Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Nate Dukes On: You Will Never Change Syndrome EP 69

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Nate Dukes sits down with John R Miles to discuss you will never change syndrome plaguing society. You Will Never Change. I bet you’ve heard that line before. From friends? Family? Maybe you’ve said it to yourself. Regardless of the source, it hurts to hear. But it hurts even worse when you agree. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for peak performance, life coaching, and personal growth: https://passionstruck.com/. And join the Facebook page to become part of the passion struck movement:  Thank you for Watching the Passion Struck podcast. Nate Dukes is an Author and Speaker, but in his early twenties, he was a business owner chasing success while dealing with secret drug addiction. After constantly hitting rock bottom, hurting everyone close, stealing a car, and going to jail, Nate went on a journey to change his mindset and decisions, which helped him create his own comeback story. He quickly found that there were other people, just like him, who were stuck believing the lie that they’d never change. Through his book, onstage speaking, and personal coaching, Nate shares what he’s learned to help others make their comeback. New Interviews with the World’s GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message!   Nate Dukes Show Notes 0:00 Nate Dukes teaser 1:13 Show Intro 3:44 Why Nate thought his life was too messed up to change 16:15 How to break free of the wrong environment for us to thrive 21:35 Why it is so difficult to action and why waiting is the hardest part 28:08 How he is helping people who feel stuck 34:19 The difference between jail and being in prison 38:00 How you build your life back brick by brick 42:22 His advice on overcoming a drug addiction 45:10 What it means to be a visionary arsonist and its correlation to you will never change syndrome 49:36 What topic he would do a commencement speech on ENGAGE WITH NATE DUKES Website - https://www.youllneverchange.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/whoisnatedukes/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/whoisnatedukes/ Order Book on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/057888996X Be a part of someone else’s comeback story and “Pay It Forward” - https://www.youllneverchange.com/payitforward ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/John_RMiles * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles ABOUT JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/  

I know what my life looks like when I make the wrong decisions. What I don't know is what is 10 years from my life look like of making the right decisions. 10 years from now, my life can look completely different as long as I stay on this path. See, who I was is not who I am now. And if you're looking to change, there's something beautiful about being at the bottom.

Because you get this opportunity to now build your life back, brick by brick. Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast. Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make passion go viral for millions worldwide. In each week, I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message in interviewing high achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets

and lessons to become an Passion Struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener. By giving you tips, tasks, and activities, you can use to achieve peak performance and for too a passion-driven life you have always wanted to have. Now, let's become PassionStruck. Welcome to the PassionStruck podcast.

writer, Pilyl Gibran said, we are all prisoners, but some of us are in cells with windows and some without. An author, Seranofki, said, a longer week can find ourselves to a place, the more it imprisons us. And those quotes are such a perfect lead-in to today's discussion with Nate Duke's.

In our discussion, we will go through his journey and how he found himself completely lost un-drugs, living a party lifestyle that took him the point of stealing a car that landed him in jail, and how he gives away his secrets along that journey of recovery and how he did it and how you can too. We talk about concepts such as being a visionary arsonist, why you need to audit out influences and people from your life and how he went about doing it, as well as the importance of finding your mission and why finding that mission is so critical for you moving forward on your passion during.

So happy to have Nate on the show today and now let's become PassionStruck. Welcome to the PassionStruck podcast and I am so excited today to have Nate Dukes on the show. Welcome, Nate. Hey, John. Listen, man, I have done a deep dive into your show and I got to tell you, man, I am super impressed. I love what you guys are doing here.

This is an incredible podcast. I'm very humbled to be here. So thank you. Well, I appreciate that and I am glad that you're here because we are trying to make passion go viral. And I think you're going to be a great inspiration for the thousands and thousands of listeners who are going to get to hear your story. So with that said, I gave two quotes

at the beginning of this segment. And I talked about in them how we are our own prisoners and our self. And the way I look at that is oftentimes we play so small in our life. And when I say playing small, I mean, we get so caught up with our fears, those self-limiting beliefs, those things that hold us back from achieving what we can achieve.

And I look at your story and it seems like the early part of your life, that's exactly where you were. Can you tell the audience a little bit more about that? Yeah. So first of all, this is going to be a great conversation for anybody that feels like their life is too messed up to change for anybody that struggles with self confidence for anybody that wants to go to another level in their life, but they don't know how and they don't know what to do next. When I was growing up as a kid, we didn't have a whole lot of money.

We were what you call the poor family. And my parents, they had a lot of broken mindsets that were really passed down to us kids. And I don't blame them for anything. I honestly don't. They were kids trying to raise kids themselves. And I remember one year my mom coming up to us during Christmas, she said, hey guys, I wanna let you know, there's not gonna be a whole lot of presents

underneath the tree this year. And as a kid, that's never anything that you wanna hear, but there was this really great church who came along and they bought my mom a bunch of presents and we had this amazing Christmas, but we also knew that it didn't come from her. And so we were used to hand me down, handouts, and people always helping us. And so when I turned 18, I wanted to escape the chaos of my childhood. And I did what any 18-year-old

does. I took on a massive amount of student loan debt and I went to college. And when I went away, I felt like for the first time in my life, man, like maybe I can better myself. And so I started, and I wanted to work really hard. And but as I was working hard, I also found myself having new experiences. And those were starting to experiment with alcohol and drugs. And all of a sudden, now my studies are competing with my partying.

And what started out as a weekend experience after several years turned into a full-blown drug addiction at age 19, 20, and 21. And so now, after four years of college, man, I'll tell you, I had a whole lot of fun. It was a blast, but what feels good in the moment isn't always good for your future. And so after four years, I came nowhere close to getting a degree and I actually had to move back in with my parents and then through a series of events. I was actually approached by a friend of mine who wanted to open up a bar and restaurant. He wanted to open up a business in downtown youngstown, Ohio.

And so we took what was a failing business in the beginning and over the course of two years. And we turned it into something that was really successful. It touched on the entrepreneur that was on the inside of me, but it also touched on this party scene that I had developed to in college. And so now I had access to more money than I had ever seen in my life. Now, this was not a crazy amount of money. You just got to understand being the poor kid growing up. It felt like the world to me.

So I had a great car. I had a really nice apartment downtown with high-rise ceilings. I was in social settings that I really had never had access to before. And I thought all of this stuff was going to make me happy. I thought, because as a kid, we didn't have things that things equaled happiness. And I quickly found out that even though I thought it was going to make me happy, I was actually really empty. And so I started to try and fill that void with whatever I could. And the drug addiction really started to ramp up at this point. And now I find myself going to casinos. And I'm gambling because I'm chasing the next high. And I wasn't even the money that I wanted.

It was just that feeling that I would get when I would go to the casino in the chase. And over a year, I ended up actually gambling everything that I owned away. I lost my car, my bank accounts were empty, but even though my bank accounts were empty, the business bank accounts were full. And so I started to take money and I started to move it around. And I guess at the time I thought to myself, well, geez, aren't I the business owner? Isn't this my money anyways? Well, here's the thing, you can't take business money

and use it for personal investments. That's actually called embezzlement. And so now here I am embezzling money for my own business to feed a drug and gambling addiction. And we had several employees who worked for us and it was a Friday. And I remember my business partner coming to me and he said, Nate, it's time to cut the checks for everybody.

And I just came clean in that moment and I just said, hey, listen, if we write these checks, there's not going to be enough money and they add counts to cover them. And you could see he was confused, he was frustrated, he was upset. And then all of a sudden, everything started to catch up to him at once. He realized that I had taken the payroll money the night before and I gambled it all away. And so he gave me an ultimatum at this point and he said, Nate, you can sign this business over to me

and walk away from it, free and clear, or I'm gonna get lawyers involved and I'm gonna press charges. And so at age 26 years old, I signed over what was my life's work at that point and I walked away. And I didn't know who I was anymore because my identity was wrapped up in being a business owner.

And now that had been ripped away for me. And I had to move back in with my mom and dad again and what a humbling experience that was. And I was super depressed. I was experiencing an intense form of anxiety, still dealing with a drug and gambling addiction. And I could hardly hold down a job. I would go and get a job as a server at a local restaurant

and I would resort back to what I knew, which was taking from the cash register. So I'd get caught for that and then I'd inevitably get fired. That happened three different times. And the last time I got fired from a job, I was walking around my parent's apartment complex. It was three in the morning. I'd just taken a handful of pills

and I was going around to different vehicles trying to see if any of them were unlocked to see if that could find anything I could take or that I could sell really anything that I can get my hands on to feed the addiction inside of me. And as I opened up the car door to a 1999 Buickless Saber, I lifted up the center console and inside I pulled out the spare keys to that car because apparently that's where you keep the spare keys to a 99 Buickless saver. But in that moment as I held those keys in my hand, I thought to myself, maybe this is

a chance to run away. And this chance to get away and start over because the life that I have right now, it's not what I want and it's miserable and I feel like I just got to get out of here. You know, I didn't wake up that morning thinking to myself today is the day that I'm going to steal a car. But when you find yourself in the wrong place with the wrong headspace, you never know what is possible. And so I loaded up five garbage bags of clothes and I knew that I had a friend in Houston,

Texas that said, Nate, if you ever find a way to get down here, I'll help you get back on your feet. So I took those clothes and I took this car and I was blasted out of my mind and I headed for Houston, Texas. I got right outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It was a small town called Ashland City. I just pulled into a gas station. I'd been up for three days at this point and I just wanted to get some sleep. And as I pulled into the gas station, I parked the car, I closed my eyes and I was woken up several hours later to three really loud bangs on the driver's side window, a stranger's hand reaching into

the car, pulling me out, putting me on the ground, placing me in handcuffs, and sitting me in the back of a cop car. And the weight of every decision that I had ever made sat on my chest like a ton of bricks. And there was this thought that just kept running through my head. It was it was the same thing that my business partner had told me. It was the same thing that other people in my life that I'd take an advantage of had told me, but I'll tell you the loudest voices are the ones that are often in our own head. And it was this thought that kept saying, you'll never change. This is who you are. You're never going to change. And they took me to cheat

them, counting jail, where I spent six months of my life. Now, this was a pod style facility. So, I shared a pod with 16 other guys. So there was eight bunk beds. There was three tables. There was two toilets. There was one TV, but there was zero windows. The only chance that we got to get out was once a month. They offered something called church service. Now listen, I wasn't interested in going to church, but I was interested in getting out of that pod. And so we walked down this long cinder block hallway on off the left hand side. There was a room with 16 folding chairs set up. And and as all of us guys walked in and we're ugly looking dudes at this point, our hairs grown out, our beards are a mess, and we walk in and then right behind us walks

in this really, really, really old guy. And he pulls out this really, really, really old guitar. And he starts to tune it up. And as he's tuning it, he says to us, fellas, the only difference between you and me is that I never got caught. And then he starts to sing the song, Amazing Grace. And it goes, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost,

but now I'm found. I was blind. But now I see. And I looked around this room, and I saw, I saw guys who had made mistakes. I saw criminals. I'd saw men who had taken advantage of other people with tears streaming down their face. And they were, they were like like they were, they were ugly white girl drunk crying at this point. Okay, there was a lot of tears and I just thought to myself, I wasn't worried about my past, the things that I had done wrong. I wasn't worried about my future. When am I going to get out of here? But there's overwhelming sense of peace sat on me and that weight started to lift off my chest in that moment and I just thought to myself,

if it is possible to change, I want to, because this is not the life that I want to live anymore. And so when I got out of jail, they gave me felony theft over 1,000, because you're not allowed to steal cars and drive them across the country. But they gave me two years of probation and they allowed me to transfer it back to Ohio.

And when I got home and I got obsessed with how do you change as a person? And I started reading books, and I found a John Maxwell book that said, if you want your world around you to change, you've got to be the one that changes first. And I became obsessed with this, and I got obsessed with personal development, and how do I become the best version of myself emotionally and mentally, spiritually? How do I become the best version of myself emotionally and mentally, spiritually? How do I become the best version of me financially? How do I become the best version of me physically?

And I'll tell you, I committed a year to that. I said, I'm going to take one year and try to become the best version of me because the truth was if I wanted to go back to it, if I wanted to go back to the way that I was living, taking advantage, hurting, stealing, taking, I could always do that. I could always go back. But I didn't know what my life could look like if I actually made the right choice. And so I really committed to this. And even though I was a messy person, I got some people who were willing to get messy with me. And I found some mentors in these areas of my life. And now several years removed from that, my life looks nothing like what it used to.

So I got married last year to love my life. Jenna, she is absolutely amazing. We bought our first investment property last year, and we're actually looking at acquiring a second one. I've sat on the board of a nonprofit for underprivileged youth. I get to lead hundreds of volunteers at my local church every week.

And for the last 18 months, I've been working on a project. This project is meant to help people who felt stuck, just the way that I did. People who feel like I said in the very beginning of this podcast, who feel like their life is too messy to change. People who want to go to another level,

but don't know how. And it's this book that I've been working on and it's called, You'll Never Change. Create your comeback and prove them wrong. And it came out June 1st and it went to number one in Amazon, which was mind blowing. And it's done really well. I've gotten to meet some incredible people. I've gotten to be on some podcast just like this one. And the cool thing about my story now is that yes, I've made my own comeback and that's great and that's awesome. But the real joy of my life is helping other people create their own comeback.

It's when somebody named Craig sends me a message on Instagram and says, Nate, I read your book with tears streaming down my face because I felt like for the very first time someone understood what I was going through. And I feel like now I really can change. And so it's stuff like that that keeps me going, that keeps pushing me forward because now I'm not just chasing success, but I'm also chasing fulfillment. That is an amazing story. And I have a secret for you. I am a big fan of David Goggins and I think a lot of what he says is very inspirational, but he's very wrong on one of his most important sayings, which is that he believes only 30% of people are living to their full capability.

He's wrong because he's way high. All the studies I have done, I think only about 15% of people are living to their full capability. And I believe the other 85% are similar to you, a different version of it, but they are all underdogs in their own lives. And they're creating that prison for themselves. Like we talked about, you had a prison with windows for many years that you were living your life in and then it became one without windows. Yeah. And I think many people are living their life like that and it takes them to hit rock bottom before they're willing to make that change. And for some people I interview, it could be a chronic illness, could be a cancer diagnosis for others,

it could be a drug addiction. But why do you think it is that people don't change until they reach this point where they have no other alternative, but to do it, or they're gonna end up dying or becoming homeless or wasting their life? Yeah, this is a great question. And I think there's a twofold answer to it. First of all, the pain of their life is not great enough.

So my life is just, okay, it's not completely bad. It could be worse, it could be so much better, but they don't feel the pain of it. And the second thing is, if you look at a plant or a flower that's not growing properly, it's kind of wilted, it's not really thriving. You don't look at that plant or flower and say there's something wrong with you, change, be better, do something different. You actually transplant it into a place that it can get nutrients water,

its roots can grow down deep. And so I think some of us right now, we are playing in the wrong circle, the wrong environment for us to thrive. And so psychologists will tell us that you are the sum total of the five people that you do life with. A scientist will say that you will make the average amount of money as the five people that you are closest to. And so when I understand this, if I understand this principle to be true, I have to take some personal responsibility when it comes to this. Who are the last five people that I sent text messages to? Practically, when I get around a certain group of people, and you know who I'm talking about, the group of people where I turn into a different person, I start to talk a different way, I say and do things that I actually don't want to do. And I explain it like this,

if your hands are full right now, it's hard for you to carry anything else. And so it's not until we start to let go of some things that were actually open to receiving new things. And so when I start to talk about this, people are saying they said to me, Nate, are you telling me I have to walk away from some of my friends? I have to give up on people. And for some of us, yes, absolutely. For some of you, this is the permission that you actually need to walk away from a toxic friendship, a toxic relationship that is pulling you away from the direction and the purpose that is placed on the inside of you. It's actually doing more damage to you by sticking around and playing it safe.

And I don't want to shake the bow. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to make any waves. You are doing more damage. You are robbing yourself of the future that you deserve by staying in the same circle. And so what we want to do is you want to start to limit our time from some of these toxic people, these, these friends that really aren't going anywhere in life that that are pulling us away. And once we do that, now we've opened up ourselves to new connections, to new relationships, to new people that can bring new ideas and new adventures and new ways of living and looking at life and new mindsets. And so I think that some of us were in the wrong environments. And so we never change because, well, geez, nobody around me is changing. Nobody wants to grow. Nobody wants to do anything of significance

or chase a passion or tap into the purpose that's been placed on the inside of them. Nobody else is doing it. Why should I? Did you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development, masterminds, and one-on-one coaching, benefited from better work performance, increasedminds, and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work

performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruct, are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship. That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way. And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach, growth-minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again.

Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. I recently had a guest on. It was one of my latest podcasts. Her name was Sasuke Lightstar and I loved her story. It wasn't too dissimilar from yours. She was in South Africa and says she was living the blonde airhead party girl lifestyle. And for her, it was moving from one party to another. And everyone who saw her thought she was the life of party, the happiest person there. And inside, her personal demons were eating her away

as she had eating disorders and other things. She actually reached a point where she was wishing cancer on herself to get herself to change. And I'm a true believer in the universe, granting you what you want. And that's exactly what happened. Wow. He got breast cancer. And, you know, luckily is cancer free now. But through that, she realized that he hadn't been kind to herself in 15 plus years. In fact, she had reached a point where she couldn't stand herself. And so it took her using Louise Hayes mirror work. And she said, for six months straight every morning, you take out a mirror, looking at it, look at it and say, Sasquia, I love you. Yes. And you're such a beautiful person. And she says, it took her

months and months and months to finally break through to herself that there was a period that she could change and she could make those steps. And now she says she's living the happiest she's ever been. But I think a lot of people go into this and they think they take that step and then they do it for one or two days or three days and then it gets kind of hard and so they put the mirror down and they go back to themselves. Why is it so hard for us to do that? Because you sat there at that church session that changed the way you were thinking, but you could read a self-help book, you could have something like that, but most people don't follow up and take the actions necessary.

How did you do that? Yeah, so if information changed people, we would all be skinny and rich, right? And so it's not the information that changes anybody. It's the actions that we take behind the information. And so whenever I start to coach people, I tell them, if you're gonna start to take actions that change your life, you need to know why

and what you're changing your life to look like. And so this is why it's so important to have a very clear vision for your life. And I'm talking about like very specific. And when you start to ask people, hey, what do you want your life to look like? Usually they give you a generic answer. And it's probably because they haven't thought about it ever before, but they say things like,

man, I just want to be happy. I just want my kids to be taken care of. I just want my bills to be paid. And while all those things are altruistic, they feel great. Those are wonderful. We all want that to happen. It's nowhere near specific enough of what we actually need to move towards. It's just way too generic. And because here's the question, what does happiness look like to you?

Because how many is to you might be happy? Look different to me. And so I start to ask people questions like, well, what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to say about you when you leave a room? I mean, let's get super specific. How much money do you want to make? What kind of car do you want to drive? What do you want your interpersonal relationships to feel like? Do you want them to be draining or do you want them to be life giving? What kind of impact do you want to make in others live? What does fulfillment mean to you? And so once we start to craft this vision that is very specific, now we have to add in our decisions.

So you have a vision for your life and you start to add in decisions. And this is the part where people start to get tripped up. It's like, okay, so I want to change my life. I get inspired. I read something. I'm jazzed up. Contrary to popular belief, what we do every single day matters. Our decisions at any given point in time can determine our destiny.

I want you to think about your life right now. What city you live in, what relationship you have, what career you've chosen, all of them were based on not one single decision, but multiple decisions that led you to this point. Now, I don't want us to buy into the fact that we should have known what the right or wrong decision should have been, but I want us to understand the power of our decisions, the actions that we take because a little work over a long period of time can make a massive change in our life. And so once you have your vision, you add in your decisions, now here's the hardest part. And I wish that I had a hack or I wish I had a code or something that I could give people to make this work better, but I don't. It's the hardest part of this is

you have to multiply all of it by time. The hardest four letter word any of us are going to hear is wait. And so this is something that we have to be willing to commit to over a long period of time. So it's so important to have the right voices in our life, the right people coaching and mentoring us because the right voices equal the right choices in our life. And you know, you a good mentor will take you somewhere that you don't want to necessarily go in that moment, but it's somewhere that you desperately need to go. And so for me, when I was really trying to make a change in my life, the reason why I was able to do it so rapidly, so quickly and so massively is that because yes, I had a very clear vision and I was making the right decisions, but I also had some people who

had been around the block before who had seen some things who had done it before me to help guide me and move me in the right direction. And when I would start to slip away or I mean, I wouldn't be as consistent or my discipline wouldn't be as strong. I need people in my life who will speak into my life. I need someone and mentors in my life and not just friends, because I love friends. Friends are great.

I need a good friend. But a friend oftentimes are so worried about being friends with you. We hesitate to give our friends the hard truths. Oftentimes, we just want to make our friends feel good because we don't like to see anybody go through pain. But I need somebody in my life who's more interested in me thriving than being my friend. I need somebody who's willing to give me the hard truths and say, Nate, you need to hear this. I love you enough to tell you that resentment. It doesn't look good on you. That shouldn't

be acting this way. Are you sure you want to make that decision? I need people in my life who challenge me and challenge me to grow and get better. And so through these action steps of having a vision, making the right decisions, multiplying it by time, having the right voices in our life and saying no to the wrong voices, that is what ultimately equals a comeback. Well, you just hit on maybe the first four or five chapters of the book I wrote PassionStruck. And my first chapter is all about why you need to be a mission angler.

And I use a discussion I had with entrepreneur Jim McKelvie to illustrate the point. In his words, he says you need to have a problem worth solving that you're devoting your time to achieve. And many people have probably heard of the business model canvas that a lot of entrepreneurs use to start their business, but how many people take that and apply it to their personal life? Interesting. If you do so, what is that mission that you're angling for? What is that superpower? And then using that fur and on it, how do you turn that into your own personal canvas? And then you're absolutely right.

The second chapter gets into, once you get that mission, you have to be what I call a mosquito auditor because there are these pesky things all around you. There are these people. I call them invisible suffocators, pain in the asses, blood suckers, and they're not just people. They're activities you're doing, their influences, and all those things are what I do to believe those self-leavening beliefs that you talked about. So until you start auditing those out of your way and you're right, until you get the right people surrounding you, you're gonna keep falling back

on what's easy instead of, you know, as you said, starting to take those steps and doing those activities and executing on them every single day. And I call that action stacking because it can be minuscule actions, but as long as you're taking actions every single day, they're gonna start adding up.

Yes. And I recently had a guest on the show, and I'd never heard of this concept before. His name's Trave Bell. I wish I had his tagline because he coined the bucket list guy, but he has come up with a term called the reverse bucket list. Interesting. And I had never heard of it before,

but I think it's something that people can use to help them find their mission. And what it is is it's really a done list. So you start writing down, these are all the achievements that I've already done in my life. Wow. And when you start going through that, you start looking at the bucket list that you've already created. And then from there, he says, once you've got that momentum, he told me based on all his studies that only eight or what was it?

Only 20% of people have done two to five of their bucket list items. But 90% of people have never written down their bucket list. And if we lived our lives as if we were living our bucket list, how much different would that be? It would completely change how you operate. So from that perspective, if you thought of your own bucket list today, what would be, and let's not make them climbing a mountain or jumping out of a plane. What are two things that you

would do on that off that list that are about changing lives? Yeah, absolutely. This is a great question. So one of the things I'm super passionate about is helping other people who feel stuck, man. I feel like their lives is too messy. And I get to go into different facilities, different rehab and recovery facilities, get to share my message. I get to go into different facilities, different rehab and recovery facilities, get to share my message. I get to go to different conferences and speak and talk. And when I go to these different facilities, though, I get to share my message.

And what I'd love to do is I actually love to give this book away for free. And what I've developed is a pay it forward program where people can partner with me. And they can actually buy a book for someone that they've never met before and invest into their own comeback. And the way that I do it is I go and I present this my message to these guys and girls and I say, hey listen, this is not a gift from me. This is a gift from someone who's never met you before, but believes in you. And so this year I've given away almost 400 books

by the end of the year. I'd like to give away a thousand and then by next year I'd like to give away 10,000 books and so for me that is a bucket list item that I would love to see this pay it forward program It's really ultimately super seed me where I can actually get this book into as many hands as possible at no charge to the person who who needs it That might not ever actually get it for themselves and the second one and this is a little bit lofty only because I can't see how it can happen right now. But I would love to be able to ultimately create my own live event where I bring in some of the top personal development influencers, people who have made massive changes in their life, people have a immense amount of value to give.

And I would love to create this event that becomes a yearly event that continues to grow over time, that people want to attend from all over the country. Well, that second one, I have a very similar mindset on. So maybe after this podcast is done, we should talk about that some more because I can tell you, just from the people I've had on this podcast,

we could have a pretty amazing lineup of people from many different disciplines. So I wanted to take this in a little bit different direction. So I myself have been lucky that I've never had to be in a jail cell. And I happened to be on a podcast. I really didn't know what I was signing up for. I just agreed to do it because I liked their mission. And when I got on it, it was with a gentleman by the name of Sonny Cleveland,

my another guy from Ohio. And he had a very dysfunctional growing up. He was raped four or five times before he was 12. And then he got involved in gangs and carried out a gang-targeted murder and got sentenced to life in jail and ended up getting out on parole. But I think it was somewhere between 17 and 20 years. He's at this point of rebuilding his life, but he shared with me kind of off the show

in his case some of the things that happened to him while he was when jail, but for those who've never experienced it, what is it like to be in prison? You know, it's hard for me to even fathom. Yeah, so let me break this down a little bit. So jail in prison are actually two different facilities. So prison is meant for people who have been sentenced. Like they've been charged with a crime. They've been found guilty. And now sentenced. Like they've been charged with a crime. They've been found guilty. And now they have, they've been sentenced to several years in prison. Jail, on the other hand, is a holding cell for people who have not yet gone to trial yet.

So let's say you got caught doing something. Well, even though you've got caught, you still need to go before a judge. And you still need to be determined guilty or not guilty. So leading up to that, they're not gonna just let you go, live your life however you want, unless you make something called bail, they put you in jail. And so, jail's like a holding where guys are waiting

to go to their trial. And so for me, jail was, it was an interesting experience. So full of a lot of anxiety, people who are frustrated, a lot of times it's people who are coming off of drugs, so they've been running around committing crimes, doing things that that really they should have never been doing in the first place. But once, once you kind of get down and you like settle down, it's all about passing time. So you got to find ways to tell stories, to play cards, you're constantly waiting for your next meal to come. It was a really great time for me because it gave me a chance to slow down.

You're not worried about what bills I have to pay. Where do I have to be at three o'clock? What's on my agenda for next week? Did I make sure that I scheduled it? You're kind of just hanging out. And it's twofold. Because first of all, you're like, you desperately want to get out

because it's a deplorable facility. I mean, nobody wants to be in a center block room. And imagine being in your room in your house right now for six months. You can't leave. You're just in that room. Oh, and you see the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. It starts to take a toll mentally on you, but overall, I would tell you my experience was a good one for me.

It was overall a really good experience. It gave me a chance to slow down, think about the person that I wanted to become and and realize that I never want to go back. You're constantly waiting for the next meal to come. That was my life in jail playing cards, sleeping and waiting for another meal to come. And telling stories, man, telling stories is like currency in jail. If you can tell a really good story, you can help pass the time. People will start to like you. And so because I wasn't from that area, I had different stories than other people. A lot of these guys are local guys

who had, they all kind of know each other. They all kind of run in this, ran in the same circles, especially since this was such a small town in Tennessee. And so here comes this guy from Ohio who just stole a car and is trying to drive it across the country. You know, so I had different stories to tell. You start to form some connections and some relationships. And you know what, I actually felt a whole lot better about myself being there, because I didn't feel like this outcast, this guy who does so much wrong that nobody can relate to.

I was surrounded by other people. It was actually the first place that I shared my story in entirety. And you know what? I thought that was going to be judged. People were going to look at me differently, but they were just like, Oh, okay, cool. Like they kind of just got it. They understood. And for me, it was, it was almost like I could breathe. And it was like a breath of fresh air. Again, I was like, Okay, I don't have to hold on to this anymore. I don't have to keep this deep dark secret on the inside of me that nobody knows about. And so there was a lot of really good things that came from jail. Yeah, so you come out of jail and then you have to face these

people from before jail. Your parents, your business partner, your friends and not only are you facing them having gone to jail, but now at this point you've decided you want to change your life. So how for those people who think you're at a point where you can't change, and now you're coming back to them and saying, man, I'm going to change and I want to change so much. I mean, how did that go? Yeah, people thought I was crazy. And because here's why there are people from your past

who know a version of you that doesn't exist anymore. And that's okay. We have given them every reason to think the way that they think. The decisions that I made gave every single person in my past a reason to think about me the way that they did. And so now I'm saying to them, you know, it's like, it's like, have you ever had somebody come up to you and they're super passionate and they, they unload all of their hopes and dreams here and they tell you what they're going to do and they're going to change the world. And you're just kind of shaking your head in that moment. You go, okay, yeah, but in the back, your head, you're thinking yourself, yeah,

this is never going to happen. Because that person doesn't have any consistency or credibility built up with you yet. My credibility was shattered at that point in time with everybody in my life. And so I had to go on the painstaking journey of becoming a consistent human being, doing the things that I said I was going to do, showing up on time, consistently creating a life. I had to start to build the trust

and rapport with people again, but this time I wasn't starting at zero, I was starting behind the eight ball. And so they say for every like one bad thing that you do, it takes eight or nine good things in the right direction to help create momentum. So now I have just been a man of conviction that says, I want to make the right choice as much as possible over and over and over again. I know what my life looks like when I make the wrong decisions. What I don't know is what is 10 years from my life look like

of making the right decisions. 10 years from now, my life can look completely different as long as I stay on this path. See, who I was is not who I am now. And if you're looking to change, there's something beautiful about being at the bottom. Because you get this opportunity to now build your life back brick by brick.

When I really wanted to make some changes, I knew that I had to start to repair the relationship that I had with myself. So the most important relationship in my life is the one with God. But second to that, it's the relationship that I have with me. It's even more important than the relationship that I have with my wife because when I'm good with me, I'm a better husband. When I'm good with me, I'm a better husband. When I'm good with me, I'm a better friend. When things are good with me, I'm a better leader.

And so I had to really invest into this relationship with myself. And so I sat down with three versions of me, almost like this mirroring technique that we just talked about earlier. Well, I sat down with three versions of me. I looked at past Nate, and I looked at him in all of his brokenness and all of the pain and everything that he had done wrong. And I just told him, I said, you've made a lot of

mistakes. You've heard a lot of people, but I want you to know that I still love you and I forgive you. And I just imagined myself giving PASSNATE a hug because really deep down inside, he was just this broken kid. I didn't know what he was doing. And so I began to fall in love with myself again. And I can't help but wonder what some of our lives would look like. If we forgave ourselves for some of the things that we had done wrong because unforgiveness is this prison that we talked about, this prison, we will keep ourselves locked in. And it's not until we begin to forgive ourselves that we actually get let free from that. And so I begin to fall in love with myself.

But then I looked at present mate and I said to him, I said, Hey, there's some people who don't believe in you yet. And that's okay. We've given them every reason not to, but I looked at myself and I said, I believe in you. You have made some changes that nobody knows about yet, but we are going to continue to do the right thing. We are going to keep moving forward. We're not going to give up this time, giving up. Never got us where we wanted to go. So this time, we're not stopping. I became my own coach, my own

encourager. I began to build myself up because I didn't have anybody else in my life to do that. But then I looked at future Nate and I started to make some promises to him. I made some promises that said, whatever it takes to give you the life you deserve, I'm willing to do it. So that means I'm starting over. That means I'm starting at the bottom. If that means I'm going to have some uncomfortable conversations, you know, Tim Ferriss says that everything that we want in life is on the other side of an uncomfortable conversation. So I'm going to start to repair some of the damage in my past. I'm going to, I'm going to go through a process. I'm going to heal. I'm going to,

whatever it takes because you deserve a life that is so much greater than the one that we have right now. And I'm going to figure out how to get us there. Yeah. So one of the biggest steps you had to take was getting rid of that drug addiction. And I'm wondering, did you do that because while you were in jail, you couldn't have any, and so you kind of went through withdrawal, or when you came out of jail, did you go back into it, and then have to find a way to get yourself away from it? Because I was looking at your website, great website, by the way.

Thank you so much. And I think I saw a statistic, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think it said 19.7 million people. And I think it was just in the United States, our addicts and addiction programs. So what were your, can you talk about that and what your secrets are if a listener is facing an addiction for how they can get out of it?

Yeah, absolutely. So when I was in jail, it forced me to get clean and sober. I didn't have access to drugs and alcohol. So when I was in jail, it forced me to get clean and sober. I didn't have access to drugs and alcohol. So that was great. That doesn't mean that the mindset had yet changed. That doesn't mean that the decisions to use drugs. I just didn't have access to them. And so when I got out, you know, I knew that I didn't, I knew that it was a slippery slow, but I wanted to stay away from it, but I wasn't committed to it. And so I got connected with some AA and NA fellowships and they were great. They were helpful in the beginning, but I'll tell you,

the thing that was a game changer for me is when I created this vision for my life. And I wanted to chase after something that was bigger than myself. And all of a sudden, I was moving towards something that was so big that I didn't want to be slowed down from. And the side effect of having a vision that's so big was me actually not wanting to use drugs and alcohol because they pulled me away from the vision and the potential that was on the inside of me. And so yeah, I think that there's multiple ways

that people can overcome addictions. I think so there's a physical side that yes, absolutely your body will become physically addicted to, but once that's out of your system and there's still a mental mindset shift and journey that you have to go on. And so for me, I needed to heal myself of why did I use drugs in the first place? What was the pain in my life that I was constantly trying to cover up?

What was the things that I was constantly trying to run away from? The fact that I felt insecure, that I didn't feel good enough, that I didn't know if anybody actually loved me that I didn't think that I could actually create something if I didn't have some kind of drug in my system. So these were all lies that I told myself. And so once I started to do some rewiring in my brain, in my mind, and create a new belief system on the inside of me, so all of a sudden it's like, well, I don't need to use drugs because I don't have that pain anymore. I don't need to escape from my life because well, actually, it's kind of great. It's, I mean, it's not perfect.

It's not where I want it to be yet, but it's not that bad. And so for me, I just have created this vision that's so big, that's so large that, you know, I don't actually want to use drugs anymore because they will pull me away from the greatness that's on the inside of me. Yeah, I have this concept that I teach people like Coach. It's called being a visionary arsonist. And on this addiction front, I think it probably applies because when you're a visionary arsonist,

you end up burning up your very own ideas, aspirations, goals, whatever it may be. And I think it's one of these things where you start getting this forward momentum. And then, you know, let's say it's drugs, you're moving away from it. And then you're around this thing where someone's got some free, let's just say, edibles that they lay out in front of you. And you're like, man, one of these things isn't going to hurt me. And so you do it. And then that ends up ruining all those steps that you've taken. And by doing it, you end up doing it again.

And then you do it again. Sure. But the same thing happens in so many different parts of our life is we start going down these tracks. And then again, comfort sets in. And then we arse in the thing we're trying to do. Yeah, man. So what would your be advice?

How do you get yourself to not be a visionary arsonist to your dreams? This is an incredible question because I think a lot of people get caught up with this where they'll start to build momentum in their own life and it'll feel really good. And then all of a sudden something will stop. I heard this great illustration that says, if you get on an elevator at the bottom floor, and you start to move up, and your goal is to get all the way to the top, if you stop and you get off on the 11th floor,

nobody in their right mind, if they wanted to get back on, would they go all the way down to the first floor, get back on the beginning, and then start going up to the top. No, you just get back on the 11th floor and you keep going again. So we have to, we have to tell ourselves just because I've made a mistake, it doesn't mean that I am one. And I'm not, I'm allowed to make mistakes. I'm a deeply flawed human being that's not going to be perfect, but I'm also not going to give up. So stumbling, falling, picking back up, whatever it is, cheating on your diet, that doesn't mean, but I'm also not going to give up. So stumbling, falling, picking back up, whatever it is, cheating on your diet. That doesn't mean that now I'm, I'm forever a cheater.

That was just a moment in my life. Moments don't equal lifetimes. So I just want to make sure that if I mess up, I just reset. I say, okay, that was, that was a moment that I had. And I'm going to reset who I am. And for me, a lot of times when I practice gratitude, this is actually super helpful, super power that's really undervalued that helps me stay in line with my vision. It helps me not beat myself up so bad because what happens is when we fall, when we make a mistake, then the thoughts of, I told you you weren't going to do it. I knew you couldn't make it. We start to self sabotage ourselves, our brains. We talk to ourselves in a way that is so, we would never talk

to another human being the way that we talk to ourselves sometimes. And so when I practice gratitude every single day, it's this moment where I just say, what are some things in my life that I can be grateful for? Because it's hard to be angry and grateful at the same time. It's hard to be resentful and mad at somebody and grateful at the same time. And so for me, when I stay in the state of gratitude, it keeps me in line with the vision because I'm grateful for who I am. I'm grateful for the mistakes because I get to grow off. I love what Tony Robbins says. He says our problems in our life can be our greatest gifts if we choose to grow from them. That's a big if. Some of us don't want to grow. And so I have developed this growth mindset that says, it's not so much about what I can achieve,

but it's about the person that I'm becoming. And through that, I have to be willing to grow. I have to be willing to grow if I'm ever going to become the person that I've always been intended to be. And so I would just encourage people, if you continue to arson your vision, you continue to burn down your vision, just give yourself a break. You know, you're a human being. Can we take it a little bit easy on ourselves? Can we just say, you know what, things are exactly how they're supposed to be right now in this moment? Things are exactly, they've played out exactly how I need them to because now I get to choose to grow, to become a better person and to move on from that and because of that I have this experience that I can help other people

with. Well, if Nate, if someone wants to hear more of your inspiration and learn how to hire you as a speaker or something else, what are some of the best ways they can get in touch with you? Yeah, so my Instagram name is at who is Nate dukes or you can go to you'll never change.com. Okay, I'll make sure that also gets in the show notes and I'm going to end with one final question for you. Yeah, man. So you get a call from the president of Harvard who says, I would like you to do the commencement speech at Harvard. What message would you give the graduates, whether it was Harvard or any other school? Yeah, I thought about this deeply. I hope I get this call one day actually. This would be this would be incredible for me. Self-ish people

ruin the world. Self-less people have the potential to change it. So if you go out and you achieve and you create and you build the empire of you, yes, it will be wonderful and amazing for a moment, but it will not fulfill you and it will ultimately tear down other people in your life. But when you choose to say, I want to live a selfless life that is full of success, but it's also filled with fulfillment and the for me fulfillment comes when I help other people, we have the potential to change the world. Stop being so selfish, start beating more selfless. Well Nate, thank you so much for bringing

so much inspiration today to the whole passion start community. What a wonderful guest you've been. Hey, thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed this. You guys are incredible. I'm super thankful and humbled to be here. It's not an inspirational story today with Nate Dukes.

And I just wanted to bring up a number of the different ass pod pass I mentioned on the show. First, I talked about being a visionary arsonist and how that can crumble your very dreams. I did a full podcast on this. That if you want to understand this concept, please go and download it. We also talked about the mosquito principle and why it is so important that you conduct

a mosquito audit in your own life. I broke that down in an episode called the mosquito audit and that's another one that you can check out as well. I also talked about two great passions for our guests that we previously had. One was Sasseville Lightstar and the other Travis Dell. Both of their episodes were so incredible and I'd kindly recommend you have a listen for watch them. You go and do that as well. If there's a certain topic or person you would like me to interview please name me on Instagram and Johniles. And remember, you can make a life that you want.

It starts with you making a choice, doing the work and stepping into your sharp edges every day. Thank you for your continued support. Now be passion-struck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe

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