Digital Social Hour - The Dark Side of Childhood Trauma: Michael Unbroken's Inspiring Journey To Find Happiness | DSH #59

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Hey there, listeners! Have I got an episode for you today! Strap in because we've got a powerful and transformative story coming your way. In this eye-opening episode, we welcome Michael Unbroken, a man who grew up in a household plagued by violence and a strained relationship with his brothers. From the get-go, Michael takes us on a rollercoaster ride through his troubled past, sharing about his abusive childhood and the hardships he faced. He's candid about how his life spiraled into drugs, crime, and chaos after being kicked out of school. But here's where it gets interesting – Michael realizes that money might just be the key to escaping his chaotic life and sets a goal for himself. But hold up! Before we dive deeper into Michael's journey, let's take a quick moment to talk about our amazing sponsor, Hostage Tape. Need to improve your sleep and facial features? Look no further! Hostage Tape has got you covered. But don't worry, we'll get back to Michael's story in just a moment. Alright, back to Michael. Fast forward to rock bottom, where his own brother disowns him, prompting Michael to search for change. And you know what? He does something incredible – he decides to make no excuses and begins a path of personal growth. Through therapy, coaching, yoga, meditation, and journaling, he frees himself from the chaos that once consumed him. One of the most powerful moments in this episode is when Michael shares how he found inspiration to share his nightmares from a line in a horror movie. He realizes that speaking about his traumas can help him regain control over his life. It's truly awe-inspiring. But it doesn't stop there. Michael also delves into the importance of investing in oneself, closing the gap between who you are and who you want to be. He talks about the dangers of numbing oneself with prescriptions and how taking action is crucial for true transformation. And let's not forget about relationships! Michael shares his personal insights on dating from a place of hurt and the importance of self-love before diving into partnerships. He's determined to find the right person, and we can't help but admire his commitment to his own growth. As the episode comes to an end, we're left with this powerful message – where you are today does not have to be where you are tomorrow. It's time to make a decision and do the work for your health and mental well-being. So, what are you waiting for? This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to break free from the chains of their past and embark on a journey of personal growth. Tune in now and join us on this incredible ride. You won't regret it. Until next time, peace out, and remember, healing and transformation are within your reach. BUSINESS INQUIRIES: [e-mail] SPONSORS: AG1: https://www.drinkAG1.com/DSH Hostage Tape: https://hostagetape.com/DSH --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did you repair the relationship with your brother? Because at one point he wouldn't even talk to you, right? Yeah, that hurt. I mean, that was a moment. And with my other brother too, I mean, context, we went to war. Like for real, for real. One of them tried to stab me. I pushed one of them through a wall one time.

I've broken my hands on their face. But you have to think, we grew up in violence. If your language of love is violence, how do you think you're going to speak, act, talk, behave, show up? And so my brothers and I, what do you think that we did? There's a scar. You can see it on top of my hand. It's small now, but my little brother threw a freaking brick at me one time over a pickup game of basketball. Welcome to the Digital Social Hour Podcast.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly. I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis. What up, what up? And our guest today, Michael Unbroken. What's up, my guys? Doing well, man. I'm in the building. Thanks for having me. Of course. How's it going? Dude, so good. Super excited to be here with you, man. up and our guest today michael unbroken what's up my guys doing well man in the building thanks

for having me thanks chloris how's it going dude so good super excited to be here with you man yeah i love what you guys do crushing it you've been you've been keeping up with us a bit yeah yeah i've had a few of my friends on and i'm always like let's go let's do it man get people to run down on your story yeah totally um the short version um grew up in a super abusive household mom was a addict alcoholic she actually cut off my right index finger when I was four years old. So multiple skin grafts, multiple surgeries. You know, you hear hurt people hurt people. Right. Stepdad, super abusive. me and my little brothers you gotta think i'm like 6 4 220 he's beating up seven-year-olds he's my size you know so spent most of my childhood homeless deeply in poverty live with like 30 different families until i was 12 years old and then at 12 started doing drugs started getting high popping pills uh drinking when i was 13 kicked out of school when I was 15 uh got put in a last chance program still didn't graduate um you know I'm running the streets guns getting robbed robbing people running from the cops

breaking in a house stealing cars I mean like the whole chaos all that and um when I was 18 after not graduating basically I went to summer school. They go, here's your diploma. Get out. Let the streets handle you. And I got fired from a warehouse job where I was putting microchips into motherboards all day because I came high. And they're like, nope, you can't do that. So I'm sitting in my car. I was like, all right, hold up.

There's a solution in here for all the chaos of this life. And I was like, it's got to be money. And so I made a decision at 18 years old. I was like it's gotta be money and so i made a decision 18 years old i was like i'm gonna chase money i want to make a hundred grand a year legally by the time i'm 21 legal is super important right i've been in handcuffs more times than i can count family in prison for life my three childhood best friends have been like i knew where i was going yeah and um so that's what i did ended up getting a job with a fortune 10 company when i was heading into 21 years old started making multiple six figures made almost a million bucks by the time i was 26 everyone always says that but they don't know this

part i was 350 pounds smoking two packs a day drinking myself to sleep high from the moment i woke up to the moment i went to bed my little brother i call him one day he gets back from afghanistan serving doing his duty our country and goes up man what's happening how you doing he's like what do you want i go just want to see how you're doing he goes uh don't talk to me. You're not my brother. Wow. And that was rock bottom. And in that moment, heading into a bunch of other very chaotic experiences in that window, I was just like, do something. Do something different.

And I asked myself this question. I was like, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? And the answer was no excuses, results and 13 years later here i am with you guys wow that's crazy and that's what i can tell you in three minutes yeah i can relate to that because um i kind of went to went through similar but not as obviously not as extreme but really similar my escape was money too but money isn't I still have some internal fixing I had to do so how did you when did you start working on yourself internally so really I mean it started to play out when I was 25 heading into 26 you had this conversation I hit this rock bottom like my whole life's a disaster

on paper it looks great right because i got an 80 000 cadillac and i got all the clothes closet full of jays like things look good on paper but like my life was a complete disaster like completely you know how people are shout out to today's episode sponsor hostage tape man this stuff's good, bro. I know. Last night, I slept with my mouth open. I really needed it. Did I hurt?

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are in a couple weeks i'm gonna face changes yeah i've seen some nasty photos of people with like fat jaws before yeah and then them using tape and it just everything lines up looks so chiseled afterwards it's actually crazy yeah i can I can't wait. I'm excited. But I definitely use hostage tape a lot, bro. Yeah. People that are struggling to sleep and, you know, feeling exhausted and snore. I definitely try it out. It's pretty cheap, too.

Yeah. And it's really comfortable, too. It's really, really, really, really flexible. You just kind of slide it on. There we go. Well, there you have it, guys. Hostage tape. Shout out to them.

Link will be in the bio. Check them out. They and they'll be like i think i'm gonna be dead within six months or a year they know that that feeling is in their soul i remember sitting on my bed one morning and be like i'm gonna be dead in a year and it's probably because i was gonna like real talk yeah and so i was like all right either die or change and for me it was like all right what can i do differently everyone has always told me i'm not good enough i'm not strong enough i'm not capable i don't matter mom's an addict alcoholic ends up dying legless in some town in indiana you never heard of never met my dad like world's against me. And I was like, all right, what if I'm not against me?

And I just started doing the work. It was go to therapy, get a coach. Dude, I was so poor at this point. I didn't tell you guys this part. I made all this money, but that's $50,000 in debt. Living paycheck to paycheck, making 15 grand a month. You know, not knowing that my value and my worth as a human being was tied in how I took care of myself in all elements. So I just started showing up every single day,

doing hard things. I literally borrowed money from friends to go to therapy, whatever it takes, man. Would you say therapy was a net positive for you? Oh yeah, for sure. Because it helped me understand myself in a deeper way. You know, for me, I've done every modality of therapy you could possibly imagine on planet Earth. But I tell people all the time, if I could go back in time, I would have got a coach before I got a therapist. I needed behavioral changes. I needed mindset shifts. I have the understanding, especially because I went into CBT, EMDR, gestalt, men's group therapy, men's group trauma therapy.

I did it all. But when I, when I got into the coaching mindset space, really tapping into that world, that's where my life shifted because it was like, wait a second, how do you learn to love yourself? How do you build confidence? How do you grow? How do you become that person that you envision being? What does it take to get there? And therapy, I will always say you need both. I don't think you can have a massive transformation without both, but I think most people think therapy is a solution. And I always look at it and I go, it's not the only solution. It's a part of the equation. It's a part of the puzzle. So I would tap into therapy, but it would be things like yoga and meditation and breathing and like freeing myself

of the chaos you know there were so many dark images in my life things like to be honest with you guys i'll never say this aloud there's a reserve for my journal and my therapist and my coach where it's like i don't even know that sharing some of these stories helps the world but i had that space to share it in those rooms right and because of that i remember one time i was watching this movie you got you got a jason uh jersey on so you'll appreciate this it was uh it was one of the freddy krueger movies like number 12 or something they make all right and uh and there's this part i think it's called the dream catchers or dream warrior or something like that it's like early 90s horror movie and they they're like, this girl is talking about how Freddie is chasing her down.

And she says, somebody's talking to her. She goes, well, you know, when you share your nightmares, they lose your power. And so that's what I started doing. I was just like, I'm going to share these nightmares. See if I can take my power back. That's a lot. That's a lot. What would you say the best way to deal with toxic household toxic

friends is is it just leave it immediately or do you think there's a way to rectify it that's a tough one well yeah it is tough and it's contextual right because if you're eight you don't know better yeah if you're 14 you probably can't escape i couldn't even get a real job at 14 so instead of getting a job at mcdonald's i was selling because i was just trying to get some money like figure out what's next what was different because you develop ptsd sean so the massive the toxic so going through it from a child until you're 18 roughly that's 18 years of trauma that you have to undo in order to maintain and keep the sanity in a society that's like up and here's the thing so it's 18 years of undoing that's a lot of time yeah and people reference the matrix a lot in personal development in the world that i exist in and it makes a lot

of sense but you know the thing that if you tie into and you really pay attention to the matrix people don't know they're in it. Right. Until somebody comes in, they're like, hey, red pill, blue pill, do you want to escape? But in one of the things that happened for me, and this is going to sound really backwards, but like real talk, really, fortunately, I was homeless as a child. So I had to live with so many different families, so many different collections of people strangers friends of friends church members i got to see what was potential on the other side like you know how crazy it was one time i was at this boy's house and he talked back to his dad and his dad didn't throw him through a wall and i was like what the like how is that possible yes and so you know when

you're indoctrinated groomed and enmeshed into that chaos of those environments of what you don't know anything different. You think it's normal. And then that becomes your normal. And so when you're a grown up and it's like, now I'm in this toxic relationship. I'm in this abusive relationship. I can't handle my finances. I'm out of health. I'm out of control.

Debt collectors hit me up every day. And you're like, this is just my life. It's like, well, how do you deal with it? Well honestly step one you got to acknowledge it stop lying to yourself but so you had a lot of PTSD from your childhood I got all the PTSD I mean that's a fact though it's true I can't tell you how much work I've done I was you know I coach both entrepreneurs and we, I like to call them civilians cause they're not in the entrepreneurial space, um, in the mental health, in this guide of like transforming trauma to triumph. And one of them asked me in a session that we did about eight months ago, it was right before my big conference. He was like, how much have you really invested in yourself? And I was like, everything. All my money, all my energy, all my time, all my effort.

And I still do it every day. Because, I mean, even in our communities, therapy is taboo, bro. To say you're going to therapy, bro, they'll look at you like, what are you going to therapy for? So now you have a bunch of angry men six four two hundred pounds walking around full of anger right so now they're walking past each other and you stare at them for just a quick second and now it's what you're looking at see it is not you the best thing for you to do is keep walking because it's not your problem but as soon as you turn around and you

start to interact now you've brought yourself in this world and that's when he takes all his anger out on you and that's when you got someone accidentally beat him to death or he shot him just because that's just anger and it happens in our community bro a lot it's probably the number one the number one reason why most people in our community the black community end up in certain circumstances is because of child trauma, PTSD. We all, not all, but a huge percentage of us suffer from that. Most of us don't overcome it because it's a small percentage that actually take accountability. So we have to learn to always forgive ourselves and then forgive our parents and what they don't know and the pain that they went through.

So it's that's what the generational curse is. It's passed down trauma. That's one thing they will pass down to you. It won't give you a house. They won't give you a car, but you're going to get some trauma. It's real talk. And what I think is really fascinating. So I grew up biracial.

I'm black and white. Right. And so I grew up both in the hood and in like the dirtiest muckiest white trash parts of town so i once had somebody call me black trash i don't i never heard that that's a new one exactly so i'm like a little white trash a little black trash yeah like whatever right so you grew up in indiana i grew up in indiana oh indiana indiana what part in the city so i grew up right by the speed. I thought you were going to say Gary.

I was going to say, yeah, that's very north. I grew up in the Havel campus area. And you know it, you know. Yeah, I mean, I heard his gear. And that's what Michael Jackson. So far. And so, I mean, that's so far away. I don't I'm never even to Gary.

But, you know, you look at it, it's this indoctrination of pain generationally. It hits people again and again and again. It doesn't even have to be the big things, man. It can be neglect. It can be your parents not taking care of you when you're sick and you need to go to the doctor. Bro, it could be divorce. Somebody in the family going to jail or prison.

You know, there's so many different things that, you know, it's a domino effect. These singular moments in time can shape who we are forever and it's like the hardest part of that is when you pause and you look at your life and you say to yourself how did i get here and then you rewind and you're like well of course i'm in a relationship where my girlfriend yells at me my mom of course i have debt all i ever heard was mom saying don't answer the phone right you don't know who that is right and it's the debt collect and so you know it's really this game it's such a man because you're in this consummate journey of like understanding all the dominoes that have

fallen to lead you where you are right and it's like here here's your life man here's who you are today and here's who you want to be. It's like that thing inside of you. Like, I'm going to take this risk. I'm going to build this life, this community, this health, this wealth, these relationships. But you're always being drawn back to who you used to be because it's comfortable. And you've got to start closing this gap and build confidence by doing incredibly uncomfortable things consistently. I mean, people ask me, how do you write books? How do you have the podcast?

I'm like, because I just work. I just go and I figure out the thing that I want and I move towards it. And people go, aren't you scared? I'm like, yeah, I'm scared. Terrified. All the time. Terrified. But I'm not dying with regret.

I'm not doing it. I love that. Yeah. One thing about me, what I realized is that I've been to more funerals than i have weddings wow i've been to two weddings my whole life wow i don't even know how many funerals i've been to to the point where i don't want to go to another funeral i don't care who it is last funeral i went to was my grandmother's and i was reluctant on going to that because i just i don't want to go to no more funerals i've been to two weddings ever that's crazy and my whole entire life bro

yeah so and i don't know why my parents took me to feel well that was just it was a norm the community they don't they don't know any better bro so it's a it's a it's an uphill battle it's always a fight when you come from certain communities and i didn't really learn about affection until um i started being around other families wow and seeing like wow your mom kisses you like that's crazy dude you know so it's yeah bro it's a lot bro

it's a lot bro and it's heartbreaking because everyone wants love I mean go look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs it's love security protection food intimacy and it's like if you're denied that how do you go find it same thing man my mom was never around my grandma was racist like imagine growing up a biracial kid with

a racist white grandma and your mom's and my mom's like in and out of rehab is chaos right and so i was like i'm gonna go hook up with all these girls. I'm going to go make all this money and we get all these clothes. And it never filled any gap. Wow. And then you got to figure out the game. Why? People always, I love entrepreneurship because you always hear, we're going to put you on game. I'm like, no, I'm about to put you on game.

Here's what you do. Get to the place that you can look in the mirror and love yourself. And then you win life. Yeah. Everything else is a flow pretty much after after that so money doesn't even matter i get about money it does though it does it matter here's why it matters because access yeah there it goes and it helps you with your therapy sessions and you're able to do a lot of more a lot more self-improving and you're able to look at the things because then money stops being a chase. And then the correction, the improvement the whole time was you.

Because money is really just something that we desire because we didn't grow with it. Yeah. Right. So it's something we're chasing because we want to experience it because we see it so much on TV. It's something that's marketed to you. But then once you attain it, the focus changes. Now it's like in order for you to stay here you have to change who you are because then you start to battle substance abuse because we have money right then your

spousal abuse domestic violence and then just abuse on other people now you're getting charged with assault because money only fuels it makes you more of who you are so you're in pain here money's going to amplify amplify that pain so now it's like you're the painful dude driving the ferrari so true people cut you off you want to pull your gun out you want to do all that yeah and god has granted you all these things so now it's time for like oh i gotta do some self-correction or i'm gonna to spiral. I mean, well, you know. Are you a fan of Western medicine culture like antidepressants and stuff

like that to treat mental health stuff? I think there's an over prescription happening in the United States. I watched my mom lose her life to Oxycontin. It still haunts me, man. There were just these pill bottles all over our crib all the time, constantly.

She wouldn't pay our water bill. Our water get turned off. Our heat get turned off. We get evicted. But she always had those pills, man. And so, look, as someone who is deeply in the mental health space, I've coached thousands of people around the world. You know, the pod does really well. And it's like I'm always a proponent of doing the thing that makes your life better.

That is not a crutch. And so if you need pharmaceutical intervention, I'm never going to be like, no, don't do that thing. But I'm going to ask you what you're hiding from first. What's the fear? Are you scared of being in your own thoughts? Are you scared of being alone? Are you scared of the potential that you have? There are more people on antidepressants in this country than almost the entire world combined.

It's the most medicated country in the world. There's only a handful of countries where you can even show pharmaceutical ads on television. So the Fortune 10 company I worked for, I won't say who they were, but they're a healthcare provider and every, I was an insurance sales. And so I used to be dialing for dollars at 21 years old, wearing khakis and a polo, just trying to make it. And the number of people, and this was 15 years ago now, the number of people who were on three to four medications, then Xanax, Zoloft, I mean, Ritalin, Adderall is insane. And now I can't imagine it's not doubled or tripled. And we live in a society where people are so quick to pop to the pill where I'm like,

wait a second. What if you went and sat in your thoughts and you figured out why you're stuck, figured out why you don't like yourself. But more importantly, and this is the hard part, you can acknowledge it, but it's the taking action that changes your life. You know, most people are terrified to take action because of shame, of guilt, of fear, of resentment, embarrassment. And my, my argument was was always like most people need pharmaceuticals because they don't love themselves so how do you get to the place that you do and of course i mean there you go look at biology there are certainly people who absolutely need to be on pharmaceutical medications i will never take that away right right and and you know i believe that there are people and even that i coach in my life and my family that are like that.

And I support that entirely. My concern is more geared towards the people who are avoiding reality. Right? How are we numbing ourselves? Is it booze? Is it alcohol? I already said booze. Is it prescriptions?

Is it shoes? Like, I had a shoe habit, bro. Oh, shoes? For real? How many pairs do you have? I'll tell you. I had a shoe habit. Okay like oh my shoes for real how many pairs you have i'll tell you i had a shoe habit okay i'll tell you a crazy story i'll give you the short of it so i'm 50 grand in debt i got this wall underneath my record player with probably 25 pair of jordans and one day this facebook ad pops up and it's for brendan brashard course brendan's an og

yeah in the game he's been around longer than pretty much everybody but tony robbins at this point and uh he had a course for 50 bucks and i remember looking down on my shoes the same shoes i have on right now these jays these 300 shoes and i had never invested one penny into myself, but I have this wall with thousands of dollars of shoes. And I remember being like, well, I'm already 50 grand in debt. I might as well just buy this course. And that course did one thing for me. And it didn't like change my whole life.

But it planted a seed that made me realize that if I invested in myself, things could be different. And so people invest in themselves by going to the doctor and being like I have a hard day give me a prescription the doctors like here you go because they get paid on the backside of it but is that investing in you it doesn't make your life better the anymore moment do you feel like it does is a placebo effect like what does it give you I think it's a it's the lack of accountability that they're hiding from so i wouldn't say it's investing yourself it's kind of running that's that's the

game you've got to decide that right but that's the fact right so you've coached thousands of people through mental health problems what are the most common things you see um with anxiety and depression clients yeah people feel people feel stuck, man. They're like, my relationship is stagnant. My health is stagnant. My career is stagnant. I feel like I'm not tapping into my dreams. Like I can't show up.

I sleep in every day. I'm depressed. I'm anxious. Feels like the world's against me. It's caving in on me. I'm having three panic attacks a day. Every time I take a step forward, I get hit in the face. I'm having three panic attacks a day. Every time I take a step forward, I get hit in the face and I'm like, welcome to life. Welcome to the club. This is

how it works. But the people who pull themselves out of it, what I love, I always ask people a question when, when I coach them, whether that's a free coaching session or they join one of the groups or we do the one-on-one thing. I always ask them, do you believe you have the ability to change your life? And I ask them on a scale of one to ten, do you believe you have the ability? One being, yes, I can radically change everything in my entire life. I believe it's possible. To one being like, absolutely not. This is a waste of time.

I don't even know why I'm here. How many people say one? More than you would believe. Five out of ten, how many ones do you get? Two. 20%. Most people say one? More than you would believe. Out of 10, how many ones do you get? Two. 20%. Most people sit a lot. That's a lot to me.

So most people sit in the middle. I'm a five or a six. And how do you feel about those? And I think about this, and no matter where they fall in the spectrum, so I'll give you behind the curtain a little Wizard of Oz here. No matter where you fall in the spectrum, I always say the same thing. I can't help you, but i will show you the path and that's all i can offer you i know what it's like to hate yourself i know what it's like to want to put a in your mouth because i've done it i know what it's like to have family members never want to talk to you

again that same brother helped me move here to ve. And we went and spent a few days having bro time. Wow. Right. So you're talking about this massive radical transformation in which I close gaps. And so when I sit across from these people and they share their most deepest interim intricate and really dark truth with me more times than not, Sean,

I get to be like, I understand because I do understand I've been there you know and I there's a fortune in having been in a lot of these scenarios where I get to connect with people in this deeper way but ultimately whether it's anxiety or oppression or just the general stresses of life I'm, what do we need to do that we can transform today? So many people are leveraging the idea of better, right? They're like, I'm going to make my life better. And that's in conjunction with the if, when, if I do this, then this will happen. And then my life will be better. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's not how this works. You start doing incremental changes now today. What can you do in this moment? And for me, you know, I used to smoke cigarettes, which is freaking disgusting. If you smoke, quit killing yourself.

You're dumb. Stop it. Right? But, you know, people always like, well, I quit smoking a thousand times. I'm like, okay, well, so you're a person who gives up on yourself. You know, we know what we should be doing. We know how to change our lives. When you put your head on your pillow at night, like that thing that's in your head about what it is that you need to do, quit the job, start the business, leave the relationship,

go to the gym, journal, yoga, meditation, get a new therapist, like whatever that thing is. It's like, if we can give people permission, guidance, community support, show them possibility, like, bro, your dreams can come true. You guys sitting here did not get here alone. No, there's been support and community and reach out. But it started at some point, each of you, I'll tell you right now, I don't have to know your stories to know this. You raised your hand and you said, I need help. And that's what these people do when they get on a call with me. Whether they're at a one or a ten, they've said, I'm stuck. I'm in a bad place.

Show me the path. And just like the Matrix, I'm like, red pill, blue pill. What do you want to do? Because I promise you, you open up this amazing possibility of life that I can show you is in front of you. If you just take one step a day, you do 365 steps a year. You can't tell me your life's not going to be different. What's your view on how impactful relationships can be when it comes to, you know, your love life and how some people may use that like as it can be a control mechanism in the sense of take them left or right.

How would you tell people it is best to be single or work on it or what kind of partner would you suggest certain people have when it comes to relationships? That's such a good question here. I'll give you a little context about my own journey. When I was young, I cheated every relationship I had. Just destroyed them all. You were supposed to. You're young.

I don't know that you're supposed to. I think that's a really weird way to phrase it. He's young. He's young. I mean, you don't know. But I didn't, because I watched my stepdad do it. I watched the people in my community do it. I my my dreams the people i looked up to growing up was like jay-z right and i was like girls girls girl and so like but really what it is is i was seeking

love admiration comfort somebody i'll do anything for you if you love me for four seconds and then you have an orgasm and you come back to reality and then you feel sick but and so the relationship that you have first and foremost with yourself is the most important relationship so when I started this journey I left a seven year partnership when I was 29 we'd been together almost seven years. I left the relationship. I packed up my bags. I moved across the country. I stayed entirely single for years. No hookups, no dates, no anything. Just on me. Because I think you have to get to the place where you can, again, this is about loving yourself.

Get to that place. Love yourself. Be willing to sit in that. And if you can get there, then you won't be looking for people to fill you up. Instead, your energies will come together. It'll be symbiotic and you will grow something beautiful together. And since this, I mean, I've had good relationships. I've not, I've had not so good relationships.

And relationships are really beautiful because as a human being, we need support. But you have to heal. like you have to go through this journey and i don't think you're ever like fully healed like i'm always going to be i always show people that there's no such thing as hill you'll never be a hundred percent so owning it every day is just a process it's the journey like can i get closer to who i believe i'm capable of being right and then what's interesting it's both compounding exponential and reciprocal so here it's like this line where every day you're taking these little steps it feels like nothing's happening right you're four years in and then suddenly it's like boom and you look back at the last four years and you go this is incredible

right and then you meet the man or the woman or whatever who's also at that level. And your energy coexists together in this really powerful and beautiful way. And so relationships are everything. And they'll show you, if you're dating a hurt person, pain. You're going to be in a painful, toxic relationship.

Yeah, compounded pain. Yours and theirs. Yours and theirs. And that is the thing that I'm always trying to convey to people is like you can have the exact relationship that you want like right now in this conversation i am single because i know exactly who i'm looking for and i'm not waiting till i find her i'm not settling i will be single till i'm 55 years old if that's what it takes and i think that's part of it because i'm good being by myself i have going back to the people amazing friends

amazing community amazing entrepreneurship friends like this city is great and so it's like for me every single day i'm good yeah again this whole game guys get to the place you're good with you and in the universe god's spirit source will place everything else in front of you there's a zero fucking percent chance i'm having this conversation with y'all if i didn't do the work so important why would you want me here it's so important to do the work on yourself and i always put emphasis on that like you gotta look at yourself in the mirror make sure you're straight and then everyone else you know a second but you have to make sure you're good you're the most important person in the room don't ever let anybody tell you differently

say that all the time how did you repair the relationship with your brother because at one point he wouldn't even talk to you right yeah look man i mean that was that hurt i mean that was a moment and with my other brother too i mean context we went to war. Like, for real, for real. One of them tried to stab me. I pushed one of them through a wall one time. Wow. I've broken my hands on their face. You got to think, man.

How many brothers do you have? I got three younger brothers and an older sister. But you have to think, we grew up in violence. Yeah. If your language of love is violence, how do you think you're going to speak act talk behave show up yeah right my my stepfather my mother my grandmother beat us viciously and so my brothers and i what do you think that we did there's a scar you can see on top of my hand me and my it's small now but my little brother threw a freaking brick at me one time over a pickup game of basketball.

Wow. Right? That's the level of violence that we had in our home. And so that violence turned from physical into verbal and neglectful into all of the things. And it wasn't until I started doing the work. Started showing up. And look, people always like the work, the work. Okay, here's what actually happened. I sat down and I went to therapy.

I talked about the things that hurt. I got in my journal. I sat down and I went to therapy. I talked about the things that hurt. I got in my journal. I meditated. I got in shape. I quit drinking all the time. I quit smoking all the time. I became the man I was capable of becoming. And I asked for forgiveness.

And then I paid my dues. I kept showing up. I kept doing the work. I kept bringing them into my, hey, what's up, man? How you doing? I text both of them just now before I even walked in here, spent two hours on the phone with my brother on Sunday, talking about a relationship, spent four days the other day with my brother when he's here in Vegas with me and we explored and had fun and connected and bonded. But the

journey was like, I'm not giving up on them because they gave up on me. Cause I'm not giving up on myself. And I simply looked at it and said, I want relationships with them. So I'm going to do what it takes. And the what it takes element is painful a lot of the times because you got to be like, yo, I know that I made almost a million dollars by the time I was 26 and I never gave you a penny when you were struggling, when you were hurting. I know that when you needed my love, I'm out here chasing all these girls and getting whips and putting rims on my car. And I

wasn't there for you. I didn't call you back when you needed me. And so it was like, I got to sit in my truth. You talk about acknowledgement like this. People won't do because it sucks. Like I'm never going to sit here and pretend like the perfect guy. Cause man, I made every mistake, but man, life is iterative. I've learned. And because of those mistakes,

because of those failures, I get to show up as this version of me and I wouldn't change it for the world. It's not that it doesn't suck, but my God, I'll pick up my phone, call my brother hands right now. Yeah.

It's tough. It's powerful. It's so i can i can relate because we fought like enemies in my household like we fought bad you had brothers yeah i had a brother but it was 11 of us whoa wow yeah so my mom had you know my sister and me but she took care of my eight cousins so we all grew up in the same household so it was definitely uh it was war bro it was tough growing up like it was tough and again like you turn into an adult so now those kids that love language you got to go outside with that so now you become a kid get suspended you run around with certain groups and

you just it's it's that energy energy. It took a lot of self. What he's saying is like, I damn near want to leave. Because it's too relatable. It's way too relatable. It's too common to you find out to you around a certain group of people and you find out that it's not normal what you went through. None of it's normal. It's not supposed to be like that. you know it's you got to undo a lot of pain and like you said you never heal bro you

get you get used to living with it but you have to not be that person anymore you know what i'm saying healing's this i'll give you guys a definition what's your definition it's very simple yeah you only do what you want to do and you never do what you don't want to do. So many of us live into everything that people say we should be. Be quiet. Walk on the right side of the hallway. Stay in the back. Be humble is the most nonsense.

I hate when people take it out. If you're a winner, be a winner, bro. No, no, for real. Give yourself your flower. Give yourself your accolades. Shine. I mean, if you're a winner, be a winner, bro. No, no, for real. Give yourself your flower. Yeah. Give yourself your accolades. Like, shine. I mean, don't be a d***.

Just be you. Just be happy about it. But, like, be like, I did some really good things with myself, man. And then it's like, the no thing is like, man, I'll share a quick story. My best friend, when I was 17, he and I did everything together. Grew up, same neighborhood, chaos. His parents were nightmares like mine. He's three doors down right side of the street.

We did everything, man. First time I got high with him. First time we hugged, check was in. Like a whole nine, man. It was like we were best friends. He calls me one night. He's like, hey, man, I got the lock on some coke. We're going to go to the next level.

To the next level. Well, we're 17. We don't next level. Well, we're at 17. We don't know many. Well, I'm 17. About to turn 18. I'm like 18 in a week or two. He's 16. And he comes over to the crib.

And my heart, like my gut, my whole organism was like, do not do this. Like, do not do this. You got to go this other path. I'm starting to see inklings of like what my reality is about to be at a deeper level and um he comes over and i'm like i'm not gonna go with you tonight and like the heartbreak in this dude's eyes like i mean real heart this is my best friend we did everything together he was crushed that i wasn't about to go do this with him. And so he leaves. Next morning, I see his mom on the street.

Hey, did come home. I was like, I don't know. I didn't see him. I was like, probably dead. Was he? He probably got got. Wow. And so another day goes by.

And his mom's like, oh, did you hear about him? I go, what happened? What's going on? Because she's not that like, did you hear about him? I go, what happened? What's going on? Because she's not that like she's not over herself. I'm like, what happened? She goes, well, when he was coming home, the car, the taillight was out. He got pulled over by the cops in Carmel, Indiana. More cops per capita than any city in the entire country.

And so if I would have been with him, I'm not with you two right now because I would have been charged as an adult with almost a kilo of cocaine and he was 16 years old. Wow. And so it's really about trust yourself. Get deep and you got to learn how to say no, man. Yeah. You got to learn how to say no and you got to learn how to say no, man. You've got to learn how to say no, and you've got to learn how to say yes. And not long after that, I told my mother, I will never talk to you again.

And until the day she died, I talked to her one time. And I'm telling you all, this sounds intense and heavy, and it is. But I promise you, healing is this journey of learning to put yourself first in the healthy ways we're really good at doing it in the unhealthy ways we're great at that most people are more afraid of success than they are failure wow michael that was such a powerful episode man yeah it's been a pleasure it's over already it's been 40 minutes man we went over it was not good dude it's been a minutes, man. We went over. It was not good. Dude, it's been a pleasure.

I appreciate you, man. Thank you. Any closing comments for the crowd? I always say this. Where you're at today does not have to be where you are tomorrow, but you got to make a decision. That's something I need to work on, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, I need to be more decisive.

It's tough man i feel like sean you you actually do do the work you put the work in from a health standpoint from a mental standpoint you take full accountability bro yeah like i that's one thing about you bro no matter what like you're you're honest with not only yourself but with everybody so i think you're doing a pretty good job for sure but there's some relationships i should have cut off sooner for sure they were pretty toxic but i think i'm working on that and you've definitely inspired me So I think you're doing a pretty good job. For sure. But there's some relationships I should have cut off sooner. For sure. They were pretty toxic.

But I think I'm working on that. And you've definitely inspired me to work even harder on it. Yeah, that was a great episode, man. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Digital Social Hour. I'll see you guys next time. Peace.