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September 16, 2025 10 mins
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Her son died under her care. You know, she was
supposed to be watching her son and he was out
playing and fell into a canal and died. And ultimately
she blamed herself for that for years, and it was
through an empathetic witness that she was able to begin to,
you know, reassign the meeting. Ultimately, she had gotten all
sorts of condolence letters, and you know, someone had told
her that something similar had happened. You know, she got

(00:29):
all sorts of letters, and the night before she was
the night she was going to kill herself.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know, she read this letter.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
She had a stack of condolence letters, and she read
this one from a lady who had a similar situation.
You know, this lady I think named Teresa, who she
never actually was able to get back in contact with,
but tried many times. This lady named Teresa, who wrote
her letter. She was with her six year old daughter,
went inside for a little bit to like grab the
phone or something, came back out, and her daughter had
gotten hit by a car and died during the two
minutes she was inside.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
And so what Teresa had sent to Melissa.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
In the letter was that look like you're not a
bad parent, like, you didn't try to make this happen.
This was a freak accident. Teresa was able to say
some things in that letter that helped Melissa to actually
like have hope again. And it really was that breakdown
similar to I think what I had, where it was
just like I think you blame yourself a lot for something,
or you just lose hope in something that you initially wanted,

(01:18):
and so that leads you to just kind of losing hope.
And I think what you need is some form of
like a shred of hope. And I think that that's
what she got, and so I think that you know,
she was kind of giving up on herself. I was
kind of giving on myself, but I think you kind
of have to. I mean, in the case of her
and even me, a lot of it was just that
an external party came and just like.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Actually like saved space or just tried something.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
But I think for someone who more practically is in
a dark place and just wants to get out, I
think actually seeking help. It could be a friend, it
could be a therapist, it could be an old high
school coach, it could be an old church leader, whatever
it is. I think if you just go up and
just talk to someone and just literally open up and
just be flat out honest.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I think that in.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
General, complete honesty and transparency. There's a concept in alcoholics
anonymous that you're as sick as your secrets. That has
a lot to do with traumas just burying things, holding
things in, and so I think from like a human
growth perspective, the moment you just begin opening up about
where you're at, how you're feeling, it's kind of like
writing things in a journal. Once you have it out,
you can actually start to look at it from a
different perspective, and then you can start reshaping the meaning

(02:22):
of it, and maybe you can even get the help
of smart people to help you start rethinking it and
maybe looking at it from a more of a hopeful
perspective that you're not a bad person, you're not a loser,
that these are crazy things that happen, but you could
do something different about it. You can look at it differently,
and ultimately your life still has purpose and meaning and
you can still do something with it. I think that
trauma is pretty misunderstood. Most people think that trauma is

(02:43):
just so focused on the past. In my opinion, it's
what actually trauma does to your future, because from my perspective,
your view of your own future is the greatest determinant
in who you are. Your view of your future is
what impacts you. Put A lot of the research on
trauma shows that it shatters your imagination towards your future
and your hope in that future, and.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's, you know, the crucial thing.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
And so when I began kind of moving forward, I
began to rethink my future and start to actually commit
back to the idea that I could have a future.
And so that's what ultimately led me to having those
types of conversations and even being willing to go through
that awkwardness or going through that change processes because I
now saw a future that I actually was like, I
want this. I believe that I can actually be something more. Yeah,
I would say the past doesn't define the future for
two reasons. One is because the past, from your perspective,

(03:25):
at least from a psychology perspective, is just a meaning.
Memory is always changing, It's always flexible, and so the
version of your past that you have right now is
probably different from the version of the past you had
three or four years ago. Even thinking about the same events,
and so the past is really just a story, it's
just a meaning. Yeather were objective events that occurred, but
you have no ability to actually know what those objective

(03:45):
events were, because, as you know, from a psychology perspective,
is all we can see is to our perspective, is
all we can see is to our subjective lens. And
so when you look, you know, anytime you learn something new,
you read a book, you have a new experience that
probably informs your view of everything else. It's like you
change a part, you change the whole, And so kind
of breaking memory down in a really simple way, your

(04:06):
memory is always constructed in the present.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
You know who I am right now.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
I think about myself as an eleven year old boy
with my parents getting divorced and my father becoming a
drug addict. My view of that and the meaning I
assigned to it, and even all of the context around
those memories is completely painted by where I'm at right
now as a person. The fact that I have a
great relationship with my dad, the fact that I have
all this knowledge in psychology, I've got five kids, like
all of that reshapes how I look at and interpret

(04:32):
my past. One challenge that people have is they're not
actively approaching their past as a flexible entity, and so
they tend to kind of relay the same story over
and over, which doesn't necessarily help. But so one reason
why the past is flexible is because it's simply just
a meaning. It's a story, and your memory is always
changing anyways, and your memory is always constructed in the present.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
So Brent's life, he's one of my favorite psychologists.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
He wrote a book called Time and Psychological Explanation Freaking
Deep Dive. You would actually love it because I know
you like diving deep into like thick stuff. But he
basically says that, you know, a lot of people think
that the past is causing the present, but the reality
from a memory perspective is that the present is causing
the meaning of the past. Wherever you're at in the present,
that's what's determining how you view your past. And so

(05:17):
if you learn, if you grow, if you you know,
have achievements, if you just develop healthy relationships, it will
alter the meaning in the view you have towards your past.
And that's something you should seek in my opinion, if
you're if you're still viewing the past and former relationships
and former experiences the same way you did four or
five years ago. That says more about who you are
right now than it says about your past. It says
that you're not learning, you're not gaining perspective, you're not
seeking greater context, you're not asking hard questions. And so

(05:41):
for me, as an example, I had to go and
ask my dad, Dad, tell me all about your perspective
of when you were a drug addict and when me
and my brothers left you, Like, tell me what that
was like. Tell me why you went and had those experiences.
Tell me why you had made those decisions. Tell me
what it felt like coming to mom's house and us
slamming the door on your face.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Like I that's seeking greater contexte.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
And obviously the more context you have towards someone, you
have greater empathy and compassion. And so hearing his story,
I'm like, I can kind of see what. I obviously
wouldn't justify him doing it, but I can see to
some reason why he did that. So that's one reason
why the past is flexible, and we can obviously go
into the mechanics of how to do that. But the
second reason is because the past isn't what ultimately drives you,

(06:21):
it is your future. So there's a quote from Dan Sulvan,
one of my good buddies, and he says that the
only way to make your present better is by making
your future bigger, which is essentially a statement of perspection.
But I think that one thing that's really important to
realize is that your view of your own future is
determined by your current level of awareness and understanding. You know, like,
what futures I imagine are different from the futures I
would have imagined three or four years ago because I

(06:41):
now I'm a different person.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I see the world differently.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
I've had a lot of experiences, I've got knowledge I
didn't have them in a context, and so my view,
even to imagine or come up with various future scenarios
is fundamentally different than my former self, and my future
self will be in the same boat. My future self
will imagine different futures than my current self has because
my future self has had experiences and knowledge and.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Awareness that I just don't have.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
But I think you know, based on where you're currently
at as a person, what do you value most? You know,
what is a future worth having? What are things that
you value that would ultimately be worth spending your time on.
A big aspect of that is just thinking about your
future identity, your future self. I think that that's generally
the place to start is who do you want to be?
What do you want your circumstances to be, what do
you want to be doing? What do you value? Like,

(07:24):
where do you want to be in the future. I
think just imagining where you want to be, who you
want to be, and what you want to be doing
that's hopefully valuable, that's worth working towards or worth creating.
I think that that's the first step is ultimately thinking
about your future self, the person you want to be,
the situation you want to have, and ultimately what you
want to be doing that you can't do at this
present moment for one reason or another. And so I
think thinking about what's your next step. Like if you're

(07:46):
what's the thing you want most right now? So like
if you're someone who's single that really wants to be married, like, well,
what you know, what is the ultimate thing you want
right now that would reflect your future self at a
much higher level than you're at right now. So like
for me, as an example, when I was in undergrad
and I was saying psychology, Like my next level of
future self was me as a PhD student really diving
into psychology once I got there, like I really really
wanted to be a professional author, and so like I

(08:08):
think from a more practical standpoint, like what is the
next level future self that like really excites.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
You, you know, like what's you know?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
It could be getting married, or could be starting that
business or having your business be successful, or could be
getting that book deal, could be being an elite shape
so that you're doing like those iron Mans. Whatever it
is you want, Like, what is that next version of
you that's the thing that you really really want? And
then ultimately you can create a process to getting to there.
But I think just thinking about what's you at that
next step, which is obviously maybe a quantum leap or
a next level up of your current stuff and what

(08:37):
you really want. The gap in the game is basically
an idea that if you're always measuring yourself against your ideal,
you're always going to feel this gap between you and
where you know, whatever your ideal is, and that's going
to make you feel unhappy. Whereas if you measure yourself
against your former self, where you were before, you'll see progress,
you know. There's a quote from Ernest Hemingway and Ernest Hemingway,
the author the novelist, said that nobility is not about
being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is about

(09:00):
being superior to your former self. So as an example,
I have some really good friends of mine. They're in
like their forties, They've got, you know, some kids and stuff,
and they've had serious financial issues during COVID where he's
like lost his job, She's gone through like this identity crisis,
and they're kind of freaked out because they've got kids,
and they're.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Like, what the heck do we do?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
And I just asked them, you know, look at where
you were like three or four months ago, Like, have
you made any progress in the last four months towards
getting yourself into a better financial situation? Is your relationship
with each other better? Like where are you at versus
your where you were four months ago? They're like, oh, yeah,
we're in a much better situation, you know, like we've
made big progress.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
And that's that's reflecting on.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
The gain of where you were versus where you're at
right now, and that gives you a little sense of confidence.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And a movement, you know.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
So I think that that's I think it's a good
practice wherever you're at, whether you've made big success or
whether you're small, is to actually like look at the
progress that you've actually made. And I think that that
really helps you to feel like it actually increases your hope.
So it's looking at the good, focusing on the good,
and saying, what can you do now because as of
that
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