How To Be The Hero Of Your Own Story! Feat. Michael Unbroken @michaelunbroken

 💪 🔥🤯 In this episode, John and La'Fayette are joined by special guest Michael Unbroken. Michael is an entrepreneur, coach, podcast host, award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma.  Within the conversation Michael unpacks how we all can be the hero of our own story through community, connection, commitment, discipline, dedication, determination, and domination.  Michael also  shares how we can build momentum in our lives through micro wins and how we all can overcome the trauma we've faced in our lives. To hear more of how you can be the hero of your own story you'll have to hit that PLAY & DOWNLOAD button!

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Transcript

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Welcome to the unscripted Authentic Leadership podcast. Podcast we are seeking to lead change while also seeking to understand. We are also here as a platform for leaders to come together, to unite, to develop into power, other leaders in the areas of business, family, faith, community. I'm your host, Lafeyette Lane, joined by my co-host John LeBrun. Today, we are joined by my special guest, Michael Unbroken, of being unbroke. Put those clapping always in the comments section, put those hands together for our special guest who was here to have a conversation today about how you could be the hero of your own story. Michael is the entrepreneur. He's a coach. Park assholes or wedding speaker, bestselling author and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. Today, he has joined us right here on unscripted Authentic Leadership podcast. Michael, thanks for coming on. Let's get right into the conversation. Mike, if you would just start us off, man. Tell our audience of more about who you are and what you do. Yeah, absolutely. I think context is always everything. So I'd like to give you guys the elevator pitch, if you will. Today, I'm an author, speaker, a coach and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. But that hasn't always been my experience. When I was four years old, my mother, she cut off my right index finger. See, she was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and my stepfather was super abusive, like the kind of guy you pray is never your stepfather. And I spent most of my childhood homeless and in poverty. And at some point, at one point in my life, between 10 and 12 years old, I lived with 30 different families. I got high for the first time when I was 12, drunk at 13, expelled from school at 15. Luckily got put into a last chance program. Still did not graduate high school one time. I was selling drugs, breaking into cars, you know, doing all of those things that are disruptive to your life. It was just what I thought was what you're supposed to do. And I found myself after I didn't graduate high school one time, they literally handed me the diploma. They were like, you just got to get out of here, man. And I was sitting one day and I was like, what is the solution for poverty? What is the solution for abuse? Like how do you how do you in this? And I was like, oh, it's got to be money, right? That's got to be the thing. And so I said to myself, I'm going to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. By the time I'm 21 legally. Now, this part was super important because my uncle's in prison for life. I've been in handcuffs. I got family members gone to jail. By the time I was 26, my three best friends have been murdered. Like I knew if I stayed on this path, that was not going to end well for me. And so I started working really hard and just trying to figure out what to do. And by 18, I was a general manager and training for a fast food restaurant with 52 people under me. And by the time that I was 20, heading into 21, I landed a job with a Fortune Ten company, no high school diploma, no college education. And and that was the thing that happened, right? I was a kid. I got the six figures. Life is going to get better, but it didn't. And I found myself at three hundred and fifty pounds smoking two packs of cigarets a day, drinking myself to sleep. And that's when I put a gun in my mouth. I was just like money was supposed to solve this and it didn't. And that was kind of my rock bottom moment. And I went and, you know, the next day you think that'd be it. But the next day I'm lying in bed and it's 11 o'clock in the morning. Keep in mind, I'm like three hundred and fifty pounds. I'm eating chocolate cake and watching the crossword games. Like, that's not rock bottom. I don't know what is. And and I went I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and I, I didn't recognize the face. I remember being eight years old and the water company came and turned our water off. I grew up in Indianapolis, I grew up in America, and we were so poor, they turned our water off. And I took this little blue bucket from the backyard and I walked across the street to the neighbor's house, and I turned on their spicket. And for the first time in my life, I stole water. And I remember, like, looking at myself in the mirror and having this moment be like, this is not the life that I'm supposed to have. And so while I wasn't poor, my life was a disaster and all the other ways, because I was so terrified to face the truth of the abuse of all of the pain I've been through, of the loss of the suffering. And then fast forward 11 years later, I'm speaking with you guys today. And that's been this journey of healing in every way you can imagine. Therapy, group therapy, men's group therapy, CBT, MDR, all the acronyms, getting serious about coaching, getting serious about learning, of having mentors, of reading the books, going to the conferences, listening to the audios, going to the trainings. It started getting serious about trauma, informed education, where today I have like over thirty five trauma informed education certifications. And I never planned on this being my life, just to be honest with you. I never signed up to be the spokesperson for child abuse when I was sitting a few years ago when I was just thinking to myself, well, if I don't do this, who's going to? It's powerful. Absolutely. So you just gave us a summarization of your life, your story, but yet and still you have a t shirt on your brand that says Think Unbroken, everything that you just stated. Which suggest that you said be broken today. How did you get to the place to say, I'm not going to allow the broken things that in my life to stop me, but I'm going to have the mentality of unbroken? How did you get to that place? Yeah, phenomenal question. The reality is, in part, I'm stubborn. Like, if anyone can go back to track any of the traits of who I am from my childhood today, it would be stubbornness. It's both probably my greatest attribute and my greatest flaw. And what's really interesting about that is when I was a child, I would hear people all the time be like, oh, he's broken, he's messed up, he's poor. Look how he operates. You know, our clothes and food came from the church pantry. Like I wore clothes from the goodwill, like we were so poor. So I was just like used to it. And I was used to people doing that in my teens and then in my 20s, like it was like I had all this money and like no one ever said that. But then I would hear it in passing to other people. They'd be like, yeah, that person's broken. That person's messed up because they have something that doesn't fit into the scope of what we think should be the norm. And so I'm laying in bed one night. This was four and a half years ago now. And I had an argument with someone and I have a pretty strict rule in my life. It's no yelling aloud. And this person was yelling at me in this argument. I said, you know what, we'll have to connect later. I'm leaving. This is not how we're going to do this. And I get a text from them later that evening and they're like, you know what, you're broken still. And I was like, OK, cool. What? How could I react to that? A bazillion ways. And I'm laying in bed. I can't sleep that night. And I'm just having all these memories of these moments of people saying this in my lifetime. And I was like, man, that's just that's not me. That's not my wife. That's that's not how I think. And it was like this literal lightning bolt moment where I was like, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. And so my journey into that place of where I've been able to have that in my own life has been, I think, of the most simplified fashion. Being able to live in two ways. One, when I look in the mirror, I'm okay with the reflection now. And two, if you don't like me, I don't care, because what does that have to do with me? And the thing that I'm always trying to hold onto is this idea that the further that we operate within our intuition, learning to trust ourself, learning to believe that we're making the right choices and decisions for ourselves, the more we remove ourselves out of the chaos of this brokenness and further and deeper into the reality of self actualization, of being the person we're capable of being, of being the hero of our own story. But it took this tremendous amount of effort, because here's what you have to understand. When we're young were put into these boxes, we're told if you color the moon purple, you're not intelligent. We're told, don't wear that shirt. Don't cut your hair that way. Don't believe in that thing. And every time that you move towards this idea of trying to understand who you are as a kid, there's some kind of ramification . For me, the most dangerous place to be myself was in my home. I had no right to be a human being there. And then at school, there was always the ridicule. So even there, I didn't feel safe. And so whatever band you liked, I liked whatever whatever clothes you wore, I would try to war. People call me a copycat man because I didn't know how to be me. And so this idea of being unbroken, if I were really to bottle it down into the most simplified fashion possible, it's about being yourself in its entirety without worrying about the guilt, shame and judgment that come from other people. And by looking in the mirror and being OK with the choices and the decisions that you make every day. Incredible. So you you specialize in childhood trauma. That's very interesting to me. What do you do about the childhood trauma, those that have experienced that? And how do you go about helping people through those? Because you're helping adults that have experienced the childhood trauma. What do you say to those who have experienced that and bring about that healing? Yeah, the really difficult part about understanding it, once you especially have, you know, an insight on the education of it is you can go and look at markers from there's a thing called the Ace Adverse Childhood Experiences study done in 1994 by Dr. Falletta, Kaiser Permanente in the California Center for Disease Control. And they were looking at this point of measurement of, you know, does childhood trauma and abuse impact long term detrimental ramifications to someone's life? And resoundingly, the answer is yes, of course. Right, because we're the sum total of all the experiences of our life leading up to this moment. So all of those things that happen in formas and so in this cervezas series of these 10 questions, and depending on where you fall in line with those, you know that. Did anyone in your household hurt you? Did you ever go hungry? Did you not get taken to the doctor when you to where you molested? Were you hurt or abused? Did anyone in your family commit suicide or have a suicidal attempt at your parents get divorced? And then a few more questions. And depending on how you answer those questions, you're going to fall somewhere in mind based on these statistics. Now, I will say this. I believe that the the study needs to be more conclusive. It's been a while. It needs more money. It needs more funding. But but you can't hide from what's right there in front of you. And chances are most people have answered yes to one of those questions. Right. Did one of these things happen statistically? 83 percent of people answer yes to one of those. My argument is that it's likely very much higher. I would think more of like 92 to 95 percent. When you take into consideration that one, a lot of children are groomed and enmeshed into this idea of what happens in the household, stays in the household. And then you have the part about no reports and you know all those things. What's fascinating about this information, why I always start here is because when you look at the correlation between childhood trauma and long term detrimental ramifications and impacts, your 50 to 100 percent more likely to commit suicide. You're twenty 20, 200 percent more likely to be an alcoholic, 2000 percent more likely to smoke. And then there's things like diabetes, heart disease, pulmonary embolism, asthma, epilepsy, all these things start because we grow up in this cortisol state. And so one of the things that I'm always looking at in my own life are the markers for, you know, what is the impact? I've had asthma, I've had E. coli. I've gotten really sick a few times, almost died when I was twenty nine years old. I have a couple of autoimmune diseases because of when you look at the information, it proves if your body is growing up in this fight or flight state, it's going to be really difficult for you to be healthy. Right. The sympathetic nervous system is about survival. And when you're in this cortisol induced state because your amygdala is out of control, you find yourself in the scenario where you have no space to do the other side, which is the parasympathetic nervous system in rest and digest that recovering, that healing, that growing. And so I know this is a long term, long answer to your question, but I want to create context so people really understand this, because there are signs in their symptoms, right? There is depression, there's anxiety, there's social awkwardness. There's so many things that come along with that. And so when I'm working with someone, the first thing that I always want to do is just teach them that. Right. Do you understand the science? Do you understand the research first and foremost? Because that became the pivotal. I would say, honestly, when the pendulum swung to me, taken this gigantic leap forward in my own healing, it was because I started to understand the research, the science and the education. And then I started going deeper. And when I help people, like I want to be clear, like I don't I don't help anybody. I know this is going to sound crazy, but nobody's here to rescue you. You got to be the hero of your own story. I'm not showing up on a horse with a sword to come and take care of you. All I have is tools. All I have is training. All I have are the things that I know and understand that I've taken and added to my own life to create massive change. And when I hand those tools in those understandings to people, my job is to help guide them through it. Like that's this idea about being the coach, the coaches on the sidelines. Bill Belichick is never in the game, you know what I'm saying? And so with that, the thing that I'm always thinking about is like, I can't help you win the championship. I can only give you the playbook to get there, because when you're there, when you're on the field, when you're in your life, when you're in the moments of making those decisions, you have to be able to trust yourself. You have to be able to honor yourself. You have to. Have these things in life where you can be able to make choices knowing you're doing the right thing for yourself and part of the journey of healing is it's very much an looking at and acknowledging the experience. I think one of the things that's most difficult for people and this is I raise my hand to this being the first one in the room to what is the reality as we come from a society that tells you not to talk about these things, to hide from these things, to run from these things, to be a man, to man up, to not sherratt, to put yourself in the position to be stronger than it. And I'll tell you this, the more I push down the the terrible, atrocious experiences of my life, the worse my life was. When I started hilling it, doing the work, going to therapy, growing, changing, healing, making meaning of these experiences. Everything got different, obviously not overnight. I mean, I started this journey over a decade ago and I've just met you guys. And so the thing is, you have to think about there's you have to deploy a tremendous amount of patience in this process and understand that it really, truly is all on you. But I'm always looking at, is there someone just simply one step in front of me that I can track behind? Wow. So you, Adam, you had said that you don't you can't fix anybody, right? But you are there to teach somebody how to be the hero of your own story. And believe is how you worded it. I saw on your website you have a six day process. Is that tie in to how you would teach somebody? How to be their own. To be the hero of their own story. Yeah. You know, I think well, let me phrase it like this. It's not that simple. Right. I think that we we look at these things like a cool marker marker, marker marker. We have an idea we can start to create framework. We can start to move into things. You know, it's it's so complicated. And I think people often this is what I think is really funny about personal development. Like, here's the three tips to change your life forever. Oh, yeah. We all like the three tips. Yeah. Yeah. That's not real. It doesn't work that way. What I think about and you can go and you can look at all the things on all the websites. I got like 20 of them. Right. It's this if I give anybody anything practical and how you actually change your life is through momentum. You see what we think becomes what we speak and what we speak becomes our actions and our actions become our reality. And so what I'm always filtering through is this idea of can I start with kindness? Right. I teach us literally the first thing I teach to every one of my clients. I am the kind of person that is kind to myself. We're saying things to ourselves that if we said to another human being would get us arrested or punched in the face, like, are you kidding me right now? And what I'm always thinking about, OK, if I start with kindness, what can I move towards? Knowing that what I think becomes what I speak becomes my action becomes my reality, OK? Call me if I be kind to myself today, I can start to move towards growth. All right. Awesome. What does that look like? I don't know yet, because I've never done it. OK, cool. But what do I inherently know? Hmm. Maybe I need to take a shower today. Maybe I need to brush my teeth today. Maybe I need to not smoke that cigaret today or eat fast food today and see what people think is like you have to do this 180 and suddenly your life is going to be different. And the only thing I'm ever thinking about is how do I shift one degree different from where I was a moment ago? How do I move and propel myself forward to create momentum through the actions, these incremental, granular, microscopic choices and decisions every single day that start to push me forward while simultaneously understanding and knowing and acknowledging I'm going to make every mistake humanly possible on the way to getting to where I want to go. But instead of measuring those mistakes and beating myself up because I am the kind of person who was kind to myself, I measure that as data. Can I just simply look at this and go, OK, cool. I know something different about the human experience that I'm having and thus continue to move forward. And in that process, when you start from thought to action to self actualization, this moment where these things you've thought of have come true. Then you start to create this, what I would call centrifugal force, or suddenly it's a repeat of that same pattern again and again and again and again, putting you in this position where you slowly level up every single day. And so, yes, I could give you six things, but that's not as practical of this as this idea of can you move one degree different from where you are today? I didn't say better. Let's be super clear about that, because people are always like, I want to make my life better. It's going to take you a long time to make your life better, because it probably took you a long time to mess your life up. So think about this. If you can just move just a little bit every single day, your life will be different. Great Lafayette. So you're talking about building momentum through micro wins, correct? Absolutely, 100 percent. OK. Now, I saw a few things, a few of your podcast episodes on your podcast. I think it's really great what you said, something very powerful about. We're talking about being the hero of your own story. And a lot of time for people to get to that place. They have a lot of mental blocks they have to get through. Right. Or one of your episodes you were talking about taking a mental health break to avoid a mental breakdown. Well, I thought that was so good, especially in the time that we are living in. Can you kind of unpack that statement when you talk about how people tend to take a mental health break before they have a complete mental health breakdown? Yeah, well, and thank you so much for listening. That means the world to me. I put a tremendous I mean, as podcasters guys know, I mean, it takes effort. So it means the world to me that you would listen. Thank you. Yeah. How do you help the world if you don't help yourself first? Right. It's such that like airplane mentality when when the oxygen comes down, you got to put it on yourself first. And so I took this mental health break a few weeks ago because I was listening to my intuition. I go really hard in life, like in ways that people go, that's kind of crazy. But I'm always listening to myself in it. I run three businesses. I do a lot of things in my life. I'm always traveling. I'm speaking on stages, I'm on podcast. I'm doing all the things that people do. And I'm in this position where I'm like every single day I've got to ask myself this question and this and this has become a really powerful precursor for the things that I do throughout the course of my day. Am I taking care of myself or am I taking it easy on myself? Right. So you got to get really clear and understand who you are when you're asking yourself that question. And so I felt like after going nonstop for about the last year, I was like, oh, actually, I need a break. I need a break break. Like cancel all my meetings, take everything off the calendar. I'm going to disappear. I'm going to go and just do the thing that charges me up and refills me. And that's what I did on the drop of a dime, because I knew if I would have kept going through what the next five days were and then parlay that into what that following week was going to be. I don't know that I could be talking to you right now because I'd be like, I'm so burned out, I got to take a year off, you know? And so I think it's it's so much about this is what I'm talking about with intuition. You have to learn to trust yourself and understand this is what happens for a lot of people, especially people who've been through traumatic experiences. We often feel like we have to appease people, even though it's on the calendar. And we said we were going to do it like I'm a firm believer and you do what you say you're going to do. I'm a firm believer in that. But if you're not taking care of yourself, how are you going to do the things that you're supposed to do in the way that you're supposed to do them? Because at some point, you're sacrificing for lack of a better way to phrase it quality. Right. At some point you're burning the candle at both ends to the point that you have no more light. And so that's what I'm always. That, to me feels like a disaster. Right. So I'm always trying to mitigate that. And I think people need to understand, like it's OK to reschedule. It's OK to take time off. It's OK to put yourself first. It's OK to say no, but it's also okay to say yes. Say yes to yourself. I need a day off. Do you? Yes. Are you sure? Yes. Are you positive? Like you're not avoiding something. You're not procrastinating. I'm positive. Take the day off. Take care of yourself. You have to. Sort of a slow down to speed up type of mentality. Yeah, I think that's a great way to phrase it, because when you do that and you come back and you're not encumbered by the chaos of the world, because I think you both would agree, I don't know that life ever stops being chaotic. Right. I think that's just like the human experience. And so in that you take a time out, right? You get back on the field at halftime. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know why so many sports analogies tonight might. Because it's football season finally now. That's awesome. So how often we talk a lot about association on here? I mean, virtually all the time. How often do you find. In a client's situation that is so that their current association is in need of some changes to really make that next step, that one step forward or the next few steps forward. Are you. Because I want to have clarity here, so I to do something practical when you're using association, are you referring to the way that people are connecting ideas? I'm saying often we are in life based on the people that we spend most time with. I think so, yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that such a big part of this journey I'll share it's one of my favorite quotes of all time. Might be my favorite, honestly. Jay-Z says people around you saying that you changed. Well, I didn't do all this work to stay the same. You have to understand, like, if you want to step into this journey, you've got to understand you're going change. Mm hmm. You got to be willing to accept that because there is no reason to do this if you're totally good with how things are. Right, and I think that's a really difficult thing for people to understand because the people around here are also going to point it out. Some of them are going to be happy about it and some of them are. And those people that aren't men. Let me tell you what. Man, you're different. You're not the same, you know, to age myself a little bit like you acting brand new, and I'm like, OK, that's the point. That's why I'm doing this right. Like and I think that in that you have to understand something really important. It's native. We're communal species. Human beings are meant to be in connection with each other. But the people around you may be pulling you down, the people around you may be in your way, the people around. You may be the very reason why you can or cannot be successful in your mission and what it is that you want to create and build in your life. And I understand how difficult it is to make hard decisions about those people. When I was 14 years old, I put a restraining order on my mother and my stepfather at 14 years old. My decision? At 18, I told my mother, I will never talk to you again. And I followed through on that because I saw I foresaw the future, the chaos of the drugs, the alcohol, the suicidal ideation, the drinking and driving, the putting my brothers and I and my sister in danger. I saw I knew if I would not have done that, I would not be talking to you today. And the hard reality of this, and it's not an easy decision, it wasn't easy at 18, it's not easy today, but it was the right decision. And I'll share this. And that's going to be really hard for some people to hear. For some of you, your mother might be the reason you're not successful. And I'm not sitting here saying like you have to do what I did, there was a lot of chances and there was a lot of context to that. But I am saying you need to ask yourself the question. I am saying you need to contemplate who are the people that you want to have in your life? I don't know if it's true or not. If you're the sum total of the five people around you, like everyone says, I don't know that I surround myself with incredible human beings. And I would like to think I always have. And I kind of think about this idea of, you know, people in your life for these seasons for a reason. And then sometimes the season changes, and that's OK, too. And so when you kind of let go of this idea of you have to be everything to everyone all the time, you'll recognize that it's OK to go down this path of change. You should embrace it. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying it's supposed to be that way. Yes, sometimes the people in our life are great people. And the reason I think we don't disconnect a little bit is because they're not really bringing us down. They're just not helping us level up. You know what I mean? And so I tell people all the time, you don't have to remove everybody out of your life. You just have to see and notice that eventually you have to start adding others into your circle who can help you get to that next step or people who are going who are like minded. So therefore, you can speak with them on that on the same track and not just talk to your old buddies about things that you don't care about anymore, whether it's gaming or something like that. When you're wanting to be an entrepreneur or podcasts or whatever, you have to start getting in those circles. You don't have to kick everybody out. You don't kick your mom out unless obviously, if there's trauma and so forth, that would be, you know, you had an extreme case here. But if someone's mom doesn't like their new business, you don't have to remove her from your life. You just have to understand that you may not want to bring in her input. Yeah, 100 percent. And that's why you have to be. That's what I said earlier. Like, I don't care what people think about me. You have to be able to filter that out because people are going to tell you your ideas are stupid. They're going to tell you your idea is going to fail. Like, what does that have to do with you? Like this person's opinion like that has nothing to do with you. You don't get any say in that. And I think you're spot on. Like the one thing that I would 100 percent agree with is the idea that, you know, as you level up and change, you don't have to kick people to the curb. That's not what I'm saying. I've got a few best friends who they have no interest in anything that I'm doing at all. Yeah. And that's totally fine. I get tired of talking about it anyway. Right. And so when we hang out and we sit and work together and we're connecting, we're not talking about entrepreneurship, we're not talking about trauma, we're not talking about writing books, we're not talking about all these things. We're chillin and talking about the silly stuff that makes us happy because we're in connection with each other. So you're one hundred percent correct. And for the record, is the that quote Jay-Z quotes from this song on to the next one. I don't remember. I was really hoping to add to my credibility, but never mind. You may have. I don't. I could probably sing. I know the lyrics to almost every Jay-Z song. I can't tell you the name of any one of them. That's hilarious. You talked about that last I heard a C word. You talked about connection. We've been talking about connections. You have about three C's. And for these, one of those C words is connection. Can you impact to our audience and tell us what those three C's and for D's are? Yeah, absolutely. The three CS as community connection and commitment. I think that's such a big part of this journey. And I love the transition here. There's something important about being in connection with the right community and committing to that that creates this massive change in your life and community. The idea that you have to do this alone, whether it's running a business or having a family or being in this hilling journey, like that's nonsensical. You can't do this alone. You're never going to be a very, very, very, very small percentage of human beings on planet Earth are going to have massive success by themselves. Well, I can't even think of anyone. I can't even name anyone, because that's just not how it works. Whenever people do great things and they get on stage and they accept their awards or whatever, they. I think my team and this person, that person is right. No one's ever like I think me. Right. Right. And so community is everything in a connection in that community is super important, because this kind of comes back to what we're talking about a moment ago, like are you in the right community? Are you with the right people? Are you where you're supposed to be right now and getting really clear about it and then committing to that? Because as much as you want from it, you're going to have to give, because if you don't if there's no reciprocation, it's not going to work. And so I think about this all the time. When I've been in various communities in my life, the ones in which I found the most value were the most ones that I was giving the most were the ones that I was showing up to the most. And the four days, it's discipline, dedication, determination and domination and domination were to throw some people off sometimes. But I think that starting this journey like commitment is very much about discipline. We're going you got to get disciplined about life. You have to because without discipline, I just don't know how you can retrain yourself in a way in which the truth of the reality of what you can be starts to come to fruition, because that discipline requires getting up when the alarm goes off and not hitting snooze. Snooze kills your dreams, man. It's about going to the gym when you say you're going to go right. It's about that kind of discipline. And the determination is just you got to be dogged about this life. Sometimes I think, like life throws you a lot of curveballs. A lot. Right. And I think you just got to be like, OK, what's next? Keep going. And in that, I'm looking at this idea of determination and dedication being very much all kind of like within this seems krux comes out part about domination. And and this is something that my high school wrestling coach taught me. And it's carried with me a long time. And it's really about this idea of being the best that you can be for you. Be the best that dominate your life? Be amazing at your life. Be so good at your own life that you impress yourself because you've done things so incredibly hard that you crossed the finish line and you collapse and go. I didn't know I could do it, but I did. That's what it's about. That's what dominating your life is. Not making excuses, not blaming the world. Look, we can all blame the world. We can all play victim. We all. Everyone who's listening, you guys in this room right now, we have been through things in our life where was easy to lay down. And you go I come to the reality that life is hard and you play that card and you're allotted you're allowed to do what you want in your life. I'm just saying, what if you didn't think about what you could do if you pushed yourself and you looked at the challenges of life and you said, OK, great , I accept that they're there. I'm not going to quit on myself. I'm going to dominate my own life because I believe in myself enough that I'm willing to sacrifice whatever I have to to have this life that I believe I'm capable of having. And that's domination. It's just doing is showing up. It's doing it and giving yourself permission to be great. Because guess what? If you don't believe in yourself, who will? Wow. I just heard a quote from Gary Vaynerchuk. He's talking about how accountability is what brings happiness. And I think that's basically, in essence, what you and even better terms just described by dominating your life. Self accountability, being accountable to yourself, which you say you're going to do. And even the things that you have to be accountable for that may be you messed up on. Yeah, 100 percent. Look, here's the hard part about accountability with accountability comes responsibility. And my experience was, especially before accountability was not a word in my vocabulary, was not a part of my vernacular, because I did not exist within the nomenclature of my language in any capacity, because I was terrified of the truth and might be my fault. Right. It might be my fault that these things are happening. But let's be clear. I'm not saying anyone who has experienced traumatic experiences are culpable for those. That'd be a really dark thing to say. Yeah, it's my fault. I was four years old. My mom cut my finger off. That's nonsense. Let's not do that. But the thing that I think about it in accountability is did you show up for yourself today? Did you do the thing that you said you were going to do? The thing about accountability that I think is so fascinating is it's the thing that keeps you awake at night. Right. You look at your life and you can't sleep when your head's on the pillow because you got to do that thing. Like that's accountability. That's how you get to peace. Write a moistening. People ask me all the time, like, what does it mean to be hilled? I'm like, peace. Peace is what it means to be held. Because, you know, when you put your head on the pillow at night, that you've made the decisions that you need to make . You've held yourself accountable to the things that you have to say and do in the world to have the life that you want to have. And I think when you can get to accountability. Man, it just changes everything. It really does. I don't I don't know that anyone will fully understand it until they adopt this, till you really go all in 100 percent on accountability. I just don't think you'll understand the power that it has in your life. Now, that doesn't mean it's not going to take you thirty seven years to create what you want to have. That probably is. But your take actions towards that when you understand accountability. Absolutely, Michael. Leave our audience one last word. Yeah, look, here's here's the truth about life. Man, we're all in this together. We really are. And and the the more that I get into it, the deeper that I start to understand what it means to be a human, to be a man, to be a person among this world. We are so lucky enough to be a part of is that you have full control over your future. You truly do. And every morning I put my feet on the ground. I literally say every morning, the second I wake up, I go. I am the one in control of my life. And in that, just a very simple sentence for you to carry with you, though, trauma may be our foundation. It is not our future. Wow, what a might drop mobile net with Michael on all social media platforms. His Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all platforms, his handlers and Michael and broken all one at Michael Unbroken. And also check out his podcast. Think broken podcasts. Those you do. Listen to this. You can also pick up Michael's book Think Unbroke. And I think you said that you had you you'll be willing to give some free copies to the audience as well, Michael. Anyone who wants it can have it for free. All you have to do is do one or two things. Either go to trauma, healing book dot com or go to your library. Amazing. Stay connected, work on script, the Authentic Leadership podcast, follow us on our various social media platforms, a script, authentic leadership podcast or Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Also you Canagliflozin on Twitter and unscripted lead. And also Instagram. You can connect with us there on at Unscripted Leadership. Also, those of you that are part of our listening audience, you can stream the podcast or wherever you get your podcast app, from Apple to Spotify, Google Podcasts, Ihar Radio, Pandora, Stitcher and so forth. Connect with us on our website. Unscripted, that's leadership dot com. There you can sign up for a mastermind group. You also can sign up for an unscripted e-mail group where you will receive a 10 percent of Merche promo code. They're unscripted Daste leadership dot com. As always, we are here to build bridges and not walls. Bridges connect and walls divide. Until next time we pray that you be the leader regardless, calls you to be cowboys.