June 11, 2025 • 16 mins
Freedom can be found even in the most confining circumstances. When I was 23 years old, I found myself facing life imprisonment for a crime I didn't commit. After taking a plea deal, I served five and a half years behind bars – years that unexpectedly became the foundation for my greatest personal transformation.
From the depths of county jail, where negative thoughts tormented me daily, I discovered the profound power of perspective. I realized my problems weren't inherently bad – it was my perception that created suffering. When I shifted from asking "why is this happening to me?" to "how might this experience benefit me?", everything changed. This mental pivot didn't alter my circumstances, but it completely transformed my emotional response, replacing hopelessness with possibility.
Prison stripped away everything, leaving me with profound appreciation for life's simplest pleasures – walking freely outdoors, hugging loved ones, making choices about my day. This acute awareness of life's precious nature has never left me. Now I wake each morning determined to make every moment count, not through extraordinary achievements, but through presence, authenticity, and positive impact. Through those challenging years, I developed the clarity to recognize what truly matters and the courage to pursue it without hesitation.
The most powerful lessons often come wrapped in our most painful experiences. Your current challenges, whatever they may be, contain the seeds of transformation if you're willing to shift your perspective. Don't wait for circumstances to force your awakening. Start today by questioning limiting thoughts, appreciating life's gifts, and honoring your authentic path. Your mindset determines your reality – choose one that empowers rather than constrains you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your problems are not bad.
They're not inherently bad.
It's the way that you thinkabout them and the way that you
perceive them and then theemotional reaction you have that
makes them negative in yourlife.
But you can take any set ofcircumstances adversity, pain,
loss, tragedy, whatever it isand if you learn how to use your
mind, you can find something inthat set of circumstances that
(00:23):
can actually help you.
So for those of you that don'thave what you want right now,
you're not happy in your life,you got to start with high level
awareness around your thoughts.
You got to start challengethoughts that are negative and
limiting in your life.
When you're in that position,you realize how precious life is
and how much of it we waste andtake for granted, granted.
(00:48):
Welcome back to another episodeof the Unstoppable Mindset
Podcast.
I'm your host, sean Crane.
Thank you, guys for tuning intothe message.
This is going to be a reallyimpactful message for anybody in
life who wants more and maybeyou feel stuck.
Maybe you don't think thatyou're on the right path.
You don't have the rightattitude or mindset to be
successful.
This is going to help you.
I'm going to share with youthree impactful lessons I
(01:12):
learned in prison.
That changed my life.
So, if you don't know, when Iwas 23 I was facing life in
prison for a crime I didn't evendo.
I was facing life in prison.
I was charged with attemptedmurder and I spent eight months
in the county jail, going tocourt, you know, facing the
judge, the DA, you know falseaccusers, all these things, man.
(01:36):
The news press put my pictureon the front page, said Sean
Crane, charged with attemptedmurder, and it was stemming from
a fight at a party that hadturned into a stabbing in which
one man almost died.
All the while I proclaim myinnocence, but no one believed
me and there was very little Icould do to prove my innocence.
So I ended up taking a pleadeal for assault with a deadly
(01:57):
weapon and admitting guilt tosomething I didn't do to get a
lesser sentence, and I wassentenced to seven years in
prison and I ended up doing fiveand a half years.
From the time I was 23 tillright before I was 30 years old,
I was in prison and in thattime my whole world was
transformed right.
Five years is a long time to beaway, let alone in an
(02:19):
environment where you're neverrelaxed, you're never
comfortable.
Where you're never relaxed,you're never comfortable, you're
never really happy.
You know, I was in anenvironment where every day, you
were very aware of what wasgoing on and threats and danger
and pain that you'reexperiencing, whether it was
missing your family or beinghungry or just those really
(02:39):
desolate types of settings thatwe were in.
But you know, what happened waswhen I was in county jail.
I remember I was sitting thereevery day and I was waking up
thinking to myself how is thishappening to me?
Like why, why am I beingfalsely accused of this crime?
Like why is this happening tome?
You know, and you startquestioning things you know,
like why is God doing this to me?
(03:01):
Why is my life coming to an end?
This isn't fair.
And I just was being a victim.
That's the truth.
I was being a victim in the wayI was thinking.
I remember this really powerfulthing happened.
It was a shift in my ownself-talk.
I don't remember exactly, likewhen it happened, but I just
remember thinking man, I'm notgoing to make it through this
time in prison if I can't figureout how to get control of my
(03:22):
own mental state.
Like I was just going crazywith these thoughts every day
they were torturing me, theywere leading me to feel
depressed, anxious, sad, allthese negative emotions.
And I remember one day I justthought, sean, what if this
experience is actually going tohelp you?
You know, like what if thisexperience going to jail is
going to help you to get soberand avoid some accidental
overdose or just like amiserable life struggling with
(03:44):
addiction?
Because before prison I wasbattling addiction for 10 years?
And that was a thought thatreally was like challenging
those negative thoughts I washaving, because it was a
positive thought, it was in apositive or at least hopeful
outcome.
And the next thought was thatyou know, maybe this experience
is going to help me to figureout myself.
(04:04):
For the longest time I wascodependent with my dad, my
uncles, friends, cousins in ourlifestyle and I could never be
my true self.
I always was a part of thatlifestyle, that mentality.
I just never felt like I wasauthentically able to be myself
and I felt it inside.
I wasn't living the life Iwanted, you know.
And so I remember thinking whatif this experience is going to
(04:25):
get you away from all thosepeople and finally help you to
figure out who you are as aperson?
And like that was a positivething, you know, and the
ultimate one for me wasbelieving that something divine
was taking place, that divineintervention was happening in my
life to maybe save my life orto alter the course of my life,
and I remember I was sittingthere thinking what if God has a
plan for you that you can't seeright now?
(04:47):
But this is a blessing indisguise, and you hear people
share about that all the time,people that have gone through
horrendous things, extremeadversity, you know stuff that
they never would have wishedupon themselves.
And then, years later, theytalk about how it was a blessing
in disguise, and I remember inthat moment I just realized this
could be one of those moments.
This could be something thatnobody would wish upon them ever
(05:11):
Like.
It was something out of anightmare or a movie or a book
that you've seen, and you thinkto yourself no way that happened
, no way that actually happened,and it was happening to me.
And so what it did is it forcedme to make radical changes and
how I was thinking, how I wasoperating in my life, and that's
something that a lot of peoplecan't do, people that don't
change.
They don't know how to shifttheir thinking.
(05:32):
They don't know how to altertheir perspective.
You know, I talk to people allthe time and they're always
thinking about their problemsand stuff that's happening to
them and why they can't do thisand why they can't do that.
And, honestly, none of thatshit even matters.
It doesn't matter as much asthe way that you're interpreting
it does.
And that's what I realized whenI was sitting in my jail cell
that, yeah, the judge and thelawyer wanted to send me to
(05:53):
prison.
For decades, all the people atthe party falsely accused me.
The people that knew the truthweren't coming forward to help
me.
Even my own lawyers didn'tbelieve me.
Like, yeah, all this stuff wastrue, but it didn't have as much
of an impact over me and how Iwas feeling as my own thoughts
did.
You see, every day when I washaving those negative thoughts,
I was feeling so hopeless, andthat's why people get suicidal
(06:15):
and kill themselves in thosesituations.
And so when I made that shiftin my perspective and I started
looking at my situation withpotential positive outcomes, I
felt a shift inside of me.
You know now there was a littlebit of hope, a little bit of
optimism, and it made me startto reflect on my situation and
perceive it as something thatcan actually help me in my life,
(06:36):
and so that's the first thingthat I want to share with you
guys that prison taught me.
Your problems are not bad.
They're not inherently bad.
It's the way that you thinkabout them and the way that you
perceive them and then theemotional reaction you have that
makes them negative in yourlife.
But you can take any set ofcircumstances adversity, pain,
(06:56):
loss, tragedy, whatever it isand if you learn how to use your
mind, you can find something inthat set of circumstances that
can actually help you.
And it might be something thatyou can't utilize for years in
your life, it might be alearning lesson that you can
apply down the road, butwhatever it is, you can extract
something from that experiencethat could actually help you.
Like, let's say, you losesomebody that you love God
(07:17):
forbid.
You lose a child, a loved one,a significant other man, and
I've lost a lot of people in mylife.
Now, you can be sad about thatand you can dwell on that and
you can put it.
Let it put you into adepression.
Which people that go that routelike?
I don't fault you, I get it.
We're human beings.
We have emotions, but whenpeople die in my life, I do the
best to honor them in the way Ilive, going forward, and I
(07:38):
picture them being in heaven orstill part of me, right,
energetically, spiritually, andI'm like I'm going to honor my
mom, I'm going to honor my dadand the person I become.
I'm going to honor my cousinman and live and give that much
more to this life, because he'snot here to do so and he doesn't
get that chance, you know.
And so what I do is I try to usenegative situations and I try
(07:59):
to turn them into positiveopportunities for myself.
And so the way I do that is Ialways ask myself Sean, how can
you learn and grow from thesecircumstances?
You know, what is the silverlining here?
How can you use this as acatalyst to push you in a
positive direction, like that'swhat winners do in life.
They take any set ofcircumstances and they use it to
their advantage, and that'swhat I've done ever since I was
(08:21):
in jail, then prison and beyond.
You know, anything that I'vebeen facing, whether it was
challenges in relationships orchallenges in business or
challenges on a personal levelI'm always asking myself how can
I learn and grow from this?
What is God trying to teach me?
How can I come from out fromthis situation a better version
of myself than I was before Iwent into it?
And that mindset will changeyour entire life, because a lot
(08:45):
of people don't get what theywant or get where they want to
go.
Not because life's unfair, notbecause there's not opportunity,
not because you know there's acurse on them, not because
they're parents, not because youwere bullied as a kid, not
because of any of that shit.
It's because of the way you'rethinking and your mindset is
flawed.
And if you could fix that, yourwhole world's going to change
and you'll start to see it.
You'll have a new lens in whichyou view the world and over
(09:13):
time, time, you'll see differentthings, you'll have different
stuff, you'll do different stuff.
I promise you that, becausehere's the thing you must
recognize about psychology andthinking right the way you think
always has a meaning attachedto it.
So like, let's go back to me injail when I was thinking about
how my life was over and how noone believed me and how this
wasn't fair and all these things.
The meaning was a meaning thatmade me feel hopeless, like the.
The meaning attached to it washopelessness.
It was that no one's coming tohelp you, that your life's over,
like.
What a despairing feeling toexperience.
(09:34):
Right, and anytime there'smeaning attached to a thought,
there's an emotional reaction.
My emotional reaction wassadness, it was grief, it was
anger, it was resentment, it wasdepression, and so from there
that affects your actions.
So when you change your thoughtsand you start to alter your
perspective and now, the meaningthat I attached with mine was
like, hopeful and optimistic,and it gave me courage, it gave
(09:55):
me faith and that affected mydaily actions.
That's why, in prison, I wasable to make everyday count.
It's because of that shift inmy thinking.
So, for those of you that don'thave what you want right now,
you're not happy in your lifeyou got to start with high level
awareness around your thoughts.
You got to start challengethoughts that are negative and
limiting in your life and yougot to do what I do and shift
them into potentially positivethoughts, even if it's like dude
(10:18):
, somehow some way down the roadthis is going to benefit me and
you don't even know howthinking that way is better than
being a victim and thinkingnegatively.
Now the second thing I want toshare with you guys is just life
is precious, and when I satthere incarcerated in a cell
that I couldn't leave, I wouldhave given anything to be able
to get out and do anything.
I remember joking like with acellmate and being like dude.
(10:40):
I wish I could just go outsideand roll in the mud right now
down a hill like a kid.
Like go pick flowers, go walkon the beach, go hold a girl's
hand God.
Get to cuddle with a woman.
Like can you imagine that?
Get to go eat ice cream.
Get to go out in the sunset.
Get to go run up in thefoothills.
Get to go swim in the ocean.
Like get to I didn't call ortalk to, or like I was short
(11:00):
with.
Like go tell them I'm sorry,make amends.
When you're in that position,you realize how precious life is
and how much of it we waste andtake for granted.
So the second thing thatchanged my life when I was in
prison was understanding howvaluable this gift is and not
wanting to waste a second, andso what it's done for me ever
since is I truly wake up everyday and ask myself like how can
(11:26):
I make this the best day of mylife.
It doesn't mean that I have tohave these astronomical things
take place, these monumentalmilestone moments.
It just means that where I'm at, I'm present, I'm giving my all
and I'm really pushing myselfto be my best and I'm pushing
myself to make other people feelgood.
I want to impact other people,you know, I want to bring joy
into people's lives.
I want to be my best, true selfin everything I do, and so life
is precious.
That's the second thing Ilearned.
If you're taking it for granted,if you're complaining about
(11:46):
stuff, you have no idea how badit could be.
Or like, imagine if you woke uptomorrow and you're in a
hospital bed.
You know, and you had gotten ina car accident you can't even
remember, but now you'reparalyzed from the waist down.
Imagine, imagine how much youjust wish you had your body.
You could walk, you know, youcould go outside and be in the
fresh air.
Like, think about when you'resick.
All you want when you're sickis to feel better, right, like
(12:07):
when you're sick, all you wantto do is just feel not sick,
feel normal.
Well, that's kind of what Iwent through, but on a really
profound level, right with mylife like I thought my whole
life was over.
I was 23.
They were saying in prison, Ihad a blue band on in jail.
That means you're facing a lifesentence and it just really put
things in perspective for mehow quickly your life could be
(12:27):
taken from you, how precious itis.
And so, while you're here, makeit count.
Go after your dreams, be a goodperson.
Let go of the bullshit thatholds you back.
Get away from toxic people.
Put good food in your body.
Take care of your health.
Get outside, go run, go to thebeach, exercise, go travel
(12:49):
places.
If you can Go after your dreamjob.
Don't settle Like, don't limityourself.
Know your worth.
Don't allow people around youthat hold you back to be around
you.
Don't make bad, freakingchoices.
Everything you do is going toshape and mold the life that you
create.
Go all in.
Like all the cliche and cornythings that people say are so
true.
Live each day like it's yourlast.
Like I don't know what theother ones are, I can't think of
them right now.
Like like, be a good person.
(13:10):
Give your all, be all you can,be like the army.
All that stuff is so true.
I remember sitting in jail,going oh my gosh, all the corny
bullshit that I used to clownand thought was a joke.
It's all true, like all thethings that you see in
commercials or all the stuffthat elderly people tell you.
It's all true, and one dayyou're gonna potentially realize
that in a painful way, becauseyou wasted too much time.
(13:32):
And I know a lot of people thatdie with regrets, a lot of
people that die never even beingclose to their full potential
or doing what they want in life.
In fact, there's some statisticout there.
I don't know how people figurethis stuff out, but they must've
asked a bunch of people ontheir deathbeds their main
regret in life, and the majorityof them said that they didn't
live the life that they trulywanted, that they lived the life
where they settled.
They limit themselves, oroftentimes they live the life
(13:54):
based on other people'sexpectations for them, not their
own, whether it's familymembers, society, their
community, whatever it is theirreligion, their country that
they were in.
Don't limit yourselves, becausethat's going to come back to
haunt you one day as regret.
And so this leads into the lastthing that I recognized and
really changed my life when Iwas in jail, and that was we got
to be honest with ourselvesabout what we want, who we want
(14:15):
to be, you know.
You got to be honest withyourself because so many people
have a truth inside their heartand then they have a version of
themselves.
They showed the world, theyhave their authenticity and then
the mask they put on, they havetheir goals, their dreams.
God put those dreams in yourheart for a reason.
Like you have an intuition, youknow who you want to be, you
have a path you're supposed totravel in this life.
That's your purpose, like it'shere for you, right?
(14:37):
That's why you're on this earth.
But so many people second guessit.
They let fear stop them, theyquestion themselves, they listen
to others, their influence,they settle, they get lazy.
But if you do that, you'regoing to suffer for the rest of
your life because you knowinside of you that there's
something more out there for youand you can feel it.
And so that's what jail did forme.
It allowed me to have aninterruption in my life, a
(14:59):
pattern interruption that gaveme five and a half years to
reflect on all these things I'msharing with you today, to
integrate them into mypsychology, into my freaking DNA
, and then to put it into action.
For five and a half years, itdidn't matter if I was in jail.
Every day I was up early,working out, reading books, you
know, positively impactingpeople around me, wanting to be
a good person even in thatnegative setting.
(15:21):
And so what I did is I shiftedmy identity over time, I shifted
my mindset, I ingrained thesehabits into the way I live.
So when I came home, I was ableto go all in on my dreams and
build the life I always wantedfor myself.
Those three learning lessons ifyou apply them in your life the
way I did, over time they willmassively transform who you are,
how you feel, how you live, howyou impact others and,
(15:43):
ultimately, the life that youcreate for yourself.
I want you guys to live theultimate life.
I want you to live the dreamlife, but only you can do it for
yourself.
So from this moment forward,you got to go all in and go 100
miles per hour and never lookback.
Your problems are not bad.
They're not inherently bad.
It's the way that you thinkabout them and the way that you
perceive them and then theemotional reaction you have that
makes them negative in yourlife.
But you can take any set ofcircumstances adversity, pain,
loss, tragedy, whatever it isand if you learn how to use your
mind, you can find something inthat set of circumstances that
(00:23):
can actually help you.
So for those of you that don'thave what you want right now,
you're not happy in your life,you got to start with high level
awareness around your thoughts.
You got to start challengethoughts that are negative and
limiting in your life.
When you're in that position,you realize how precious life is
and how much of it we waste andtake for granted, granted.
(00:48):
Welcome back to another episodeof the Unstoppable Mindset
Podcast.
I'm your host, sean Crane.
Thank you, guys for tuning intothe message.
This is going to be a reallyimpactful message for anybody in
life who wants more and maybeyou feel stuck.
Maybe you don't think thatyou're on the right path.
You don't have the rightattitude or mindset to be
successful.
This is going to help you.
I'm going to share with youthree impactful lessons I
(01:12):
learned in prison.
That changed my life.
So, if you don't know, when Iwas 23 I was facing life in
prison for a crime I didn't evendo.
I was facing life in prison.
I was charged with attemptedmurder and I spent eight months
in the county jail, going tocourt, you know, facing the
judge, the DA, you know falseaccusers, all these things, man.
(01:36):
The news press put my pictureon the front page, said Sean
Crane, charged with attemptedmurder, and it was stemming from
a fight at a party that hadturned into a stabbing in which
one man almost died.
All the while I proclaim myinnocence, but no one believed
me and there was very little Icould do to prove my innocence.
So I ended up taking a pleadeal for assault with a deadly
(01:57):
weapon and admitting guilt tosomething I didn't do to get a
lesser sentence, and I wassentenced to seven years in
prison and I ended up doing fiveand a half years.
From the time I was 23 tillright before I was 30 years old,
I was in prison and in thattime my whole world was
transformed right.
Five years is a long time to beaway, let alone in an
(02:19):
environment where you're neverrelaxed, you're never
comfortable.
Where you're never relaxed,you're never comfortable, you're
never really happy.
You know, I was in anenvironment where every day, you
were very aware of what wasgoing on and threats and danger
and pain that you'reexperiencing, whether it was
missing your family or beinghungry or just those really
(02:39):
desolate types of settings thatwe were in.
But you know, what happened waswhen I was in county jail.
I remember I was sitting thereevery day and I was waking up
thinking to myself how is thishappening to me?
Like why, why am I beingfalsely accused of this crime?
Like why is this happening tome?
You know, and you startquestioning things you know,
like why is God doing this to me?
(03:01):
Why is my life coming to an end?
This isn't fair.
And I just was being a victim.
That's the truth.
I was being a victim in the wayI was thinking.
I remember this really powerfulthing happened.
It was a shift in my ownself-talk.
I don't remember exactly, likewhen it happened, but I just
remember thinking man, I'm notgoing to make it through this
time in prison if I can't figureout how to get control of my
(03:22):
own mental state.
Like I was just going crazywith these thoughts every day
they were torturing me, theywere leading me to feel
depressed, anxious, sad, allthese negative emotions.
And I remember one day I justthought, sean, what if this
experience is actually going tohelp you?
You know, like what if thisexperience going to jail is
going to help you to get soberand avoid some accidental
overdose or just like amiserable life struggling with
(03:44):
addiction?
Because before prison I wasbattling addiction for 10 years?
And that was a thought thatreally was like challenging
those negative thoughts I washaving, because it was a
positive thought, it was in apositive or at least hopeful
outcome.
And the next thought was thatyou know, maybe this experience
is going to help me to figureout myself.
(04:04):
For the longest time I wascodependent with my dad, my
uncles, friends, cousins in ourlifestyle and I could never be
my true self.
I always was a part of thatlifestyle, that mentality.
I just never felt like I wasauthentically able to be myself
and I felt it inside.
I wasn't living the life Iwanted, you know.
And so I remember thinking whatif this experience is going to
(04:25):
get you away from all thosepeople and finally help you to
figure out who you are as aperson?
And like that was a positivething, you know, and the
ultimate one for me wasbelieving that something divine
was taking place, that divineintervention was happening in my
life to maybe save my life orto alter the course of my life,
and I remember I was sittingthere thinking what if God has a
plan for you that you can't seeright now?
(04:47):
But this is a blessing indisguise, and you hear people
share about that all the time,people that have gone through
horrendous things, extremeadversity, you know stuff that
they never would have wishedupon themselves.
And then, years later, theytalk about how it was a blessing
in disguise, and I remember inthat moment I just realized this
could be one of those moments.
This could be something thatnobody would wish upon them ever
(05:11):
Like.
It was something out of anightmare or a movie or a book
that you've seen, and you thinkto yourself no way that happened
, no way that actually happened,and it was happening to me.
And so what it did is it forcedme to make radical changes and
how I was thinking, how I wasoperating in my life, and that's
something that a lot of peoplecan't do, people that don't
change.
They don't know how to shifttheir thinking.
(05:32):
They don't know how to altertheir perspective.
You know, I talk to people allthe time and they're always
thinking about their problemsand stuff that's happening to
them and why they can't do thisand why they can't do that.
And, honestly, none of thatshit even matters.
It doesn't matter as much asthe way that you're interpreting
it does.
And that's what I realized whenI was sitting in my jail cell
that, yeah, the judge and thelawyer wanted to send me to
(05:53):
prison.
For decades, all the people atthe party falsely accused me.
The people that knew the truthweren't coming forward to help
me.
Even my own lawyers didn'tbelieve me.
Like, yeah, all this stuff wastrue, but it didn't have as much
of an impact over me and how Iwas feeling as my own thoughts
did.
You see, every day when I washaving those negative thoughts,
I was feeling so hopeless, andthat's why people get suicidal
(06:15):
and kill themselves in thosesituations.
And so when I made that shiftin my perspective and I started
looking at my situation withpotential positive outcomes, I
felt a shift inside of me.
You know now there was a littlebit of hope, a little bit of
optimism, and it made me startto reflect on my situation and
perceive it as something thatcan actually help me in my life,
(06:36):
and so that's the first thingthat I want to share with you
guys that prison taught me.
Your problems are not bad.
They're not inherently bad.
It's the way that you thinkabout them and the way that you
perceive them and then theemotional reaction you have that
makes them negative in yourlife.
But you can take any set ofcircumstances adversity, pain,
(06:56):
loss, tragedy, whatever it isand if you learn how to use your
mind, you can find something inthat set of circumstances that
can actually help you.
And it might be something thatyou can't utilize for years in
your life, it might be alearning lesson that you can
apply down the road, butwhatever it is, you can extract
something from that experiencethat could actually help you.
Like, let's say, you losesomebody that you love God
(07:17):
forbid.
You lose a child, a loved one,a significant other man, and
I've lost a lot of people in mylife.
Now, you can be sad about thatand you can dwell on that and
you can put it.
Let it put you into adepression.
Which people that go that routelike?
I don't fault you, I get it.
We're human beings.
We have emotions, but whenpeople die in my life, I do the
best to honor them in the way Ilive, going forward, and I
(07:38):
picture them being in heaven orstill part of me, right,
energetically, spiritually, andI'm like I'm going to honor my
mom, I'm going to honor my dadand the person I become.
I'm going to honor my cousinman and live and give that much
more to this life, because he'snot here to do so and he doesn't
get that chance, you know.
And so what I do is I try to usenegative situations and I try
(07:59):
to turn them into positiveopportunities for myself.
And so the way I do that is Ialways ask myself Sean, how can
you learn and grow from thesecircumstances?
You know, what is the silverlining here?
How can you use this as acatalyst to push you in a
positive direction, like that'swhat winners do in life.
They take any set ofcircumstances and they use it to
their advantage, and that'swhat I've done ever since I was
(08:21):
in jail, then prison and beyond.
You know, anything that I'vebeen facing, whether it was
challenges in relationships orchallenges in business or
challenges on a personal levelI'm always asking myself how can
I learn and grow from this?
What is God trying to teach me?
How can I come from out fromthis situation a better version
of myself than I was before Iwent into it?
And that mindset will changeyour entire life, because a lot
(08:45):
of people don't get what theywant or get where they want to
go.
Not because life's unfair, notbecause there's not opportunity,
not because you know there's acurse on them, not because
they're parents, not because youwere bullied as a kid, not
because of any of that shit.
It's because of the way you'rethinking and your mindset is
flawed.
And if you could fix that, yourwhole world's going to change
and you'll start to see it.
You'll have a new lens in whichyou view the world and over
(09:13):
time, time, you'll see differentthings, you'll have different
stuff, you'll do different stuff.
I promise you that, becausehere's the thing you must
recognize about psychology andthinking right the way you think
always has a meaning attachedto it.
So like, let's go back to me injail when I was thinking about
how my life was over and how noone believed me and how this
wasn't fair and all these things.
The meaning was a meaning thatmade me feel hopeless, like the.
The meaning attached to it washopelessness.
It was that no one's coming tohelp you, that your life's over,
like.
What a despairing feeling toexperience.
(09:34):
Right, and anytime there'smeaning attached to a thought,
there's an emotional reaction.
My emotional reaction wassadness, it was grief, it was
anger, it was resentment, it wasdepression, and so from there
that affects your actions.
So when you change your thoughtsand you start to alter your
perspective and now, the meaningthat I attached with mine was
like, hopeful and optimistic,and it gave me courage, it gave
(09:55):
me faith and that affected mydaily actions.
That's why, in prison, I wasable to make everyday count.
It's because of that shift inmy thinking.
So, for those of you that don'thave what you want right now,
you're not happy in your lifeyou got to start with high level
awareness around your thoughts.
You got to start challengethoughts that are negative and
limiting in your life and yougot to do what I do and shift
them into potentially positivethoughts, even if it's like dude
(10:18):
, somehow some way down the roadthis is going to benefit me and
you don't even know howthinking that way is better than
being a victim and thinkingnegatively.
Now the second thing I want toshare with you guys is just life
is precious, and when I satthere incarcerated in a cell
that I couldn't leave, I wouldhave given anything to be able
to get out and do anything.
I remember joking like with acellmate and being like dude.
(10:40):
I wish I could just go outsideand roll in the mud right now
down a hill like a kid.
Like go pick flowers, go walkon the beach, go hold a girl's
hand God.
Get to cuddle with a woman.
Like can you imagine that?
Get to go eat ice cream.
Get to go out in the sunset.
Get to go run up in thefoothills.
Get to go swim in the ocean.
Like get to I didn't call ortalk to, or like I was short
(11:00):
with.
Like go tell them I'm sorry,make amends.
When you're in that position,you realize how precious life is
and how much of it we waste andtake for granted.
So the second thing thatchanged my life when I was in
prison was understanding howvaluable this gift is and not
wanting to waste a second, andso what it's done for me ever
since is I truly wake up everyday and ask myself like how can
(11:26):
I make this the best day of mylife.
It doesn't mean that I have tohave these astronomical things
take place, these monumentalmilestone moments.
It just means that where I'm at, I'm present, I'm giving my all
and I'm really pushing myselfto be my best and I'm pushing
myself to make other people feelgood.
I want to impact other people,you know, I want to bring joy
into people's lives.
I want to be my best, true selfin everything I do, and so life
is precious.
That's the second thing Ilearned.
If you're taking it for granted,if you're complaining about
(11:46):
stuff, you have no idea how badit could be.
Or like, imagine if you woke uptomorrow and you're in a
hospital bed.
You know, and you had gotten ina car accident you can't even
remember, but now you'reparalyzed from the waist down.
Imagine, imagine how much youjust wish you had your body.
You could walk, you know, youcould go outside and be in the
fresh air.
Like, think about when you'resick.
All you want when you're sickis to feel better, right, like
(12:07):
when you're sick, all you wantto do is just feel not sick,
feel normal.
Well, that's kind of what Iwent through, but on a really
profound level, right with mylife like I thought my whole
life was over.
I was 23.
They were saying in prison, Ihad a blue band on in jail.
That means you're facing a lifesentence and it just really put
things in perspective for mehow quickly your life could be
(12:27):
taken from you, how precious itis.
And so, while you're here, makeit count.
Go after your dreams, be a goodperson.
Let go of the bullshit thatholds you back.
Get away from toxic people.
Put good food in your body.
Take care of your health.
Get outside, go run, go to thebeach, exercise, go travel
(12:49):
places.
If you can Go after your dreamjob.
Don't settle Like, don't limityourself.
Know your worth.
Don't allow people around youthat hold you back to be around
you.
Don't make bad, freakingchoices.
Everything you do is going toshape and mold the life that you
create.
Go all in.
Like all the cliche and cornythings that people say are so
true.
Live each day like it's yourlast.
Like I don't know what theother ones are, I can't think of
them right now.
Like like, be a good person.
(13:10):
Give your all, be all you can,be like the army.
All that stuff is so true.
I remember sitting in jail,going oh my gosh, all the corny
bullshit that I used to clownand thought was a joke.
It's all true, like all thethings that you see in
commercials or all the stuffthat elderly people tell you.
It's all true, and one dayyou're gonna potentially realize
that in a painful way, becauseyou wasted too much time.
(13:32):
And I know a lot of people thatdie with regrets, a lot of
people that die never even beingclose to their full potential
or doing what they want in life.
In fact, there's some statisticout there.
I don't know how people figurethis stuff out, but they must've
asked a bunch of people ontheir deathbeds their main
regret in life, and the majorityof them said that they didn't
live the life that they trulywanted, that they lived the life
where they settled.
They limit themselves, oroftentimes they live the life
(13:54):
based on other people'sexpectations for them, not their
own, whether it's familymembers, society, their
community, whatever it is theirreligion, their country that
they were in.
Don't limit yourselves, becausethat's going to come back to
haunt you one day as regret.
And so this leads into the lastthing that I recognized and
really changed my life when Iwas in jail, and that was we got
to be honest with ourselvesabout what we want, who we want
(14:15):
to be, you know.
You got to be honest withyourself because so many people
have a truth inside their heartand then they have a version of
themselves.
They showed the world, theyhave their authenticity and then
the mask they put on, they havetheir goals, their dreams.
God put those dreams in yourheart for a reason.
Like you have an intuition, youknow who you want to be, you
have a path you're supposed totravel in this life.
That's your purpose, like it'shere for you, right?
(14:37):
That's why you're on this earth.
But so many people second guessit.
They let fear stop them, theyquestion themselves, they listen
to others, their influence,they settle, they get lazy.
But if you do that, you'regoing to suffer for the rest of
your life because you knowinside of you that there's
something more out there for youand you can feel it.
And so that's what jail did forme.
It allowed me to have aninterruption in my life, a
(14:59):
pattern interruption that gaveme five and a half years to
reflect on all these things I'msharing with you today, to
integrate them into mypsychology, into my freaking DNA
, and then to put it into action.
For five and a half years, itdidn't matter if I was in jail.
Every day I was up early,working out, reading books, you
know, positively impactingpeople around me, wanting to be
a good person even in thatnegative setting.
(15:21):
And so what I did is I shiftedmy identity over time, I shifted
my mindset, I ingrained thesehabits into the way I live.
So when I came home, I was ableto go all in on my dreams and
build the life I always wantedfor myself.
Those three learning lessons ifyou apply them in your life the
way I did, over time they willmassively transform who you are,
how you feel, how you live, howyou impact others and,
(15:43):
ultimately, the life that youcreate for yourself.
I want you guys to live theultimate life.
I want you to live the dreamlife, but only you can do it for
yourself.
So from this moment forward,you got to go all in and go 100
miles per hour and never lookback.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.