In this live, solo motivational talk recorded in Charlotte, North Carolina, the speaker reflects on the emotional fallout from the recent U.S. election and the personal triggers that arise when encountering political symbols such as Trump yard signs. He argues that while we cannot control external events (the "subject"), we can control our internal response, and that conscious awareness of triggers is the first step toward peace and happiness. He introduces a specific reframing technique—whenever he sees Trump, he mentally substitutes "Trump = love"—to transform anger or frustration into compassion and purposeful action. The speaker extends this model to other habitual triggers (e.g., reaching for junk food when sad) and suggests replacing unhealthy reactions with healthier alternatives (e.g., push‑ups). He emphasizes that collective positive responses can spark broader social movements, urging listeners to identify their own triggers, choose empowering responses, and spread love and hope.
Chapters
And hello everyone, how are we doing today? Welcome to Facebook Live on— what is today? Today is Tuesday. It's Taco Tuesday, and I am not enjoying Taco Tuesday with my family. But I actually just arrived here in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'll be giving a corporate training presentation tomorrow morning before returning back home to Florida, but enjoying a little bit of color change and a cooler temperature than we get down in South Florida at this time of the year. Hello, Amy, how we doing? So welcome everyone. So, uh, I, I promised, uh, yesterday based on Instagram that I was going to actually have this talk yesterday. Uh, Mirko, hello. Uh, but time got away from me, so now that I have some hotel time and, um, wanted to jump in and, and talk about an idea that actually kind of came to me yesterday sort of on a run. And, uh, uh, I was noticing as I was in the neighborhood there were still election signs up in people's yards. And I was noticing my own sort of physiological reaction to signs as I would pass them. And I was like, okay, when I see that, that makes me angry, or that makes me frustrated, or that makes me sad. And it got me thinking about— because the message that I've been trying to sort of preach for others and for myself to follow since last week's election is, if I'm going to yes-and You know, life, if I'm going to live yes and, and yes and the results of everything that's going on, it's being acceptance with what's happening and then choosing how we're going to respond to it. And so as I often say, you don't have to like what's happening, but you get to choose your response. And in your response is where we find our peace, where we find our happiness. Hello, Angus. Great to have you on. Sawyer. And so as I was noticing my own frustration flaring up from seeing signs, and then you can now just apply that to anything. In life. When you see someone do X, it causes you frustration. When someone cuts you off on the road, it makes you angry. Just like when you feel down, you want to go eat some junk food, some comfort food. So when it comes to handling sort of the trigger, we all have these triggers that make us feel any number of things. Right now with the election, right? If you turn the news on, you're You're going to be triggered either positively or negatively depending on who you chose. And so your action comes from your response. Your action is inspired by sort of your emotional reaction to how you feel about the subject. So the subject is simply the subject. We— it's our objective response, our perspective, our opinion, what we feel about something, which then leads to our action and leads to our response. And so If we want more happiness in life, we can't go out and change the things. We can't change the stuff. We can't spend all the time trying to make the subject be something different than it is. What we need to focus on is our awareness and our choice of what we are making that thing mean to us. And that's what we need to pay attention to. If every time I feel sad, I go grab an ice cream cone, it's really not the ice cream's fault. It's the fact that that is my trigger response to whatever feeling of sadness. If I wanted to turn that into a positive thing, is every time I felt sad, I dropped and did 10 pushups instead of grabbing that ice cream cone, it's going to be a more positive reaction to that trigger. And so again, for example, let's say you didn't vote for Trump last week, and now every time you think about it or you see a yard sign or you see him on the news, that causes that same sort of visceral reaction. And then what do you do with that as a result? So what we need to do is, again, we can't change him, we can't change the subject, we can change how we're going to choose to respond to it. So what I've been working with for the last few days is whenever I see that name, whenever I see an image of him, my immediate response is Trump equals love. Yeah, Trump equals love. So it is my trigger when I see the name, when I see the face, when I see the image, I immediately expand my thought to, to him and to just everyone as a country in general, global included. Just really just love, just loving my neighbor, loving him, loving groups of people who might be feeling a lot of fear right now about the results and just And just having love be the response. So instead of seeing that image and turning to anger, frustration, and all that stuff, which just— let's be honest, it only makes me feel bad. I'm the only one who suffers as a result of that. So I'm trying to turn my suffering into peace by noticing the trigger. What is causing that pain? Well, the trigger is causing that pain, but it's my response to it where I'm doing the damage to myself. No one's doing it. He's not sitting in my house and making my life— You know, miserable yet. I'm just kidding. But it's my— it's how I choose to respond to it. So we can apply that to everything. Every time I feel down and I'm like, I'm just going to go, you know, again, eat a piece of cake or something, notice it's the— when we can notice and connect the dots from a thought to an action, now we have power. So every time we get upset about something, we do an unhealthy act. Well, now we can choose to find a response that's, that is healthy. That's what anyone trying to break an addiction does, right? We can't necessarily get rid of the urge all the time, but what we are doing is we are noticing the urge and then choosing a different response. And for me right now, every time I see Trump, Trump equals love. I feel myself with love. I love everyone around me. And I just, I send prayers and love to To ourself, to him, and our country moving forward. And instead of allowing that to spiral me into a funk, it actually makes me feel good. And it allows me to focus myself on actually helping others, which is my purpose, right? My purpose is to inspire my others to live joyously, peacefully, and triumphantly in yes, right? On purpose. And so every time I notice that negative trigger, It just triggers me to spread love instead of anger, to spread love instead of frustration, to spread hope instead of fear. And I think that's the opportunity all of us have. We are all going through life and things, it's how we respond to everything. And when you get a group of people who all turn a negative into a positive response, that's how a movement happens. Right. That's how things get done. And first of all, we got to start with ourselves. We've got to notice. And here's the important thing we all need to take stock of. We need to be really clear on what the triggers are in our life because we all have them. We all have them. And a lot of us have been carrying around with us for many, many years. We've been carrying these unhealthy triggers around with us for many years. And so we're unconscious about it. So we find ourselves kind of with some bad habits, some bad behaviors, some bad reactions, and we're unconscious of it. So the first thing we need to become is conscious of what these triggers are. And once we become conscious of them, then we get to choose our positive, powerful response instead of just kind of living that negativity or that nightmare over and over and over again. We are the ones who are responsible for it. No one else. Don't change the stuff. Change your response to it. Don't change others around you. Change the way that you see them and respond to them. So there you have it. Notice our triggers, right? Trump equals love. And, and that's how I choose to move forward from here. So that's it, everybody. Lots of love and peace from Charlotte, North Carolina. Have a wonderful Yes And day, everyone. Take care.
