Ep 78: Five Failures From Success (Part 2)

I'm Clark, speaks the catastrophic injury. Lawyer, welcome to the verdict. This is five failures from success. What role

does gratitude play in this? I know you know, gratitude for your team, gratitude for these events that you know on the surface may not look like a positive event. How do you work that out? So

the smartest and most successful people I know practice gratitude, you know, like when, when, when running a business, running a life, running a family, can be stressful. You know, there's just times when you're just like, you know, there's a lot going on and it's challenging, and so and you can, and sort of you can always, if you have a problem arise, sometimes you can't see anything but the other problems, you know. So I listen to Tony Robbins, you know. And so Tony Robbins does this exercise. Tony Robbins is a famous motivational speaker, and I think he's fantastic. I don't have any affiliation with him at all, but, uh, but I do go to his stuff, and I encourage other people to to go to his stuff, because it's phenomenal. One of the things he does is he says, he says to people, he says, All right, so I'm gonna, in a second, I'm gonna count to 10, and in 10 seconds, I want you to look around this room and find everything that's red. Okay, go. And he's like, 123, he counts a 10. And then when you get back, you know when you stop, you go, Okay, what's red? And you go, Okay, well, this button is red, and that bag is red. And those cameras are that some of the equipment on those cameras are red. And in that, in that box, in that refrigerator, there's some red, and all this. And there's a marker on this, on this blackboard, this red, okay. And then he goes, Okay, now what's Brown? And you're like, and so the point of it is you can find what you're looking for. So if you're looking for problems, if you're looking for negative things, if you're looking for challenges, if you're looking for unfairness, if you're looking for to be, you know, life treated me unfairly in this way, you can find it 100% you can find it. But if you're looking for great things, for opportunities, for gifts, you know, for blessings, you can find those too. And so part of what's important about life is finding your gratitude, you know, and because it's that's your responsibility. This is another thing that I learned from one of my clients very relatively recently. So Colin is a person that we had on the podcast season. He that overcometh that section of the podcast, but he was working. He was 21 years old, riding a work van when somebody blows a stop sign and smashes into him, vans upside down, he's paralyzed from the waist down in this collision. He's got a small child, at the time, an infant child, and so I had him on and we talked about all this stuff, and he was, I mean, such a one of my favorite people of all time, just people, not to mention just clients, because, you know, he, I mean, I don't, I don't think he's ever spent, I don't know, but I didn't get the impression he'd ever studied a lot of philosophy and all this kind of stuff, you know, but he intuitively knew a lot of the things that these guys talk about. And he's a smart guy. He takes care of his family, and he's, he's, he's a hard working guy, and all this gets in this accident, and then I'm like, Okay, well, what is the first thing that helped you go through it? And so, so, like, I know, from from from books and stuff that you know, you go through this denial and and acceptance and and bargaining and all these things, right? And he goes without blinking, without missing a beat. He goes, gratitude. And I'm like, hold on a second, you know? I don't remember seeing that in a book, you know? And he's like, Yeah, gratitude. And I'm like, explain, what are you talking about? And he's like, so I'm sitting in this van, and we're up, so I'm upside down. I'm waiting an hour, two hours, for this Jaws of Life to come and rip it apart so they can get me out. I know. He's like, I know. I can't, you know what I mean? He's like, something is bad, wrong, you know? I know, but I've got gas and oil and stuff raining all down on me, you know? And I'm like, there's a very good chance I'm going to die right here as I'm waiting for this thing. And then he talks about, when he goes, if you have a spinal injury in this region of the country, a lot of people will go to this spinal Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. And he was there, he talks about how one of the doctors there, one of the first doctor that came and saw him was a guy who was in a wheelchair himself. Was not, not a very nice person, or whatever. It's kind of, kind of not, not very cool and and all this. The second guy that came was like, come with me, and they go down the hallway. And if you've ever been to I fit together for work. Sometimes we have people who are in catastrophic energy. Accidents. We've had many clients that have come through that there's a great facility, amazing facility, great doctors, great staff, great mission. And Colin follows him through the hallways, and he's kind of showing them some different people, and he sees what the doctors pointing out to him. He's like, it could have worse. There's some of these people that are they're not going home, you know, they're not they don't have what you have. They don't have these abilities that you have. And so gratitude, I think, is important for all of us. You know what I mean? And so if I am feeling like, hey, these dots are lining up in such a way, and I have the same challenges everybody else has, you know. Hey, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if, you know, I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about this. I have this thing is causing me stress, you know. But then if I go, Okay, let me think about what I'm thankful for. I'd say another place that came up. One of the failures that we talked about was I had a financial, very serious financial challenge in 2006 or whatever it was, 2000 567, and I remember, you know, being on the back porch, you know what I mean, and thinking through this stuff, my wife and kids had gone off to do a birthday party or something, and I was, like, just stressing and sweating over all this stuff. And the movie Blood Diamond. Did I tell you about this? So, so that's, that's the same example of the same thing, you know, I'm sitting there sweating about all this stuff, and the Blood Diamond comes on, and I see these terrible things happen to these people, and I realize, you know what, I've got my wife, I've got my kids, I've got my health, you know, I got everything. I'll be fine, you know. And so that gratitude, I think, is, is critical. What

else do you think is, you know, something important that we can learn from your message.

So one of the things that I think is important is purpose, like we all have to be useful. We all, we all need to be useful, useful to other people. And sometimes when we when we're just so focused on what we want to do and what we want, you know, out of life, then we lose sight of that. And so, you know, what comes to my mind is, you know, people talk about retiring. You know, they work their whole lives with the idea this eye towards retiring. And when they retire, they'll be able to, you know, play golf or go to the beach or or, you know, sleep late, or whatever it is they want to do, you know. And when I was growing up, my mom worked as she was a teacher, and in the summer, she would get a job in a dress shop, and then after school, on Saturdays, she would work in a dress shop and stuff. So she worked really hard. And then on Sunday she would teach Sunday school and work at the church and stuff. So, so she, like, worked very hard, you know, when I was growing up, I mean, all the way through, like, for my whole whole, you know, life, up until, I forget, I was probably 30s, mid 30s or something, when she retired. And she retired, and then, uh, and then after that, she worked in a, in a in a dress shop, and she worked at she volunteered at the church all the time and all this. And she she kept doing that for a long time. Well, then it got to the point where she was probably too old to do those things, right? And so that at that point, she was living with us, what I saw in her, as so much of her identity was built around helping people, teaching people, nurturing people, helping people, and being useful to other people. Then when she got to the point physically and mentally where she couldn't do that, it caught. It was, it was a sort of a great source of frustration for her, she would just, she would, she would say, you know, what can I do? You know? And you know, at first we would say, nothing, you know, you know, relax, you've earned it. But then she would just, she, she was like, she wasn't happy doing that. So we would go, Okay, well, you know, we'll bring some laundry, we'll fold some laundry, or for a while, she would, she would do dishes. And then I could see that her it was hurting her back to stand there and do dishes and stuff. And so I'm like, alright, well, let's, you know, and so, but I saw over and over again, how? And then, now she's in an assisted living facility. And when people come in, you know, the people, the nurses and stuff, that come in to take care of her, she's consistently wanting to, Hey, can I get you something? Can I do this? Can I do that? And it's just because I think we as people derive a psychological and emotional benefit from being helpful and useful to other people. It's the reason we do this. So the reason that we're wanting to put this series out is because you know in life, you see people, or meet people, clients, or sometimes my kids, friends or whatever, are people that you come in contact with socially, who have to who have experienced unspeakable tragedies, terrible, terrible, terrible things you know you. And what I want to do is I want to pull them aside and say, or, you know, or even people on the news, you want to pull them aside and say, Hey, I'm sorry this thing happened to you. This is terrible that it happened. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to be the summation of your life. It doesn't have to be the end of what you're trying to do or accomplish. It can be an excuse for failure. It can be the reason why things never went right for you. It can be the reason why you didn't accomplish all the things that you could have accomplished in your life and you it could be the reason why you didn't have the impact that you wanted to have, but it can also be the reason why you did. It can be a source of strength. It can be a source of of platforms for success, and it can be part of your story of victory, you know, and of six, and of in the way, the reason you were able to have such a tremendous impact on other people. And so I think that's important, and that's the reason why we wanted to do this series.

Now, what is your message to people, kind of going through these events, and What emotions do you think or, you know, what outlook on life would you encourage them to have?

So one of the things I think they have to, people have to take responsibility for, is their own happiness. You know what? I mean, their own joy, their own. It's your life. You the government, culture, movies, or whatever. These things are, things that are in your life. But your life is your responsibility, you know. And so happiness is up to you, and joy is up to you, and purpose is up to you. And I think you have to find that, and it's your responsibility to find that. You know, if you get to the end of your days and you're on your death bed, and you look back and you go, Hey, I wasn't happy. I didn't enjoy that. I didn't find any joy in in, in that journey, and it's, it's because of this person or this thing or whatever. Nope, there's no third party there to go. Hey, you're right. You're excused. You just have lost out on this unbelievable gift and opportunity of life. So So overcoming these things, there's not anybody there to help you do that. There is not anybody there who, I mean, if, even if it's somebody else's responsibility, you know, you were attacked in a in a mind, in your own business, on a subway, if you get to the end of the road, and you can look back and go, it's that guy's fault. So what that guy is long gone. He's got his own journey. This is your journey. And so one of the things that occurs to me when I look back and I look at some of these different times, right, when I look back at my dad left, then that was some of the best time in my life, because it was me and my brother and my mom, and we were sort of inseparable, you know. And we had, I mean, we had, you know, sure, we had some stress, but we also had some unbelievably great times, you know, where we spent time together. We had family devotions, and we, you know, laughed until we cried and all that kind of stuff. And it was, there was some wonderful moments there. If you look back, if I look back on the time that I had, on on my adult life there, you know, there were times when I had unbearable financial stress, you know, because of all the things that I've talked to you about in this, in the in the in the financial piece of this, I mean, I just thought, you know, there's no way out. There's just no way out. This is horrible. At the same time, if I look back in my life and go, What is the stretch of time that was my favorite, that was just that I would go back to in a heartbeat. My kids are little, little, and it, I didn't think about this until recently, but those periods of time overlap almost exactly. My kids are like, you know, three, four or five years old. One of them is newborn. And we were, you know, we were, I was having this financial struggle, but man, we had the time of our lives. We had dance parties, like I said. We had camping trips in the backyard. We just, we, you know, we spent time together. We had the best time, you know. And like, you know, we didn't do some of the things we do now, in terms of travel and going to, you know, different places and all this. But man, we had a good time together. We had, we would dress up on a Tuesday for no reason after, you know, work, and just have Halloween costumes and sit and watch, you know, whatever. You know what I mean, or play, or whatever, we'd have water balloon fights in the yard. We had the best time. And that was one of my so the idea that my point there is happiness is a journey and not a destination. I had a this. You. English teacher in high school, you know, back to again, these people that are so, so influential in your life, and you don't even, they don't even realize it, the idea it's a, I think it's a Charles Schultz peanuts quote, but it's just happiness is a journey and not a destination. You we always think, if I can just get to this place, you know, you if I can just get to, you know, to be in this, being finishing law school and doing these things, then I'll be, I'm not suggesting that that's your mentality, but that's a lot of people's mentality is, if I can just, you know, if I can just make a million dollars, if I can just make 10 million, if I can just get this job or have this relationship or get to this place physically, or whatever, you know what I mean. And I'm like, Hey, have those goals. Do those things, by all means. But recognize that, you know, we've, we've seen this quote recently, in 20 years, you will give everything you've got to go you would give everything you've got to go back to it being as healthy as you are now, and as and as able as you are now, and have all the things that you have now. And I think that's true, you know. So I think that's an important thing to realize.

Now, obviously, you're still, you're still living. How do you approach challenges now, after, you know, kind of having this outlook on life, and what is your advice to other people when they face challenges?

So at this stage of my life, I'm 54, years old, and have had a certain amount of, you know, I accomplished a lot of the things that I wanted to right? We have phenomenal Team. We help a lot of people. We have offices in different places. We have a podcast where I can share these things with people, and I think have an impact and hopefully help a lot of people fulfill my mission and all this. And, you know, I've done a lot of the things that I wanted to do. You know, I have a family, I have my health, I have, you know, wife and kids and all this. And we do some of the things, we go to places and see some of the things and experience some of the things I wanted to do. So I've done a lot of the things that I set out to do, which is great, you know, but, but I'll tell you that when you get to that point, when you know so it's, let's just take professionally in my geographic area, 20 years ago, I would look and go, Hey, I would like to have an office like this, where we have this great team and these great people, and we're able to help all these people, and we have This great reputation and all this, well, well, well, now we have done that thing, and I think we have have that, you know, and so then it becomes a different thing, right? You think, as soon as you get there that all, everything's great, and you're going to be and then it's just, you know, sunshine and rainbows. And that's not necessarily false. It's just now you got a whole different set of challenges, right? Because there are always people coming to try to knock you off for their challenge that you could face. That could, you know, what, if you make a mistake and you hurt and you negatively impact somebody else and then it negatively impacts your reputation? Or, you know, what, if you know this team that you've built, what if they leave, you know? What if they find something they want to do better. What if, you know, there's, what if there's a change in the law? What if there's a change in the all these things could happen and negatively impact this thing that you have built, and now you've got so much of your identity tied up in this thing, you know? And then it's just so I think that we have to define ourselves based on this commitment to our mission, vision, values, and that can't just be tied to financial or other kinds of success, because otherwise, I think we will be disappointed when we get to where we think we want to go, you know, and you have to continue with your mission, to do whatever it is you're trying to do. For me, it's impact people in a in a way that helps them recover, physically, financially and emotionally, from from from an injury and so but, but if, but if so, if I have that vision, then no matter what happens around around me, I can continue to do the things that fulfill that vision and find my joy, peace and happiness that way you kept

saying, continue. You have to continue to do this. What role does consistency play in this journey for you? So,

so if I'm talking to a young person about something, they always have this kind of they want to make an impact. They want to accomplish something. They want to achieve certain things in life, you know, and you never know exactly okay, what, what do I? What do I how do? What do I do? What is that? What shape? What does that look like? And I think that's, you know, you got your youth to figure that out right at some point, I think it's important to make a decision. This is what I want to do with my life. You know? This is how I want to make an impact. This is how I want to help other people. And I think, I think needs to be defined in in terms of what you can do for other people, rather than what you can do. You clearly want to be able to do things for yourself and for your family, of course. But I. Think in order for to be successful at that, you've got to find your purpose and how your purpose fits into helping other people. And so to me, that boils down to, you know, consistency becomes such a huge piece of this, because I know people, and maybe you do too who, maybe they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, you know? And it's like, I don't know how you can ever get to be good at what you're doing, you know? I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a author, Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000 hours is part of what he has talked about. I don't know if he originated the concept or whatever. I've read his books and I've heard him speak and phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal guy. He talks about 10,000 hours, and the idea is you've got to invest a certain amount of time into something before you're going to be good at whatever that is. There's another guy too, that says that if you work, you know, 18 hours a week for a year, then you'll be better than 95% of the population or something. I mean, I have that exactly right, but the concept is the same, and that is, if you can identify, let's say you take your 20s to identify what it is you want to do. Or it can be later in life, it can be your 50s, but at some point, if you identify this thing you want to do, then sticking with it becomes very important. I'll give you an example. There's a famous statue in Rome at St Peter's Basilica. It's the statue of St Peter. St Peter is made out of bronze. The statue is made out of bronze, and the way that he's sitting is, is kind of sitting with his one of his right foot is kind of protruding a little bit from the base of the statue. And if you look at it, you can see that it's worn over time, right? So you look at and you read about it, you go, Okay, well, why is this thing's worn over it's like it look, used to look the whole thing else looks just like a person, right? And it's just looks like a person sitting there that's been frozen in frozen in bronze. This thing is one to a nub, and you're just so you go and read about you like, Okay, the reason is because for years and years and years and years and years, people have, people have come to see the statute and have kissed his feet in sort of respect and sort of, you know, reverence, of who he was and what he was able to accomplish and gift to us. And so I'm thinking about that, and I'm like, Okay, well, you know this, one of the softest things we can do as a person is to kiss another kiss something. But if you kiss something enough times over and over again, over weeks and in months and years, it can erode one of the strongest things that we have in our in our world, bronze, you know, so, so. So I think then to me, that becomes a lesson like so, if I want to accomplish something and I work at it a little bit, I might succeed if I work at it a little bit every day, I might succeed. If I work at a little bit every day, over a matter of weeks and then over a matter of months and over a matter of years and then over a matter of decades, eventually I'm going to do the thing that I said about doing so that consistent activity, you know, will wear down whatever barriers there are to success. So consistency is the key to success over a long period of time, in my opinion.

Okay, now we've kind of gone over your main takeaways. But what is your key message to you know our listeners that may be experiencing their own failures or about to the

other thing that I would want to mention to people is when you see somebody, you know, you see Tony Robbins, who's got it all figured out. You see David Goggins. You see all these people that are these life coaches. I have coaches myself, and it look or you see a neighbor, or a kid at school, or somebody, and it looks like they got it all figured out, you know, to somebody, I look like I got it all figured out. Just to me. It looks like you've got it all figured out to you know. But the truth of it is, we are all works in progress. So even though I talk about my mission, vision, values and my goals and my and all these things you know that I want to try to accomplish, and some of the things that I have accomplished, I have all the same struggles that everybody else, all these Tony Robbins has, all the same struggles that everybody else has. He just has to remind himself back of the things that he wants to try to accomplish and how he wants to go about doing those. And then so, so one of the most important things, in my opinion, about this piece of it is it really helps to have somebody who believes in you, right? And so for me, that was my mom. So like as a kid, I. Have all these frailties, insecurities, you know, cha, you know, whatever you know. I mean, I'm like, you know, I could have gone a million different directions, you know, but my mom and her belief that I was exceptional or whatever, was unwavering, right? And somehow she she got me to believe that. So we all have, if you look behind every person who accomplishes really phenomenal things, there's almost always somebody who believed in them, you know, I mean, like Michael Jordan, his his dad, his dad believed in him and and made him believe that you are capable of greatness. I mean, Shaq talks about his dad and what the things that his dad instilled it could be teachers, it could be coaches. It could be, you know, I mean, and some people don't have that. So I've always thought, you know, how fortunate I was to have that, you know, growing up this person, or these people, these different people in my life that, like, you know, kind of part of the crowd, and connected with me and said, Hey, you have something. You have a potential that you need to develop, and that and that you're you can have a great impact on your community, or whatever, you know, and those coaches, or whatever, teachers or just random or sometimes clients that just say, Hey, listen, I really appreciate, you know, you doing this thing for me that other people haven't done, you know. And so I realized how blessed I am to have had those relationships and those experiences. So part of the reason why I wanted to do that was I wanted to be, you know, at least, at least through video, that person to somebody else, to say to somebody else, I don't know what happened in your deal. You have had problems, you've had challenges, you've had obstacles in that you that you need to overcome. But what I'm telling you is that you can overcome it. You can find you know strength and like these things that happen in your life that are bad and that you think are overwhelming and that to make you want to curl up in a corner and and give up are not curses. They're not they are blessings. They are the battle scars. They are the they are the things that are going to give you the strength to overcome and to accomplish anything you want to in this life, and so in my own story, my own journey, my own experience, like these things that I had, that have experienced, I wouldn't change any of them, and I believe they're the reason why I am who I am. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time you.

I'm Clark, speaks the catastrophic injury. Lawyer, welcome to the verdict. This is five failures from success. What role

does gratitude play in this? I know you know, gratitude for your team, gratitude for these events that you know on the surface may not look like a positive event. How do you work that out? So

the smartest and most successful people I know practice gratitude, you know, like when, when, when running a business, running a life, running a family, can be stressful. You know, there's just times when you're just like, you know, there's a lot going on and it's challenging, and so and you can, and sort of you can always, if you have a problem arise, sometimes you can't see anything but the other problems, you know. So I listen to Tony Robbins, you know. And so Tony Robbins does this exercise. Tony Robbins is a famous motivational speaker, and I think he's fantastic. I don't have any affiliation with him at all, but, uh, but I do go to his stuff, and I encourage other people to to go to his stuff, because it's phenomenal. One of the things he does is he says, he says to people, he says, All right, so I'm gonna, in a second, I'm gonna count to 10, and in 10 seconds, I want you to look around this room and find everything that's red. Okay, go. And he's like, 123, he counts a 10. And then when you get back, you know when you stop, you go, Okay, what's red? And you go, Okay, well, this button is red, and that bag is red. And those cameras are that some of the equipment on those cameras are red. And in that, in that box, in that refrigerator, there's some red, and all this. And there's a marker on this, on this blackboard, this red, okay. And then he goes, Okay, now what's Brown? And you're like, and so the point of it is you can find what you're looking for. So if you're looking for problems, if you're looking for negative things, if you're looking for challenges, if you're looking for unfairness, if you're looking for to be, you know, life treated me unfairly in this way, you can find it 100% you can find it. But if you're looking for great things, for opportunities, for gifts, you know, for blessings, you can find those too. And so part of what's important about life is finding your gratitude, you know, and because it's that's your responsibility. This is another thing that I learned from one of my clients very relatively recently. So Colin is a person that we had on the podcast season. He that overcometh that section of the podcast, but he was working. He was 21 years old, riding a work van when somebody blows a stop sign and smashes into him, vans upside down, he's paralyzed from the waist down in this collision. He's got a small child, at the time, an infant child, and so I had him on and we talked about all this stuff, and he was, I mean, such a one of my favorite people of all time, just people, not to mention just clients, because, you know, he, I mean, I don't, I don't think he's ever spent, I don't know, but I didn't get the impression he'd ever studied a lot of philosophy and all this kind of stuff, you know, but he intuitively knew a lot of the things that these guys talk about. And he's a smart guy. He takes care of his family, and he's, he's, he's a hard working guy, and all this gets in this accident, and then I'm like, Okay, well, what is the first thing that helped you go through it? And so, so, like, I know, from from from books and stuff that you know, you go through this denial and and acceptance and and bargaining and all these things, right? And he goes without blinking, without missing a beat. He goes, gratitude. And I'm like, hold on a second, you know? I don't remember seeing that in a book, you know? And he's like, Yeah, gratitude. And I'm like, explain, what are you talking about? And he's like, so I'm sitting in this van, and we're up, so I'm upside down. I'm waiting an hour, two hours, for this Jaws of Life to come and rip it apart so they can get me out. I know. He's like, I know. I can't, you know what I mean? He's like, something is bad, wrong, you know? I know, but I've got gas and oil and stuff raining all down on me, you know? And I'm like, there's a very good chance I'm going to die right here as I'm waiting for this thing. And then he talks about, when he goes, if you have a spinal injury in this region of the country, a lot of people will go to this spinal Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. And he was there, he talks about how one of the doctors there, one of the first doctor that came and saw him was a guy who was in a wheelchair himself. Was not, not a very nice person, or whatever. It's kind of, kind of not, not very cool and and all this. The second guy that came was like, come with me, and they go down the hallway. And if you've ever been to I fit together for work. Sometimes we have people who are in catastrophic energy. Accidents. We've had many clients that have come through that there's a great facility, amazing facility, great doctors, great staff, great mission. And Colin follows him through the hallways, and he's kind of showing them some different people, and he sees what the doctors pointing out to him. He's like, it could have worse. There's some of these people that are they're not going home, you know, they're not they don't have what you have. They don't have these abilities that you have. And so gratitude, I think, is important for all of us. You know what I mean? And so if I am feeling like, hey, these dots are lining up in such a way, and I have the same challenges everybody else has, you know. Hey, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if, you know, I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about this. I have this thing is causing me stress, you know. But then if I go, Okay, let me think about what I'm thankful for. I'd say another place that came up. One of the failures that we talked about was I had a financial, very serious financial challenge in 2006 or whatever it was, 2000 567, and I remember, you know, being on the back porch, you know what I mean, and thinking through this stuff, my wife and kids had gone off to do a birthday party or something, and I was, like, just stressing and sweating over all this stuff. And the movie Blood Diamond. Did I tell you about this? So, so that's, that's the same example of the same thing, you know, I'm sitting there sweating about all this stuff, and the Blood Diamond comes on, and I see these terrible things happen to these people, and I realize, you know what, I've got my wife, I've got my kids, I've got my health, you know, I got everything. I'll be fine, you know. And so that gratitude, I think, is, is critical. What

else do you think is, you know, something important that we can learn from your message.

So one of the things that I think is important is purpose, like we all have to be useful. We all, we all need to be useful, useful to other people. And sometimes when we when we're just so focused on what we want to do and what we want, you know, out of life, then we lose sight of that. And so, you know, what comes to my mind is, you know, people talk about retiring. You know, they work their whole lives with the idea this eye towards retiring. And when they retire, they'll be able to, you know, play golf or go to the beach or or, you know, sleep late, or whatever it is they want to do, you know. And when I was growing up, my mom worked as she was a teacher, and in the summer, she would get a job in a dress shop, and then after school, on Saturdays, she would work in a dress shop and stuff. So she worked really hard. And then on Sunday she would teach Sunday school and work at the church and stuff. So, so she, like, worked very hard, you know, when I was growing up, I mean, all the way through, like, for my whole whole, you know, life, up until, I forget, I was probably 30s, mid 30s or something, when she retired. And she retired, and then, uh, and then after that, she worked in a, in a in a dress shop, and she worked at she volunteered at the church all the time and all this. And she she kept doing that for a long time. Well, then it got to the point where she was probably too old to do those things, right? And so that at that point, she was living with us, what I saw in her, as so much of her identity was built around helping people, teaching people, nurturing people, helping people, and being useful to other people. Then when she got to the point physically and mentally where she couldn't do that, it caught. It was, it was a sort of a great source of frustration for her, she would just, she would, she would say, you know, what can I do? You know? And you know, at first we would say, nothing, you know, you know, relax, you've earned it. But then she would just, she, she was like, she wasn't happy doing that. So we would go, Okay, well, you know, we'll bring some laundry, we'll fold some laundry, or for a while, she would, she would do dishes. And then I could see that her it was hurting her back to stand there and do dishes and stuff. And so I'm like, alright, well, let's, you know, and so, but I saw over and over again, how? And then, now she's in an assisted living facility. And when people come in, you know, the people, the nurses and stuff, that come in to take care of her, she's consistently wanting to, Hey, can I get you something? Can I do this? Can I do that? And it's just because I think we as people derive a psychological and emotional benefit from being helpful and useful to other people. It's the reason we do this. So the reason that we're wanting to put this series out is because you know in life, you see people, or meet people, clients, or sometimes my kids, friends or whatever, are people that you come in contact with socially, who have to who have experienced unspeakable tragedies, terrible, terrible, terrible things you know you. And what I want to do is I want to pull them aside and say, or, you know, or even people on the news, you want to pull them aside and say, Hey, I'm sorry this thing happened to you. This is terrible that it happened. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to be the summation of your life. It doesn't have to be the end of what you're trying to do or accomplish. It can be an excuse for failure. It can be the reason why things never went right for you. It can be the reason why you didn't accomplish all the things that you could have accomplished in your life and you it could be the reason why you didn't have the impact that you wanted to have, but it can also be the reason why you did. It can be a source of strength. It can be a source of of platforms for success, and it can be part of your story of victory, you know, and of six, and of in the way, the reason you were able to have such a tremendous impact on other people. And so I think that's important, and that's the reason why we wanted to do this series.

Now, what is your message to people, kind of going through these events, and What emotions do you think or, you know, what outlook on life would you encourage them to have?

So one of the things I think they have to, people have to take responsibility for, is their own happiness. You know what? I mean, their own joy, their own. It's your life. You the government, culture, movies, or whatever. These things are, things that are in your life. But your life is your responsibility, you know. And so happiness is up to you, and joy is up to you, and purpose is up to you. And I think you have to find that, and it's your responsibility to find that. You know, if you get to the end of your days and you're on your death bed, and you look back and you go, Hey, I wasn't happy. I didn't enjoy that. I didn't find any joy in in, in that journey, and it's, it's because of this person or this thing or whatever. Nope, there's no third party there to go. Hey, you're right. You're excused. You just have lost out on this unbelievable gift and opportunity of life. So So overcoming these things, there's not anybody there to help you do that. There is not anybody there who, I mean, if, even if it's somebody else's responsibility, you know, you were attacked in a in a mind, in your own business, on a subway, if you get to the end of the road, and you can look back and go, it's that guy's fault. So what that guy is long gone. He's got his own journey. This is your journey. And so one of the things that occurs to me when I look back and I look at some of these different times, right, when I look back at my dad left, then that was some of the best time in my life, because it was me and my brother and my mom, and we were sort of inseparable, you know. And we had, I mean, we had, you know, sure, we had some stress, but we also had some unbelievably great times, you know, where we spent time together. We had family devotions, and we, you know, laughed until we cried and all that kind of stuff. And it was, there was some wonderful moments there. If you look back, if I look back on the time that I had, on on my adult life there, you know, there were times when I had unbearable financial stress, you know, because of all the things that I've talked to you about in this, in the in the in the financial piece of this, I mean, I just thought, you know, there's no way out. There's just no way out. This is horrible. At the same time, if I look back in my life and go, What is the stretch of time that was my favorite, that was just that I would go back to in a heartbeat. My kids are little, little, and it, I didn't think about this until recently, but those periods of time overlap almost exactly. My kids are like, you know, three, four or five years old. One of them is newborn. And we were, you know, we were, I was having this financial struggle, but man, we had the time of our lives. We had dance parties, like I said. We had camping trips in the backyard. We just, we, you know, we spent time together. We had the best time, you know. And like, you know, we didn't do some of the things we do now, in terms of travel and going to, you know, different places and all this. But man, we had a good time together. We had, we would dress up on a Tuesday for no reason after, you know, work, and just have Halloween costumes and sit and watch, you know, whatever. You know what I mean, or play, or whatever, we'd have water balloon fights in the yard. We had the best time. And that was one of my so the idea that my point there is happiness is a journey and not a destination. I had a this. You. English teacher in high school, you know, back to again, these people that are so, so influential in your life, and you don't even, they don't even realize it, the idea it's a, I think it's a Charles Schultz peanuts quote, but it's just happiness is a journey and not a destination. You we always think, if I can just get to this place, you know, you if I can just get to, you know, to be in this, being finishing law school and doing these things, then I'll be, I'm not suggesting that that's your mentality, but that's a lot of people's mentality is, if I can just, you know, if I can just make a million dollars, if I can just make 10 million, if I can just get this job or have this relationship or get to this place physically, or whatever, you know what I mean. And I'm like, Hey, have those goals. Do those things, by all means. But recognize that, you know, we've, we've seen this quote recently, in 20 years, you will give everything you've got to go you would give everything you've got to go back to it being as healthy as you are now, and as and as able as you are now, and have all the things that you have now. And I think that's true, you know. So I think that's an important thing to realize.

Now, obviously, you're still, you're still living. How do you approach challenges now, after, you know, kind of having this outlook on life, and what is your advice to other people when they face challenges?

So at this stage of my life, I'm 54, years old, and have had a certain amount of, you know, I accomplished a lot of the things that I wanted to right? We have phenomenal Team. We help a lot of people. We have offices in different places. We have a podcast where I can share these things with people, and I think have an impact and hopefully help a lot of people fulfill my mission and all this. And, you know, I've done a lot of the things that I wanted to do. You know, I have a family, I have my health, I have, you know, wife and kids and all this. And we do some of the things, we go to places and see some of the things and experience some of the things I wanted to do. So I've done a lot of the things that I set out to do, which is great, you know, but, but I'll tell you that when you get to that point, when you know so it's, let's just take professionally in my geographic area, 20 years ago, I would look and go, Hey, I would like to have an office like this, where we have this great team and these great people, and we're able to help all these people, and we have This great reputation and all this, well, well, well, now we have done that thing, and I think we have have that, you know, and so then it becomes a different thing, right? You think, as soon as you get there that all, everything's great, and you're going to be and then it's just, you know, sunshine and rainbows. And that's not necessarily false. It's just now you got a whole different set of challenges, right? Because there are always people coming to try to knock you off for their challenge that you could face. That could, you know, what, if you make a mistake and you hurt and you negatively impact somebody else and then it negatively impacts your reputation? Or, you know, what, if you know this team that you've built, what if they leave, you know? What if they find something they want to do better. What if, you know, there's, what if there's a change in the law? What if there's a change in the all these things could happen and negatively impact this thing that you have built, and now you've got so much of your identity tied up in this thing, you know? And then it's just so I think that we have to define ourselves based on this commitment to our mission, vision, values, and that can't just be tied to financial or other kinds of success, because otherwise, I think we will be disappointed when we get to where we think we want to go, you know, and you have to continue with your mission, to do whatever it is you're trying to do. For me, it's impact people in a in a way that helps them recover, physically, financially and emotionally, from from from an injury and so but, but if, but if so, if I have that vision, then no matter what happens around around me, I can continue to do the things that fulfill that vision and find my joy, peace and happiness that way you kept

saying, continue. You have to continue to do this. What role does consistency play in this journey for you? So,

so if I'm talking to a young person about something, they always have this kind of they want to make an impact. They want to accomplish something. They want to achieve certain things in life, you know, and you never know exactly okay, what, what do I? What do I how do? What do I do? What is that? What shape? What does that look like? And I think that's, you know, you got your youth to figure that out right at some point, I think it's important to make a decision. This is what I want to do with my life. You know? This is how I want to make an impact. This is how I want to help other people. And I think, I think needs to be defined in in terms of what you can do for other people, rather than what you can do. You clearly want to be able to do things for yourself and for your family, of course. But I. Think in order for to be successful at that, you've got to find your purpose and how your purpose fits into helping other people. And so to me, that boils down to, you know, consistency becomes such a huge piece of this, because I know people, and maybe you do too who, maybe they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, and then they do this job for a little while, you know? And it's like, I don't know how you can ever get to be good at what you're doing, you know? I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a author, Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000 hours is part of what he has talked about. I don't know if he originated the concept or whatever. I've read his books and I've heard him speak and phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal guy. He talks about 10,000 hours, and the idea is you've got to invest a certain amount of time into something before you're going to be good at whatever that is. There's another guy too, that says that if you work, you know, 18 hours a week for a year, then you'll be better than 95% of the population or something. I mean, I have that exactly right, but the concept is the same, and that is, if you can identify, let's say you take your 20s to identify what it is you want to do. Or it can be later in life, it can be your 50s, but at some point, if you identify this thing you want to do, then sticking with it becomes very important. I'll give you an example. There's a famous statue in Rome at St Peter's Basilica. It's the statue of St Peter. St Peter is made out of bronze. The statue is made out of bronze, and the way that he's sitting is, is kind of sitting with his one of his right foot is kind of protruding a little bit from the base of the statue. And if you look at it, you can see that it's worn over time, right? So you look at and you read about it, you go, Okay, well, why is this thing's worn over it's like it look, used to look the whole thing else looks just like a person, right? And it's just looks like a person sitting there that's been frozen in frozen in bronze. This thing is one to a nub, and you're just so you go and read about you like, Okay, the reason is because for years and years and years and years and years, people have, people have come to see the statute and have kissed his feet in sort of respect and sort of, you know, reverence, of who he was and what he was able to accomplish and gift to us. And so I'm thinking about that, and I'm like, Okay, well, you know this, one of the softest things we can do as a person is to kiss another kiss something. But if you kiss something enough times over and over again, over weeks and in months and years, it can erode one of the strongest things that we have in our in our world, bronze, you know, so, so. So I think then to me, that becomes a lesson like so, if I want to accomplish something and I work at it a little bit, I might succeed if I work at it a little bit every day, I might succeed. If I work at a little bit every day, over a matter of weeks and then over a matter of months and over a matter of years and then over a matter of decades, eventually I'm going to do the thing that I said about doing so that consistent activity, you know, will wear down whatever barriers there are to success. So consistency is the key to success over a long period of time, in my opinion.

Okay, now we've kind of gone over your main takeaways. But what is your key message to you know our listeners that may be experiencing their own failures or about to the

other thing that I would want to mention to people is when you see somebody, you know, you see Tony Robbins, who's got it all figured out. You see David Goggins. You see all these people that are these life coaches. I have coaches myself, and it look or you see a neighbor, or a kid at school, or somebody, and it looks like they got it all figured out, you know, to somebody, I look like I got it all figured out. Just to me. It looks like you've got it all figured out to you know. But the truth of it is, we are all works in progress. So even though I talk about my mission, vision, values and my goals and my and all these things you know that I want to try to accomplish, and some of the things that I have accomplished, I have all the same struggles that everybody else, all these Tony Robbins has, all the same struggles that everybody else has. He just has to remind himself back of the things that he wants to try to accomplish and how he wants to go about doing those. And then so, so one of the most important things, in my opinion, about this piece of it is it really helps to have somebody who believes in you, right? And so for me, that was my mom. So like as a kid, I. Have all these frailties, insecurities, you know, cha, you know, whatever you know. I mean, I'm like, you know, I could have gone a million different directions, you know, but my mom and her belief that I was exceptional or whatever, was unwavering, right? And somehow she she got me to believe that. So we all have, if you look behind every person who accomplishes really phenomenal things, there's almost always somebody who believed in them, you know, I mean, like Michael Jordan, his his dad, his dad believed in him and and made him believe that you are capable of greatness. I mean, Shaq talks about his dad and what the things that his dad instilled it could be teachers, it could be coaches. It could be, you know, I mean, and some people don't have that. So I've always thought, you know, how fortunate I was to have that, you know, growing up this person, or these people, these different people in my life that, like, you know, kind of part of the crowd, and connected with me and said, Hey, you have something. You have a potential that you need to develop, and that and that you're you can have a great impact on your community, or whatever, you know, and those coaches, or whatever, teachers or just random or sometimes clients that just say, Hey, listen, I really appreciate, you know, you doing this thing for me that other people haven't done, you know. And so I realized how blessed I am to have had those relationships and those experiences. So part of the reason why I wanted to do that was I wanted to be, you know, at least, at least through video, that person to somebody else, to say to somebody else, I don't know what happened in your deal. You have had problems, you've had challenges, you've had obstacles in that you that you need to overcome. But what I'm telling you is that you can overcome it. You can find you know strength and like these things that happen in your life that are bad and that you think are overwhelming and that to make you want to curl up in a corner and and give up are not curses. They're not they are blessings. They are the battle scars. They are the they are the things that are going to give you the strength to overcome and to accomplish anything you want to in this life, and so in my own story, my own journey, my own experience, like these things that I had, that have experienced, I wouldn't change any of them, and I believe they're the reason why I am who I am. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We'll see you next time you.