52. When the Bad Guys Close In (How to Stay in the Fight)

We can choose our attitudes. We can choose to be courageous. We can step forward. We can choose to have clarity. The confidence you have equals the quality of your life, and it's not something you're born with. It's not a special thing that you just have or you don't. It's a skill. And the funniest and most ironic way to get more confidence is to— My wife says this intro sounds like a conspiracy mystery. So I'll stop that voice and I'll just tell you, this show This show is here to give you some cinematic fuel, tools, and excitement so you can stop drifting and start directing your life better than any movie. Welcome to the party, pal. I'm Tony Suriano. I'm your host. This is Direct Your Life, and today this is part 10 of 15. It's a mini-series within the podcast, so if you haven't listened to the last 9, go back and binge them because this all works as a unit to help you direct your life better than any movie, to make your life fun, full of zest, energy, and enthusiasm towards what matters to you. All right, if you're watching on YouTube, here's my new set. I'm still tweaking it, but it feels nice to have a great space. If you're on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen, feel free to check it out on YouTube. Give me a subscribe if you like this content. But we'll go right into today's episode. This is episode 52. I'm excited because that's the goal I set a year ago almost, and I'm here and I'm going to continue serving you, creating content throughout the next year. And, uh, this episode specifically about what we call in the film industry, the bad guys close in. Have you ever had a time in your life Where everything all at once just comes together like a perfect horrible storm and hits you in every direction. It could be with your relationship or your family. It could be with your career or finances. Maybe you went bankrupt and then you also lost your job at the same time. I don't know what it is for you, but it happens to us throughout our life. And it's up to you. It's up to me to prepare for those moments, to get through those moments. And most importantly, to stay in the fight long enough so you can move past those moments and learn from them and have some great stories you can share. So we're going to talk about 2 big ideas that can help you get out of these bad guy moments, how you can focus in on one. And I'll also, before I start, share a little story It's a pressure story, a pressure moment in my life that's relevant. I was trying to build a tiny house in Malibu, California for my wife and I. I had a setup with my friend on his property. We had a deal. I'd build a tiny house on his property because his pool house burnt down in the fires, and it'd be a trade. I'd be able to stay there for a couple years as long as I put in the labor and the material. So I went for it. And we, we built, meaning me with my bare hands for 85, 90% of it. Then my amazing friend Cyrus helped on the weekends and we got through it. We built this tiny house. It had a view of the ocean, mountains. It was serene, but it was also surreal and also snaky because bad guys closed in. Right. An angry, silly neighbor. I wanna call 'em names. He called the city on us, and then we got a note on the door. And this was a problem because they said, "You need to get some permits for that building property, or else we'll blah blah blah blah blah." So my friend and I thought, "Well, we can go down there, get a retroactive permit." But there was a problem: they needed an architect; they needed plans. And I was the pseudo architect. I drew up little plans. I probably have them saved somewhere in my files. And to me, it made sense. The structure made sense. It was small, but it had 2 floors, and we were living in it for a couple months. And that's when we got that notice. And that wasn't the only thing going on. More bad guys closed in. I was working on a film project as a producer and, and also the director of photography, and there was a problem on that set. There was a lot of drama back and forth, and I just couldn't handle I felt like it at the time. I couldn't handle these permits, finishing the house, this film project, some other financial stuff going on. It was all happening at once. So during these crazy moments, I did a lot of walking. I went up to Malibu hikes. I went to the top. I looked at the view and it just forced me to reflect on the bigger picture. I'm a film director and whenever I make a film, or a short project, even a commercial, I'm thinking big picture. Like, how does this look from bird's eye view? 'Cause sometimes when you're in the forest, you can't see it. You've heard that, right? Get out of the forest so you can see into the forest. So I would do that on these walks and it helped a lot. And I had to start asking better questions like, where do I wanna be in a few years? The simple ones. What am I doing? Can I really afford the permit cost? Because the city said, Yeah, another thirty grand and you can destroy the property and rebuild. But you just need also to hire an architect. And before I know it, it was like seventy eighty grand worth of building, which I didn't have at the time. It couldn't work out. My friend couldn't fork up the money. It just didn't make sense. So sadly, we had to remove the structure. Pit in stomach—that is what hurt the most during that whole period because I worked so. Hard for me and my wife and my friend to just build something worthwhile. I obsessed on YouTube building videos for 6 to 7 months, and I built this thing. And I connected with my friend Sai throughout the journey on the weekends towards the hard stuff. So there was benefits there. There was a lot of other benefits, but you had to have everything crumble to really reveal the benefits. And the reason why I'm telling you this story is when I stayed in the fight through all of that, things started making sense. And I eventually made one of the best decisions I made in my life, which was to leave California. I slowly transitioned, and my wife and I had a new journey into another state. And the last several years have been just night and day. So these bad guy moments, What are they for you? What's going on right now? So the first big idea is clarity, perspective. So what's going on for you? Can you future set just a little and say, hey, I gotta get through this one thing, and when I do, new things are gonna reveal, but I have to be open to seeing that. I can't be closed off. I can't go in the corner. I can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. That's awareness. That's clarity. Now, how do you apply the answers you get when you have some clarity? What I did and what I do is I reset physiologically, and then I was starting to master the unicycle. I know it's weird, it's crazy. That's me. I was in the circus. I got kicked out of the circus. That's another podcast episode, but I was unicycling as breaks. And when you're unicycling, you're balancing so much that you can't think about your problems. You know, like if you stop balancing, you fall off. If you start thinking about something, you fall off. So what is it gonna be for you that resets you so you can have a charge, a new energy to then implement some of the clarity and the answers that you got? The second big idea. It's courage. When you act courageously, you're actually creating more confidence. And I believe that confidence, the level of confidence you have, equals the quality of your life. The confidence you have equals the quality of your life. And it's not something you're born with. It's not a special thing that you just have or you don't. It's a skill. And the funniest And most ironic way to get more confidence is to act, to step forward, to take action. So courage equals confidence. You have to have courage. And part of courage is asking other questions like, what am I missing here? But even more importantly, ask someone you trust, a family member, a friend, hey buddy, what's my blind spot here? What am I missing? If I did that at the beginning of the build, if I would've just asked like a family member I trusted or a friend, hey, what am I missing before I start? Like, what am I missing? I know what my one friend Shane would've said. He was in the real estate business. He would've said, well, make sure you have all your permits squared away. Check with the city cuz it could not be worth your time. But I, being the old Tony, I was like, oh, let me just surprise people and they'll see, wow, he's living in Malibu. He's got a cool— Interesting house there. Wow, how'd that happen? And that was probably part ego saying, I can get away with this and I don't have to tell anyone. I don't have to get a permit. That's not the way to live. It didn't work for me during that time. Now, of course, I learned a lot. I told you that. But that is part of courage, stepping forward and asking others to check your blind spots. Quick pause. If this resonated with you, I invite you to join the Direct Your Life newsletter. It's free. It comes to your inbox every week with behind-the-scenes lessons, exclusive content, and other free tools designed to make your life better than any movie. Go to tonysuriano.com/newsletter. And now back to the episode. Here's a quick challenge for you. I did this years ago and it helped so much, and I'll be doing it again very soon. I actually emailed a list To one of my close friends, and the list consisted of things like, hey, this is what's going on in my life. This is what I'm after. This is what I'm about right now. What are my best attributes that you know of me now? Because I— you want to hear that, right? Your, your subconscious is always listening. You want to hear that good stuff. But also, I asked, more importantly, I asked, what are my blind spots? Because we just can't see our own blind spots. Don't you know, when you're looking into other people's lives, it's so easy to say, hey man, you know, watch out for this, I see it. But when it's you, when you're in the forest, it is harder to step out of the forest and actually give yourself that blind spot advice. So there you have it, 2 big ideas. Get more clarity. And act more courageously. You do those 2 things, this year is going to dramatically shift into a better one because you're just going to have more alignment with who you want to be and what matters. You are going to be directing your life instead of ego directing your life, instead of bitterness directing your life, instead of jealousy directing your life. You don't want those things to Push you there, pull you there. You want to be the one in the director's chair. If you notice behind me on YouTube, I have a director's chair right there. It's, it's a great reminder that we each need to be in our own chairs through the storm, and we each need to practice equanimity, which just means really being calm and, and not so reactive during crazy moments in life. And that's also a skill, and it takes practice. And that's why you're listening. That's why you're here. I thank you for doing this because you're doing the work. And when you do the work on yourself, there's a ripple effect. And I truly mean that, because when I meet people that have done the work with themselves, it's so refreshing. And I hope when I meet you or I meet someone out there new, they think Tony's a little bit refreshing. Maybe he's a little crazy. Maybe he's a little intense. But there's something refreshing about his attitude because we can choose our attitudes. We can choose to be courageous. We can step forward. We can choose to have clarity. This is just a recap of your challenge. Identify your top 3 bad guys and circle the one that you know if you ignore, all hell is gonna break loose. So focus on that one. That's number one. Number 2. Number 2, ask the trusted friend or family member, what blind spots am I missing in this time of my life? Please be honest. Then number 3, choose a stabilizer, a ritual. Walk, pray, go into mountains, anything that's just a great way to reset. Try unicycling. Try something new. The brain loves novelty, so get out there, Do what you need to do to direct your life. And if you love this episode, if you're liking this episode, leave me a comment. Please review the show on Apple. It really helps. Share the episode. You know the deal. I really appreciate it. You can also shoot me a message at contact@tonysuriano.com and let me know what you're doing to direct your life. That's it. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next one.