever. But it's been really fascinating to kind of see that. For me, a lot of this research and a lot of this stuff that I've been doing, it's like you said, it was just to create a life for me. Like I wasn't interested in becoming anything. Like that wasn't the intent. I wasn't researching or doing things because I was going to then turn it into something. I had no idea that world even existed, first of all. And second of all, it just wasn't it. It was survival. I was tired of living my life. I was tired of being that labeled person. And so now to step out and start helping others is amazing. And my main goal, and even with a human project is to, is to help families because families are key. We obviously know all the statistics and everybody wants to throw a different statistic. It doesn't matter. I don't care. 50%, 80%, it doesn't matter. To me, I see it and it's a lot. There are too many homes without fathers. There's too many homes without mothers. And I'm not even talking about divorce. I can't even tell you how many children I sit down with and you know, their first thing that comes out of their mouth is I'm home alone every time I come home. And a lot of that is just people are chasing something that doesn't exist. People are putting their priorities in the wrong places. People are struggling with their own self worth. And now I'm just super excited to create this army, this legion of human beings who are just ready to just live life. I mean, it's your one life, you get one shot at it. Why not live the best that you can forget about, you know, what you've been told, like you were just saying, from religion to doctors, like just create the life you want to create. And so it's so exciting for me to actually see some of that happening in a very short period of time and to start getting, you know, the adults coming around and saying, oh, my gosh, like, I didn't realize. I mean, things that are so cliche that we've all heard forever, like family dinner, it's like, well, of course, yeah, family dinner is important, yet nobody does it, right? Like having a really simple conversation around the family dinner of, like, what was your favorite part of the day? What are you, like, banning the cell phones from the dinner table? I mean, there's so many little things we've all heard a bazillion times, but to actually see people implementing it and then implementing their own independent things, that's just got me fired up right now. And it's also putting a lot of pressure on me because I'm like, oh, shit. Like, I better really, like, make sure that I'm up on my game. And I'm diving into more and more stuff, which is leading to more and more learning, which is just awesome. I mean, I think anytime we can learn something new, it's fascinating.

I love that. It reminds me. Even last night, I'm trying to look at things in my life where maybe I'm not as happy as I would like to be in this area. And at night, I notice sometimes I can be so happy during the day. I can feel good. I can feel so living in my purpose and just even enjoying just being grateful for anything that's around in the walks and whatever I'm doing for the day, the little things. But then at night, I noticed that sometimes I can feel a little blue. And it's because I tend to go on social media, check my messages, start looking at, you know, whatever's going on for the day with everyone. And it's like these little things that I notice that I say, if this is bothering you, why do I keep on doing this and really observing in your life, where are these air? If this is affecting me, why do we keep grabbing it? Have you noticed? Do you have anything in your life that you're still cleaning up that, you know, wow, I'm still grabbing for this or doing this, even though I know it's not making me happy.

That's a good question. I'm so, like, aware of so many things, and I just made a massive. You would have asked me that, like, four months ago. I would have had the perfect answer. So I'll go back to that because it's pretty dramatic. A lot of People were like, what? So I'm. I'm a country boy. That's what ultimately ended up giving me another vehicle. On a physical level, purification of your body, especially when you're on as many medications as I was on, is incredibly vital and important. There's a mental cleanse, and then there's actually a physical cleanse. And so part of that was I lived on a little, like, little one acre. Nothing crazy, but I was constantly around gardening and horses and, you know, doing things that really kind of shifted my life. And. And with camp, we were very. That's what we do. We take these kids out of cities and out of all these places, and we go in the middle of nowhere and we go camping, and there's no cell phones and there's no social media. It's just the kids. And the first day, it's like watching a bunch of heroin addicts, like, twigging out. It's crazy. And so. But by the second day, it's like, what is a phone? I mean, it's a literal transformation. So it's powerful. So, anyway, well, I was living in California, Southern California, Orange County. I was in LA every day. You know, that was my doing a lot of interviews. I was working on a book deal. We're working on a TV show. All the stereotypical things that you do when you live in LA and rewind. About a year and a couple of months ago, my bride's brother passed away very unexpectedly. Not something anyone was planning. He actually died while I was giving my TED Talk, which was just an insane day from going from the high of giving a TED Talk to, you know, literally getting off stage and getting the phone call that he had passed away. And so that led us down a journey of just her and I bonding, more, coming together, honoring him, his memory, all these different things. But it also led us to. After the funeral, she said, I just want to go somewhere where we can disconnect. I want to go somewhere that's peaceful, somewhere we haven't been together. And there was this little place in Northern Idaho that I had gone one time in my life called Coeur d'. Alene. Idaho. Idaho. And I just remembered it being this just like, perfect, little quintessential good American town, disconnected, all these different things. Beautiful. And so we flew up to Coeur d'. Alene. We spent a week there. And while we were there, we made the comments like we all do, like, someday, this is where we want to live. Someday, this is what we're going to do. So now fast forward to about Four months ago, we were getting ready for camp. We do camp actually in Northern Idaho as well. So. So we're getting ready for camp. We're doing everything. And I couldn't sleep. I just couldn't sleep. There was a gazillion things going on. We had just got done doing this huge live event in LA with some really cool people and it was an amazing experience. And I was just, I mean, I thought I was on a high from that, but what was really happening was this thing that I kept ignoring was finally like making, you know, rearing its ugly head in a positive way of just like, like, you need to get back to where you're comfortable. You need to get back to where you find peace. Like, I don't find peace in la. For those of you that do, that's awesome to me. It's not my thing. It's just not. And so it was a constant battle. I would go out on tour, I would go do things. And then coming home was not exhilarating to me. I mean, my family, yes. The environment, not so much. And so I couldn't sleep that night. Night. And it was in June and I looked at Jody and I said, honey, I think it's time that we, that we move. And she was like, okay. And we were kind of planning on moving to downtown LA because I traveled so much that it was just like ridiculous to sit in traffic for two hours. And so she was just like, okay, are we going to move to downtown la? And I said, no, we're going to move to northern Idaho, actually, like close to Canada. And I think we should like get some horses and we should get some property and we should do this thing because that's what we want to build for the youth. And that's where I feel grounded. And bless her for being the most amazing partner any man could ever have. She said, okay, let's do it. And so that was something I was ignoring because that was part of my core. It was part of what grounds me. It's environment is so important. We do not talk enough about our environment. It is so crucial to both physical and mental well being. And so I'm actually talking to you right now. We're on satellite Internet. I'm literally in the middle of nowhere. We're in a cabin. I'm looking out at my lake or pond. I have a moose right now that's sitting in my pond. I had a Black Bear about 45 minutes before the interview. It's 30 degrees, I've got my fire going. And I couldn't be happy. Happier. And my children now are experiencing this type of life, which they absolutely love. They each, like, they want to buy a horse every day because they're just so in love with it. My bride is so happy to be here. I mean, it's just our entire family has changed. But it was that one thing that I wasn't listening to. And it's a huge thing, a massive thing. Huge lifestyle change. But it was a lifestyle change that fit our life. And it's something that I think so many of us make excuses or we say, well, someday I'm going to do this, or someday, someday I'm going to do that. And as I said earlier, we live in this amazing time where I can be in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. That's my office on a satellite talking to you, and I think you're in Santa Monica, right? And we're having this conversation. And now this is going to get broadcasted out to the thousands that listen to your podcast. And who knows what the impact is going to be? And so the day of excuses is really over. And I really want people to self analyze what those excuses are and self analyze what limiting labels you have put on yourself as to why you can't do the things you want to do. And there's layers of this, right? There's so many layers. You've got the label layer, then you've got the reality. I mean, and listen, I'm not an idiot. There was a lot of conversation that we had. I'm an hour away from an international airport. So, you know, that's something that was crucial to what we were doing. Like, we looked at all the different tangibles, the school district, all the stuff that was real. It all happened to line up beautifully, just how we needed it to line up. So I'm not saying go be crazy and do something that's completely irresponsible, but sometimes we take adulting a little too seriously. You know, sometimes we think that things have to be a certain way, otherwise we're not successful. Another label, success, which I think is ridiculous. We label ourselves in these certain ways, and then when we identify those labels. You brought up religion. Religion. Not attacking religion, but religion puts a lot of limiting labels on us, like worthiness or faithful or these things. And in reality, they're not things of God. They're not things of a greater power. They're things of man to control you and to limit your possibilities. Because a limitless person who's living their life for themselves and helping other people and filling their cup up and then having something overflowing so that they can share with the world. That type of person is not somebody who's going to be tied down by addiction, dictatorship, or by, you know, they're on their own. Like they're, they are creating a life and they are helping others without any organization. And that's the scariest thing for commerce, it's the scariest thing for religions, it's the scariest thing for governments. It's the scariest things for parents. You know, when you have a child who's super independent, that's a whole nother conversation that we can have about ownership of other human beings. It's a super, you know, scary thing if you're in a relationship. But the reality of it is, is that when we allow that to happen as an entire species, we become stronger because the stronger the individuals are, the stronger the unit is and the stronger the entire species becomes. And that's something that we don't spend enough time talking about because it seems selfish or it seems self serving or more importantly, it doesn't sell product. Whatever the product is, it doesn't sell product to make people independent and strong. Strong. That is not a product selling deal. And so one of the other things, kind of going back to your earlier question that I'm so passionate about is all my stuff is so dirt cheap. Our Online community is 30 bucks a month. When I do coaching, I do it on a scale of different things. It's not about the money. I've made a ton of money in my life and money's awesome and money buys nice things and that's great. Money does do a lot of awesome stuff and you got to be smart with, with it. But it's not everything. It's just not everything. And my goal is, and I tell this to people I work with, if in 90 days you aren't like making a dramatic difference in your life and you aren't feeling like, you know, a 110 coming around towards a 1, 180 in your life, like then, then I'm not the right person for you. Like I'm not years of coach. I mean, no, like that's just not my style because I don't believe in controlling other people. I believe in people taking control of themselves.

So I think we have time for one more question. Even though I have about 20 here for you. So what is it? You know, you're so self aware and I love listening to all the different levels that you've taken your life. And I really do believe in like you said, at the end of the day, money is amazing and it creates experiences, but at the end of the day, it's really a connection on this planet with other people that can, you know, help you live this beautiful, beautiful, fulfilled life. So what are some of your favorite ways to connect with your kids, to connect with friends? What are some impactful things that you love to do with people?

Disconnecting them from technology? That's the first thing. You know, I love taking the horse on a walk with my son. I love teaching my son how to build, you know, a lean to which we've just built like four of them on the property for different animals. We have anything that disconnects people from their, you know, their crack cocaine, aka their iPhone or their. Pretty much their iPhone now. But I just love to be with people in a real human way. I love having friends come, you know, now we're. It's kind of funny like now everyone wants to visit us, which is awesome. You know, it's like, great, come up, visit us, you know, stay in the guest house. Like, it's just awesome. It's a amazing experience to disconnect and then just have, have great conversation. It's my favorite thing to do, whether it's with a 7 year old or a 70 year old. It's just having a real conversation and enjoying that person.

I love that. I'm actually from Marquette, Michigan, which, if you have no idea where that is, it's Upper Michigan and it's like in the middle of nowhere.

Upper Michigan, Yes.

Grew up, born and raised. Then I lived in Wisconsin and Minneapolis. I was just in the woods. So it is really, it was, it was such a beautiful way to constantly disconnect. I look back at my life and how I would deal with certain things. I would go to the woods. I had no idea why. It was just your inner intuition saying, get away from everything and go. Just try to figure it out and heal and listen. So I love that you do. It's just such a beautiful thing that people get to experience, to just go away and hear. Right? It's like you can finally hear your way through some of those things that you're trying to work through.

Well, there's a ton of science behind it, you know, and we've a lot of people are talking about it, you know, and they're talking about the screens and like the damage the screen is doing to the frontal cortex. I mean, like, there's a lot of science behind disconnecting. And in fact, that's why, you know, we've all read the like 10 Habits of the highly successful people or whatever is out there, right? And always seems to be in the top three is when they get the most work done, which is in the morning between 4am and 7am I've done my own research and talking to successful people and it happens to be that they all get up at 4 o' clock in the morning, 5 o' clock and they get a ton of stuff done, whether it's personal or business. And that's like their glory, that's like their golden hours. And the reason for that is, is the way the brain works. Again, like I said, we are inherently lazy. It's okay, like we actually should be a little more bored and lazy like that, that's a healthy thing. But our brain wants to do as little as possible. And it's filtering content, content all of the time. And it really is looking for two things. Will that eat me or can I eat that? Like on a just grounded biological level, like that's it. And then you know, if you're in a hormonal state, there's another level of what you're looking for. But like that's like your brain is working like that. So anything coming in and out at you is exhausting the brain, which is ex, which is making it so you just feel tired, you feel disconnected, you feel. A lot of people will call it like I feel foggy. That's part of the brain's self defense mechanism. And the amount of content that we absorb on a daily basis in our regular lives is astronomical, like astronomical. And yes, the brain can filter it and manage it, but it becomes exhausted and it doesn't want to. And there's like so many different things. And so people, you talk to, people who love the ocean and walking on the beach like that becomes something that they, they're so clear. A lot of people will say, I have my best ideas in the shower. Shower. It's because there's not a lot going on in the shower. Like there's not. You know, it's, it's, it's a very intimate time which gives you this ability to be vulnerable. And in that vulnerability you have these great ideas. Same thing with the woods, same. So if I could give anyone a piece of advice. If you're struggling in your life right now and you're struggling with where do I go? What do I do? Disconnect yourself from whatever is your normal, whatever is your reality. Go to it. Go to an opposite that's very, very calming. And then don't Just, just necessarily sit there because you probably have a lot of toxicity built up in your body. Do something insanely active. So I'll tell people, do gogo on a run through the woods, like the safe woods, right? Don't be stupid and get eaten by a bear. But like do something, but do something active. Because again, if you have a lot of, I call it brain plaque. If you have a lot of brain plaque built up from all of the craziness going on in your world and then you just sit down somewhere, most likely you'll just fall asleep. Sleep. Most likely you'll just like almost go comatose. Like, it's the brain. You've got to purify, you've got to get things moving, you've got to get the blood flow going. And then you can take a moment and just like self reflect. And so it's a very simple exercise that, that can give massive results. And a lot of people give me alcohol. Well, I can't. Or this or that, or it's expensive or I can't fly home to Michigan or, you know, whatever it might be. I'm not saying that's your excuse. Just using an example and it's like, okay, would you rather change your life and the trajectory of your life and maybe increase your bottom line by 100,000 a year for a $300 ticket to go somewhere or to spend, you know, maybe three days not killing yourself over that PDF project that you're working on? I mean, come on, perspective. Long term, a lot of the things that we think are so critical right now in the big gamut of things are irrelevant.

Amen. I literally can't tell you how many times, times if I have something huge. It's like it goes against everything that you're feeling because it's so easy to get wrapped up in your to do list and think that if you work more, if you're spending more time in something, but this, every single time that I have retreated or given myself space or gone and played, I have come back with way more energy, so much more clarity. I feel so much more grounded and it, it's game changing. So I love that you say that. So Wes, thank you so much for coming on. Where can we find you? Where can we follow you? Where can we learn more about you?

Google's great. You can Google me. I'm all over on that thing. I've been told, but I mean, go check out a human project. So Ahuman Project A is an apple ahumanproject.com see the work, the amazing Work my team is doing with that. It's humbling. It's amazing. Over 65,000 lives have been impacted there, and children who were thinking of committing suicide are now, you know, team captains on their sports teams. Like, it's just. It's amazing what's happening. And so first and foremost, if you've only got time, go check that out. If you're saying, I would love to learn more, I want to dive into it. You brought up to two to do lists. I hate to do lists. We could talk another hour about why that is so limiting. So any of these, like, weird, wacky ideas that you might think are crazy coming out of my mouth, but you want to learn more about them. Wakethehero.com you can go in there and learn different things, join our community, blah, blah, blah. So there's just. Google's the best way, but those are the two websites I would direct people to.

Thank you so much. And I just want to acknowledge you because I've learned about you. Fairly recently, actually, when I was doing my TED Talk, I found yours. So. And I was just. I was so moved. So I really. And now I can't unsee you. And I'm glad about that because you're. You are giving so much value to the world, and. And I'm so, so grateful for that. So I'm really appreciative for the conversation and your time, and I always end on one last question. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Okay. So you are in an elevator.

Yes.

It's cliche. And you only have 30 seconds with this person, and you don't know who they are, and they look over at you and they ask you, how can I make myself happy? What do you say?

Put the victim to bed, Wake the hero up Instead, said, every victim that wanted to. Or, excuse me, every hero that wanted to save the world or change the world had to realize they had to work on themselves first before they could save anyone or help anyone else. And my recommendation for you to change your life and give yourself a new purpose, a new meaning and new energy like you've never felt before is look at your life and look at the things that you constantly victimize about, the things that you constantly tell stories on. On. And put those to bed. And look at every decision from this moment on as, how would a hero handle that? And I'm going to be a hero.

So beautiful. Thank you so much, Wes. And you guys, if you loved this episode as much as I did, make sure you share it with your friends. And until next time. Earn your happy. Bye everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the Earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousand thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys. Bye Bye.