His Dad Was An Alcoholic, Here Is What He Said... | Ep 126

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. If you're enjoying the Self Belief Chief podcast and you're looking for a online coaching partner, make sure to check out Self Belief Chief vip. It covers the five key areas, performance, relationships, health, finance and career and spirituality to really create a transformation for you in your life. You can visit it and find out more information at selfbeliefchief. If you're on the Self Belief Chief website listening to this podcast, it'll be underneath the episodes or on whatever medium or platform you're listening to this podcast. There will be a link in the description, but just visit selfbeliefchief.com VIP to access your online coaching partner with hours and hours and hours of content that's consistently being added to. So hopefully I'll see you there very soon. But otherwise let's get on with the podcast. Many of the people I've worked with worry they're going to repeat patterns of the past. They worry that they're going to make the mistakes that may be their family, their parents, their loved ones, their, you know, elders have made and that they're just going to do the same thing. A self fulfilling prophecy that, you know, if their parents got divorced, they will get divorced. If their father or mother was abusive, that they will be abusive. It's a real worry. And you might have worries that you're going to repeat certain patterns or possibly even repeat your own pattern of something you've done in the past and worried that you'll do that again. And so I wanted to tell you the story of someone I worked with a while back who really inspired me by what he said because only a week before I'd had a friend who said, you know, I'm worried that as my parents got divorced, I'm in a really great healthy relationship now. But you know, what are the chances that I'm also going to get divorced in the future? You know? She said, I think that's absolutely going to happen to me. How can, I'm staring right at it. How can I avoid it? So then I told her this story. I said, well, I spoke with someone a while back and his father had been an alcoholic, really abusive alcoholic. And I said to him, we work in some other things, but when he told me about his father being an alcoholic and I looked at him and you know, he didn't, he doesn't touch a drink, he doesn't take a sip of alcohol. You know, premium fitness, you know, health condition. Looks, looks fantastic, is really just kind Ambitious, caring, empathetic, loves to contribute, loves to provide for other people. It just turned out so well. And I just wanted to know from him, his opinion, his perspective in terms of, well, how does he avoid the self fulfilling prophecy when everyone else worries about it? What does he do that's different? And here's what he said. He said, David, my dad being an alcoholic showed me all the things that I need to avoid. He said he gave me a complete blueprint of what not to do. Don't be tempted by this, don't be teased by this, don't be encouraged by this, don't be persuaded by that. He said, I could see a clear blueprint of what not to do. And he said most people in life don't have that kind of trial and error in lots of different ways and lots of different things because they don't know what's the wrong thing to do. So they kind of test the waters and test the waters and they might find it's not the right thing but it meets their needs so they keep doing it. He said, but I had a blueprint of what not to do. I count myself as lucky, as fortunate for having such a blueprint. And he said, and also, you know, in terms of how do I blame him for this? That yeah, would I have liked him to be a better father? Of course. But if he wasn't the way he was, I wouldn't be the man I've become today. He said, if I blame him for all the bad, I've got to blame him for all the good as well. I've got to blame him for the fact that I'm an ambitious person. I've got to blame him for the fact I'm an empathetic, caring person. He showed me what not to do. And so for anyone listening, whether you're worried you're going to repeat your own patterns or bad habits or repeat those of people that you're close to and you feel like is just a part of who you're going to be? You have a decision to make, you have a decision to make of is this a self fulfilling prophecy which is unavoidable, or is it a clear blueprint that you have over everyone else of what not to do and therefore how to live a better life? And I've seen it firsthand when you make that decision to live a better life, to lead a better life, to use that blueprint to avoid and be very consciously minded about what it is I need to do differently, not just kind of go, I know it's there because he was consciously minded of the steps he needed to avoid taking that led him to a really great position. Sure. Do we wish our parents were a certain way? Perhaps. Do we wish that people at work were a certain way? Perhaps. Do we wish our childhood was a certain way? Perhaps. But it also teaches you how to avoid pain. It teaches you how to not go down the wrong roads. And you see it with other people who seemingly have the most wonderful childhood, the most wonderful family, the most wonderful environment, go to drug and alcohol and other things and worse. It's because they don't know what not to do. I'm not saying that you should be happy with what's happened in your life. Not at all. I'm just saying that it's an opportunity to use that blueprint and to do what you see those inspiring people do who've had a tough upbringing or a tough life or tough circumstances or whatever it might be. But to use that consciously to know what to avoid doing and for you to have the opportunity to lead and live a better life. And like the gentleman that I spoke with, to be someone that really people look up to as just an amazing human being. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, Enjoy the rest of your life, and I'll speak to you on the next episode.