Embracing Gratitude: Unraveling Morning Routines, Overcoming Challenges, and Harnessing ADHD as a Superpower with Corey and Justin

Episode Transcript
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Corey Berrier (00:01):
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast.
I'm your host, Corey Berrier,and I'm here with my man, Justin
Judd.
What's up, brother?
What's up, Corey?
Today's going to be a bitdifferent show.
I had a gentleman ask me if I'dever told my story here on my
own show, and the answer is Ihaven't really ever gone into my

(00:24):
full story, and Justin and Ihave been friends for quite some
time now and shared verysimilar stories, and so I've
asked Justin to come on todayand just get into my story and
the things, some of the thingsthat we've both kind of gone
through, and so it's gonna be abit of a different format today.

Justin Judd (00:47):
Awesome.
Thanks for having me, man.
That meant a lot that youreached out to me in regards to
that.
That was pretty cool.
Yeah, dude.

You're a special person to me, brother, and I
really appreciate you.

Thanks, man.
Shout out to Corey A lot ofpeople talk the talk but don't
walk the walk.
But I think I've received agratitude list for the last I
don't know six months, maybemore than that every single day
and I don't think I've everresponded to it.
And I still get it every singlemorning.

(01:23):
That's pretty awesome, dude.
Where?

did you learn?

about like where did that come from?

That's a great question and I got to give my
girlfriend credit for thisbecause she started sending me
her gratitude list and, asyou've seen, some of mine
they're long and hers werereally long and I thought who
really wants to read?

all this shit, yeah , and who's like gonna
consistently do that everysingle day?
Because I get it every day fromyou yeah.

So then I started sending it back to her, and
then it just as I would meetpeople and think about people
that were important in my lifeor have played a role in my life
, then I would just either askthem if they wanted to be on the
list or I just put them on thelist and if they didn't like it,

(02:15):
they would just tell me.
It hasn't happened very toomany times, but it has happened.
The reason I started that isbecause, no matter how I wake up
, I usually wake up in a prettygood mood, but, regardless of
what I have going on in my headthat day or that morning,
forcing myself to write thatgratitude list always shifts my

(02:39):
mind to a place of gratitude,and you can't be upset and
grateful at the same time, andso I use it as a hack to get my
day started.

Yeah, that's awesome.
The other thing about gratitudeis it's one of the higher
frequency vibrations to theuniverse, which is really
interesting, because the morethat you're grateful, the more
that you actually are attractingthat kind of stuff back to you,
which is really cool.
You said something reallyinteresting.

(03:13):
You said something that caughtmy attention because I was just
talking about it this morning.
So you said usually, every dayyou wake up, you're in a pretty
good mood.
Is that the truth?

Yeah, dude, because I'm a morning person, I
like getting up early.
I look forward to the day Ipray.
I usually pray at night, Iusually pray in the morning, and
so, yeah, I do usually wake upin a pretty good mood.
I'm excited because I'm goingto the gym.

I love the gym and I spend about I don't know,
three hours at least justhanging out with me and just
doing my thing in the morning,which is my favorite three hours
of the day.
Yeah, the reason I asked that.
So I went to the gym thismorning and I got a little bit

(04:09):
of a late start and the personthat I went to the gym with we
were having a conversation andwhen we got out of the gym I was
like and maybe I'm wrong here,because you just said you're a
morning person but in my mindyou hear those people all the
time that are like I'm not amorning person, I can't do it, I

(04:32):
just I'm not a morning person.
Well, fuck, I'm not a morningperson either.
Dude.
Like when I wake up, I don't popout of bed just like super
stoked to go to the gym.
I wake up and I'm tired and Idon't really want to get up, but
I get myself up anyways,because every time I get up
early and go to the gym, neverdo I get done doing that and say
to myself I wish I wouldn'thave done that.

(04:52):
So when you say you're amorning person, do you just you
wake up and it's just pop out ofbed and you're ready to go, or
do you think you've justdisciplined yourself long enough
to where it's gotten easier?

I think discipline has a lot to do with
it, because I was going to askyou which kind of falls right
into the same category.
I go to bed pretty consistentlyat the same time every night
and that's key.
It's key and so routine for meis it's important.
And so, as long as I get in bedat my normal time, if I'm

(05:30):
asleep by nine o'clock which isfor some people that's like
they're just getting started,but for me, if I get started, if
I go to sleep at nine and Iwake up at four, that's a pretty
, you know, seven hours.
If I sleep the whole time,which I'm probably not going to
sleep exactly the whole time,but if I can get six and a half
hours sleep, I'm ready to roll.

Yeah, so nine o'clock, that's pretty early.
Do you have a process that youfollow before you go to bed so
that you can start to slow downyour mind and you're not sitting
there in bed for an hour or twobefore you actually pass out?
Or is your mind still prettybusy at nine o'clock and it

(06:10):
takes you a while to go to bedsometimes?

So I think it depends.
So if I've got something thatI'm trying to control that's
outside of my control, that'seating my lunch or in something
that I'm trying, if it could bethat I had a conversation with
Maddie and it maybe didn't goreally well that usually doesn't
happen or it could be somethingwith work that is not maybe not

(06:35):
going the way I want it to go,yeah, and those nights are much
tougher and some of those nightsI don't't sleep and if I miss a
certain window of time I have ahard time sleeping.
I will tell you, I just stoppedtaking ambien it's probably
been three months agoapproximately and I'd taken it

(06:59):
for probably 20 years and Italked to my buddy, doug Wyatt.
I don't know if Doug, you willknow him.

I know.
I don't know him, but I know ofhim, yeah, yeah.

He explained to me how important sleep was and
he told me about two books, whywe Sleep.
I think is one of them, andBreathe is the other one.
Because I told him I snore andso I've stopped taking Ambien
and I take melatonin at night.
If I take it consistently,sometimes it stops working.

(07:32):
So I may pop a Tylenol PM, butI still believe that it's got to
be better than taking Ambienevery night.

Ambien is a serious drug dude.
Yeah, did you like withdrawfrom that, or did you go a long
time without being able to sleep?
Some people can have pretty badcomedowns off of Ambien,
believe it or not.

So I tapered.
Of course I didn't talk to mydoctor about it, but I can't
imagine they would have told meto do it any other way.
But maybe Either way, I justcut it in half, took it for five
or six days, cut it in half Iwasn't taking a huge amount but
and then I started takingmelatonin.
So, to answer your question, itreally wasn't a terrible

(08:22):
transition, but I think a a lotof that and you'll get this is I
made up my mind, oh yeah, thatI was going to stop taking
ambient and that was it it'scrazy how powerful that little
shift in a mindset can be.

And it's hard to explain that to somebody,
because a lot of times peopleask me like how I got sober?
And it's such a hard questionto answer because it looks a
little bit different foreverybody.
But at the end of the day, whenI quit this last time, I made

(09:05):
the decision that, no matterwhat the emotion, no matter what
the circumstance, no matterwhat the stress, I was never
going to pick up anothersubstance and I haven't looked
back.
Yeah, but I don't know why thatjust doesn't click for certain
people.

(09:26):
Do you know what I mean?

yeah, and you're you're.
Your journey's a bit differentthan mine in that, I don't know,
without having a recoveryprogram for me, I'm not so sure.
I'm not.
I don't think I could have doneit.
If I'm being honest with you,and part of when we get into the
story, you'll understand why Isay that, because once I got

(09:51):
away from that the program, Imade decisions that ultimately,
I couldn't say I was soberanymore.
I wasn't drinking, but I wasn'tsober, and there's a big
difference there.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that led up to me
getting to the point of makingthat decision, which I can get
into in a bit, but it was aninternal thing.
But.
But once I made that decision,I just I't looked back, and the
power of making a decision isextremely powerful.

(10:31):
So I want to ask you tell me alittle bit about life growing up
.
What did your life look likegrowing up?

What did your life look like growing up?
I grew up in probably one ofthe nicest neighborhoods in my
town.
I grew up in Mayberry, like theAndy Griffith show.
It's just a small town,everybody knows everybody.
I grew up on a golf course, ata country club, and my parents
we weren't by any stretch thewealthiest people by any stretch

(11:07):
.
In fact, we were probably thethe least wealthy of the people
in the neighborhood.
Which has it mayberry, northcarolina.
Yeah, it was mount airy northcarolina now, but it is like it
was made.
Yeah, mayberry where everythingstarted being filmed and and
yeah, so everything's stillMayberry downtown today.

(11:27):
And so I grew up around peoplethat were doctors and attorneys
and they had everything thatthey possibly wanted.
So I always felt like I didn'tfit in.
I always felt like we were.
I just felt like I wasdifferent, and it wasn't because

(11:52):
I lacked for anything, becauseI had everything, really
anything that I wanted, and Ithink part of that led into some
of the decisions that I made,because I didn't have a whole
lot of boundaries.
My dad and mom split when I was12.
So we were.

(12:13):
I was with my mom pretty muchafter that.
My dad was still in the picture.
But he traveled and so ourboundaries.
We didn't have a lot ofboundaries and I got into a lot
of trouble.
I got into trouble at the ageof boundaries and I got into a
lot of trouble.
I got into trouble at the ageof five I caught stealing, and
age 10, I burnt down a barn andStealing at five.

Yeah, where does that?

come from?
That's a great question, justno, I don't know.

I don't know.
That's that's prettyinteresting Cause usually if
we're doing that kind of stuffthat young that's usually it's
usually coming from somethinglike I got caught stealing
people's wallets from sevenpeaks, which is a water resort.
I was going around and freakingjacking people's wallets at 12

(13:06):
years old and got caught and gottaken to the police station.
But later on I did some therapyand learned that I got sexually
abused by my third gradeteacher when I was eight years
old.
So that's really when I startedacting out like I really

(13:31):
started acting out because itcreated some internal, an
internal belief system in methat something was wrong with me
and I was broken and um and Idon't know.
Just I wasn't good enough and Istarted surrounding myself.

(13:51):
I think I started attractingthose kind of kids in my life
and I really just started actingout a ton, and so it's
interesting that that happenedat five years old.
I'm not saying that somethinglike that happened to you, it's
just I wonder what put you inthat kind of mindset at such a
young age.

Only thing I can figure is I was a spoiled kid
and so I didn't have I didn'treally five, but there was a
level.
There's always been a level ofentitlement.
There's always been a level ofI should be in another place, I
should be higher, I should bedoing better, I should be making

(14:35):
more money, I should be in adifferent place than where I am.

Yeah, that carried on for a while, what did your
parents do for work?
Because you said that you guyswere middle class in comparison
to the other people around you.

Yeah.
So my mom was a school teacher.
She made no money.
My dad was.
He worked on the tobacco marketso he made pretty good money.
I don't know back then maybe ahundred grand, maybe I'm not
sure really to today's dollarswhat that would be, but he did
pretty well.
But he traveled six, seven,eight months out of the year.

(15:15):
So really when they divorced itwasn't a real huge difference
in how I was being parented.
My mom would have a littlebrother that's three years
younger than me.
He didn't really get into a lotof trouble and so it was a lot
for my mom to handle, I think.

Looking back, yeah, Did your parents the
entitlement that you talkedabout?
Did your parents theentitlement that you talked
about?
Did your parents?
They're surrounded by all theserich people that have a lot of
stuff.
Do you think that got to themat all and that, in turn,

(15:58):
translated to, transmuted to you?
Do you think that's where youpicked some of it up, or do you
think it was solely because yousaw all of these people around
you that had everything thatthey wanted?

I think it's both because we were a member of the
country club, but we were likewe were in debt up to our ears
and of course I didn't realizethat then.
Realize that then.

(16:28):
But there for us to I don'tknow there'd be a minimum at the
country club and we would haveto.
We'd have to make that everymonth and it would be a
conversation about what day ofthe week or what day of the
month we were going to go spendthis two hundred dollars at the
to just make the minimum to beable to be a member there.
So it was almost like we werescraping by to a degree to stay

(16:49):
up with the Joneses, so to speak.

Yeah, so when your parents got divorced at 12 years
old, you said that it didn'treally change a whole lot just
because your dad was alreadytraveling a lot and stuff.
But did it affect you indifferent ways?

it did actually so it did.
I shouldn't have said that itdidn't change a lot, because
actually I think that is whenthings really turned, or turned
for me, because we moved out ofthe country club to the other
side of town, which wasdevastating because I had I'd
grown up with these kids all mylife and we moved across the way

(17:31):
and now I don't have thesefriends anymore.
They're just turned their backon me.
And my mom had she dated thisguy.
Mom had she had dated this guy,but I guess in college for
years he went into the army, shewent to college maybe that's

(17:51):
what happened and this guy,after 20 years or 15 years, pops
back into my mom's life.
It just, it was an accident.
They just happened to see eachother walking through town and
sort of talking he was getting adivorce, she was getting a
divorce.
So now I've got this dude who Ihad zero respect for and he was

(18:18):
starting to come around, andthen he eventually moved in and
he wasn't a bad guy.
I just didn't moved in and hewasn't a bad guy, I just didn't.
I was just I.
I hated him, right, because now, for whatever reason, I hated
him and so yet that took a lot.

(18:40):
I took a toll on my psyche,moving and realizing like I'm
not in the same group that I wasin before.
It was like literally movingacross the tracks.

Yeah, did your dad pretty quickly start dating
anybody?

He was probably dating people before they got
divorced.
If I had to guess, yeah,anybody, he's probably dating
people before they got divorced.
If I had to guess, he moved toTennessee.
But quite frankly, justin, wesaw him more after they got
divorced than we did before.

Yeah, the reason I'm asking that question is,
once you start looking into theamount of effect that you're,
the development of a child'sbrain is so fundamental and it

(19:38):
will affect somebody's life forthe rest of their life, whether
they're conscious of it or not.
So that thing that happened tome when I was eight years old, I
literally blocked it out forover 15 years and I blocked it
out.
And when I hear people tell methat they block stuff out, I
thought they were full of shit,but I literally blocked it out

(20:00):
until I was in a group therapysession later on.
But that's another story.
Did you block it out until Iwas in a group therapy session
later on, but that's anotherstory.

Did you block it out Subconsciously?
You couldn't have blocked itright?

No, subconsciously, that was my point.
Subconsciously it was stillaffecting the way that I was
viewing the world.
It was affecting the way that Iwas living life.
It was affecting the way that Iviewed myself and the lack of
like self-worth that I had formyself.
It was affecting me, but Ididn't realize it, and that's
scary dude.
Stuff that we learn aboutourselves later on in life is

(20:49):
correlated to things thathappened to us when we were
growing up.
Yes, I agree so did it make youthe guy that your mom started
dating?
Where did you just initiallyhate him?
Were you mad at your mom for?

I.
I don't think I was mad at mymom.
I just I did.
I wasn't very cooperative, Ididn't really listen to him.
He was just.
I didn't feel like I needed tolisten to him.
I have a dad, I don't need tolisten to you and we did

(21:27):
everything possible to get himto leave.
We put sugar in his gas tank,just some really gnarly shit.
And if it had been me Iprobably would have killed me.
If I would have been him, Ishould have said it was rough
going.
It was rough going.
Plus, he had two kids and itwas just.

(21:48):
It was a lot of changes.
It was a lot of changes andthat's I would say.
That's probably when I mean Istarted smoking cigarettes.

How old were you when you started doing that?
Probably 12 or 13.
So was that the first thingthat you tried substance-wise
was smoking cigarettes.

Yeah.

Alright, and then where did it go from there?

I had a buddy of mine this was probably in junior
high, so I want to say 13, 14,13, 14 years old lived in a
neighboring town, like invirginia, and he had a four
wheelers and all kinds of shit,and so I would go out to his
house on the weekends and that'swhere I first drank.
And the best way I can describewhen I first drank was my

(22:49):
anxiety was gone, like I feltlike I could talk better, I
could think quicker, I feltcomfortable in my own skin, yeah
, and so I wanted more of thatevery chance I could get.
Yep, and then it stopped working.

So you've already talked about it a little bit,
but do you know where thatunderlying feeling came from at
that age?
I guess it could be a mixtureof a lot of the stuff that that
we've talked about but I don'treally I can't pinpoint a

(23:33):
specific like situation, likesort of like you alluded to.

I don't have anything that I can really point
it to, like that.

I just don't remember not feeling like that.

Well, I tell you so around seventh grade.
So I was a fat kid and thiscould play into it.
I was a fat kid and I was whenI was.
We finished up sixth grade andwe went to a pool.
I went to a pool party with thesame kids from the neighborhood

(24:04):
in the first neighborhood.
I talk about this in my book.
Actually, I walked up and goton the diving board.
You know how you bounce up anddown on the diving board, but my
boobs would flap up and downbecause I was fat.
These girls asked me after I gotout of the pool to do it again.
I'm thinking, oh, they mustthink I'm cute, so I do it again

(24:28):
and I get out.
And one of them asked me if Iever thought about wearing a
training bra.
So it's fucking crushed.
I mean, it was the mostembarrassing thing.
I can't think of too many morethings that would have been that
embarrassing.
And so that summer, dude, Idieted and I lost weight and

(24:49):
I've never gained that weightback.
So I think the insecurity maybestarted from me being fat.

Yeah, that's a pretty, that's pretty young.
So how old were you when youwere on the diving board and
that happened?
Twelve, twelve, yeah.
And the girl said something andthen you dieted that summer.

Yes, I did.

That's pretty crazy if you think about it, dude.

Yeah.

Twelve years old to already like start worrying
about that stuff to the pointwhere you're going to like, from
your own decision, like chooseto start dieting.
That's pretty impactful.

I was never going through that again, and I
haven't.

And I won't, so you've never fell off the wagon
in regards to that aspect again.

Nope, nope I mean don't get me wrong have I
gained a few pounds here andthere yet, but it's never gone.
It's never gone to the pointwhere I've been uncomfortable so
you started, you starteddrinking a little bit around.

Was that around 12 years old too?
13, around 13, 14, 13, 14, andyou instantly felt that, oh,
this is what I'm supposed tofeel like.

Yeah, and I hated the taste.
It was awful, but the feelingoutweighed the taste and it
outweighed throwing up.
I just wanted the feeling.
I just wanted to feelcomfortable.
I just wanted to feel normaland that's what made me feel
normal.
Where'd you get it from?
That kid's house?
His mom was kind of.

(26:43):
She kind of just did her ownthing and left us there.
All weekend.
She'd be at her boyfriend'shouse so we just kind of had, we
just did whatever we wanted to.

How often did that start happening Probably just
did whatever we wanted to.

How often did that start happening?
Probably two, three weekends amonth.
Yeah, I would say so.
That's quite a bit at that agethough.
Yeah, every chance I got.

And then, how did it progress?

I started.
It's interesting I got my firstDUI when I was 16 years old,
but I hadn't been drinking Atthis point.
I didn't drink, so that littlestint of going to that guy's
house on the weekend didn't last, I don't know, six or eight
months.
Maybe I started dating thisgirl that was a preacher's

(27:39):
daughter and so I didn't have, Iwasn't drinking.
But I had a wreck, a really badwreck, I don't know 15 or 20
days after I got my license andalmost killed the girl that was
with me and almost killed thisother lady that I hit head on.
It was a really bad accidentand I smoked cigarettes and the

(28:02):
deal was I could get my licenseif I quit smoking cigarettes.
Well, I didn't quit, so I hadthis pina colada spray in my
vehicle that would, I thought,was going to cover the smell up.
Well, the cop who was my firstcousin, who was also the person
who was called when I got caughtstealing at five, was the first
one on the scene and theysmelled the pina colada spray

(28:23):
and they gave me a DUI.
It was on the front page of thepaper with the wreck.
They gave me a blood test,naturally, and it came back zero
.
But it doesn't matter becauseit's already been on the front
page of the paper.
Matter because it's alreadybeen on the front page of the
paper which was a really toughtime because it was dating this
preacher's daughter Her name wasinvolved with it.

(28:43):
Just not a good situation.
And so I had switched schools inmy 11th grade year and I hadn't
really got into drinking atthis point.
I took, you know, I just Ihadn't really got into it.
But after that wreck I wasseparated from her parents,

(29:05):
didn't want to meet, anything todo with her, and so I switched
back to Mount Airy High Schoolin my 12th grade year and that's
really where I picked updrinking, because I was going to
parties with the same peoplethat I grew up with.
I was kind of back in that samecrowd and they all smoked, weed

(29:26):
and drank and we could alwaysdo it at somebody else's house,
and so that's really where wheremy drinking picked up around my
12th grade year.

Did you fight that DUI?
Oh yeah, it was completelydismissed, so you fought the DUI
, but it was still out there, toeverybody, exactly.

It was dismissed because my blood came back and
it was zero, but still living ina small town.
Everybody found out, probablynot shocked, but still it is
what it is.

So how was junior high and high school for you?
I know that you mentioned thatseventh grade was tough and you
went on your diet, but ingeneral, did you have a lot of
friends?
Were you part of the popularcrew?
Did you play sports?
It's such an awkward agebecause you're still trying to
figure out who you are and andsomehow fit in.

(30:24):
But how was that?

experience.
I played sports up untilseventh grade, all the
everything baseball, football,playing baseball, football
played golf, because I grew upon a golf course.
But seventh grade I lost thatweight in between sixth and
seventh grade and I thought thisis going to be my year, but the
reality was I wasn't great inschool and a lot of the kids

(30:52):
that I'd grown up with they weregood in school.
So I wound up with being in thenot so great crowd.
I mean because I was lookingfor acceptance.
I was looking for people that Iguess smoke cigarettes and I
took shop class.
So my choices of classes werelike we take the easiest fucking

(31:14):
class that I could possiblytake and that breeds the same
people, right, the people thatare trying to take the easy road
.
So seventh and eighth grade wasnot.
It wasn't an easy time becauseof my choice of people that I
hung out with, because I didn'tfeel comfortable hanging out.
I was really not accepted, itfelt, with the crowd that I'd

(31:38):
been with because I moved and soI just kind of hung out with
people that were not really onthe right path, so to speak.
It doesn't necessarily meanthey were on a wrong path, and
actually now I think about it.
I did drink during that timeNot a ton, but I did drink

(32:02):
during that time with my otherbuddy.

Now that I think about it, yeah, so did you meet
that preacher's girlfriend atyour new school?
When you moved to schools?

So I'd met her before I moved schools and then
that was part of the reason thatI moved and I actually the
reason I moved back to MountAiry High School is because I
skipped so many days my 12thgrade year and I was going to
fail and, like a lot of times,my dad called the principal
because he knew the principalgot me back in.

(32:34):
I wound up making all A's andone B, yeah.

So I initially moved for the girl and then
moved back because I was goingto fail.
Were the grades because youdidn't apply yourself, or have
you had some difficulty withlearning and that type of stuff?

I do have ADHD and I'm sure I don't remember if
you have ADHD or not butputting me in a box room and
having me sit still for eighthours is just not conducive for
me.
It's just not.
It's just not going to work.
And I didn't apply myselfbecause I hated it.

(33:18):
I absolutely hated it.
I just wasn't very good inschool.
I just wasn't very good yeah.

I was diagnosed ADHD and depressed and bipolar
and, like the whole reason I'msaying this right now is just be
careful when a doctor gives youa diagnosis, because I am not

(33:55):
on one prescription medicationanymore and I am clearer than I
have ever been in my life and alot of times and, by the way,
I'm a huge mental healthproponent I understand that in
certain cases medication can doa good job, but a lot of times

(34:19):
that stuff that we're trying tosolve through medication is
really just something going oninternally and if we work from
the inside out, then then a lotof times we can.
We can figure that stuff outwithout having to have some kind
of medication, and I believethat certain things like ADHD

(34:45):
are actually a superpower whenyou can learn to harness them
and focus them in the rightdirection.
I think a lot of times we justfocus those things in the wrong
direction and, yeah, they canbecome direction.
I think a lot of times we justfocus those things in the wrong
direction and, yeah, they canbecome bad, but when you focus
that stuff in a positivedirection, it can be a

(35:06):
superpower, and most of the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs out
there have some type of mental Idon't like to call it a
disability, but that's whatpeople would call it.
I think it's a mental ability.
But whether it's ADHD or autism,a lot of these entrepreneurs

(35:30):
have these things, and the onlydifference between them and some
of the people that reallystruggle with those things is,
number one they learn to focusit in a positive direction.
And then, number two, theyswitch their perspective on it,
because the story that we tellourselves is always true.
That's right, and so if you'relooking at that stuff in a

(35:52):
negative way, it's going toaffect you negatively.
If you tell, oh, I've got adhdand depression and it's fucking
killing me and I can't doanything about it and it's
ruined, yeah, that's gonnahappen.
But if you take that stuff,I've got adhd, I'm gonna use
this to fucking smash.
I've got autism, I'm gonna usethat intelligence to do shit

(36:12):
that nobody else can do.
That slight shift inperspective is a game changer
100%.

I think maybe we've even talked about this.
When you feel like you're inflow, when you feel like you are
at your absolute best, I'mgoing to guess that's when
you're having a conversationwith one of your partners and
you're talking about how.
You'm going to guess that'swhen you're having a
conversation with one of yourpartners and you're talking
about how you're going tocollaborate, you're in the

(36:43):
conversation.
Let's shift that for a second.
When you're sitting in front ofa fucking computer trying to
figure out a fucking spreadsheet, it's I want to jump out the
window.
So it's.
If you can figure out whereyour strengths are like what I'm

(37:05):
talking about, because I'mexactly the same way it'll take
me four and a half hours tofigure out a spreadsheet.
Opposed to I can have aconversation with somebody all
day long and make 10 times theprogress than I will sitting in
front of that spreadsheet.

Yep, yep.
So you got to figure out whereyour strengths are and you got
to bring people on to help youout where you're not strong.
That's right.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
And if you do have to do somespreadsheet work or some things
that are difficult when you havea busy mind, one of the things

(37:49):
that you can do to help withthat is you want to move your
body somehow.
So even if you're doing alittle like leg stepper under
your desk, or even if you have,even if you just tap your desk,
like with your hand while you'redoing work on the spreadsheet,
if you want to slow down yourmind, you have to move into your

(38:11):
body.
So for people that's why I likegoing to the gym why do you
think it's so easy to get into aflow state when you go to the
gym?
Because you're moving your bodyand it naturally slows down
this mind and your thoughtsbecome clear.
Why is it easy for athletes toget into flow space flow state?

Because they're doing a physical activity and
they're moving their body andthat naturally slows down their
mind and they can just they canjust focus yeah, yeah, but you
put yeah and I think theawareness of knowing what you're
good at and the awareness ofknowing where what you're not

(38:50):
good at is key because, yes, ifyou don know, then you're going
to keep banging your headagainst the wall trying to
figure out this thing that youare not supposed to figure out
to begin with.

Totally agree.
Yeah, I'm only saying thatstuff just as it helps to do
something with the body If youare trying to slow down the mind
.
But I'm with you at At Chirp.
I'm really good at what I do.
It's like a superpower.
I'm a really good relationshipbuilder.
I'm really good at going outand getting partnerships, but I

(39:25):
am not good at building systemsand processes.
I'm not good at HubSpot.
I'm not good at onboardingcommission software.
I brought on a girl salesmanager to do all of that stuff
for me because, number one, I'mnot good at it.
Number two, it takes me forever.
And number three, I don'tfucking want to do it.
Dude right, I don't want to.

(39:47):
I don't want to do that kind ofstuff it's not where you're
best suited.

it's not beneficial for you or the
company for you to be doing thethings that you're not good at.
People say focus on the thingsyou're not good at.
Absolutely don't do that, Yep.
Find someone that can help youdo those things.

Yep, and it's a skill to be able to recognize
what you're good at and whatyou're not good at, and some
people just have a hard timeadmitting that they're not good
at certain things, and it makeslife a lot harder when you're
not just willing to say, okay,here's my strengths and here's
what I'm not so good at, and I'mgoing to focus on this and have

(40:31):
somebody else help here.
Yeah, totally.

Yeah, so let's help here.
Yeah, totally yeah.

So let's, that was a good talk right there.
How did it progress?
So I think we're at like 12thgrade.
Did you graduate?

I graduated all A's and B's and I would and this
is interesting, it's a greatsegue so I took a job.
So my dad was the vicepresident of a tobacco company
and I took a job with thetobacco company and the job was
I was training to be a buyer.

(41:09):
Let me explain what that means.
So, like following sale theydon't do this anymore, but I was
being trained to follow sell,like an auctioneer auctioning
tobacco hand signals.
It was wild.

(41:31):
The main job was to learn how tofollow sell and to drive the
people around that were, if youwant to call, executives or
whatever they were, because thetobacco industry is a drinking
culture, five o'clock, every day.

(41:59):
They're all in the hospitalityroom.
That's completely stock to theceiling with anything you can
think of, and it was okay for meto drink as well, even though I
was 18 years old.
It didn't really matter, right,I was.
This is just a differentindustry, and so that is where,
truthfully, that's where mydrinking really took off.
Because it was free, I was ableto drink whenever I wanted to

(42:20):
Damn near encouraged, to behonest with you and so that's
when my alcohol abuse reallykicked in.
Was it every day, every day?

I mean five days a week day, I mean five days a
week, yeah, five days a week,and most of the people that were
doing it with you were do youthink that they were like, were
they able to control it, or doyou think it was a lot of
alcohol?

everybody was an alcoholic, I'm pretty sure,
really.
Yeah, yeah, dude, I mean it waslike every day, not at one, not
at five, oh, one at fiveo'clock.

Everybody was.
Did you realize that it was aproblem?
Or to you Was it just?
Oh man, everyone's doing this.

This is normal, because I felt normal for the
first, like I felt normal when Idrank.
So this was like a new lease onlife for me.
This was the best thing thatcould have ever happened.
Now I get to get paid and everyday at five o'clock, I get to

(43:27):
drink.
Sign me up.

Yeah, so how did you, did it slowly get into
drinking on the weekends anddrinking after work, or how did
it progress from there?

Yeah, so it just didn't really stop.
I drank every day.
I started drinking every dayand, yeah, I would drink on the
weekends for sure Wasn't reallydoing a lot of drugs.
In fact, I wasn't doing anydrugs really at that time.
I'd smoke a little bit of weed,but weed and alcohol wasn't
really doing a lot of drugs.
In fact, I wasn't doing anydrugs really at that time.
I'd smoke a little bit of weed,but weed and alcohol wasn't.
It didn't really serve me well.

(44:03):
At the same time, I wouldalways choose alcohol over weed,
because alcohol helped somepeople.
It slows them down and makesthem tired.
It did the opposite for me.
I was ready to go, and so weedwould slow me down.
I would be be tired, I wouldn'tbe able to think as much, so it
just really wasn't thatappealing to me so when was the

(44:25):
when, oh sorry, were you gonnago at where you're gonna say, oh
?

when was the first time that you realized it was a
problem, even though it made youfeel good?
When was the first time thatyou were like, damn, even though
this makes me feel good, Ican't control it.

I started working at a restaurant.
So I only worked six months outof the year at this job.
I got paid for 12, but I onlyhad to work six because of the
tobacco season.
So when I finished that, when Ifinished that first six months,
I would play golf every day anddrink on the golf course
regularly.

(45:07):
And so then I started workingin a restaurant, because I wound
up not going back to that jobwhich is a whole different story
but I started working at arestaurant.
If you know anything aboutrestaurants, it's pretty easy to
drink at a restaurant and bythis point, by this point, I had

(45:29):
started doing drugs.
So I would say I was aroundmaybe 19, yeah, 19, 19 and a
half somewhere in in thatvicinity and I was working at a
restaurant.
So I couldn't drink at therestaurant, but I could drink on
the way home and so I workedabout an hour away.

(45:51):
And so, to answer your question, every night I would buy two 40
ounce ice house and drink thembefore I would get to my
destination in mount airy, andthen I'd drink a third one when
I got there and then, yeah, andI mentioned you, you started to
get into some drugs at thatpoint.

I'm not sure during that time how it was there, but
I know, know in Utah cocaine'spretty big in the restaurant
industry.
So is that kind of whatintroduced you to start getting
into some drugs?

Actually crushing up my Ritalin and then cocaine.

So you had Ritalin for your ADHD.
Yeah, how long were you on thatfor?
When did you first getprescribed that?
Eight years old?
Yeah, I don't want to comeacross the wrong way on this
podcast people because I know itcan come across offensive to
some people, especially parentsthat have kids and they're just

(46:58):
trying to do the best that theycan and trying to help their
kids out.
But I will say just think twicebefore you just go and put a
kid on some kind of heavyprescription medication.
So eight years old did you takeit?

as prescribed.
I'm sure I did at eight, butit's interesting because I
remember at that early age whenI would take it, my palms would
sweat, I wouldn't get veryhungry, I would feel really
nervous because you're taking anamphetamine and at eight years

(47:40):
old it's really like doing aline of cocaine is really what
it was like and I wondered.
I really did believe for yearsthat probably led me to drugs
and alcohol.
But what I've discovered?

(48:00):
So before I wrote my book, Iinterviewed like 50 different
ADHD professionals because Iwanted to understand why I do
the things that I do.
I wanted to understand why Ifucking leave my keys somewhere
and I can't find it for fourhours.
I wanted to understand why,just why I couldn't get out of

(48:26):
my own way and unanimously.
What I figured out was if Ihadn't have been on medication.
If I hadn't have been onmedication, the drugs and
alcohol would have probably beenfar worse, which is not what I

(48:49):
thought for years.
I thought for sure and I'mstill not totally convinced
that's 100% the case I thinkthat the Ritalin likely started
that desire to feel different.

Yeah, that's pretty interesting.
Yeah, did you ever go withoutit, like when you were?
No, you never went without it.

Yeah, for 25, or I don't even know how many years
.

Yeah, yeah I mean, really the only reason they ask
is because when you go withoutit then you really start to, you
really start to see what it'sdoing for you.
But it sounds like you justtook it pretty consistently and
for the most part, probably asprescribed while you were
growing up, until the restaurantand you started sniffing it a

(49:34):
little bit that's right and it'sinteresting because I hear
people say they they'll take itby mouth and they can just keep
taking it, like just like anaddict would do.

That was never really my experience, but when I
snorted it, the I would be upfor days.
I mean, I would just like Ijust couldn't really stop and I
would be.
It's just like if you're, ifyou've just finished up an eight
ball and you're just completelylocked up and your mind's

(50:09):
running a million miles an hourbut you don't really want to
talk to anybody or see anybody.
Yeah, I would get the exactsame way with riddell.
The same way.
So what?

made you decide to crush it and snort it because
you had done it for so long andyou had taken it by mouth, kind
of as prescribed.
What made you all of a suddenone day be like I'm gonna crush
this bitch up and take it to thedome?

I'm guessing somebody probably was doing it
around me.
I really don't remember.

if I'm being honest with you, yeah, yeah, but you
do remember that it was adifferent feeling when you did
that A hundred percent.

Yeah, for sure, and it would be, you know, and I
would do it working in therestaurant.
You know I'd go in the bathroomand crush it up and it's a
wonder, like I'm not even surehow I function, to be honest
with you yeah, but when you weredoing it, it made you feel like

(51:14):
that you were way better atwhatever you were doing.
Right, yeah, 100, that's one ofthe challenges that comes, but
when you were doing it, it madeyou feel like that you were way
better at whatever you weredoing.

Right, yeah, 100%.
That's one of the challengesthat comes with when you stop
doing that stuff is you'vegotten into this habit of
telling yourself over and overthat I'm so much better at this.

When I remove the substance, whether it be from
sports or work or whatever it isthere's a rush of dopamine from

(52:00):
this substance that you're notused to having, and so then,
when you've got to go without it, it's almost like you've got a
depletion of dopamine.
Yep.

All right, so walk me through kind of the next
little while in your life.
So you're at the restaurant,you're drinking, you're crushing
up, you're riddling.
Where does it go from there?

So I moved to Charlotte to go to college and I
did enroll and I did go alittle bit, but the truth of the
matter was I got there, my God,I got alcohol poisoning the
first night I was there, if thattells you any idea how things
went and I had to come home forthree days.

(52:43):
I was so sick and it didn'treally matter, like I was just
ready to get back after thatthree days, and so I didn't go a
day without drinking.
So that was really that firstyear in school.
That was when I had to go to myfirst rehab and I don't

(53:06):
remember if I'd gotten a DUI yetprobably.
So I got two DUIs back-to-backin Charlotte when I say
back-to-back 30 days apart bythe same cop on Like legit DUIs.

You were drinking, got busted, got charged with a
DUI.

Yep.
You have to do jail time no, andthe reason I didn't is because
I got charged for the first onesecond and the second one first,
because if they would have beencharged consecutively I was
going to lose my license foreight years.
My attorney said this is howwe're going to do it and that's
how we did it.
So I only lost my license forfour years and so I still drove,

(53:50):
naturally.
And it turns out I didn't workanyway, because I got my license
back after that four years forone day and the next day I get a
letter from the DMV sayingyou're not driving for another
four years.

(54:10):
So the plan didn't work.
Plan didn't work but in betweenall that time I mean there was
I would get up and drink vodkabefore I was working in
restaurants.
I would get up and drink vodkabefore I went.
Like a pint, like a pint glass,pretty much full of vodka I was

(54:32):
.

It was one of my worst times, for sure I want to
touch on a couple things herebecause I think this is really
interesting.
It was one of my worst times,for sure.
I want to touch on a couplethings here because I think this
is really interesting.
So you went to college, youblacked out or got alcohol
poisoning your first night.
You got two DUIs pretty quickly.
Thereafter you went to rehab,right, yep, was that influenced

(55:01):
by your mom or your dad?
Was that you?
Was it the courts that had yougo?
Do you remember?

wasn't.
It may have been suggested bymy attorney, I don't recall.
I knew I was in bad shape was,was it an?

inpatient.
Yeah, how long did you go?
For?
Two weeks, so did you notcomplete the program.

I did, but it was more of a drunk tank, it was
more of a.
It wasn't like a 30 day rehab,it was like a come here and get
cleaned up and then go to thenext spot.
I just didn't go to the nextspot.

Yeah, okay, my last one was 73 days, 70 patient
program.
So the reason I brought that upis because I'm always trying to
figure out what gets somebodysober.
I think if we had the answer,there would probably be like a

(55:55):
set in.
And I know you follow the AAprogram and I know that works
really well for some people, butit also like there are people
who go to AA and drink againright, so that I don't think
there's one miracle solutionthat everyone can just follow
step by step, and I'm going tostay sober for the rest of my
life.

(56:19):
External consequences do not.
It's really interesting.
External consequences are notalways the thing that is going
to drive somebody to change, andyou would think that they would
.
You would think that gettingyour first DUI would, and then
your second DUI and then goingto rehab, and you would think

(56:41):
all of these things would makesomebody stop and think, fuck, I
have a problem, I'm not goingto do this anymore.
But it's not quite that simpleand so in my opinion, it's more
of an internal thing.
But we can get to that a littlebit later on.
So you got out of rehab twoweeks.

(57:04):
Where do you go from there?

Less than a week, I was drinking again, and how
much were you drinking at thispoint?
That's a good question.

I would be honest I don't know, Was it more hard
liquor beer?
Not at the time.

Maybe shots.
It was like going out to a club.
There was some ecstasy going onin there as well.

Do you have any small moments in there where you
wanted to quit?
No, not really the only reason.

I would want to quit is because to get out of
the thing I was in trouble foror whatever it was.
Yeah, yeah, there was really nodesire to quit.
In fact, I didn't really thinkI'd ever quit.
I couldn't really ever seemyself not drinking.

To be honest, it was, and is that because it made
you feel so good, or is thatbecause you didn't think you had
a problem?

I knew, I believe , from early on.
I would always say that I'm analcoholic Not in the sense that
I say it now just kind of, asthis is just.
It was almost like an identity.

Yeah, yeah for me.
I know I had a problem, but I'mso prideful that I always felt
like I was the one person thatwould be able to figure out it,
figure it out and control it.
Yeah, so I never quite I neverfully quite wanted to give it up
, cause, even though I was goingto stop doing it like I was

(58:46):
doing it, I could still just doit a little bit here and there,
and I was smart enough andstrong enough to be able to
figure it out.

Yeah, I went through that for years.
Yeah, pride and ego is.
It is probably one of the mostpowerful things to have to try
to overcome.
In my opinion, it has been forme for many years.

(59:20):
I mean, even sober years isstill, and there's different
levels of it, and it could bewhat you're talking about.
I can quit when I want to, butI'm just going to do this, or it
could be.
I'm just not going to tellanybody that I'm going through
this thing.
There's so many differentlevels of pride and ego that can

(59:42):
just smash you to death, Iagree, and sometimes it's hard
to even recognize when that'shappening.

So how do you recognize it?

Corey Berrier (01:00:01):
so how do you recognize it?
I have to step back and thinkabout what are, what are my
intentions here, and am Ilooking at this from everyone's
perspective, or is it just myperspective?
There may be something that Idon't agree with that someone
does at work, potentially, or inour relationship and I have to

(01:00:26):
look at.
Am I looking at this of justhow it affects me, or am I
looking at it at where thatperson could be coming from?
It's really empathy and puttingmyself in their shoes, and I
can't all the time, I can'tnecessarily always put myself in

(01:00:47):
their shoes because I don'tknow what they're going through,
I don't know what kind of daythis person's having for them to
make this decision.
And the only way and this iswhere I fail sometimes is if I
communicate well and I ask goodquestions, and sometimes I

(01:01:07):
assume that I know because of mypride and ego, but my
assumption's wrong because Ididn't ask the right question or
I didn't ask any question or Ididn't communicate, and that's
hard and I deal with thatregularly.
I think that I know whatsomeone's thinking or what their

(01:01:30):
intentions are, but it and Idon't want to ask because I
think I already know.

Justin Judd (01:01:42):
Yeah, it's interesting that you're talking
about this right now.
I think the key takeaway hereis we will never have it all
figured out.
We are always, there's alwaysroom for improvement and we can
always continue to work onourselves.
Me personally, right now, myword for 2025 is leadership.

(01:02:07):
The reason that's my word isbecause you would think that
somebody like me that's gonethrough everything that I've
gone through and been at thebottom of the bottom would be
the most patient and empatheticperson in the world.

(01:02:30):
It didn't work out like that forme.
The exact opposite, the exactopposite, because I have been
through everything that I'vebeen through and I overcame it
and I took accountability forlife and stopped making excuses.
I have very little patience forpeople that don't live life the

(01:02:55):
same way, and I tend to.
I don't tend to give people thebenefit of the doubt and I'm
super passionate and,unfortunately, with what I've
been through and the mindsetthat I have, mixed with that
passion.
Unfortunately, when I'm tryingto bring people up with me, I

(01:03:19):
can actually, I'm actuallybringing people down and so I'm
really that's.
That is what I'm working on in2025 is being a little more
empathetic towards people,giving people the benefit of the
doubt and really trying to be aleader that people want to
follow because they respect themand they want to work hard for

(01:03:43):
them, and not a leader thatpeople are afraid of.
So it's a challenge.

So tell me what happens, because obviously
there's a time that you canthink of that.
This exact thing happened and,looking back, you wish you could
have had the leadership mindsetthat you're talking about now.
How did you recognize that andthen correct it?

Yeah, that and then correct it.
Yeah, one specific situationwould be at Chirp.
I've built this partnershipprogram and I like value keeping
my word these days and when Icreate these partnerships and
when our sales team and they'rereferring us deals and our sales

(01:04:38):
team is closing those deals andwe tell people that they're
going to get white glove supportbecause that we take pride in
it and we're going to take careof them.
And don't get me wrong, wedidn't really take care of a big

(01:05:03):
partner of ours and one oftheir customers and it upset me.
It upset me because I've put aton of work and energy into this
partnership and when I tell apartner that we're going to do
something, I expect us to do it.
And this person on that side ofthings this is going to sound

(01:05:27):
bad man, but not everybody'sgoing to be like me there.
They might be here more just tohave a job and it doesn't mean
that they're like doing a badjob, they're just they don't
care as much as I do.
And what I ended up learningwas, yeah, they dropped the ball
and they admitted that, butthey were also working on

(01:05:48):
building out a software for thecustomer success manager team
for us to be able to track thehealth of accounts, and so they
were really focused on gettingthat software built out and
long-term, that's superimportant and so in their minds,
that's why they kind of droppedthe ball over here is because

(01:06:11):
they were focused over here, andif I would have just taken a
little bit of time to understandwhere they were coming from, my
approach could have been a lotdifferent.
Do I agree with how they did it?
I still don't agree with it.
I still think that they couldhave been doing this and taking

(01:06:31):
care of the partner at the sametime.
But that's not what's important.
What's important is I cameacross wrong to that person and
I think I kind of hurt theirfeelings and that's not the type
of person that I want to be.
I want to be the type of personthat, even if I don't agree
with someone, I can go have areal conversation with that

(01:06:53):
person and I can bring them up.
And the way that I've beenapproaching those times, those
types of things, I haven't beengetting that kind of result and
so that's on me.
So that's something that Irealized I got to work on.
That was a long answer.
Hopefully that made sense.
It did.

Because you're so personally invested in the
partner and it's tied to yourword and the partner doesn't
give a shit if it fails, becauseyou're the guy that said it's
not going to fail.
Yep.

So it affects your character, yeah, and that's
something that I take a lot ofpride in these days, a lot.

Yes, me too.
For somebody to assassinate mycharacter is probably the worst
thing that you could do to me.
Yeah.

And they're still an employee here.
I've still got to do what I canto make the most of them and
give them an opportunity.
And so it's.
I definitely haven't figured itout, let's just put it that way,
but the good thing is it wasRyan Fenn, the owner of Chirp.

(01:08:13):
He's the one that really Ialready knew it, like deep down,
I knew it, but he pulled meinto his office and had a
conversation with me and justlet me know that, hey, man, we
really need to work on thisbecause we want this to be a
place where people enjoy comingto work and they feel like they
can be comfortable here and theyfeel like there's opportunity

(01:08:35):
for growth here.
And I may not have beenbringing that to the table as
much as I should, so, anyways,he had the conversation with me
and, for whatever reason, reallyhit.
And the good thing is, eventhough I I don't have it figured
out yet, I'm noticing it.
I'm noticing it all the time.

(01:08:56):
I'm noticing it inrelationships outside of work,
I'm noticing it with friendships, I'm noticing it at work, like
I'm just starting to be a lotmore conscious of that challenge
that I have in general, whichis a good thing, because that

(01:09:17):
means that I'm thinking about itbefore.
I'm just reacting to something.

So what if you treated this person, as
challenging as it may be?
What if you treated them likeyou would a partner?
Yeah, because there'd be adifferent kind of conversation,
right, you wouldn't have thatconversation with a partner the
way you had it with the supportguy.

That's a really good point.
It's a really good point, I'llthink.

good point I'll think about that, yeah, I mean,
think about if you were tryingto bring on a huge partner,
whoever that might be, andyou're, you're talking with them
, you're just havingconversations, you're building
the relationship.
It's dating right and it's thesame kind of the same thing with
this individual.
You're just you're starting alittle bit in the rears because

(01:10:11):
you've already made them feellike shit or whatever you did,
but it's kind of like you've gotto build that relationship.
On that side as well, I'mfocused on what I need to do,
which is part of the problem.
I'm focused on what benefitsthe company, what benefits me,

(01:10:32):
and sometimes I don't thinkabout the support people.
They're like they just shoulddo their job and that's not my
part of it until it affects me.
But if I have a goodrelationship with the support
team, then they're probablygoing to work harder for me.

I know, exactly, exactly, yeah, that is really
what I'm.
That's the growth that I'mfocused on right now.

Yeah, that makes sense, and it's really just
trying to put yourself in thatperson's shoes and understand
that our goals and the thingsthat we want to get done, it's
not their goals.
It's not.
They may not give a shit aboutthat for us and maybe they
shouldn't right.

(01:11:22):
Maybe I mean their goal is todo get this fucking software up
or whatever.

Yeah and see, but you still got to figure out a
way to to push them towardstheir goals.
Right, you still got to, butit's it's going to be.
It's going to be different thanyours.

Yeah, for sure.
And so I think you know, Ithink the takeaway from that is
sometimes we've got to put selfto the side and really it goes
back to empathy and just try toput yourself in their shoes, and
the great thing is, if you cando that before you fire off at

(01:12:04):
them, you're going to be inbetter shape, and it doesn't
always mean that's going tohappen.
So we all say things that weshouldn't, we all make sarcastic
remarks or raise our voice orwhatever fill in the blank, but
sometimes it is easier just tonot have to go in and make that
amends, if you will.

Which's kind of interesting is, and it kind of
goes back to how you're talking,how you talked about to be
conscious of your strengths andbe conscious of your weaknesses.
So now that I'm conscious ofthis and I'm working on it, I

(01:12:45):
was also like, ok, so what's animmediate solution, because it's
going to take some time for meto work on this.
And so what I did was I removedmyself from communication.
So I'm not normally I'm notcommunicating daily with really
anyone in the company anymore.

(01:13:07):
That's not a manager orexecutive, which honestly, I
probably shouldn't have beenhaving to do that anyways.
But this situation just kind ofmade me realize that.
So I've just taken myself outof that communication and given
that responsibility to somebodyelse on my team, so that while

(01:13:28):
I'm working on this, I just havesome space.

How easy is it for you to delegate stuff like
that Not easy.
Not easy at all.

No, I like to control things.
I tend to think that if I don'tdo it, then it's not going to
get done as good.

Yeah, and I think that's a fine example of people
that are in recovery or maybepeople that are not.
Like we try to control, I'vetried to control.
I try to control everythingaround me, and this is something
I have to work on daily tryingto control everything around me.
And this is something I have towork on daily and a lot of

(01:14:13):
times.
The book Power of Now is justsuch a powerful thing for me
because it really put inperspective I can't control
anything that I can't touchright this very moment.
I can't control what happens 10minutes from now.
Sure as hell can't control whathappened 10 minutes ago.
And if I sit and try, I can'tbe here with you and so it takes

(01:14:38):
you out of like experiencingthe things that you're supposed
to experience.

Yep, it's actually a really interesting concept and
thought when you start thinkingabout that everything happens
right now.
Anything that's going to happenin the future is going to
happen in the now, in thatmoment in the future.
Anything that happened in thepast, it happened in the moment,
right right now is all wereally ever have, is it Right

(01:15:11):
now?
I read that book when I waslocked up yeah, and it was a
game changer, dude because I wasnot happy to be there.
I wanted to be out.
I was upset, there was a lot ofthings that I was just upset
about, and so reading that bookin there really helped calm me

(01:15:35):
down and helped me just focus onGetting through that moment and
not so focused on what I hadjust done or what I was going to
do when I get out, but justlike really focused on then and
there and taking control of thatmoment.

Talk about being in a place for somebody that
likes to control things.
Being in a place like jail orwherever.
It is suffocating because youhave zero control over anything.
Yep yeah, that was a tough time.

(01:16:17):
How long were you in jail orprison or what?
16 months?

Okay, just jail.
So nine months in one and thengot transferred to another one
for six months tough time rightthere yeah, or 15 months, I
guess that is yeah it's a longtime.

Yep did you use when you got out.
Yep, of course.
Yep, of course, of course,because one would think you
spend that much time in jail.
You'd learn a lesson, but, asyou mentioned earlier,
consequences don't alwaysdetermine a shift in change.
And really, when I stopped,when I stopped drinking.

(01:17:04):
So I stopped drinking in 2009.
And I had gotten the blow stickin my car and I had blown into
it and set it off and for thoseof you who don't know what that
is, it's a detector, basically,that you have to blow in to
start your car.
It's a pain in the ass, but Iwas able to legally drive, so

(01:17:27):
I'd set it off.
I had to go down to the DMV,because it immediately reports
to the DMV and you have 48 hoursto get down there and explain
yourself.
So I explained myself to thelady.
Of course, I lied and, forwhatever reason, she let me go
and she said if I see you inhere again, you'll never drive
on the streets of North Carolina.
And that was the day that Imade a decision I can't do this

(01:17:52):
anymore, like I just I've burntup my last nine lives or
whatever.
How long ago was that?
2009.
?

So in between you going to like rehab and getting
out and drinking a week later in2009, like you basically just
drank that whole time 2005, Igot busted with four ounces of
cocaine.

So, one would have thought I would have
stopped then, but I didn't.
I had a great attorney.
I went to a rehab for sixmonths.
I did not go to jail.
I mean, I did go to jail but Ididn't spend a bunch of time in
jail.
Wow, yeah, I know I reallycan't really get into all the

(01:18:40):
reasons for that.
That's crazy dude.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it is whatit is.
I got out of that rehab.
I drank the night I got out ofthe rehab.
It was a six-month Pentecostalholiness like not a medication
rehab, but like a work camp.
It was a nightmare, but itwasn't prison.

(01:19:02):
So 2009 is when I stoppeddrinking.
I didn't use drugs.
After that time I haven't usedany, not any hard drugs and so I
got sober in 2009, after thatexperience with the DMV and I
worked.
I was in recovery workingprogram, getting everything back
in life that I thought I thatthe promises teach you.

(01:19:25):
I started a business and inabout 20, let's see 2015 ish, I
started smoking weed, and so Ididn't.

I still you left from 2009 to 2015 and didn't
drink, didn't drink, didn't doanything.

That's a long, that's a long time six years,
and so I started smoking weed onnot a lot but a little bit, and
what that did is it slowlypulled me away from going like I
, you know I.
I slowly pulled me away fromthe program and I started

(01:20:10):
listening to Tony Robbins aroundthat time and I heard him
explain that you say I am.
Whatever comes after, that isgoing to be true.

So I thought and this, I use this as an excuse- I
want to hear a cool quote frommy mentor about that.
What follows I am follows youright makes complete sense.

So I thought I am follows you right.
So I said what I can't keepgoing to this place and saying I
am an alcoholic, because thatmeans I'm broken, that means
means that I'm going to.
I just associated it with notthe person that I wanted to be,

(01:20:58):
which really, to be honest, wasjust an excuse for me to not go
back.
And so I didn't go back and Icontinued to smoke weed and
every year continued to smokeweed and every year things got
slowly worse, so slow that Ididn't recognize how bad they

(01:21:20):
were getting until they werecompletely out of control.
When I say out of control, mymarriage was falling apart.
I had lost that business.
I had taken control back overmy life, opposed to depending on
God or anybody else, and I wasrunning things and doing a piss

(01:21:42):
poor job at it.

What do you think it was that kind of got you into
that mindset and living lifelike that?
Because a lot of people wouldsay it's just weed right, which
okay.
Ego.

Pure ego.
I can do this.
I don't need the program, I'vegot this.
I don't need God, I don't needanything.
I can do this, this.
I don't need God, I don't needanything, I can do this.
And my ego took over and I justcould not figure out what the
problem was.

(01:22:20):
I went and tried to doayahuasca twice.
I mean, I was searching foranything to solve the problem of
me outside of going back to theprogram that I knew had given
me the life that I wanted, right, but what didn't even enter my
mind?
Because I had convinced myself100% that I didn't need to go

(01:22:46):
back there.
I believed my own story, that Ididn't need to go back there.
I believed my own story andsome things happened.
So I went down to RoofCon.
This was in 20, let's see,we're in 2024 today.
So this was in 20, I've beensober almost two years.

(01:23:07):
So let's say it was 2021, Iguess November of 2021.
And Jeff Boab introduced me to aguy named Eric Obrant, who has
been sober and in the programfor a while, and in talking with
him I said I'm just not goingto go back to the program

(01:23:30):
because I just feel like I don'treally need it.
And he said maybe it's reallynot about you, corey In fact it
is not about you, but you'vemade it about you.
I didn't know.
I've known this guy for 20minutes.
He was like you need to go andgive back what was fucking

(01:23:51):
freely given to you.
And it hit me like a lightningbolt and when I got back I
started going back to AA.
I was still smoking weed and Ihad a conversation with God and
I said I know that this is notgonna completely work if I keep
smoking weed, but I'm to quit.
I'm just not willing to quitright now.

(01:24:11):
And so I was leaving.
Things weren't getting a lotbetter really, and something
happened with my stepdaughterthat brought me to my knees.
There was, we got a call from alady, the church where her

(01:24:38):
biological father and her went.
They got a call from a ladythat said she had claimed that
he was watching pornography withher.
She told another kid this.
I almost lost my mind, like Ialmost.
I called every judge that Iknow, every cop that I know
private investigator.

(01:24:59):
They all said there's somethingnot right with this.
But I couldn't figure this outand almost lost my mind because
it was.
I just couldn't understand howthis cps was called.

(01:25:20):
I had to do an interview withthem.
They interviewed him, theyinterviewed my ex-wife, the
daughter.

Nothing happened so no one ever admitted any of it.

Nothing, and and the own, and so that's what
brought me to my knees and I,just, I was just, I was losing
my mind because I could not getany traction on this, I couldn't
figure it out.
And so that's when, so shortlyafter that, I was leaving a

(01:25:52):
meeting and I'd hit my weed penand I almost ran a red light
going 70 miles an hour.
And about two minutes later Ialmost ran another red light
going 70 miles an hour, and Iknew at that moment that was it.
That was the time I'd alreadybeen warned twice.

(01:26:13):
I know what this looks like.
I don't need the third warning,and so I threw the weed pen out,
and that was March 25th, twoyears ago.
This two years will be March26th will be I'll be completely
sober two full years and just inmy life since then has gone

(01:26:35):
from not knowing what I wasgoing to do for work, not
knowing if the marriage wasgoing to hold up, not knowing
how we were going to make ourbills, to all of those problems
are totally solved now and Idon't worry about any of those
things and I'm no longer in themarriage and I'm in a

(01:27:00):
relationship where I'm extremelyhappy and in a job that I love
and I believe that it's allbecause I surrendered and asked
for help.

That's awesome, man .
That's huge.
Do you Congrats, bro?
Do you so?
When you hit that weed pin forthe last time, you saw those two
red lights.
But do you really think thatthat's what it was that made you
finally surrender?

(01:27:36):
Or do you think that it was afeeling that you had inside?
Do you think that it was aninternal thing where you just
got to the point where you werelike dude, I can't fucking live
like this anymore, becausethat's what it was for me.
For me, it got to the pointwhere it was either I got sick

(01:27:59):
of feeling like I wanted to dieinside.
Yeah, I didn't want to feellike that anymore.
So for me, it was all right.
It's time to either give up orfucking change, surrender, and
luckily I'm not the type ofperson to give up.
So at that moment I decided tochange and and I haven't looked

(01:28:21):
back, but it was.
I don't know.
I'm just asking that becauseI'm always trying to figure out
what it is that makes someonefinally get to that point.

I think it was.
I was to the point where I wasready, I was ready to surrender.
I needed those two instances toscare me enough, Cause it
wasn't like I was high, I justleft the meeting.
So it wasn't like I wasintoxicated and that's why I
almost left the meeting.

(01:28:51):
So it wasn't like I wasintoxicated and that's why I
almost ran the risk, Like Ican't tell you why I almost ran
those lights.
It makes no sense and thattells me.
If there's something thatdoesn't make sense to me, but
it's telling it.
But I see this as a sign Ibetter listen, Because if I
don't listen, I don't know whatmay happen next.
Cause what, what happens if?

(01:29:12):
What happens if I don't, if Ido run the next red light and I
T-bone and kill somebody?
And that's what I think about.
Or kill myself, for that matter.

Yeah, and I was going to ask you that.
So when you say sign, you'vetalked a few times.
You've said God For you.
Is that what it was?
Was it a sign from God?

Yeah, it was.

So do you think that some of the reason that it
had such a weight carried such aweight for you?

is because there was a spiritual connection to it
.
Yeah, I think internally.
I mean for sure somethinginternally spoke to my soul that
said we made a deal and thedeal was you weren't ready to

(01:30:08):
quit then, but now you've got tofulfill your part of it.

Yeah, I think the reason I'm asking that is I
think spirituality, whatever youbelieve in, is super important
when surrendering, and I knowthat it has been for me, I think
I probably I may have somedifferent beliefs than you do in
regards to my spirituality.
I believe in the universe andvibration and frequency and

(01:30:35):
energy, but one way or the other, whatever you believe in, I
think it's important to believethat there is something out
there greater than yourself.

And that's it.
We're on the exact same page.
You can call it whatever youwant.
Do I think there's a man in thesky hanging out?
No, not necessarily.
I don't really know what it is,but what I do know is there.
You said it, vibration.
You said it.
Vibration sound just thatinternal.

(01:31:11):
There's an internal clock or aninternal something that guides
us.
That's outside of me, and I'veproven this, like I know for a
fact how my life goes when I tapinto that power.
Yep, and I know how my lifegoes when I don't tap into that

(01:31:35):
power.
Yeah, dude, and control is agreat way to look at it.
When I'm trying to controlsomething that's out of my
control, I am not depending onanybody else but Corey, yep.

And I don't work.
Nope, no, it's not.
It takes work, right, it takeswork to really be conscious of
the all of the different thingsthat you're trying to control in
life that really you don't haveany control over.

And the truth of the matter is, if you hand that
over to the universe or higherpower whatever it is you want to
call it you're going to getthrough it easier, like it's
really just like a life hack, ifthat's how you want to look at
it.
At least that's been myexperience.
Yep, me too.

Me too, me too.
So what advice would you giveto somebody, whether they're
struggling with substance abuseright now, or whether they're
depressed or just strugglinginternally and not really
getting much out of life andkind of struggling?
And wonder what is the fuckingpoint of this do you have any
yeah, any recommendations thatyou would give to somebody like
that from what you've beenthrough?

Yeah, the hardest thing that I had to do to get
to this point is to ask somebodyfor help, and it takes a lot as
a man.
It takes a lot to admit youdon't have all the answers.
It takes a lot to admit thatyou haven't got it figured out.

(01:33:29):
It takes a lot to admit thatyou need somebody else's help.
But something happens, and itmay not happen the first time,
but there's something thathappens when you genuinely ask
someone for help If it's theright person.
You can't just ask someone forhelp if it's the right person.

(01:33:50):
You can't just ask anybody forhelp and expect them to help you
.
But I think asking for help hasbeen one of the that was one of
the biggest challenges that Ihad.
But once I asked for help,people were willing to help, to

(01:34:13):
help.
But again, you got to becareful where you're asking for
help, because it's not alwaysgoing to be sound information.
You know what I mean and Ithink people want to help.
People want to help you, butthey can't help you if they
don't know you need it.

Yeah, I think there's a couple of key points
there.
That's a really good suggestion, by the way, but I think for
you it took two things.
Number one the hard part is youhave to admit to yourself that
you need help.
That's hard for people to do, Ithink.
Whether you're a man or a woman, it's sometimes hard to take a

(01:34:49):
look at ourselves and admit thatwe need help.
And then the second step is togo ask somebody.
That's hard too, and I do thinkyou're right, I do.
I think it's hard for men andwomen, but I think there's a
little bit more ego attached tomen in asking for help, because
we're supposed to have shitfigured out and be the leaders.

(01:35:11):
The other thing that I wantedto mention there is, I agree, I
think that for the most part, Ithink people want to help.
Vulnerability is what you weretalking about there a little bit
.
So again, I'm going to go backto the universe, but I just

(01:35:31):
talked about how gratitude isone of the highest vibrating
frequencies of the universe,meaning like the more grateful
you are, the more that stuff'sgoing to come back to you.
An opposite of that would belike shame.
Shame is the lowest vibratingfrequency in the universe.
Shame is no good like feelingshitty about yourself and things

(01:35:56):
that you've done.
It's fucked up, because theproblem is is when we feel
shitty about stuff, it makes usdo the exact stuff that we're
trying to stop.
Yeah, because we want tocontinue to numb it.
Yeah, authenticity is thehighest vibrating frequency in

(01:36:19):
the universe.
They put over 400 people in a Idon't know what it was some kind
of machine and it could measureemotion.
I don't know what it was somekind of machine and it could
measure emotion and they putpeople through different
scenarios that would bring updifferent emotions, and
authenticity vibrated 400 timesstronger than love, which is the

(01:36:42):
second highest vibratingemotion.
Now, the reason I'm bringingthis up is because I think that
in order to go ask somebody forhelp, it's a super vulnerable
thing to do, but I thinkvulnerability is directly tied
to authenticity, and so I thinkif you can find the right person

(01:37:14):
to be vulnerable with andyou're authentic about the fact
that, hey, I need some help, Ithink that creates for a super
powerful opportunity for changeand opportunity for somebody to
help you out, and I don't know.
That's just kind of where mymind was going while you're
talking about that.

Well, I think intention right If you have the
right intention when you'reasking for help, if you have the
right intention when you'reasking for help, not the
intention of let me see what Ican get, let me see if I can get
this guy to help me do thisthing so I can get to where.
I need to go.
It's genuine.

It's authentic.

Right, yeah, yep, and you got to be careful about
intentions, because you can getsidelined with the wrong
intentions.
But if you keep the otherperson's intentions at the
forefront, it pays back individends.
The universe will pay you backin dividends, as long as you're

(01:38:06):
not expecting it.

Yep, yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah.
This has been awesome, man.
It's been cool to learn moreabout your story and I'll come
onto your podcast here soon,once we've released the one here
.
But I'd love to be back ontoyour podcast.
But, yeah, it's been super coolto learn more about your story.

(01:38:29):
I'm proud of you.
I know firsthand that it is noteasy and it's weird.
It's when you've been an addictor an alcoholic and you see
somebody else doing the damnthing.
It's impossible to not haverespect for that person, whether
you like him or not.
Yeah, I got sober with somedumb ass people, dude, that I

(01:38:52):
don't really care to be friendswith all the time, but it will
never take away my respect forwhat they're doing, because I
know that it takes work, dude,and I have the utmost respect
for you and what you've beenable to do.

I appreciate that .
I appreciate you spending thetime today to just to allow me
the space to talk.
That's really cool.
Yeah man, it's been awesome.
Yeah man, I appreciate you.
I'll let you know when it comesout.
All right, sounds good, brother.
Thank you, brother.

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