How to Crush limiting beliefs & release your true potential with Rick Torrison | Know your why #292

Your story is real. Your journey is real. The things you've been through that have shaped you, informed you, and caused you to do certain things and be that person you are today. It is real. And sometimes we want to pretend it didn't exist or that didn't happen or somehow. But the reality is it's all a part of our makeup of who we are today.

Hey there.

I am Dr. Jason Balara and this is the Know youw Why podcast where we explore the why behind success. Every week I meet with real estate investors, veterinary entrepreneurs, mindset coaches, authors and fitness professionals to uncover their why and how it drives them on the winding road to success.

What is your why?

Hi everyone, I'm Jason Balara and this is the Know youw why podcast. Today I'm here with Rick Torsen. Rick is the founder of Right Now Leadership and Revival Rivers, which is a nonprofit. He's an international speaker, a certified success in John C. Maxwell coach. He helps passionate and growth minded leaders walk in the power of their identity. Rick, I just want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for being here today, taking the time out. I really appreciate it. I know your time is valuable, so thank you for coming to share some with us.

Yeah, well, it's my honor. I'm excited to be here. I have listened to some of your podcasts. I've been kind of researching a little bit about who you are and what you do, and I am fascinated and actually ready to learn a little bit as well. So I'm really looking forward to being with you. So thanks for the, thanks for the opportunity to be a part of your podcast and I hope that we can add some value to the listeners today.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we will. Let's start by telling them your story. Tell us, tell us your background, kind of what brings you to where you are, where you are today, and just let people know, kind of, kind of the story behind yourself.

I'd love to do that. So I'm going to. Can I ask you one question first? Is that okay? Then we jump into that before we get into that whole conversation. So I'm going to tell you my story and it's really about my journey of realizing I had some limiting beliefs in my life that were acting as ceilings over my life and keeping me from what I was fully believed that I was created and destined and purposed to be a part of. And I didn't realize I had those limiting beliefs. And so everything I do, the book I've written, the stuff I do is really about how Do I identify and crush limiting beliefs and then build a roadmap to our success? And so I like to ask my podcast that I'm on. So you've done some amazing stuff. I mean, you've had to take some risk to do from veterinary and a surgeon there and then real estate and things you're doing. I would love to just ask you a quick question before we jump into me is what was. Was there a limiting belief? We all have them, right? We don't even know we do sometimes in areas of our lives. Was there a limiting belief or a thing that you had to kind of mindset that you had to kind of shift or overcome, especially when you took that leap to go into another area, you know, in the practice and all that? I'm just curious, what was your experience with limiting beliefs been that you've overcome or maybe that you've kind of gone? Yeah, I've had to. Had to deal with this lie that I believe. I'm just curious. It helps me in my process. So every.

Every day. Every day, limiting beliefs. I mean, I think that they're. They're hugely important to success and also like not pursuing success. So I think that, that for me personally, one of the biggest, I guess I would say, like, in direct relation to, you know, kind of a career shift, if you will, one of the biggest limiting beliefs was like, you can't, you can't do that. You can't be good at something else, right? Like, you only get to be successful in one thing. And I think that's been something that, um, it was hard to like, still to the. I mean, people see me as a veterinary surgeon. Like most of the people I know, that's what they think of me as. And then when I talk to them about real estate investing, I think there's. There's limiting beliefs behind being something else that is, you know, I guess of interest or that can help them. And so that's probably one of the biggest ones that I. That I continue to still face, you know, sort of on a daily basis.

And so that's. That's actually really, really good because it reminded me of kind of my same story. I mean, that limiting belief is part of least for me. So I. So I chased a girl. I'm going to tell you my story and I'm going to. But I want to address what you just said as well. So I chased a girl to Texas. I'm from the Midwest originally, although I was born in California, not too far from where you're at in Torrance. But single mom. She was with a guy in California. I was actually the fourth child. There was three before me. I'm 59, so on the verge of 60. This is in the 60s. She had three kids before me. Two she aborted and one she gave up for adoption. And then she chose to keep me. I share that because these are things that happen in your life, right, that you don't have any control over, but they begin to play out in your world. And then you begin to interpret those experiences and that environment in a certain way to create a belief system that you begin to have. Even when you're a small child and you start growing, you're interpreting your life's experiences and stuff and creating beliefs that drive our behaviors and our actions that result in outcomes. And I'll talk about this some as we go through this, but so I started there, but I want to hit what you said because it was like, wow, I had a little epiphany moment with what you said about my own journey. So I came down, chased a girl to Texas, was an educator and a teacher and a coach, and then I went into full time ministry. Crazy story. I didn't grow up in the church, but I ended up going into full time ministry, church planting and doing church stuff. But then I left that because I was never really a pastor. And I went into the professional world, into leadership development and growth and coaching what I'm doing now. But when I made that shift, no one could see me as anything other than a pastor. And so no matter where I was in my community and everything I did, and then my mind said, well, can I really be anything else and do I have the right to say I can teach or coach on leadership or I can do these things? And so my mind started cycling through this. Well, maybe I've made a mistake. Maybe I'm not really good at this. Maybe I can't be a professional. Maybe all those things that go through our heads that I can't, everything you just said, that's exactly where I was when I made the shift. This was over 25 years ago, but when I made that shift and it took a long time for me to own this other place that I was standing in, I actually had to. I moved. I didn't do it because I moved to another town and they didn't know me as pastor in that town. And I, that was where the stark difference was like, is when I started working and doing stuff there professionally in this leadership world, they received me and it was amazing. And I thought, wow, I Just noticed that limiting belief I had and the way I set myself up to not be successful because I couldn't see myself as something else. I mean, I was doing it, I was living it, but the reality was. So anyways, I just share that because when you said that, like, oh, there's a memory for me in my own journey. But yeah, so my story is I chased a girl to Texas, caught her. We've been married 33 years. I've got two kids, a 29 year old and a 25 year old. Both are adopted. They were adopted from birth. So I was there in the hospital when they were born and. And amazing kids, amazing stories. That's all part of the journey. But I guess what got me to where I'm at today and what I'm doing, what my passion really is, is the realization that I had, had I created constructs in my world about my abilities, my confidence, my identity, my worth, my values based on how I interpreted experiences in my life. So like I said, I was, you know, back in those days, you know, you don't have an abortion, you don't give a child up for adoption, you're not married and have kids. So my mom was already living in a world that said this is not okay, right? And so I couldn't go home, she couldn't take me home. But when she said she wanted to keep me, the guy she was with left, said, I'm done. So I don't know him. I was raised by my mom and my gram, you know, and so I didn't realize it back then, but as we, as I was growing, realizing I'm growing in the 60s without a dad, I started to make stories up about why I didn't have a dad. He was in the war and got killed, you know, all those things because I had to somehow figure out who I was, how I belonged, how I fit. And then being a latchkey kid, I tell people before there were latch keys, right? So my mom was gone a lot and so I had babysitters. The other thing that marked me, and I'll share why I share this because it's where those beliefs come from, where this stuff comes from that caused me to be on the journey I'm on is I was abused by a babysitter. I was probably five or six years old and you know, no one knew. It didn't, it never came out. It was, you know, it just, it was one of those things that happened. But what I realized as I look back as perspective, right? We look back over our lives and realize these things in our lives, these markers in our lives. I realized that from that experience and other experiences, I interpreted them as, I must be a problem. I'm wrong. It was my fault. I'm not worthy. I'm not. And I started to look at females, not my mom and my gram so much, because they were amazing, great love, but they were working. It was a hard, hard time. But I started looking at women a certain way, girls a certain way. And so I started treating them a certain way. And that started playing out as I was getting to be a teenager and a young adult and then into my twenties and in college. And I had a lot of broken relationships, a lot of stuff. And I put on this front that said, I'm okay, I'm strong, I'm powerful, I can do anything I put my mind to. And I would let everyone know I'm great. Because while inside I was miserable. And every time I'd have to show up, I would end up figuring out a way to quit, leave, or move on to the next thing. Careers, jobs, relationships, didn't matter. So I share all that, because when I got to. When I met my wife, everything started to change. And I realized I wanted to spend my life with her. And as we were getting closer and moving towards that direction, and I come down to Texas from Illinois, from Chicago area, started seeing a lot of problems. We started really butting heads. There was a lot of issues. And I thought, man, this is not good. I don't know why this is showing up. I found the person I want to be with, yet I couldn't be with her. And so that was a really change for me. Caused me to really go, what do I do? What's wrong? Where is this coming from? And then I had another marking point that started to shift my mindset, and that was her dad came to me six months into living in Texas, and he gets in my space, right? You've ever have somebody kind of walk into your space and like, they're in your space? He was amazing guy. He still is smart, just really good man. Business owner, entrepreneur, very successful. And he was a Christian faith guy, right? Really had a strong faith. I had never. That was not in my world. I never thought about it and care about it. Wasn't part of my deal. Well, he gets in my face and he says, hey, I think you're a really neat guy. I really like you. I'm glad you're dating my daughter, you know, okay. He said, but if you want to have a relationship with my daughter, you need to get a relationship with the Lord. I was like, okay, honest to God, it was like, well, I thought I was the Lord. And so therefore, it's all cool. And I got this figured out. I laugh about it, and it's not about faith per se, but it was that place where I was confronted with this identity thing, this. This what do I believe? Who are you? What's important to you? And so I went on a journey of discovery, right? Because I was provoked to say, is this life you're living, this thing, your Persona you're putting out there, is that as good as it gets? Is that it? Is that what you're going to be? Is that what you're going to do? Is that how you're going to show up? And something inside of me said, I don't think so. But I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what to do. So that. There's so many other stories, but that was really the catalytic place that took me on a journey of understanding that the outcomes that we get in our lives. And I know this is a lot. I'll wrap this up here in just a second, Jason. But the outcomes that we get in our lives, the fruit of our life, we all have them. There's things good and bad. It's just. It is what it is. They are all a result of behavior or actions that we take. Behaviors, things that we do produce an outcome. I mean, it's just natural. Every action, every behavior has some kind of result tied to it. Big, small, known, unknown. But they do. All of our behaviors, our actions, they come from a belief. Every one of our beliefs that we have, whatever we believe, even we don't recognize it anymore because we've held it so long, demand an action, a behavior. That behavior.