The End Game of Self-Help, Motivation, and Acquiring Personal Power
I’ll save you the headache of reading through to the end. It’s gratitude, period.
I believe most people starting out on the self-help journey are probably headed in the right direction. How many millions are overweight, in debt, have poor personal and professional relationships, are stuck in jobs which suck the life out of their passion and goals, and the like? So, yeah, self-help - sign up for it, you probably need it.
I’ll push it another notch, if you’re busy following celebrity gossip, the latest update on Fortnite, or the most recent release on Netflix, chances are, you’re not living your best life ever.
There are a few things you need to know about self-help, but it should all start with the question: “What’s the most out of whack thing in my life, right now?”
For me, it was personal health. See the pic, I was well over 300lbs and my triglycerides were 535. For those who don’t know, that’s a breathe away from a heart attack. I was 31, my job consumed my passion, Taco Bell’s 4th meal was all because of me (unconfirmed, but fairly certain of this), my earning power was capped, my relationship with my wife and kids was (and it’s my own fault) horrible.
The most pressing thing was the weight. Seriously, I was close to death. So, one day, after a wake up call from my dr, I joined a gym, bought boneless, skinless chicken breast, and started two-a-days with close to an hour of cardio at each visit, followed by an hour of weight training. For 18 months, I kept my carbohydrate intake at less than 150 grams per day. Can’t do that at Taco Bell!😂
I learned to meal prep, learned what macros were, learned how to light the fire of my metabolic system, supplemented correctly, and created a lean, muscular, magazine cover chiseled body. It wasn’t easy, but it sure was worth it. More on that in a bit.
Next we’re my relationships, particularly with my kids. See, part of my story is that I’ve never met my bio dad, and part of what I wanted for my life was to be a dad to my kids and a hubs to my wife. My goals.
One night, I caught myself yelling to the top of my lungs at my oldest son, and I still can’t tell you why. The next day, I was in the gym, caught a glimpse of this ripped physical specimen walking through the gym, only to realize that it was me.
I guess some, or maybe even most people would’ve taken a moment to celebrate their success. I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I mourned it. I truly didn’t recognize myself, physically, in the gym that day. All I could do was think about the night before, how I was yelling at my kid. In that moment, it hit me that it didn’t matter how aesthetically pleasing I was if my kids didn’t love, respect, dare I say, adore their dad.
So, on my next set, I opened up he podcast app on my phone, typed in “Good Dad,” and began listening to Larry Hagner’s, then “Good Dad Project.”
I started with an episode called “The Champions Blueprint” or something like that. I’ll never forget the compassion of the guy Larry was interviewing. Everything I heard this guy say, I wanted to embody for my kids. The love, compassion, and fortitude that he was passing on to his next generation was beyond comparison.
Later, I learned that Larry offers masterminds to guys, and I joined one of the first ones he ever led. I spent a couple of years really narrowing down and zeroing in on what it meant to be a healthy father, a dad, to my boys. We did service projects together, I began serving more at home with things like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc. And then, suddenly, the next phase of my life began to slowly take shape.
Around this time, I transitioned careers into a marketing role with a very well known and loved fast food chain (nope, not Taco Bell). I discovered that I loved everything about marketing. The challenge of working a tight budget, community events with giveaways, you name it, even down to photography and videography, I absolutely loved it. Most importantly, for the first time in over a decade, work stayed at work; I didn’t bring it home with me.
So, by this point, my health is a solid A+, my relationship with my boys was on track, my job was on point, and my relationship with my wife was really blooming. But...here’s the form in the road...something was still gnawing at me.
See, the career I had previously to the marketing gig was my passion. It’s what got me started, well, to start with. I’ve always had a passion to serve others and help people realize that there is more in them than they’ll ever realize on their own, and that life is a truly beautiful thing when we choose to see it that way - regardless of all the tragedy, or even horror that we’ve had to endure along the way. Life is still worth it - it’s not worth giving up on. In early 2016, I launched a nonprofit, Life that Counts. The mission of this organization is to help people make better decisions for more healthy outcomes. Primarily, we work in schools, where I or another of our team members speak to student bodies on making massive changes or taking massive action in some area of life. The other is that we offer year-long, cross-age peer2peer relationship mentoring strategies to transform culture on campus. Campus culture on America can be really tough these days a lot of middle and high school students.
My passion and experience also began to lend itself toward leading the dads calls I had been apart of for some time. For the guys who are ready to take hold of their lives and turn it around like I did, I offer 1-on-1s that use both surgical knives and sledgehammers, whichever is needed.
Now, there’s nothing in me that wants to put off an attitude which depicts I’ve found the mythical fountain of youth, but it’s been an amazing past several years watching it all grow (or shrink, if we’re talking about my waistline).
You know the pivot points along the way, you’ve read them before.
You’ve got to set a goal. How will you know when you’ve arrived if you don’t know the end point? Jim Carrey wrote himself a $10M check, long before he was know in the bizz, and dated it. I think it’s something like the week before the date on the check, he received a check for $10M for his role in Dumb and Dumber. You remember, the one where the only warmth they felt on the moped was....
The next is execution the action steps that lead to your goal. This part is the easiest and the most difficult. You have to go to war with your own mind. You must change your way of thinking by changing how you think.
One of the key beautiful things about the human brain is the neural plasticity, which we all posses. Neural plasticity is the loops we subconsciously tell ourselves. Right now, what are you telling yourself? Make a note of it.
Did you feel the sense of your own self worth, value to humanity, personal power, and utility of skill that you bring to the world? Are you leaving this place better than you found it?
You have to retrain your brain. This starts with getting out of bed 1, 2, maybe even 3 or 4 hours before your shift starts to practice some healthy self-care, read or listen to something empowering, practicing personal power through controlled deep breathing, and getting in a workout that makes your forehead sweat. You’ve gotta start with you or else how can you lead or add value to another?
Execution is imperative. You may have the best of destinations, but you’ll never get there if you don’t take the steps on the path.
The steps are fairly simple, too. Retraining your brain, reshaping your body, and retooling your skill set, adding things of value for utilitarian practice.
Maybe you need to start a side hustle, but if only for the sake of learning to sale online, create a brand, and do social media marketing, etc. But it’s the skills that you need to acquire which are the most important investments you’ll take away. My 1-on-1 coaching has exploded, but it’s not because my advice is better. It’s because I’ve learned how to create and grow a brand.
The next thing is achievement. Don’t let achievement go to your head. It’s a step on the path. At the same time, don’t skip over it. Take time, enjoy the wins, and celebrate them with loved ones.
I love Nick Saban on this. Nick is the head football coach for the University of Alabama, currently one of the most winning and most celebrated schools in college football. Coach Saban has truly built a legacy and even whispers of a dynasty in college sports.
He’s won several conference championships and college football national championships. Nick says he takes a day after the win and celebrates it with his inner circle. Then, begins preparations for next season.
This leads me to the thing I started all this with - gratitude. People begin browsing the self-help section for all sorts of reasons, but all their reasons are the same. There is an element of their life that they are simply unhappy with.
Practicing gratitude is the most fundamental benchmark for the end of self help. When you reach the pinnacles of whatever your goals were, then you’ll begin to consistently experience one of the most pure and powerful of all human emotions - gratitude.
Written on a flight back to the States from spending some time away, unplugged, with Alexis and the boys on an island in the middle of nowhere - 23 December 2018 at 630pm
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Life that Counts is a 501(C)(3) Alabama based nonprofit organization committed to helping people make the best possible decisions for achieving the greatest possible outcomes.
The truth is every student in every classroom on earth has influence.
But think about this - Are they intentional with it?
We work with schools implementing positive youth development strategies that have produced real results.
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5yLove it John. I’m grateful. I'm blessed. You’re living a Life That Counts and throwing out Hope Ropes to anyone that wants to do the same. Thanks man.