Have you ever had your entire life upended in an instant? At 41, with a wife and four children depending on me, I found myself filing for bankruptcy after our fitness studio of 12 years collapsed. Standing amid the ruins of what we'd built, I had to make an impossible choice: accept the only job offer I had or bet on myself with no safety net.
That moment of crisis became the crucible for everything I now understand about creating breakthroughs in life. Through tears and raw vulnerability, I share how bankruptcy burned away everything that wasn't essential and forced me to rebuild with intention. The clean slate became my greatest gift—painful, yes, but ultimately transformative.
This deeply personal journey reveals three critical lessons for anyone facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. First, you must define your "why" and what success truly means to you. My realization that I wanted work to fit around family, not the other way around, became my north star. Second, you need two defiant core beliefs: that failure is an event, not your identity, and that you are adequate to learn from mistakes. The virtues of humility and curiosity became my foundation, allowing gratitude to replace entitlement and fascination to overcome disappointment.
Finally, I discovered that breakthroughs require two types of people: friends who stand by you in your darkest hour, and guides who've solved problems like yours before. Both relationships demand vulnerability—accepting help when you can't repay it, and humbling yourself to learn from others and get gritty learning new skills.
What emerged from this three-year wilderness wasn't just survival but a completely reimagined life. The suffering had purpose. If you're facing your own wall right now, remember that perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Your breakthrough awaits not by avoiding suffering, but by finding something worth suffering for.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to episode number 55.
I have what you could call anoutside-the-box and highly
personal episode for you todayIn true deconstructing,
conventional form.
This episode is adeconstruction and
reconstruction of what became mypersonal definition of success.
You're about to hear a rawretelling of a rough season of
(00:22):
life that shaped me in verysignificant ways, but it is also
a story about redemption andperseverance.
So a little backstory on thisepisode.
Being a coach myself, notsurprisingly, I see value in
having a coach and I'm someonewho just likes to compress time
and speed up my learning, so Idon't have to learn everything
by trial and error.
And one of the areas where Iwant to grow professionally is
(00:45):
as a speaker and communicator.
So one of the goals of thiscurrent coaching program that
I'm in is to write what's calleda signature talk or something
akin to a TED talk, and for meto be able to use the talk to
find opportunities to speak atevents or communicate the
messages I feel put on thisearth to share.
So one of the fun things thathas already come out of the
(01:08):
program I'm in is that I got anidea for a new book, which is
something many of you have beenasking me for for years when are
you going to write your book,christian?
Well, I've started and I cantell you it is going to be
punchy and paradigm shifting.
I've had some serious ahamoments hosting this podcast and
I can't wait to get what I'vebeen learning into book form.
(01:28):
I think you're going to love itand I imagine it to be one of
those books that permanentlychanges the way you see the
world.
I'll be rolling out snippets ofvarious chapters in the weeks
and months ahead, so if you wantto watch the book unfold in
real time, make sure you'resubscribed to our newsletter.
You can opt in for that on ourwebsite at healingunitedtoday,
(01:48):
and you'll see the opt-in formin the footer of our website.
Okay, back to the reason forthis episode.
One of the ideas my coach hadwas to take version one of my
talk and crowdsource somefeedback about how to make it
better.
What you're about to hear isgood for some formats, but it's
currently too long for a TEDtalk.
But I think it's a good talkand it's hard to know what to
cut.
(02:08):
I have killed a lot of darlingsto get it down to the length
that it is, so what I have foryou today is a bit of a
departure from what I normallydo on the show and, since many
of you have followed my work forquite some time now, I wanted
to invite you into somethingspecial, or at least something
special to me.
So, for context, what you'reabout to hear plops you down in
the middle of 2017.
(02:30):
That was, hands down, thehardest year of my life, and my
coach not only rudely convincedme that that season of life was
the story to use, but she thentwisted the knife and made me
tell the story in present tense,in other words, relive it, tell
it as if it's happening now.
And I say she rudely asked meto do that because it dredged up
(02:50):
all the feelings and put meright back in those head spaces.
So just a heads up.
I got emotional three timesrecording this and I thought
about re-recording thosesections just to maintain my
level head as I told the stories.
But then I thought you knowwhat?
Why not leave them in?
They are real and they are raw.
You don't need me to tell you,but life is painful sometimes
(03:11):
and maybe there can be somethingcathartic or healing for you to
hear me experience realemotions and real struggle.
So you have been warned, allright beyond the thrust of the
talk, which is essentiallyhelping the listener find the
reserves to persevere throughlife's toughest challenges.
I guess you could say, inexchange for this highly
personal, unedited episode, Ijust love your feedback.
(03:33):
So what stood out to you themost?
What key lessons did you takeaway?
Was there something I said thatwas exactly what you needed to
hear?
Or what can I cut?
Where did I drift off?
If you were an event planner,would you have a use for a talk
like this?
And if you have any suggestedtitles for this talk, I'd love
(03:55):
to hear them.
So please don't be shy aboutgiving me some full frontal
feedback.
I am not fragile.
Whatever you have to say, I cantake it.
So, okay, how can you give mesome feedback?
Well, there's two ways.
You can shoot me an email atchristian at truewholehumancom
and just let me know what youthink.
If you're listening to this inBuzzsprout, there is an option
in the show notes labeled sendus a text message.
You can also reach out to methat way, but know that, like
(04:15):
with all the other episodes,that option is a one-way
communication.
So if you use that method, Ihave no way to respond to you if
you don't include any contactinfo.
Okay, two last thoughts beforeI play the talk For anyone
interested.
I also wrote a blog post aboutthis story back in 2020.
I will link to that in the shownotes in case you want to read
it, and the last thing I'll sayis that please feel free to
(04:37):
share this episode with anyoneyou think may be inspired by it.
I hope you'll find this talkdeeply uplifting and, beyond the
feedback about how to make itbetter, I'd just love to know
how it may have helped you climbwhatever wall you are facing.
So, whatever you're goingthrough in life, do not give up.
Okay, that's it for introducingthis episode Without further
(04:58):
ado.
Here we go.
I just filed bankruptcy.
The one-of-a-kind health andfitness studio we spent the last
12 years pouring our heartsinto is gone.
I live in one of the mostexpensive cities in the country.
I'm 41 years old, I have a wifeand four kids to feed, no
(05:19):
income, and I just turned downthe only job offer I have.
Have you ever felt backed intoa corner?
Have you ever had a pit ofanxiousness in your gut?
Have you ever had your faithtested to its limits?
There are moments in life thattest us, that make us wonder if
we have what it takes toovercome adversity.
(05:40):
What I hope to inspire in youtoday is the belief that
suffering has purpose.
I want you to hold on to theidea that whatever suffering
you're facing, whether youperceive it to be a small S or a
big S, it might be a rescue,not a punishment.
I never envisioned rebuilding alife from scratch in my 40s,
(06:03):
with six people to feed and nojob I'll get to that part in a
second and that I'd have tobegin the rebuilding of my life
with barely any money or worldlypossessions.
But that was the task before me.
Yet in the midst of that,suffering was a gift, a gift of
clarity and accelerated growth.
When you have your entire slateabruptly wiped clean, it forces
(06:27):
you to think about life on adifferent level, to ask what's
really important.
The must haves and the nice tohaves quickly become clear.
I didn't have a lot of choicesin front of me when we were
forced to close our business,but I did get to choose my
attitude and what I focused on.
So as I sat there, shell-shockedand trying to pick up the
(06:50):
pieces of my shattered life, mywife was crying, I was crying
and she looked at me with a lookthat says I made a vow for
richer or poorer and she askedwhat are we going to do?
Vow for richer or poorer?
And she asked what are we goingto do?
After a few moments of silencecame the next question what do
(07:10):
you want to do to earn a living?
It hit me in that moment that Ihad a clean slate.
I could reinvent myself anynumber of ways.
So, after a few more moments ofsilence, all I could come up
with above the heartache and thehead shatter was I don't know
what it looks like, but I wantthis story that we are in right
(07:33):
now to matter.
I want someone who feels aswrung out and hopeless as I do
right now to be able to find away to a breakthrough.
I want people to meet me and tolook back on that encounter as
an inflection point where theyjust say I shudder to think who
(07:56):
I would have become if I had notmet you.
You changed the trajectory ofmy life and that was all I could
come up with, but it was astart.
So today I want to tell youwhat I learned about creating
breakthroughs.
So first let me define the term.
When life is good, you don'tneed a breakthrough.
(08:16):
The need for a breakthroughimplies that if something
doesn't change, there is a riskof an emotionally heavy, perhaps
permanent, negative outcomethat could be living with
chronic pain or death or divorceor estrangement, financial ruin
, the loss of a dream or missingout on life in a significant
way.
The need for a breakthroughalso implies that what you're
(08:40):
dealing with is a complexproblem with no easy solution,
but the pain you're in is almostunbearable.
In short, a breakthrough iswhen someone overcomes a
significant obstacle that manypeople never recover from.
A breakthrough changes yourlife for the better and it tends
to be permanent and keeps oldpatterns and old problems from
(09:00):
resurfacing.
A pastor friend of mine oncetold me that there are three
main seasons of life.
You're either just coming outof a hard season, you're in a
hard season or you're about toenter one.
So at some point in your lifeyou're likely going to need the
three key lessons in this short,humble talk.
Maybe your struggle was or isfinancial.
(09:20):
Maybe you're facingestrangement or divorce or the
fear that you will end up alone.
Maybe it's a mysterious illnessor a disease diagnosis when the
chips are down and the odds areagainst you.
I want you to know that you arenot without hope, and I want to
teach you how to dig deep, howto have some grit and how to
defy the odds To have thebeautiful life that's possible.
(09:43):
You are going to have to suffersomething, but it is precisely
that suffering that can make youa new person, way better than
you ever knew possible.
There will be many people whowill promise you a winning
lottery ticket, a quick fix toget out of the hard season.
There isn't one.
You're going to have to gothrough hard seasons in life and
(10:04):
I hope today that in some smallway, my story can help you
dramatically speed up thatprocess.
So buckle up, brace for impactand let's get busy If you are
going to experience abreakthrough.
Who you are is about to change,but it's going to change for
the better.
It might even illuminate acalling.
(10:25):
The first key lesson is thatfinding purpose in suffering
requires that you know your whyand your definition of success.
There's a classic old bookcalled Think and Grow Rich by
Napoleon Hill.
He wrote it to be a tome toanswer the question of why some
people succeed and others don't.
After interviewing a whopping25,000 people.
He arrived at a shockingstatistic when he asked people
(10:49):
to define their purpose.
Only 2% of people could answerthe question of where they saw
their life going and whatspecifically they wanted to
accomplish.
That 2%, not surprisingly, arethe people who succeed.
So in the last 20 years I'vespent about 20,000 hours in the
coaching trenches and I hate tosay it, but I think that
statistic is accurate.
(11:10):
I am regularly surprised by thenumber of people I meet or
coach who struggle to answer thebasic question of what they
really want, without speaking inbroad generalities like make
more money, feel better, loseweight, get married or be happy.
I want you to join the 2%, solet me give you a major clue in
finding your, why, your purpose.
(11:31):
Here it is.
It's not about you.
You will not be able tosatisfactorily answer any
question about your purpose andenjoy any level of emotional
satisfaction without anunderstanding of where your life
positively impacts other people.
Otherwise, your habits and workwill just feel hollow and
meaningless.
(11:52):
Purpose is, by nature, others'focus.
If you've ever thrown up yourhands and said who cares, you
just vocalized that whateveryou're doing has to matter to
someone.
You cannot create abreakthrough by framing it as a
willpower battle.
Willpower is a very exhaustibleresource.
If your mind can't connect whatyou're doing to how someone you
(12:14):
care deeply about will benefitfrom it, the reserves you'll
need to overcome suffering willnot abide in you.
The best you'll be able to dois go on a willpower kick for a
couple of weeks before youfizzle out.
What you need is why power?
For me, there could not havebeen an easier answer to the
question of who cares my kids do.
(12:34):
They need to eat and they needa dad who isn't angry or bitter
or scared.
They need a dad who is presentand who will find a way.
But here is an importantparadox of what bankruptcy
taught me why power isn't onlyabout others.
I also realized my needs areimportant.
If I didn't do a respectableenough job meeting my own
(12:57):
physical and mental, emotionaland spiritual needs, I won't
have the health or energy orpresence of mind required to be
able to meet my wife and kids'needs, which means taking care
of me took on its own sense ofpurpose.
What I want, what I need, dare Isay, what I enjoy, also had to
(13:18):
be a factor in the equation ofthis new life, or I would burn
out and miss out.
I realized it's selfish to nottake care of me too.
So back to that job.
I turned down.
Why did I do that?
What compelling?
Why made me do it?
In a word homeschooling.
(13:38):
If I had taken that job, mywife Nina would have had to get
a job too, which means we wouldhave had to forego job too,
which means we would have had toforego the option of
homeschooling our kids.
That was a fork in the road.
That was probably the hardestdecision I've ever had to make.
With no other offers.
My only option was to bet onmyself that I could figure out a
(13:59):
way to make ends meet without adependable paycheck.
Talk about a gut check.
The beauty of a clean slate orhopefully for you, an imagined
clean slate is that it lets youask the question what do I
really value?
It lets you no, it forces youto fast forward life and
(14:20):
realistically imagine where it'sgoing.
It lets you ask questions likewhat life do I want to live?
Where do I want to live?
Who do I want in my life?
What kinds of people do I wantto surround myself with and what
do I want in my life?
A wise old man once told meeverything you own owns you back
(14:43):
.
Everything you own can make alegitimate claim on your time
and, in most cases, your money.
So what do you want to be ownedby?
What's too little, what's toomuch and what's just enough?
What does success look like?
No, what does success feel like?
How could I design a life wherework fit around life rather
(15:08):
than the other way around?
The studios I used to run filledme with no shortage of purpose
and it allowed me to feed myfamily.
I loved that.
It pushed me to constantly growprofessionally.
We were positively impacting somany lives, but until I had it
all taken away, we werepositively impacting so many
lives, but until I had it alltaken away, I didn't know to ask
(15:29):
all of the questions I justasked you, but having my slate
wiped clean helped me see thatmy prior life had me trapped.
Working early mornings, latenights and weekends was a
trade-off that worked before Ihad kids, but it was rough on
family life.
Having 40 employees helped megrow as a visionary and a leader
, but it was also a constantsource of new fires to put out.
(15:50):
I had hit my crisis oflimitations and my family had
been dragged into that.
That business owned me.
There wasn't enough of me to goaround and it was my family
that was getting my leftovers.
No matter what my life may havelooked like from the outside,
that old life didn't feelsuccessful.
A clean slate helped me realizeI don't want to be that guy
(16:15):
anymore.
The job I just turned downwould have sent me right back to
being that guy, probably for adecade, and we would have been
forced to give up homeschooling.
What I realized was mydefinition of success centered
around my family.
Because I had the opportunityto imagine a different life, my
(16:36):
criteria became simple.
I realized there's freedom andupside in renting rather than
owning.
That would mean fewer thingsown me.
I realized I valued experiencesmore than possessions.
I value finding and conversingwith people of character more so
than networking for newconnections.
I lost all interest in keepingup with the Joneses and seeing
(17:00):
my values clearly.
My professional definition ofsuccess also started to come
into focus.
I wanted to create a job whereI could work from home.
I wanted to be able to choosemy own schedule.
Those two things meant that Icould work from anywhere and
thereby stop missing my kids'childhood and focus on parenting
them while doing life together,and I could prioritize
(17:22):
adventures over material things.
As that vision came into focus,it gave me a way to aim myself
professionally.
I knew I wanted to createbreakthroughs for people, but
what problem would I solve andhow would I do it?
In the end, it was pragmatic.
I needed to leverage what Iknew a lot about and aim it at a
complex problem people wouldpay me a living wage to solve.
(17:44):
So let me tell you how Ifigured that out.
Maybe it will help you,especially if you feel like
you're in the 98% of people whostruggle with the question what
is my purpose?
So let me give you this clue Ifit's like mine, your willpower
is tucked away in your heart ofhearts and it will most likely
have something to do withhelping people overcome a pain
(18:05):
that is similar to the oneyou've suffered.
Your heart of hearts is thatsacred, honest voice inside you.
It's the voice that speaks upwhen the inner critic is too
tired to harass you anymore.
Our heart of hearts is thevoice that rarely gets airtime
these days because we live in aculture without much mental
white space.
(18:26):
We have trained ourselves topull out a screen and stimulate
us as soon as we have a freemoment to think.
All the while our hearts'attempts to communicate start to
feel like a foreign language.
We don't live in acontemplative society.
We live in an overstimulated,comparison-based society.
We have become disciples ofwhatever is on the internet.
(18:48):
That noise trains us todistrust our heart's honest
thoughts.
I've met so many people who areuncomfortable with their own
thoughts and with quiet.
Collectively, we just don'tknow what to do with our
longings, and so we scroll andwe look to others to distract us
or to stir up longings in us.
Maybe we can latch onto their.
(19:09):
Why power?
My friends?
No one can live out yourcalling your story.
So don't be afraid to tune intowhat your heart really wants.
Let it speak.
When we had our grand edit inlife, we had weeks without
internet access.
So after the digitalwithdrawals passed, something
(19:30):
else happened.
I could take a deep breath, myheart rate slowed down, I could
think again.
Life forced my subconsciousinto the conscious, and the
answer to what kind of work Iwanted to do came to me through
questions.
What am I good at?
What do I like doing?
(19:50):
Where could I possibly roll upmy sleeves and create a
breakthrough for people?
What problem would I delight insolving?
The only thing that checked allthose boxes was health.
I am really good at helpingpeople get healthy, especially
when doctors can't, when peoplefeel like they've tried
everything.
That's often when I'm at mybest.
(20:11):
My secret is something thatbeats in my heart of hearts it's
my longing to be seen as awhole person.
Part of what got me into healthcoaching as a profession was
going to doctors who made mefeel not like someone worth
seeing, but like a lab test or aset of symptoms to be managed.
It felt dehumanizing.
(20:32):
My gift to the world is to seeclients the way I want to be
seen.
I see my clients as wholehumans, not a lab test or
caloric equation lab test orcaloric equation.
But then I had to face reality.
My big challenge was there isprobably no industry that is
(20:55):
noisier or more confusing thanthe world of health.
I became painfully aware of howhard it is to stand out.
I knew I would have to suffer,so my mantra became okay,
christian, do the next hardthing.
And so I did.
I regularly ate bowls ofrejection as I tried to package
my skills and sell something.
All the skills I did not haveyet quickly became apparent.
(21:17):
My shortcomings as a digitalentrepreneur were rubbed in my
face regularly.
And what pained me, what pushedme to keep going besides my
family, was knowing that I hadbetter answers than my
competition.
It felt like a disservice tohumanity to not find a better
way to communicate.
So let me restate this firstlesson Without a strong why,
(21:39):
without a clear definition ofsuccess, you will not push
through the dark times.
To find the bright side, youwill play small.
Why?
Power is the vision of a daythat you can picture yourself
walking around in.
That feels emotionallysatisfying.
If you don't have Y-power, youwill not have the reserves to
earn your breakthrough, andsuffering will feel cruel and
(22:01):
purposeless.
It might even turn you into acynical and bitter person.
But clarity about what you wantand who you want to matter to
are the first steps to findingthe redemptive purpose in
suffering.
But to find those longings, Ihad to be abruptly rescued from
my own busyness.
(22:21):
Bankruptcy forced me to stopscrolling and face my fears.
I didn't have the luxury ofobsessing over everything that
could go wrong.
I had to shift my focus to whatcould go right, and my
definition of success tantalizedme with a life that could
happen if I didn't let fear win.
And that leads to point numbertwo.
(22:42):
To find your purpose insuffering, you will need two
gritty and defiant core beliefs.
When you're walking through atough season in life, it's easy
to ask yourself questions likewhat is wrong with me?
How did I not see this coming?
My friends must think I'm anidiot.
Why can't I get my act together?
(23:02):
Why is nothing I'm doingworking?
Why can't I figure this out?
That inner critic can be a meanbully and you will have to
willfully defy him or her inorder to create your
breakthrough.
A fellow entrepreneur andfriend of mine let me know that
the average entrepreneur filesbankruptcy 1.7 times.
So far, both of us are happy toreport that we have beat the
(23:26):
average by 0.7.
Bankruptcy represents an epicfail.
The worst part is disappointingpeople that depend on you.
I had to fight the inner criticand a few external ones who
wanted me to see myself as afailure.
So here's the first gritty anddefiant core belief Failure is
an event, not an identity.
(23:47):
Your failure to stick with thatdiet, land that job, find
romance, succeed in business,whatever it is, is an event.
It is not who you are.
It's something that happened.
I failed painfully, but I didn'tlast 12 years as an
entrepreneur without doinganything right.
Being an entrepreneur taught methat a lot of what I try won't
(24:10):
work, and that's okay.
When I fail, I've justreflexively learned to say well,
that happened.
Now what?
Admittedly, when you'rerecovering from bankruptcy, that
question comes fast and hardand repeatedly.
My first webinar as a digitalentrepreneur was kind of like a
dumpster fire.
The tech didn't work asexpected.
(24:30):
I lost my train of thought and,not surprisingly, no one bought
anything.
That was a painful night and Ican still remember the
disappointed look on my wife'sface after it was over.
Both of us had a tinge ofdespair.
One of the deepest identity liesis the lie of pervasive
(24:51):
inadequacy.
Have you ever questioned if youhave what it takes?
Let me be more specific.
Have you ever thought I don'tknow if I have what it takes to
speak in front of people or staydisciplined enough to get fit
or overcome an addiction or achronic illness?
I don't know if I have what ittakes to attract a spouse or
build a business or homeschoolmy kids.
Do you ever have a naggingsense that who you are is not
(25:15):
good enough and that someonemight find out and expose your
inadequacy?
I've found that most peoplehave that fear.
So why do we fear inadequacy somuch?
I think it's because,subconsciously, we imagine it to
be something that, if broughtinto the light, will estrange us
from those we care about.
It's a path to being broke andalone and friendless.
(25:35):
And, my friends, there's a muchhealthier way to frame our
shortcomings and our skills gaps.
If I believed failure definedme and would estrange me from my
family, I would have playedsmall the rest of my life.
That is why facing the fear ofinadequacy is so important.
When I had to urgently find away to make ends meet, did I
worry that the next thing Itried might not work?
(25:57):
Absolutely?
I did, but I had to stay inmotion.
There's no time for a pityparty because the kids still
need to eat, and I was force-fedthe lesson that I have to get
past feelings of inadequacy.
And that helped me discover thesecond defiant core belief.
The second core belief requiredto find purpose in suffering is
(26:20):
the belief that you have what ittakes to learn, and especially
to learn from mistakes.
You are adequate to try, and soit is with all of life, from
learning to walk or to spell orhow to ask a girl out or to
speak a new language or tocompete.
Failure is part of any eventualsuccess.
(26:40):
The belief that you can learnand that you are adequate to try
implies two key virtueshumility and curiosity.
They are like fertilizers inthe soil of the human heart.
They are the nutrients, thecharacter traits needed to
create the possibility forgrowth, learning and faith.
Humility and curiosity are thevirtues from which all the other
(27:05):
ones grow.
The amazing thing about humilityis that it carves out a rich
type of gratitude.
It roots out entitlement.
Everything you have becomes agift.
You begin to see yourself as asteward, a manager, knowing that
possessions and experiences arefleeting and what matters most
(27:25):
are our relationships.
In my case, it took humility toaccept gifts I couldn't repay,
to overcome the embarrassment ofpulling out food stamps at the
grocery store or visiting alocal food bank with my kids, or
taking odd jobs like organizingpeople's messy garages, while
my wife cleaned people's homesand worked as a checker at
(27:47):
Target.
Curiosity, on the other hand,allows fascination to enter the
room.
To keep you from gettingoverwhelmed by disappointment.
It allows you to find the twoall-important questions what now
, and what can I learn from thatexperience?
When humility and curiosityabide in you.
(28:07):
They are the virtues thatground you, but perhaps most
importantly, they bridle thepainful emotions of struggle
that keep you from being ruledby negative emotions.
Curiosity and humility help youbegin to see the value in
suffering.
(28:27):
Suffering, especially open-endedsuffering, like mine was, will
aggressively bring up yourshortcomings and ask you to deal
with them, but curiosity andhumility can frame that new
awareness of your shortcomingsas a gift.
Yes, suffering, especiallybankruptcy, can be a crucible.
It is a refiner's fire, it'shot and it hurts, but it's not
(28:50):
the end of the story.
Stated differently, as theApostle Paul put it suffering
produces perseverance andperseverance, character and
character, hope, hope that,whatever comes, you will have
what it takes to learn and finda way forward.
So let me summarize lesson twohere there is no such thing as a
(29:11):
life without risk.
So here's a question thathelped me on the journey what do
you want to suffer?
It may have already clicked foryou that there is no easy path
in life.
All sweet things we crave comefrom hard work, and our aversion
to suffering is often one ofthe biggest obstacles to
experiencing the sweet things inlife.
If you want to have an awesomemarriage or business or state of
(29:35):
health or so on.
You will have to suffer throughthe lessons of what it takes to
have those things.
If you only take small risks,you will live a small life.
That doesn't mean we go takebig, stupid risks, but it is a
nudge to take calculated ones,aimed at growth.
If you tell me the size of theproblem that stresses you out, I
can probably predict the typeof life you're going to live.
(29:57):
Failure will happen, butfailure doesn't define you.
You are so much more than thesum total of the things that you
did that did or didn't work out.
You are adequate to try.
No one can steward your lifefor you, so take risks.
I would go so far as to ask whoare you to not take risks, to
(30:17):
not try to not see who you canbecome with what you've been
given?
Humility and curiosity are thevirtues that will help you set a
better sail against theheadwinds of life.
But to have the winds of lifeshift from being in your face to
being at your back, there's onemore key lesson we can't skip,
and that brings me to lessonnumber three.
To create a breakthrough, youwill need help from two kinds of
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people, and both kinds willopen you up to a unique kind of
suffering.
I had a good friend of mine whowas justifiably flabbergasted
that I turned down my only joboffer.
He gave me an earful and in hisdefense, it was a respectable
offer in a field that I couldhave thrived in professionally.
My friend knew me well and inhis mind the job was a perfect
(31:03):
fit and he could already see theredemptive part of the story.
He wasn't wrong, could alreadysee the redemptive part of the
story.
He wasn't wrong.
But despite thinking I wascrazy, he never quit on me, like
any true friend would.
He stood by my side.
He helped me find odd jobs topay the bills and he helped me
make the most of whatever wasnext.
And that story represents thefirst type of person you will
(31:26):
need in your life when it handsyou a setback.
You need friends who can'tnecessarily solve your problems
but who can do little thingsalong the way to keep you going.
They can listen, they can askquestions Even if words fail and
they have no answers.
They can sit with you and holdspace for your emotions.
They can meet practical needsbecause they care.
(31:46):
They can help you move Onmoving day.
Our friends saw a need andshowed up out of nowhere to ride
with us to the middle ofnowhere to unload a U-Haul we
couldn't have unloaded with thetwo of us and our four small
children Without being asked.
Our friends made sure weweren't alone on one of the
toughest days of our lives.
(32:08):
Here's the painful part it feelsvulnerable to have needs Like I
did.
You will have to take on themantle of humility and simply
say thank you, and those twowords will be all you'll have to
offer.
You will experience the pain offeeling indebted, with no
(32:28):
foreseeable way to balance yourledger.
But here's the important partTrue friends aren't keeping a
ledger.
When our checking account gotdown to double digits, we had no
idea where the next check wouldcome from, and checks would
show up in the mail.
That happened more than once.
One day we woke up to find a boxof food at our front door.
(32:49):
In those instances you can't doanything but cry.
I don't know where this camefrom, but I guess we get to eat
today.
The food bank we went to got toknow us and on Easter they set
aside gifts for our kids.
I wish the Lord's prayer wasgive us this day our annual
bread.
But that's not what Jesus said.
(33:10):
He told us to pray for dailybread.
It's humbling to have needs, andI imagine that to be the point.
Focus on the day in front ofyou.
What can you do today?
Do that and then rest.
To this day, it is hard to talkabout these stories without
(33:30):
tears.
Yes, there are a lot of badpeople in this world, but there
are also a lot of good ones.
Suffering is a great equalizer.
It reminds us of our frailtyand it reminds us of how good it
feels to help other peopleovercome suffering.
In some seasons, you will bethe one in need and in others,
overcome suffering.
In some seasons, you will bethe one in need and in others,
you will be meeting otherpeople's needs.
(33:52):
Sow your seeds well and don'tbe too proud to accept help.
It hurts, but it will makesomething of you Okay.
So that's the first lesson, thesecond kind of person that you
will need.
There is a second kind ofperson you'll need, and this one
can also be painful.
When you need a breakthrough,you're going to need
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professional help People whohave demonstrated that they can
solve a problem like yours.
Sometimes they are in books oronline courses or in person, but
how do you find these people.
Well, it turns out they are outthere looking for you.
It is estimated that theaverage person sees thousands of
advertisements per day.
Everywhere you look, you willfind people telling you that
(34:36):
they have the answers to yourproblem.
They even have answers toproblems you don't know you have
.
And one obvious thing I had tolearn to become a digital
marketer or digital entrepreneurwas marketing.
So for those of you who don'tknow, the job of a marketer is
really to get you to believe twothings.
First, it's not your fault.
You haven't solved the problem.
And the second thing is to getyou to believe that the only
(34:59):
reason you haven't solved theproblem is because you've not
tried the new whiz-bang gadget,leveraged a newly discovered
secret or met the right person.
A marketer's job is to pointout why your other options won't
work and to get you to believethat their special answer holds
the keys to solving your problem.
I call it the ShamWow effect.
Look here For three easypayments of $97,.
(35:21):
This can be yours, and the goodnews is you'll barely have to
lift a finger.
But wait, there's more Ordernow and we'll give you twice as
much of what you don't need, soyou can add that to your
supplement, graveyard Operatorsare standing by right.
Here's the painful lesson.
We have this myth in ourculture that specialization
equals solutions.
If we can just find the rightspecialist, the right pill, the
(35:44):
right course, the right side ofthe algorithm, it will solve all
our problems.
In reality, the morespecialized the answer, the more
likely it is to be animpediment to solving the
problem.
And working with a so-calledspecialist is often the path to
a lot of emotionally andfinancially expensive wrong
turns.
So if you're in this situationwhere you need a breakthrough,
(36:06):
you have to remember that you'redealing with a complex problem.
Recovering from diabetes,chronic pain or an autoimmune
condition is a complex problem.
Building a business fromscratch is a complex problem.
Overcoming past traumas orfiguring out why your
relationships are strained arecomplex problems.
It wasn't until I studiedmarketing that I invented the
(36:28):
word partialist to moreaccurately describe specialists.
It took me a while to see it,but a specialist is someone who
studies a tiny part of a complexproblem.
But because they have the wordspecial in their title and
because they can describeproblems well, we tend to think
they have a comprehensivesolution, when in reality they
don't.
At best they may have a puzzlepiece when in reality they don't
(36:49):
.
At best they may have a puzzlepiece.
So let me give you an examplefrom my own life.
It is hard enough to learnmarketing when you just filed
bankruptcy, have no credit andcan't afford to pay anyone to
teach you anything.
It's even more painful when youknow you need help and you
scrape together money for aso-called marketing specialist,
only to find out in hindsightthey can't actually help you
(37:11):
because there were 10 otherthings that needed to be in
place before their solutionmight have had any merit.
That painful experience hashappened to me multiple times
while trying to rebuild lifefrom scratch.
Friends, there are no specialsilver bullet answers to complex
problems.
There's no winning lotteryticket, no shortcuts.
You have to earn it.
And you have to earn it inbusiness and health and
(37:33):
relationships.
And here's another wrinkleRegardless of the specialist you
go with, there's a good chancehe or she doesn't even know they
can't help you.
Why?
Because there's only one.
You and specialists often havethe hammer nail problem.
When the only tool they have isa prescription pad, everything
looks like it needs a pill.
Since my professional lane isthe world of health, let me
(37:55):
switch to that lane to empathizewith those of you who have
learned how painfully confusingthe world of health can be.
In my opinion, specializationhas ruined healthcare.
In case you think I'moverstating it, ponder this.
We have more so-called healthspecialists than ever.
If specialization is the answer, why are our health statistics
(38:16):
only getting worse?
Why are six out of 10 people inthe United States dealing with
at least one chronic healthcondition?
Why is 42% of our populationobese and 75% of us are
considered overweight?
Why does the average Americango on a diet 55 times in their
life?
What's the definition ofinsanity, friends, if
specialization was the answer,those statistics would not be
(38:39):
true.
But instead of clarifying wherediseases come from and what it
takes to get well,specialization has made it more
confusing.
The silos have ruined themedical world and much of the
alternative and coaching worldsand social media has only
amplified the confusion, becauseeveryone is peddling something
special.
So in case any of you in theaudience are wrestling with a
(38:59):
health challenge, let me takeone minute to simplify the
puzzle of health withoutoversimplifying it.
There are only two reasons weget sick toxicity and
malnourishment.
Think of a diseased tree.
If a tree has a disease,there's either something in the
soil poisoning it or the soil isvoid of the nutrients the tree
needs to thrive.
Folks, we are the tree.
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Instead of treating the rootcauses of our sickness, we
create fancy names for all thediseased leaves and for some
reason, we call those who namethe leaves experts.
They're not.
They are partialists looking atsymptoms.
So I had my own rants.
As a budding digitalentrepreneur, I lost track of
how many times I got frustratedand shook my fist at the screen.
(39:43):
Why is it not working?
I did it just like the experttold me to.
It was in trying to solve aproblem that I was new to,
namely digital marketing, that Ibegan to see how much of a
disservice specialists can be.
Yet here's the rub how else wasI going to learn?
An important thing to know isthat it's not the ones who have
(40:04):
the best solutions that win inthe marketplace.
It's the ones with the mostcompelling message.
The market will always rewardthe one who promises that there
is a simple and easy answer tothe challenges we face.
Friends, solutions can besimple, but they are rarely easy
.
To create your breakthrough,you're going to have to think
bigger and you're going to haveto earn it.
(40:25):
You're going to have to bewilling to suffer.
But as you persevere you'llspeed up the process.
I've spent tens of thousands ofdollars on fruitless marketing
specialists over the years andit has been painful.
But with each hire I grow morediscerning, I gain more clarity,
and each lesson has been astepping stone to help me find
(40:46):
better answers faster.
So let me summarize point three.
Like me, you're going to need afew key friends along the way.
They are the people who willpick you up when you're down and
meet your needs when you can't.
But you have to be humbleenough to accept the help,
knowing that you may never beable to repay them.
That is okay.
Don't let your pride rob themof the natural joy they
(41:11):
experience in serving you.
The good rule in life is to digyour well before you're thirsty
.
Make friends before you needthem.
Give and serve and love, and dothose things without keeping a
ledger.
People notice, I promise.
Do those things and you'll havethe people come out of the
woodwork to help you when youhave needs.
(41:31):
We would not have made itthrough our three-year
wilderness without good friends.
If you feel like you don't haveany friends, here's what I'd do
.
I'd start reading every book ortaking any course I can about
how to find friends or how to bea good friend.
I'd try to find ponds to fishin where I can find quality
people.
I would sow as many relationalseeds as I can, knowing that not
(41:51):
all of them will germinate,that's okay.
Some of them will.
Second, you will also need topay people who are good at
solving complex problems, notjust special problems.
So buy their books, take theircourses and work with them
one-on-one if you can afford it,except that you will likely
hire some partialists who, inthe end, aren't able to help you
(42:12):
create the breakthrough youhope for.
Like me, in your longing for abreakthrough, you will
occasionally fall for thehypnotic effect of the ShamWow
effect.
Friends, those experiences arepainful, but they're not a waste
.
They are called tuition, andpaying tuition is the only way
to sharpen your intuition.
The sharper it gets, the closeryou get to your breakthrough.
(42:34):
So don't begrudge what you'vetried that didn't work.
Leverage it.
Persevering through sufferingwill develop intuition and
character and hope.
Okay, as I start to wrap up,let me recap what I went over.
We started with the idea thatsuffering has purpose.
As the Apostle Paul put it,suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance, character andcharacter, hope.
(42:56):
No one gets a free pass fromstruggle in this life.
Suffering isn't somethingyou're going to be able to avoid
, but it can have a redemptivestory.
It can be a rescue for you andfor others.
Finding purpose in sufferingrequires that you know your why
and your definition of success.
Your why isn't primarily aboutyou.
(43:17):
It's about who you matter to.
But your needs aren'tirrelevant.
It's not weakness to have them.
It's a weakness to think youshouldn't have them.
It's that healthy mix ofmeeting other people's needs and
your own that has the potentialto make life sweet.
So who do you want to matter to, and in what way can you take
better care of yourself so thatyou can make a difference for
(43:38):
others?
What do you imagine successfeels like?
Imagine that day for a second,that life.
What does your heart of heartsreally want?
Define what success looks likefor you.
Then you'll have the foundationto endure hard times and turn
them into something beautifulonly you could have created.
(44:01):
To find purpose in suffering,you're going to need two gritty
and defiant core beliefs.
First is never forget thatfailure is an event, not an
identity.
You are not the sum total ofthe things you did that did or
didn't work out, as if by doingenough things, whatever that is,
you'll finally be allowed tobelong.
Do your best, but have theself-respect to honor your
(44:23):
limits.
Remember you are adequate totry.
Some things you will try willwork out, some won't.
Either way, the outcome hassomething to teach you.
I would argue that you have asacred duty to find the lesson,
painful as they may be.
You have a sacred duty topursue your purpose and see who
you can become with the talentsand abilities you've been given.
(44:43):
Stay humble and curious, and itwill be much easier to find the
lessons and self-impose thediscipline that will help you
become a new person.
To do that, you're going tohave to lean into doing hard
things.
You have to be willing to standin the fire to learn what you
don't know so that you canovercome.
Courage is like a newborn, sotreat it delicately.
(45:04):
Start small, but start Progressto bigger challenges as your
confidence grows, and the moreyou do so, the more the winds
will shift from being in yourface to being at your back.
And to create the breakthroughyou will need help from two
kinds of people.
Both kinds of them will openyou up to a different type of
suffering.
The reality of our humancondition is that none of us
(45:27):
knows everything, nor can westudy everything or meet all of
our own needs.
Because of that, we all needfriends and teachers and guides
and teamwork to speed us upalong the way.
Many hands make light loads.
To speed us up along the way.
Many hands make light loads.
Part of creating breakthroughsis accepting that need as normal
and healthy and thus acceptingthe ache that comes with
(45:47):
vulnerability.
Finding friends and findingcompetent professionals requires
trust, and a wise personaccepts that sometimes that
trust will be misplaced, even inwell-intentioned people who may
have tried hard but simplycan't deliver what they promised
.
Sometimes you will be theprofessional who can't deliver.
Other times you'll be the onelet down by the professional who
(46:09):
can't help.
Stay in motion and let thelessons come.
Let grace, humility and astrong work ethic become what
you're known for.
Go find your mentors and yourfriends and when you find good
ones, practice vulnerability, beteachable and go deep.
They will help you become theperson you are meant to be.
Remember that your perspectiveof who you are can be your
(46:34):
prison or your passport.
Speaking of passports, I wantto show you what knowing your
why, your definition of successand having the grit to do hard
things can lead to if you don'tgive up.
If you're watching thispresentation, what you're
looking at on the screen is apicture of me and my daughter,
naomi, at the Parthenon inAthens Greece than Greece.
(47:04):
This trip.
It was the two of us, sevenother parents and 15 other
students, on a trip that markedthe capstone of their classical
conversations homeschooleducation.
I didn't give up on that dreamto homeschool my kids, and to me
, this is what success feelslike.
Bankruptcy was awful, likepeople tend to say about having
hard seasons in life.
I would not wish that on anyone, but I wouldn't trade it
(47:28):
because it taught me what'sreally important, because I had
a strong enough why.
I figured out the how and inthat process I found work I love
.
I love learning about marketingand the human condition.
I love podcasting.
I love coaching.
I love helping people heal sothey can get back to their life.
I get paid to create wholehuman breakthroughs.
(47:49):
What a gift.
Yes, life still has itschallenges.
They haven't gone away.
I've just got better athandling them.
It is so much easier to findgratitude and joy.
Life owes me nothing.
Everything I have is a gift.
I'll steward whatever I haveuntil it's time for me to hand
it off to someone else.
(48:09):
I don't know what rough seasonsmay be ahead, but I can say I'm
really difficult to discourage.
Now I live life with a peaceand a calm that wouldn't make
any sense to the old me, and Iwould have missed it all if I
hadn't run into an intenseseason of life that clarified my
definition of success.
(48:29):
Life is hard.
Do what you can to choosesomething hard that is worth the
suffering.
Maybe you'll end up visitingnew places too.
There isn't an easy path inlife, but there is a path that
leads to looping downwardspirals of frustration and
despair.
But there is also a path thatis an upward spiral that leads
to more and more character andmore and more flourishing and
(48:52):
more and more peace.
To get on that upward spiralyou will have to learn to lean
into suffering.
So stop waiting for life to geteasy.
That is a myth.
An easy life would only lead toyou losing your edge and
growing weak.
Calibrate to the reality thatlife will continually offer you
purposeful struggles.
(49:12):
But as you persevere, yourcapacity to handle hard grows.
Life is so much more meaningfulwhen you are engaged in a
struggle that is worth theeffort.
So, in summary, in life youwill have hard times, but
suffering has purpose.
If your story is anything likemine, suffering will force you
(49:33):
to deconstruct your definitionof success, clarify what is
really important and invite youto reconstruct something better.
Suffering will humble you,invite you to reconstruct
something better.
Suffering will humble you.
You'll realize that no one owesyou anything and everything you
have is a gift to steward.
Suffering will also invite youto face your shortcomings over
and over again, if necessary,until you learn your lessons
(49:53):
well, and in that process, whoyou are will get an upgrade.
Whatever hard situation you'refacing, who you are will get an
upgrade.
Whatever hard situation you'refacing, remember that you can't
create a breakthrough alone.
You'll need friends and mentorsto overcome life's setbacks.
So make friends before you needthem and find the people who
have experience solving theproblems you are facing.
(50:14):
Remember that you are worth itand that you have what it takes
to try.
That is how you improve.
And, as I said before, who areyou to not try?
Don't numb out, don't blameother people, and as you
persevere, you'll buildcharacter, you'll find hope and
you might even find your calling.
Imagine the story you'll haveto tell and who you can become
(50:36):
if you don't quit.
Okay, that is it for today.
If you've appreciated theprinciples and would like to go
deeper with them, check out theHealing United PMA app.
It is a great free resource tohelp you walk out a lot of the
lessons in this talk, and youcan connect with myself and
other like-minded people theretoo.
Thanks for listening.
Okay, that is the end of thetalk, so I'd love to hear what
(51:02):
you think.
What stood out to you?
What can I do better?
What audiences do you thinkwould need to hear a talk like
that?
If you are an event plannerlooking for a speaker and this
resonated with you, you canemail me at christian at
truewholehumancom.
Okay, friends, thank you somuch for listening and I will
catch you in the next episode.
Hello everyone, welcome to episode number 55.
I have what you could call anoutside-the-box and highly
personal episode for you todayIn true deconstructing,
conventional form.
This episode is adeconstruction and
reconstruction of what became mypersonal definition of success.
You're about to hear a rawretelling of a rough season of
(00:22):
life that shaped me in verysignificant ways, but it is also
a story about redemption andperseverance.
So a little backstory on thisepisode.
Being a coach myself, notsurprisingly, I see value in
having a coach and I'm someonewho just likes to compress time
and speed up my learning, so Idon't have to learn everything
by trial and error.
And one of the areas where Iwant to grow professionally is
(00:45):
as a speaker and communicator.
So one of the goals of thiscurrent coaching program that
I'm in is to write what's calleda signature talk or something
akin to a TED talk, and for meto be able to use the talk to
find opportunities to speak atevents or communicate the
messages I feel put on thisearth to share.
So one of the fun things thathas already come out of the
(01:08):
program I'm in is that I got anidea for a new book, which is
something many of you have beenasking me for for years when are
you going to write your book,christian?
Well, I've started and I cantell you it is going to be
punchy and paradigm shifting.
I've had some serious ahamoments hosting this podcast and
I can't wait to get what I'vebeen learning into book form.
(01:28):
I think you're going to love itand I imagine it to be one of
those books that permanentlychanges the way you see the
world.
I'll be rolling out snippets ofvarious chapters in the weeks
and months ahead, so if you wantto watch the book unfold in
real time, make sure you'resubscribed to our newsletter.
You can opt in for that on ourwebsite at healingunitedtoday,
(01:48):
and you'll see the opt-in formin the footer of our website.
Okay, back to the reason forthis episode.
One of the ideas my coach hadwas to take version one of my
talk and crowdsource somefeedback about how to make it
better.
What you're about to hear isgood for some formats, but it's
currently too long for a TEDtalk.
But I think it's a good talkand it's hard to know what to
cut.
(02:08):
I have killed a lot of darlingsto get it down to the length
that it is, so what I have foryou today is a bit of a
departure from what I normallydo on the show and, since many
of you have followed my work forquite some time now, I wanted
to invite you into somethingspecial, or at least something
special to me.
So, for context, what you'reabout to hear plops you down in
the middle of 2017.
(02:30):
That was, hands down, thehardest year of my life, and my
coach not only rudely convincedme that that season of life was
the story to use, but she thentwisted the knife and made me
tell the story in present tense,in other words, relive it, tell
it as if it's happening now.
And I say she rudely asked meto do that because it dredged up
(02:50):
all the feelings and put meright back in those head spaces.
So just a heads up.
I got emotional three timesrecording this and I thought
about re-recording thosesections just to maintain my
level head as I told the stories.
But then I thought you knowwhat?
Why not leave them in?
They are real and they are raw.
You don't need me to tell you,but life is painful sometimes
(03:11):
and maybe there can be somethingcathartic or healing for you to
hear me experience realemotions and real struggle.
So you have been warned, allright beyond the thrust of the
talk, which is essentiallyhelping the listener find the
reserves to persevere throughlife's toughest challenges.
I guess you could say, inexchange for this highly
personal, unedited episode, Ijust love your feedback.
(03:33):
So what stood out to you themost?
What key lessons did you takeaway?
Was there something I said thatwas exactly what you needed to
hear?
Or what can I cut?
Where did I drift off?
If you were an event planner,would you have a use for a talk
like this?
And if you have any suggestedtitles for this talk, I'd love
(03:55):
to hear them.
So please don't be shy aboutgiving me some full frontal
feedback.
I am not fragile.
Whatever you have to say, I cantake it.
So, okay, how can you give mesome feedback?
Well, there's two ways.
You can shoot me an email atchristian at truewholehumancom
and just let me know what youthink.
If you're listening to this inBuzzsprout, there is an option
in the show notes labeled sendus a text message.
You can also reach out to methat way, but know that, like
(04:15):
with all the other episodes,that option is a one-way
communication.
So if you use that method, Ihave no way to respond to you if
you don't include any contactinfo.
Okay, two last thoughts beforeI play the talk For anyone
interested.
I also wrote a blog post aboutthis story back in 2020.
I will link to that in the shownotes in case you want to read
it, and the last thing I'll sayis that please feel free to
(04:37):
share this episode with anyoneyou think may be inspired by it.
I hope you'll find this talkdeeply uplifting and, beyond the
feedback about how to make itbetter, I'd just love to know
how it may have helped you climbwhatever wall you are facing.
So, whatever you're goingthrough in life, do not give up.
Okay, that's it for introducingthis episode Without further
(04:58):
ado.
Here we go.
I just filed bankruptcy.
The one-of-a-kind health andfitness studio we spent the last
12 years pouring our heartsinto is gone.
I live in one of the mostexpensive cities in the country.
I'm 41 years old, I have a wifeand four kids to feed, no
(05:19):
income, and I just turned downthe only job offer I have.
Have you ever felt backed intoa corner?
Have you ever had a pit ofanxiousness in your gut?
Have you ever had your faithtested to its limits?
There are moments in life thattest us, that make us wonder if
we have what it takes toovercome adversity.
(05:40):
What I hope to inspire in youtoday is the belief that
suffering has purpose.
I want you to hold on to theidea that whatever suffering
you're facing, whether youperceive it to be a small S or a
big S, it might be a rescue,not a punishment.
I never envisioned rebuilding alife from scratch in my 40s,
(06:03):
with six people to feed and nojob I'll get to that part in a
second and that I'd have tobegin the rebuilding of my life
with barely any money or worldlypossessions.
But that was the task before me.
Yet in the midst of that,suffering was a gift, a gift of
clarity and accelerated growth.
When you have your entire slateabruptly wiped clean, it forces
(06:27):
you to think about life on adifferent level, to ask what's
really important.
The must haves and the nice tohaves quickly become clear.
I didn't have a lot of choicesin front of me when we were
forced to close our business,but I did get to choose my
attitude and what I focused on.
So as I sat there, shell-shockedand trying to pick up the
(06:50):
pieces of my shattered life, mywife was crying, I was crying
and she looked at me with a lookthat says I made a vow for
richer or poorer and she askedwhat are we going to do?
Vow for richer or poorer?
And she asked what are we goingto do?
After a few moments of silencecame the next question what do
(07:10):
you want to do to earn a living?
It hit me in that moment that Ihad a clean slate.
I could reinvent myself anynumber of ways.
So, after a few more moments ofsilence, all I could come up
with above the heartache and thehead shatter was I don't know
what it looks like, but I wantthis story that we are in right
(07:33):
now to matter.
I want someone who feels aswrung out and hopeless as I do
right now to be able to find away to a breakthrough.
I want people to meet me and tolook back on that encounter as
an inflection point where theyjust say I shudder to think who
(07:56):
I would have become if I had notmet you.
You changed the trajectory ofmy life and that was all I could
come up with, but it was astart.
So today I want to tell youwhat I learned about creating
breakthroughs.
So first let me define the term.
When life is good, you don'tneed a breakthrough.
(08:16):
The need for a breakthroughimplies that if something
doesn't change, there is a riskof an emotionally heavy, perhaps
permanent, negative outcomethat could be living with
chronic pain or death or divorceor estrangement, financial ruin
, the loss of a dream or missingout on life in a significant
way.
The need for a breakthroughalso implies that what you're
(08:40):
dealing with is a complexproblem with no easy solution,
but the pain you're in is almostunbearable.
In short, a breakthrough iswhen someone overcomes a
significant obstacle that manypeople never recover from.
A breakthrough changes yourlife for the better and it tends
to be permanent and keeps oldpatterns and old problems from
(09:00):
resurfacing.
A pastor friend of mine oncetold me that there are three
main seasons of life.
You're either just coming outof a hard season, you're in a
hard season or you're about toenter one.
So at some point in your lifeyou're likely going to need the
three key lessons in this short,humble talk.
Maybe your struggle was or isfinancial.
(09:20):
Maybe you're facingestrangement or divorce or the
fear that you will end up alone.
Maybe it's a mysterious illnessor a disease diagnosis when the
chips are down and the odds areagainst you.
I want you to know that you arenot without hope, and I want to
teach you how to dig deep, howto have some grit and how to
defy the odds To have thebeautiful life that's possible.
(09:43):
You are going to have to suffersomething, but it is precisely
that suffering that can make youa new person, way better than
you ever knew possible.
There will be many people whowill promise you a winning
lottery ticket, a quick fix toget out of the hard season.
There isn't one.
You're going to have to gothrough hard seasons in life and
(10:04):
I hope today that in some smallway, my story can help you
dramatically speed up thatprocess.
So buckle up, brace for impactand let's get busy If you are
going to experience abreakthrough.
Who you are is about to change,but it's going to change for
the better.
It might even illuminate acalling.
(10:25):
The first key lesson is thatfinding purpose in suffering
requires that you know your whyand your definition of success.
There's a classic old bookcalled Think and Grow Rich by
Napoleon Hill.
He wrote it to be a tome toanswer the question of why some
people succeed and others don't.
After interviewing a whopping25,000 people.
He arrived at a shockingstatistic when he asked people
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to define their purpose.
Only 2% of people could answerthe question of where they saw
their life going and whatspecifically they wanted to
accomplish.
That 2%, not surprisingly, arethe people who succeed.
So in the last 20 years I'vespent about 20,000 hours in the
coaching trenches and I hate tosay it, but I think that
statistic is accurate.
(11:10):
I am regularly surprised by thenumber of people I meet or
coach who struggle to answer thebasic question of what they
really want, without speaking inbroad generalities like make
more money, feel better, loseweight, get married or be happy.
I want you to join the 2%, solet me give you a major clue in
finding your, why, your purpose.
(11:31):
Here it is.
It's not about you.
You will not be able tosatisfactorily answer any
question about your purpose andenjoy any level of emotional
satisfaction without anunderstanding of where your life
positively impacts other people.
Otherwise, your habits and workwill just feel hollow and
meaningless.
(11:52):
Purpose is, by nature, others'focus.
If you've ever thrown up yourhands and said who cares, you
just vocalized that whateveryou're doing has to matter to
someone.
You cannot create abreakthrough by framing it as a
willpower battle.
Willpower is a very exhaustibleresource.
If your mind can't connect whatyou're doing to how someone you
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care deeply about will benefitfrom it, the reserves you'll
need to overcome suffering willnot abide in you.
The best you'll be able to dois go on a willpower kick for a
couple of weeks before youfizzle out.
What you need is why power?
For me, there could not havebeen an easier answer to the
question of who cares my kids do.
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They need to eat and they needa dad who isn't angry or bitter
or scared.
They need a dad who is presentand who will find a way.
But here is an importantparadox of what bankruptcy
taught me why power isn't onlyabout others.
I also realized my needs areimportant.
If I didn't do a respectableenough job meeting my own
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physical and mental, emotionaland spiritual needs, I won't
have the health or energy orpresence of mind required to be
able to meet my wife and kids'needs, which means taking care
of me took on its own sense ofpurpose.
What I want, what I need, dare Isay, what I enjoy, also had to
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be a factor in the equation ofthis new life, or I would burn
out and miss out.
I realized it's selfish to nottake care of me too.
So back to that job.
I turned down.
Why did I do that?
What compelling?
Why made me do it?
In a word homeschooling.
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If I had taken that job, mywife Nina would have had to get
a job too, which means we wouldhave had to forego job too,
which means we would have had toforego the option of
homeschooling our kids.
That was a fork in the road.
That was probably the hardestdecision I've ever had to make.
With no other offers.
My only option was to bet onmyself that I could figure out a
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way to make ends meet without adependable paycheck.
Talk about a gut check.
The beauty of a clean slate orhopefully for you, an imagined
clean slate is that it lets youask the question what do I
really value?
It lets you no, it forces youto fast forward life and
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realistically imagine where it'sgoing.
It lets you ask questions likewhat life do I want to live?
Where do I want to live?
Who do I want in my life?
What kinds of people do I wantto surround myself with and what
do I want in my life?
A wise old man once told meeverything you own owns you back
(14:43):
.
Everything you own can make alegitimate claim on your time
and, in most cases, your money.
So what do you want to be ownedby?
What's too little, what's toomuch and what's just enough?
What does success look like?
No, what does success feel like?
How could I design a life wherework fit around life rather
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than the other way around?
The studios I used to run filledme with no shortage of purpose
and it allowed me to feed myfamily.
I loved that.
It pushed me to constantly growprofessionally.
We were positively impacting somany lives, but until I had it
all taken away, we werepositively impacting so many
lives, but until I had it alltaken away, I didn't know to ask
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all of the questions I justasked you, but having my slate
wiped clean helped me see thatmy prior life had me trapped.
Working early mornings, latenights and weekends was a
trade-off that worked before Ihad kids, but it was rough on
family life.
Having 40 employees helped megrow as a visionary and a leader
, but it was also a constantsource of new fires to put out.
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I had hit my crisis oflimitations and my family had
been dragged into that.
That business owned me.
There wasn't enough of me to goaround and it was my family
that was getting my leftovers.
No matter what my life may havelooked like from the outside,
that old life didn't feelsuccessful.
A clean slate helped me realizeI don't want to be that guy
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anymore.
The job I just turned downwould have sent me right back to
being that guy, probably for adecade, and we would have been
forced to give up homeschooling.
What I realized was mydefinition of success centered
around my family.
Because I had the opportunityto imagine a different life, my
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criteria became simple.
I realized there's freedom andupside in renting rather than
owning.
That would mean fewer thingsown me.
I realized I valued experiencesmore than possessions.
I value finding and conversingwith people of character more so
than networking for newconnections.
I lost all interest in keepingup with the Joneses and seeing
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my values clearly.
My professional definition ofsuccess also started to come
into focus.
I wanted to create a job whereI could work from home.
I wanted to be able to choosemy own schedule.
Those two things meant that Icould work from anywhere and
thereby stop missing my kids'childhood and focus on parenting
them while doing life together,and I could prioritize
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adventures over material things.
As that vision came into focus,it gave me a way to aim myself
professionally.
I knew I wanted to createbreakthroughs for people, but
what problem would I solve andhow would I do it?
In the end, it was pragmatic.
I needed to leverage what Iknew a lot about and aim it at a
complex problem people wouldpay me a living wage to solve.
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So let me tell you how Ifigured that out.
Maybe it will help you,especially if you feel like
you're in the 98% of people whostruggle with the question what
is my purpose?
So let me give you this clue Ifit's like mine, your willpower
is tucked away in your heart ofhearts and it will most likely
have something to do withhelping people overcome a pain
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that is similar to the oneyou've suffered.
Your heart of hearts is thatsacred, honest voice inside you.
It's the voice that speaks upwhen the inner critic is too
tired to harass you anymore.
Our heart of hearts is thevoice that rarely gets airtime
these days because we live in aculture without much mental
white space.
(18:26):
We have trained ourselves topull out a screen and stimulate
us as soon as we have a freemoment to think.
All the while our hearts'attempts to communicate start to
feel like a foreign language.
We don't live in acontemplative society.
We live in an overstimulated,comparison-based society.
We have become disciples ofwhatever is on the internet.
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That noise trains us todistrust our heart's honest
thoughts.
I've met so many people who areuncomfortable with their own
thoughts and with quiet.
Collectively, we just don'tknow what to do with our
longings, and so we scroll andwe look to others to distract us
or to stir up longings in us.
Maybe we can latch onto their.
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Why power?
My friends?
No one can live out yourcalling your story.
So don't be afraid to tune intowhat your heart really wants.
Let it speak.
When we had our grand edit inlife, we had weeks without
internet access.
So after the digitalwithdrawals passed, something
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else happened.
I could take a deep breath, myheart rate slowed down, I could
think again.
Life forced my subconsciousinto the conscious, and the
answer to what kind of work Iwanted to do came to me through
questions.
What am I good at?
What do I like doing?
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Where could I possibly roll upmy sleeves and create a
breakthrough for people?
What problem would I delight insolving?
The only thing that checked allthose boxes was health.
I am really good at helpingpeople get healthy, especially
when doctors can't, when peoplefeel like they've tried
everything.
That's often when I'm at mybest.
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My secret is something thatbeats in my heart of hearts it's
my longing to be seen as awhole person.
Part of what got me into healthcoaching as a profession was
going to doctors who made mefeel not like someone worth
seeing, but like a lab test or aset of symptoms to be managed.
It felt dehumanizing.
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My gift to the world is to seeclients the way I want to be
seen.
I see my clients as wholehumans, not a lab test or
caloric equation lab test orcaloric equation.
But then I had to face reality.
My big challenge was there isprobably no industry that is
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noisier or more confusing thanthe world of health.
I became painfully aware of howhard it is to stand out.
I knew I would have to suffer,so my mantra became okay,
christian, do the next hardthing.
And so I did.
I regularly ate bowls ofrejection as I tried to package
my skills and sell something.
All the skills I did not haveyet quickly became apparent.
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My shortcomings as a digitalentrepreneur were rubbed in my
face regularly.
And what pained me, what pushedme to keep going besides my
family, was knowing that I hadbetter answers than my
competition.
It felt like a disservice tohumanity to not find a better
way to communicate.
So let me restate this firstlesson Without a strong why,
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without a clear definition ofsuccess, you will not push
through the dark times.
To find the bright side, youwill play small.
Why?
Power is the vision of a daythat you can picture yourself
walking around in.
That feels emotionallysatisfying.
If you don't have Y-power, youwill not have the reserves to
earn your breakthrough, andsuffering will feel cruel and
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purposeless.
It might even turn you into acynical and bitter person.
But clarity about what you wantand who you want to matter to
are the first steps to findingthe redemptive purpose in
suffering.
But to find those longings, Ihad to be abruptly rescued from
my own busyness.
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Bankruptcy forced me to stopscrolling and face my fears.
I didn't have the luxury ofobsessing over everything that
could go wrong.
I had to shift my focus to whatcould go right, and my
definition of success tantalizedme with a life that could
happen if I didn't let fear win.
And that leads to point numbertwo.
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To find your purpose insuffering, you will need two
gritty and defiant core beliefs.
When you're walking through atough season in life, it's easy
to ask yourself questions likewhat is wrong with me?
How did I not see this coming?
My friends must think I'm anidiot.
Why can't I get my act together?
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Why is nothing I'm doingworking?
Why can't I figure this out?
That inner critic can be a meanbully and you will have to
willfully defy him or her inorder to create your
breakthrough.
A fellow entrepreneur andfriend of mine let me know that
the average entrepreneur filesbankruptcy 1.7 times.
So far, both of us are happy toreport that we have beat the
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average by 0.7.
Bankruptcy represents an epicfail.
The worst part is disappointingpeople that depend on you.
I had to fight the inner criticand a few external ones who
wanted me to see myself as afailure.
So here's the first gritty anddefiant core belief Failure is
an event, not an identity.
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Your failure to stick with thatdiet, land that job, find
romance, succeed in business,whatever it is, is an event.
It is not who you are.
It's something that happened.
I failed painfully, but I didn'tlast 12 years as an
entrepreneur without doinganything right.
Being an entrepreneur taught methat a lot of what I try won't
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work, and that's okay.
When I fail, I've justreflexively learned to say well,
that happened.
Now what?
Admittedly, when you'rerecovering from bankruptcy, that
question comes fast and hardand repeatedly.
My first webinar as a digitalentrepreneur was kind of like a
dumpster fire.
The tech didn't work asexpected.
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I lost my train of thought and,not surprisingly, no one bought
anything.
That was a painful night and Ican still remember the
disappointed look on my wife'sface after it was over.
Both of us had a tinge ofdespair.
One of the deepest identity liesis the lie of pervasive
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inadequacy.
Have you ever questioned if youhave what it takes?
Let me be more specific.
Have you ever thought I don'tknow if I have what it takes to
speak in front of people or staydisciplined enough to get fit
or overcome an addiction or achronic illness?
I don't know if I have what ittakes to attract a spouse or
build a business or homeschoolmy kids.
Do you ever have a naggingsense that who you are is not
(25:15):
good enough and that someonemight find out and expose your
inadequacy?
I've found that most peoplehave that fear.
So why do we fear inadequacy somuch?
I think it's because,subconsciously, we imagine it to
be something that, if broughtinto the light, will estrange us
from those we care about.
It's a path to being broke andalone and friendless.
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And, my friends, there's a muchhealthier way to frame our
shortcomings and our skills gaps.
If I believed failure definedme and would estrange me from my
family, I would have playedsmall the rest of my life.
That is why facing the fear ofinadequacy is so important.
When I had to urgently find away to make ends meet, did I
worry that the next thing Itried might not work?
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Absolutely?
I did, but I had to stay inmotion.
There's no time for a pityparty because the kids still
need to eat, and I was force-fedthe lesson that I have to get
past feelings of inadequacy.
And that helped me discover thesecond defiant core belief.
The second core belief requiredto find purpose in suffering is
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the belief that you have what ittakes to learn, and especially
to learn from mistakes.
You are adequate to try, and soit is with all of life, from
learning to walk or to spell orhow to ask a girl out or to
speak a new language or tocompete.
Failure is part of any eventualsuccess.
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The belief that you can learnand that you are adequate to try
implies two key virtueshumility and curiosity.
They are like fertilizers inthe soil of the human heart.
They are the nutrients, thecharacter traits needed to
create the possibility forgrowth, learning and faith.
Humility and curiosity are thevirtues from which all the other
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ones grow.
The amazing thing about humilityis that it carves out a rich
type of gratitude.
It roots out entitlement.
Everything you have becomes agift.
You begin to see yourself as asteward, a manager, knowing that
possessions and experiences arefleeting and what matters most
(27:25):
are our relationships.
In my case, it took humility toaccept gifts I couldn't repay,
to overcome the embarrassment ofpulling out food stamps at the
grocery store or visiting alocal food bank with my kids, or
taking odd jobs like organizingpeople's messy garages, while
my wife cleaned people's homesand worked as a checker at
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Target.
Curiosity, on the other hand,allows fascination to enter the
room.
To keep you from gettingoverwhelmed by disappointment.
It allows you to find the twoall-important questions what now
, and what can I learn from thatexperience?
When humility and curiosityabide in you.
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They are the virtues thatground you, but perhaps most
importantly, they bridle thepainful emotions of struggle
that keep you from being ruledby negative emotions.
Curiosity and humility help youbegin to see the value in
suffering.
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Suffering, especially open-endedsuffering, like mine was, will
aggressively bring up yourshortcomings and ask you to deal
with them, but curiosity andhumility can frame that new
awareness of your shortcomingsas a gift.
Yes, suffering, especiallybankruptcy, can be a crucible.
It is a refiner's fire, it'shot and it hurts, but it's not
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the end of the story.
Stated differently, as theApostle Paul put it suffering
produces perseverance andperseverance, character and
character, hope, hope that,whatever comes, you will have
what it takes to learn and finda way forward.
So let me summarize lesson twohere there is no such thing as a
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life without risk.
So here's a question thathelped me on the journey what do
you want to suffer?
It may have already clicked foryou that there is no easy path
in life.
All sweet things we crave comefrom hard work, and our aversion
to suffering is often one ofthe biggest obstacles to
experiencing the sweet things inlife.
If you want to have an awesomemarriage or business or state of
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health or so on.
You will have to suffer throughthe lessons of what it takes to
have those things.
If you only take small risks,you will live a small life.
That doesn't mean we go takebig, stupid risks, but it is a
nudge to take calculated ones,aimed at growth.
If you tell me the size of theproblem that stresses you out, I
can probably predict the typeof life you're going to live.
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Failure will happen, butfailure doesn't define you.
You are so much more than thesum total of the things that you
did that did or didn't work out.
You are adequate to try.
No one can steward your lifefor you, so take risks.
I would go so far as to ask whoare you to not take risks, to
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not try to not see who you canbecome with what you've been
given?
Humility and curiosity are thevirtues that will help you set a
better sail against theheadwinds of life.
But to have the winds of lifeshift from being in your face to
being at your back, there's onemore key lesson we can't skip,
and that brings me to lessonnumber three.
To create a breakthrough, youwill need help from two kinds of
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people, and both kinds willopen you up to a unique kind of
suffering.
I had a good friend of mine whowas justifiably flabbergasted
that I turned down my only joboffer.
He gave me an earful and in hisdefense, it was a respectable
offer in a field that I couldhave thrived in professionally.
My friend knew me well and inhis mind the job was a perfect
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fit and he could already see theredemptive part of the story.
He wasn't wrong, could alreadysee the redemptive part of the
story.
He wasn't wrong.
But despite thinking I wascrazy, he never quit on me, like
any true friend would.
He stood by my side.
He helped me find odd jobs topay the bills and he helped me
make the most of whatever wasnext.
And that story represents thefirst type of person you will
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need in your life when it handsyou a setback.
You need friends who can'tnecessarily solve your problems
but who can do little thingsalong the way to keep you going.
They can listen, they can askquestions Even if words fail and
they have no answers.
They can sit with you and holdspace for your emotions.
They can meet practical needsbecause they care.
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They can help you move Onmoving day.
Our friends saw a need andshowed up out of nowhere to ride
with us to the middle ofnowhere to unload a U-Haul we
couldn't have unloaded with thetwo of us and our four small
children Without being asked.
Our friends made sure weweren't alone on one of the
toughest days of our lives.
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Here's the painful part it feelsvulnerable to have needs Like I
did.
You will have to take on themantle of humility and simply
say thank you, and those twowords will be all you'll have to
offer.
You will experience the pain offeeling indebted, with no
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foreseeable way to balance yourledger.
But here's the important partTrue friends aren't keeping a
ledger.
When our checking account gotdown to double digits, we had no
idea where the next check wouldcome from, and checks would
show up in the mail.
That happened more than once.
One day we woke up to find a boxof food at our front door.
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In those instances you can't doanything but cry.
I don't know where this camefrom, but I guess we get to eat
today.
The food bank we went to got toknow us and on Easter they set
aside gifts for our kids.
I wish the Lord's prayer wasgive us this day our annual
bread.
But that's not what Jesus said.
(33:10):
He told us to pray for dailybread.
It's humbling to have needs, andI imagine that to be the point.
Focus on the day in front ofyou.
What can you do today?
Do that and then rest.
To this day, it is hard to talkabout these stories without
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tears.
Yes, there are a lot of badpeople in this world, but there
are also a lot of good ones.
Suffering is a great equalizer.
It reminds us of our frailtyand it reminds us of how good it
feels to help other peopleovercome suffering.
In some seasons, you will bethe one in need and in others,
overcome suffering.
In some seasons, you will bethe one in need and in others,
you will be meeting otherpeople's needs.
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Sow your seeds well and don'tbe too proud to accept help.
It hurts, but it will makesomething of you Okay.
So that's the first lesson, thesecond kind of person that you
will need.
There is a second kind ofperson you'll need, and this one
can also be painful.
When you need a breakthrough,you're going to need
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professional help People whohave demonstrated that they can
solve a problem like yours.
Sometimes they are in books oronline courses or in person, but
how do you find these people.
Well, it turns out they are outthere looking for you.
It is estimated that theaverage person sees thousands of
advertisements per day.
Everywhere you look, you willfind people telling you that
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they have the answers to yourproblem.
They even have answers toproblems you don't know you have
.
And one obvious thing I had tolearn to become a digital
marketer or digital entrepreneurwas marketing.
So for those of you who don'tknow, the job of a marketer is
really to get you to believe twothings.
First, it's not your fault.
You haven't solved the problem.
And the second thing is to getyou to believe that the only
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reason you haven't solved theproblem is because you've not
tried the new whiz-bang gadget,leveraged a newly discovered
secret or met the right person.
A marketer's job is to pointout why your other options won't
work and to get you to believethat their special answer holds
the keys to solving your problem.
I call it the ShamWow effect.
Look here For three easypayments of $97,.
(35:21):
This can be yours, and the goodnews is you'll barely have to
lift a finger.
But wait, there's more Ordernow and we'll give you twice as
much of what you don't need, soyou can add that to your
supplement, graveyard Operatorsare standing by right.
Here's the painful lesson.
We have this myth in ourculture that specialization
equals solutions.
If we can just find the rightspecialist, the right pill, the
(35:44):
right course, the right side ofthe algorithm, it will solve all
our problems.
In reality, the morespecialized the answer, the more
likely it is to be animpediment to solving the
problem.
And working with a so-calledspecialist is often the path to
a lot of emotionally andfinancially expensive wrong
turns.
So if you're in this situationwhere you need a breakthrough,
(36:06):
you have to remember that you'redealing with a complex problem.
Recovering from diabetes,chronic pain or an autoimmune
condition is a complex problem.
Building a business fromscratch is a complex problem.
Overcoming past traumas orfiguring out why your
relationships are strained arecomplex problems.
It wasn't until I studiedmarketing that I invented the
(36:28):
word partialist to moreaccurately describe specialists.
It took me a while to see it,but a specialist is someone who
studies a tiny part of a complexproblem.
But because they have the wordspecial in their title and
because they can describeproblems well, we tend to think
they have a comprehensivesolution, when in reality they
don't.
At best they may have a puzzlepiece when in reality they don't
(36:49):
.
At best they may have a puzzlepiece.
So let me give you an examplefrom my own life.
It is hard enough to learnmarketing when you just filed
bankruptcy, have no credit andcan't afford to pay anyone to
teach you anything.
It's even more painful when youknow you need help and you
scrape together money for aso-called marketing specialist,
only to find out in hindsightthey can't actually help you
(37:11):
because there were 10 otherthings that needed to be in
place before their solutionmight have had any merit.
That painful experience hashappened to me multiple times
while trying to rebuild lifefrom scratch.
Friends, there are no specialsilver bullet answers to complex
problems.
There's no winning lotteryticket, no shortcuts.
You have to earn it.
And you have to earn it inbusiness and health and
(37:33):
relationships.
And here's another wrinkleRegardless of the specialist you
go with, there's a good chancehe or she doesn't even know they
can't help you.
Why?
Because there's only one.
You and specialists often havethe hammer nail problem.
When the only tool they have isa prescription pad, everything
looks like it needs a pill.
Since my professional lane isthe world of health, let me
(37:55):
switch to that lane to empathizewith those of you who have
learned how painfully confusingthe world of health can be.
In my opinion, specializationhas ruined healthcare.
In case you think I'moverstating it, ponder this.
We have more so-called healthspecialists than ever.
If specialization is the answer, why are our health statistics
(38:16):
only getting worse?
Why are six out of 10 people inthe United States dealing with
at least one chronic healthcondition?
Why is 42% of our populationobese and 75% of us are
considered overweight?
Why does the average Americango on a diet 55 times in their
life?
What's the definition ofinsanity, friends, if
specialization was the answer,those statistics would not be
(38:39):
true.
But instead of clarifying wherediseases come from and what it
takes to get well,specialization has made it more
confusing.
The silos have ruined themedical world and much of the
alternative and coaching worldsand social media has only
amplified the confusion, becauseeveryone is peddling something
special.
So in case any of you in theaudience are wrestling with a
(38:59):
health challenge, let me takeone minute to simplify the
puzzle of health withoutoversimplifying it.
There are only two reasons weget sick toxicity and
malnourishment.
Think of a diseased tree.
If a tree has a disease,there's either something in the
soil poisoning it or the soil isvoid of the nutrients the tree
needs to thrive.
Folks, we are the tree.
(39:20):
Instead of treating the rootcauses of our sickness, we
create fancy names for all thediseased leaves and for some
reason, we call those who namethe leaves experts.
They're not.
They are partialists looking atsymptoms.
So I had my own rants.
As a budding digitalentrepreneur, I lost track of
how many times I got frustratedand shook my fist at the screen.
(39:43):
Why is it not working?
I did it just like the experttold me to.
It was in trying to solve aproblem that I was new to,
namely digital marketing, that Ibegan to see how much of a
disservice specialists can be.
Yet here's the rub how else wasI going to learn?
An important thing to know isthat it's not the ones who have
(40:04):
the best solutions that win inthe marketplace.
It's the ones with the mostcompelling message.
The market will always rewardthe one who promises that there
is a simple and easy answer tothe challenges we face.
Friends, solutions can besimple, but they are rarely easy
.
To create your breakthrough,you're going to have to think
bigger and you're going to haveto earn it.
(40:25):
You're going to have to bewilling to suffer.
But as you persevere you'llspeed up the process.
I've spent tens of thousands ofdollars on fruitless marketing
specialists over the years andit has been painful.
But with each hire I grow morediscerning, I gain more clarity,
and each lesson has been astepping stone to help me find
(40:46):
better answers faster.
So let me summarize point three.
Like me, you're going to need afew key friends along the way.
They are the people who willpick you up when you're down and
meet your needs when you can't.
But you have to be humbleenough to accept the help,
knowing that you may never beable to repay them.
That is okay.
Don't let your pride rob themof the natural joy they
(41:11):
experience in serving you.
The good rule in life is to digyour well before you're thirsty
.
Make friends before you needthem.
Give and serve and love, and dothose things without keeping a
ledger.
People notice, I promise.
Do those things and you'll havethe people come out of the
woodwork to help you when youhave needs.
(41:31):
We would not have made itthrough our three-year
wilderness without good friends.
If you feel like you don't haveany friends, here's what I'd do
.
I'd start reading every book ortaking any course I can about
how to find friends or how to bea good friend.
I'd try to find ponds to fishin where I can find quality
people.
I would sow as many relationalseeds as I can, knowing that not
(41:51):
all of them will germinate,that's okay.
Some of them will.
Second, you will also need topay people who are good at
solving complex problems, notjust special problems.
So buy their books, take theircourses and work with them
one-on-one if you can afford it,except that you will likely
hire some partialists who, inthe end, aren't able to help you
(42:12):
create the breakthrough youhope for.
Like me, in your longing for abreakthrough, you will
occasionally fall for thehypnotic effect of the ShamWow
effect.
Friends, those experiences arepainful, but they're not a waste
.
They are called tuition, andpaying tuition is the only way
to sharpen your intuition.
The sharper it gets, the closeryou get to your breakthrough.
(42:34):
So don't begrudge what you'vetried that didn't work.
Leverage it.
Persevering through sufferingwill develop intuition and
character and hope.
Okay, as I start to wrap up,let me recap what I went over.
We started with the idea thatsuffering has purpose.
As the Apostle Paul put it,suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance, character andcharacter, hope.
(42:56):
No one gets a free pass fromstruggle in this life.
Suffering isn't somethingyou're going to be able to avoid
, but it can have a redemptivestory.
It can be a rescue for you andfor others.
Finding purpose in sufferingrequires that you know your why
and your definition of success.
Your why isn't primarily aboutyou.
(43:17):
It's about who you matter to.
But your needs aren'tirrelevant.
It's not weakness to have them.
It's a weakness to think youshouldn't have them.
It's that healthy mix ofmeeting other people's needs and
your own that has the potentialto make life sweet.
So who do you want to matter to, and in what way can you take
better care of yourself so thatyou can make a difference for
(43:38):
others?
What do you imagine successfeels like?
Imagine that day for a second,that life.
What does your heart of heartsreally want?
Define what success looks likefor you.
Then you'll have the foundationto endure hard times and turn
them into something beautifulonly you could have created.
(44:01):
To find purpose in suffering,you're going to need two gritty
and defiant core beliefs.
First is never forget thatfailure is an event, not an
identity.
You are not the sum total ofthe things you did that did or
didn't work out, as if by doingenough things, whatever that is,
you'll finally be allowed tobelong.
Do your best, but have theself-respect to honor your
(44:23):
limits.
Remember you are adequate totry.
Some things you will try willwork out, some won't.
Either way, the outcome hassomething to teach you.
I would argue that you have asacred duty to find the lesson,
painful as they may be.
You have a sacred duty topursue your purpose and see who
you can become with the talentsand abilities you've been given.
(44:43):
Stay humble and curious, and itwill be much easier to find the
lessons and self-impose thediscipline that will help you
become a new person.
To do that, you're going tohave to lean into doing hard
things.
You have to be willing to standin the fire to learn what you
don't know so that you canovercome.
Courage is like a newborn, sotreat it delicately.
(45:04):
Start small, but start Progressto bigger challenges as your
confidence grows, and the moreyou do so, the more the winds
will shift from being in yourface to being at your back.
And to create the breakthroughyou will need help from two
kinds of people.
Both kinds of them will openyou up to a different type of
suffering.
The reality of our humancondition is that none of us
(45:27):
knows everything, nor can westudy everything or meet all of
our own needs.
Because of that, we all needfriends and teachers and guides
and teamwork to speed us upalong the way.
Many hands make light loads.
To speed us up along the way.
Many hands make light loads.
Part of creating breakthroughsis accepting that need as normal
and healthy and thus acceptingthe ache that comes with
(45:47):
vulnerability.
Finding friends and findingcompetent professionals requires
trust, and a wise personaccepts that sometimes that
trust will be misplaced, even inwell-intentioned people who may
have tried hard but simplycan't deliver what they promised
.
Sometimes you will be theprofessional who can't deliver.
Other times you'll be the onelet down by the professional who
(46:09):
can't help.
Stay in motion and let thelessons come.
Let grace, humility and astrong work ethic become what
you're known for.
Go find your mentors and yourfriends and when you find good
ones, practice vulnerability, beteachable and go deep.
They will help you become theperson you are meant to be.
Remember that your perspectiveof who you are can be your
(46:34):
prison or your passport.
Speaking of passports, I wantto show you what knowing your
why, your definition of successand having the grit to do hard
things can lead to if you don'tgive up.
If you're watching thispresentation, what you're
looking at on the screen is apicture of me and my daughter,
naomi, at the Parthenon inAthens Greece than Greece.
(47:04):
This trip.
It was the two of us, sevenother parents and 15 other
students, on a trip that markedthe capstone of their classical
conversations homeschooleducation.
I didn't give up on that dreamto homeschool my kids, and to me
, this is what success feelslike.
Bankruptcy was awful, likepeople tend to say about having
hard seasons in life.
I would not wish that on anyone, but I wouldn't trade it
(47:28):
because it taught me what'sreally important, because I had
a strong enough why.
I figured out the how and inthat process I found work I love
.
I love learning about marketingand the human condition.
I love podcasting.
I love coaching.
I love helping people heal sothey can get back to their life.
I get paid to create wholehuman breakthroughs.
(47:49):
What a gift.
Yes, life still has itschallenges.
They haven't gone away.
I've just got better athandling them.
It is so much easier to findgratitude and joy.
Life owes me nothing.
Everything I have is a gift.
I'll steward whatever I haveuntil it's time for me to hand
it off to someone else.
(48:09):
I don't know what rough seasonsmay be ahead, but I can say I'm
really difficult to discourage.
Now I live life with a peaceand a calm that wouldn't make
any sense to the old me, and Iwould have missed it all if I
hadn't run into an intenseseason of life that clarified my
definition of success.
(48:29):
Life is hard.
Do what you can to choosesomething hard that is worth the
suffering.
Maybe you'll end up visitingnew places too.
There isn't an easy path inlife, but there is a path that
leads to looping downwardspirals of frustration and
despair.
But there is also a path thatis an upward spiral that leads
to more and more character andmore and more flourishing and
(48:52):
more and more peace.
To get on that upward spiralyou will have to learn to lean
into suffering.
So stop waiting for life to geteasy.
That is a myth.
An easy life would only lead toyou losing your edge and
growing weak.
Calibrate to the reality thatlife will continually offer you
purposeful struggles.
(49:12):
But as you persevere, yourcapacity to handle hard grows.
Life is so much more meaningfulwhen you are engaged in a
struggle that is worth theeffort.
So, in summary, in life youwill have hard times, but
suffering has purpose.
If your story is anything likemine, suffering will force you
(49:33):
to deconstruct your definitionof success, clarify what is
really important and invite youto reconstruct something better.
Suffering will humble you,invite you to reconstruct
something better.
Suffering will humble you.
You'll realize that no one owesyou anything and everything you
have is a gift to steward.
Suffering will also invite youto face your shortcomings over
and over again, if necessary,until you learn your lessons
(49:53):
well, and in that process, whoyou are will get an upgrade.
Whatever hard situation you'refacing, who you are will get an
upgrade.
Whatever hard situation you'refacing, remember that you can't
create a breakthrough alone.
You'll need friends and mentorsto overcome life's setbacks.
So make friends before you needthem and find the people who
have experience solving theproblems you are facing.
(50:14):
Remember that you are worth itand that you have what it takes
to try.
That is how you improve.
And, as I said before, who areyou to not try?
Don't numb out, don't blameother people, and as you
persevere, you'll buildcharacter, you'll find hope and
you might even find your calling.
Imagine the story you'll haveto tell and who you can become
(50:36):
if you don't quit.
Okay, that is it for today.
If you've appreciated theprinciples and would like to go
deeper with them, check out theHealing United PMA app.
It is a great free resource tohelp you walk out a lot of the
lessons in this talk, and youcan connect with myself and
other like-minded people theretoo.
Thanks for listening.
Okay, that is the end of thetalk, so I'd love to hear what
(51:02):
you think.
What stood out to you?
What can I do better?
What audiences do you thinkwould need to hear a talk like
that?
If you are an event plannerlooking for a speaker and this
resonated with you, you canemail me at christian at
truewholehumancom.
Okay, friends, thank you somuch for listening and I will
catch you in the next episode.
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