From a childhood of ABUSE to LOVING the world | Seth Gehle

Seth had a horrific childhood. Years of abuse, all detailed in his recent book release. But he shares with us how that empowers him to do things that others would say is impossible (like running 100 miles straight) and also how his heart bursts with love to give back to a world that once hurt him. Incredible energy in this episode! 

His book:
https://www.amazon.com/Strength-beyond-Shadows-Overcoming-Childhood/dp/B0DMGQZZ1V

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Watch this episode and many more on my Youtube channel! 👀
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Transcript

Early Wins As A Self-Publisher

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And I've I'm just finished reading the book. Uh it's been up for let's see December of 2025, right? 2024? Yeah, yeah. That's all you had 10,000 copies sold.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Um so I'm I'm approaching 20. I'm close to 20. Yeah, I'm like, I think I'm at like 17 or 18,000.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Self-published, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, bro. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

That's remarkable. Like uh, I mean, people self-publish books, and then like uh I think I saw one of your videos, like you were kind of expecting maybe well, people were telling you to expect maybe like 100, 200 cells or something like that. Um I mean, obviously the power from the story itself, like you're telling a really, really incredible story that gives it a ton of uh momentum. What do you what do you think has also helped uh like really get it out there, man?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

It's

Marketing Reality Without A Publisher

SPEAKER_00 0:49

a lot of work, man. Like with so when you self-publish, that's the when you self-publish, everything is on you. I don't have an agent, I don't have anybody to help push my book out there. So everything is on you. When I was in the publishing process, uh I did a lot of things that probably they probably weren't like the best financial decisions. So for example, I was doing a lot of podcasts, but most of these podcasts I would fly everywhere. I mean, I went out to Utah multiple times, I went out to LA several times, New York, uh, Montana. Like I was going all over the country. I took like 20 plus flights. I was sleeping in airports, so I wouldn't have to pay for a hotel, all those things, just to try and get as much exposure out there as I could on all these different podcasts. And um, that was very expensive, but it gave me opportunities to tell, yeah, it gave me opportunities to tell my story over and over and over again. And that was the helpful part. So I think that like when most people publish a book, especially self-published authors, they think that they're gonna put it on Amazon, and then people are just gonna go buy their book. Um to this day, there's probably probably I think I've probably sold five or ten copies by somebody just coming across my book on Amazon. I would be willing to bet that literally almost every single one of my sales has come from somebody seeing a post that I made and then going and buying the book. So that's like the big misconception a lot of people think with publishing, because a traditional publisher, uh, a traditional publishing route, they will they have all the resources, connections, and all those things, all those things to get your book in front of people. And then, you know, everybody's publishing books nowadays, so I don't really it's kind of saturated. What's and to me, what's impressive is like not being performative and not just writing a book to write a book, it's having like a good message and purpose behind it. Um, you know, I think a lot of people are very performative now. I think that a lot of people they are writing books just to call themselves an author, just to call themselves a published author. And so I didn't want to do that. I I took this really long route of publishing my book and tried to do it the best way possible, write the best story that I possibly could, uh, in the best way for people to understand it and and receive the message from the book. Um, and I think that's that's been a big piece of it too. You know, I'm not a very performative person, so even when I do podcasts or if I go and do an interview somewhere or go to a speaking event, what you see is what you get. I'm not gonna get up here and like kind of Andy Elliot this whole thing and take off my shirt and my abs. And like, you know, that's not who I am. Like I'm just I just am who I am, and that like that real authenticity, yeah, like resonates, it resonates with people. And you can just tell when somebody's not being authentic, even if it's through writing a book. So yeah, long answer, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

It read it reads really well, man. Like uh it's really authentic, like it's a it's a really uh it's a story that's being told from a real dude, and that's uh it makes it so easy to read. Uh it's a very challenging read because of the content, but uh it's really, really awesome, man. Like when when you were writing it, uh, what was the process like

Writing As Therapy On Paper

SPEAKER_01 4:08

for you? Like uh was it cathartic to write the book itself?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

So yeah, it's interesting. Writing, you know, a lot of people tell you that journaling is a great tool for therapy and all that. And writing the book was basically a journaling process for me. Yeah, and I'm not into like sitting down and journaling things out, but writing the book was that, and it was just like you're saying, it was like very cathartic and therapeutic. It was like because when you tell your story, you know, I've done a ton of podcasts and I've done a ton of interviews and speaking events, and when I speak, it comes out my mouth, unless it's being recorded, it's gone forever. And it takes like little to no effort to get word out of my mouth, and you know, so it's like think before you speak kind of thing. But like it's just this is like nothing just to talk about. I mean, it's helpful to talk, but it's it's nothing when you write though, writing and to write a story requires you to make sure that you've got everything in line, yeah, all the details are right, you're not talking out of step or out of line. Because once you put it on paper, you know, I if I present this book to you, you can't read the book and then interpret what I'm saying. Like you have to, you only have what's in front of you. So if I don't write the story properly, you're gonna read that book and you're gonna be so confused about what's going on. So the point I'm making here is um when you're when I was writing my book, like you have to be so deliberate with every word you put on paper because that's it. Like the nobody I can't sell my book if somebody's gonna call me and be like, hey, page 49, what do you do mean right here? Because I'm a little confused. So I have to I have to really explain exactly how I felt, exactly what was going on. You have to be very um uh you have to go really in depth when you're writing. And so that part was very therapeutic because like I I had to sit there and it it might take me five minutes to tell you a story about what happened to me as a child, but it might take me 20 or 30 or 40 minutes to write about it because I'm trying to like I'm trying to get all this emotion on paper. It's easy to do it as I'm talking because I've got my hands, I've got my face, my body language, I can move around and flexion, all those things. But when you're writing, you don't have any of that, you just have the words, and so yeah, it was really cool to be able to sit down and like document everything step by step and how it happened, all the emotions and the feelings, and that it was really like introspective, maybe is that the word that I'm looking for? Like you're really reflecting on yourself and what you went through, and so yeah, a lot of that was very very helpful, and it made me remember a lot from my childhood. There are some parts of my book that I had completely forgotten about, and as I was writing and telling my story, I was like, Oh shit, I I forgot all about this. Like, oh my god, I couldn't, I couldn't, I can't believe I forgot that this thing happened. So yeah, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

And that's and then the weird experience when you're writing something and then it starts to flow through you, you're like, I fucking forgot about this shit.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's how it is, man. It's crazy because like I mean, I wrote I wrote literally wrote my entire book in like a like a three-day weekend. Like a Friday, dude. Like I once I made the decision, you know, kind of a long story, but I had written my book and deleted it like three times. And then the third, yeah, because I didn't think anybody would care. I didn't like I didn't want to like write this story and I didn't want to like get on the internet and cry about things. And I just I wasn't really self conscious about it. But when I made the decision and I finally committed, I mean I literally dude, just like you said, I was just like locked in the matrix and I was just I'm in there. Yeah, dude. So it was it was a cool process.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Uh it's really cool that um what's the guy's name, Mark? Uh from The White Underbelly. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, yeah, Salton Underbelly.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. Uh did you meet him initially from doing the episode on his show?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

So I when I go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Uh I was just gonna ask how how much had time had you spent telling your story before you wrote the book.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, so let me see.

Going Public With A Story

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I so I published in December 2024. I started talking about my story publicly in like February of that year. Um, so relatively, yeah. So like 10 months before I published the book, I started talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

And publicly you mean like just like maybe happen on the internet or like telling friends or going and speaking in groups and stuff, or what?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Um, yeah, literally, I just like I always wanted to write a book, and so one day I I just got on TikTok and I made a little fucking 90-second video, and I was just like, hey guys, you know, I'm writing a book, and I was gonna wait to say this until my book came out, but I'm just gonna get it off my chest because I did have a lot of anxiety before my book.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Well you had three days to say I'm writing a book because you you wrote the book like a weekend.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Well, the the okay, I say I say I that that probably came off a little weird. I wrote the entire book in three days, but it took like nine months to do all the editing and proofreading and all that. Yeah, but when I made that decision to like to like commit to that process, I was so anxious about my book coming out and like people having opinions of me. And so I just I just like cleared the air and I just got on the internet and I was one day I was like, hey, I'm recording a podcast this weekend with a couple friends of mine, and I'm just gonna like put this out there. But these things happened to me when I was a kid, and now I'm gonna start talking about it to help other people. And I just like said that, and you know, it didn't really go anywhere, like a few people saw it, and people were like, Oh my god, it's crazy. But then once I started doing podcast interviews and actually like pumping out content, explaining what happened to me, um you know, it started to get more and more traction because it it is such an intense story, and you know, so yeah, I just started tell telling the story. I mean, I'm still relatively new as far as like storytelling goes. You know, I'm probably you know, when you write a book, they say you're supposed to push it and market it for and really kind of try to sell the book for for about uh 12 to 24 months, and so I'm still in that that new phase of a of a you know author and storyteller.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah. Um how can you talk to me about how much power the experiences you had lost over you when you really began to step into sharing your story? Yeah, so and maybe just for the just maybe for people that are just listening to this and don't or don't already know your story, like a uh, you know, kind of give them what they need to know to understand who you are.

The Backstory Behind The Book

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah, basically I I grew up with a single parent household. My mother raised me and my three sisters or me and my two sisters by herself. My father, he tried to kill my mother when I was a baby. Um, so he went to prison for a long time. And my mother was raising me and my two sisters. She eventually got addicted, you know, was abusive, violent, very, very, you know, violent home drugs and abuse. And then because of that, I was molested at five years old by a teenager. And then when I was 10 years old, I met a man outside of my home. His name was Mondo. And this is really where the the the uh you know, the meat and potatoes of the story, I guess, is when I was 10 years old, I met Mondo, and Mondo was a 30-year-old man who eventually sexually abused me from the time I was 10 until 16. And, you know, that was uh basically every single weekend occurrence. Every single weekend I'd go to his house and uh he would abuse me and he he would molest me. And you know it was the full range of abuse. Everything that you could imagine happening to a child, I went through every little sexual encounter that you can have. I experienced by the time I was about 12 or 13 years old. And then by the time I was 16, um, I eventually reported him. He went to prison for 10 years. He died. Yeah, yeah, he died in 2019 um while I was in Afghanistan. And then, you know, that that that's basically what my book is about. It's about the childhood trauma, uh, overcoming all of those things, you know, and trying to trying to become the best person you possibly can, despite what you've gone through.

The Attic And The Pain Cave

SPEAKER_00 12:21

And so to kind of answer your question about does telling the story, talking about it, kind of take away the power uh of all of the things that have happened to me, right? And it does that to answer your question like short and blunt, yes, it does. The more you talk about things, the more you process things, the more you are vocal, or even if it's just writing, you know, you don't have to come on a podcast, you can just talk to your spouse, you can talk to your friend, you could talk to a therapist about it. Whoever you're talking to, um, I kind of like think about entering the pain cave or kind of going up in. I always think about the attic. This is like your attic. And if you go up inside anybody's attic, you know, there's stuff up there that they haven't seen in years, and you know, they know it's up there, it's dirty, it's messy, there's cobwebs, and you have to go up there and clean it out. And the more you go up in there and you see everything that's in the attic, there's some boxes in there that that you don't want to open up because there's some bad things in there. But the more you go and open those things up and you say, Yep, this is this is what I got. These are my dirty dishes, this is my dirty laundry. The more you look at it, go through it, and you just start to accept it. Like that that's just that's who you are, that's what happened, it is what it is. Um, it does take away that that pressure uh and anxiety of it all, you know. So it does help a lot to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

What specifically does it remove, like does it remove some of the rumination of thoughts of like, you know, I'm a bad person that this happened to me, or you know, like no one wants to hear about it, or like what are some of the thoughts that people have that have experienced that that then they might hear this and be like, I could be freed from these if I just kind of if I just got it off my chest to someone that loved me or a therapist or something.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah,

Fear Of Judgment And Masculinity

SPEAKER_00 14:05

so I'll tell you from my point of view, I was the biggest thing that I was nervous about, honestly, because I'm a man, I've I'm a I look at myself like I'm just bit I've tried to I've tried to emulate what a man is. I've got this beard and jujitsu and running ultramarathons and lifting weights, and I was in the I was in the army, I was in the infantry, and so my whole life I've tried to live, I love doing hard shit. I love doing just like demanding things, I love doing things that are impressive in some regard. And while I do all those things, my biggest fear was that somebody would find out what happened to me and think that I was gay, or think that I enjoyed it, or think that I wanted those things to happen. That was my biggest fear, honestly. And it's not that I thought that I was gay or that I questioned my own sexuality, that is a thing that happens, it never happened for me, but I was worried that other people would have this perception of me. And so when I started talking about it, and then I realized, like, I mean, you're gonna have your trolls, which are fine, but in the grand scheme of things, like nobody it like when I told my story, nobody nobody cared about what happened to me. And it's not that they don't, it's not that they didn't care about what happened, but they're like, Seth, we don't like we don't look at you any differently, bro. Like, yeah, I should I showed up at the gym to do jujitsu, and my buddies came up to me, four, five, six, ten, ten guys come up to me and they're like, bro, holy shit, man. They're like, You're fucking awesome, man. Like, I can't believe you went through all that and they're shaking hands, giving hugs, and they're dapping me up. And that was like, I was like, oh my god, I was taking, I was taking it back. I I wasn't expecting the support that I got out of my out of my jujitsu friends once they heard my story. And I still get it today, like almost weekly, somebody will walk up to me and be like, Holy shit, man, I saw I saw you on the internet. Like, I saw your story. This is crazy. Uh, a lot of respect. So uh that's what I've gotten publicly,

Guilt, Truth, And Deeper Processing

SPEAKER_00 16:06

you know. And then in your personal life, for people who don't share publicly, um, so you'll you you will develop, like you said, you'll develop these these feelings that I'm a bad person or that I let this happen or that whatever. And if you don't talk about that, you can't dispel those myths. Okay. Um, if you came to me and you said, I feel like I'm a bad person, or I feel like it's my fault because I kept going back. Most people will tell you you were just a child, it's not your fault. Um, don't think about that. And it's like this very surface level thing. While me being a child was certainly true and it was not my fault. One thing that I have done and that I try to get other people to do when they tell me they feel like it's their fault, is I'll say, Well, why do you feel like it's your fault? And they say, Well, because I kept going back and I didn't say anything. Again, this is where a lot of, I think a lot of people mess up. They'll stop right there and they'll say, Well, it's not your fault, like you were just a child. And I'll and I'll go deeper and I'll just say, Well, why didn't you say something? A lot of people look at that like victim blaming, victim shaming. They're like, How could how dare you ask the victim a question like that? But they are trying to process what happened to them. So let's go to that point. Why did you go back? Why didn't you say something? Well, I didn't go back because of this and this and this, and I didn't say something because of all these reasons. Okay, well, well, there's your truth right there, right? We know it's not your fault. You just can't figure out why it's not your fault because you haven't gone into that place and thought about it and processed it. If you just leave it on the surface and you just feel like everything's your fault, well, why do you feel like it's your fault? Could you have done something? I I know in my story, I could have done something, and that is a that's a painful truth to admit. Um, I voluntarily went back to my abuser's home. You know, I I protected him. When people asked me, is he doing anything to you? I told them no, he's not like that. And now I'm not saying it's my fault. Again, I was a child and I was being manipulated and I was scared. That's those are all the reasons why I said those things. But the truth is the truth. And the truth is there were things that I could have done. I could have just elected to stop going back to his house, but I didn't. And and that when you accept both of those truths, that's really what starts to help, I think you help you heal.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Um, yeah, because that's the reality of the situation.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

That's the reality of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

It is, and it sucks. The the the truth sometimes it just sucks, and we try to dance around it. You know, I think you you talked about Mason Sawyer, right, recently. Yeah, and um, that's one thing that he said about grieving is like there's a book that he talks about, and I and I reference it now as well. But in the book, he the guy says uh or or when something really bad happens to somebody, a lot of times we say, I don't know what to say to you. Like, there's no words that I could say, I can't find the words. And it's very important to find the words for these really horrible situations. And sometimes the best and only words you can find is that shit sucks. Like that really, really sucks really bad. Like you lost your entire family in a car crash. Like, what do you say to that person? That sucks. That just sucks. That shit sucks, man. I'm sorry, that's that fucking sucks. I tell you my story, and it's like, man, that sucks. You know, that that really sucks. And so um, yeah, I think that's yeah, yeah.

Moving Past Survivor As Identity

SPEAKER_01 19:30

The something that I would love to hear more from you, man, on is the is your perspective on the it's a sense of label, but victimhood, survivor stuff, yeah, and how that can be nice in some way, but also maybe limiting and where you stand on using that word and how you view yourself in this process.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, so I I know that the world has coined that term, you know, survivor as a like a term of strength, and they try to, you know, we are not victims anymore, we're survivors, right? But so many people identify as survivors that they maybe not relish, but they they they sit in that, right? And they're just they're okay with survivor. I'm a survivor. Well, I don't want to like I don't want I don't go up to anybody and tell anybody that I'm a survivor of anything. I that's not who I am. And this one of the things that helped me the most was changing my identity and doing something that I'm proud of. When you tell somebody you're a survivor of some sort of trauma, there's not really like a badge of honor that comes with that, there's not a some sort of reward. You don't get to get up on a stage and say, hey, this person had the most traumatic childhood of 2026. You know, there's nothing that comes with that, there's no pride, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

So it's like Do you smile when you receive that reward? Do you give it to me?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, you know, but dude, you know, it's funny you say that. Do you smile? Do you do because that's what it's come to now. The world has come to uh how much more traumatic was my life than yours, and how much more trauma do I have than you? And you you need to validate my trauma because if you don't, then you're a blamer or a shamer or you're attacking me. And so I am trying to help people break that mold. I don't want people to live in this again, this survivorship or this victimhood. I that's why I encourage people to go out and do things to earn titles instead of living with the labels of that life has given you. You know, you got these labels where life things happen to you in life. And yet, am I a survivor of trauma and and sexual abuse and all these things? Yes, I absolutely am. But those are like labels that were kind of stamped on me, and then I've gone out and earned other titles. I've gone out and earned things that I'm very proud to talk about, you know. And that that was the big thing for me. I want to tell people, like, man, you want to, yeah, my childhood sucked, but like I also ran 100 miles one time. Do you want to hear about that? Like that, that's pretty badass. You know, or lifting weights or competing in just two or go ahead seven times, right? Um, I ran one 100 miler, I've run seven total ultramarathons. Yeah.

Chosen Suffering And Earned Titles

SPEAKER_00 22:21

So in in 2024, I started running the ultramarathons. Um, and a lot of that again was it's this whole identity thing. It's like I I want to go out there and show people that, yeah, man, I've been through so much shit in my life, and I'm still choosing to go out here and to suffer. That's like the whole chosen and unchosen suffering thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Some gogging shit, man. Um seems like um like the survivor thing is it is a it is a representation of your strength. Like I think about all the times in the book you mentioned suicidal ideation and you know, like just how difficult it was to stay here for this. And I think that speaks to a lot of the strength in the heart and the courage it took to be here. And so the survivor thing does ring true for a moment. I think maybe, you know, and like maybe you could let me know your thoughts on this, but like maybe it's just not the place to stay. Like, you know, like you're a survivor of this experience because you're so fucking strong. Now, how can you take that knowledge you have about yourself and what you've been through to then go and attack the next thing and to really see how much you can flourish in your life because of the strength you've witnessed on yourself through that pain?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, man. I I think it's incredible to like you said to survive tragedy, but it's it's so much more incredible. We are not inspired by trauma. Nobody looks at me and says, Man, I want to be a survivor, just like said, I want to survive trauma. They are inspired by the things that you do despite your trauma. Okay, like that's it, man. Like when I'm I'm telling you, man, when I was running my races and you know, you're running for eight, 10, 12, 24 hours, whatever, 30 hours.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Which is so fucking long, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Sit down. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's it's crazy. But when you're doing that, like you have conversations with people, you know, and bro, when it's two o'clock in the morning and you've been running for 24 hours or whatever, uh, you start to go, you know, people are like, man, man, why are you out here? You know, and and so I'll tell them, like, man, I'm you know, this is I relish in this pain, I relish in the suffering because uh of where I've come from. And so again, you hear that somebody ran 100 miles and it's like, wow, that's impressive. And then you hear like why they've gone and done that, and all the things they've gone through to get to where they're at right now. So that's why the survivorhood mentality, that survivor mentality says that I have gone through so much of my life, I don't have to do anything else anymore because of what I have endured as a child. And then you end up having morbidly obese, depressed, anxious, addicted people because they have survived. They have already gone through the pain, they don't want to experience more. So I try again, last thing I'll say there is that I try to get people to say, Man, you have gone through hell. Keep fucking going, like get back in the fight, choose a little bit more, stick the stick that piece of raw iron back in the fire, pull it out and strike it and keep fucking going, keep changing yourself, keep getting better, keep challenging yourself, get back in the fire.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

There's something so powerful about that, man. You you have seen how strong you are, and so you have the like, and this this is spoken from someone who hasn't had that experience that you're talking from, but just gleaming from what you're saying, like you have the the almost advantage of seeing just how fucking resilient your soul is and how much you can handle and not and not fall apart, or the ability to fall apart and be rebuilt again through your own um choices. And so just imagine what you can bring to others, just imagine the love that you can free in the world, just imagine the business you can create and the book you can write and the art you can bring to life, or the way you can love those in your life in a way that's energized from the experience that you had, even yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Um that thing you said right there in the beginning of that having the perspective to know what I've gone through and what I can survive that is a gift in its own to to to to know how resilient you are, but you can't know how resilient you are unless you have been tested, right? You cannot say that you can resist temptation unless you have been tempted. So the temptation to quit, the temptation to quit. If you are not a quitter, how can how do you know you're not a quitter? Uh go out and run. Go out and run right now, go run 10 miles. Will you quit or not? But the temptation is there, the temptation to quit is there before you even start. So to call yourself resilient or strong or tough, however you want to call it, you cannot call yourself those things unless you have gone through something that would prove that you are those things. And sometimes, again, this is chosen or unchosen. Sometimes we go through life and we are given that gift of adversity, we're given that gift of trauma, we are given that gift uh you know of bad things happening. And it is a gift because when you come out the other side, you know, oh my god, okay, if I can survive this, I can survive this next thing. So no matter what happens to me in this life, I I'll never there's nothing that will ever hold me down. It does not matter what happens to me. I know that I can get back up and keep going because of the things that I have gone through. And because of the things that I have gone through, when I see other people do things, I'm like, I can go and do that. I I went through fucking hell as a child for 16 years and I hung on. I can run 100 miles, you know, I can do it again. I can go and lift weights and and and I can go and do whatever it is I want to do. I can go write a best-selling book because I've gone through the things that that have made me who I am today. And the people who have not suffered, right? The people who have lived with relatively easy lives, that is uh that is the unfortunate thing for them. It's like, man, you you think, you know, when you go through trauma, you think, why is my life like this? Like, why did I have to go through so much pain? But what a shame it would be to like live a life and not know pain and not understand pain and not know what it's like to be scared and defeated and losing and unsure of the future. Like, what a shame or sad cold life it would be to not feel those things, to only feel good things. You know, you you would you would if you went through life and you only had good things happen, you wouldn't even appreciate them. This is the thing we see everywhere, right? You see people who have everything, and it's like, man, you don't even know what you have. I have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, and they get mad about the socks that I buy them or the or the blankets that they the blankets that they have, you know, and it's like I they're so young, right? They're so young that I can't I can't articulate that in a way. But I do tell them, you know, there are kids at your school who don't have blankets, or kids at your school who don't have shoes, or who don't have clothes, who don't have food in their refrigerators. You have to understand how blessed and how like how lucky you are in this life. Um, but the sometimes the only way you can figure that out is by going through hard things. Again, some of us life hands you lemons, some of us you have to go and find it, right? You have to go and find the pain. Um, so that is the there, it is a gift at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

My man, it's like so clear to me that you have done the work to like go into your heart and metabolize the pain you've experienced and bring a light to the world through this. It's so awesome to hear you talk about this, bro.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, I appreciate it, man. I get I get I get fired up. You can tell.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah, the most uh the like the the really powerful thing that you said, I know what I can do because I know what I've been through.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

That's like that's the gift, man, for for somebody that's dealing with this, and like, you know, what do I like kind of in the victim place, like what I've gone through this and now I'm at a disadvantage because of this, and now I have to process all this pain and deal with all this before I get out into the world and start doing my thing. But that's a really powerful perspective, bro.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

And that's like getting off the couch. You know, you have

Healing As A Lifelong Practice

SPEAKER_00 30:25

so many people that want that you tell them, um, you you need to take care of yourself physically, you need to go exercise. And they say, Well, I can't get off the couch, I can't get off the couch because my my mental health is so bad that I can't do anything physically. And I would argue that it's the inverse. I would say that your physical health is so bad that you can't do anything mentally. Like you need to, as soon as you get outside and start moving, and that's again, I go back to that, right? It's like, well, why can't you get off the couch? Well, I'm depressed because of my childhood and I went through all these things. So you mean to tell me you survived all that shit, you survived everything you went through for years, and now you give up. Now you quit. Now you're done. Now that you have gone through it, now you're done. Don't give up, man. Like, keep fucking going, man. Go and live the life that you want to live. Go and do the things you want to do. So I get that's my that's my go-to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I do you think that you think that the another sentence to add on to that's that hype up speech to the guy on the couch is like, if you didn't, it happened for nothing?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

I mean, what a waste.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

What a fucking waste, man. And this is just the way I kind of uh think about these situations, and I'd love to hear your perspective on it. Like the idea that energy can't be created or destroyed, like that that was such a a dark, negative, energetic experience that you had, and it's in your body in a way, kind of the body keeps the score type situation. And so you're either gonna let that keep going down, or you're gonna decide to make it be a powerful push for you in your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Dude, that's incredible. I've actually never thought about that. Uh, I'm gonna have to write that down because that is a that's such an incredible, what do you call it? Like a metaphor analogy to life, is that this energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So everything that you went through, it's in you. You just have to, you just have to turn it into something else.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

100%. Yeah, it's like the sling, like the slingshot shit. You got pulled back. However far you got pulled back, that's how far you launch.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah, man. That's awesome. Yeah, I've never I've never thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That's what I see, man, when I see you, bro. Uh, and I think that I think that, and I was talking to my girlfriend last night about this, that I think that the release on that kind of the energetic transformation of source, because I see it with you, man. And like reading your book and just like you know, talking to you now, it's so clear that you're on that that process of flipping it on its head. And it seems to be that the this the linchpin is the moment of acceptance. This is what happened, this is where I am.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah, man. Yeah, and you know what's crazy too with that is like as I'm thinking about a slingshot and the way it operates and the way you're talking about this, is you're getting pulled back, and it's this process, and you're you're getting pulled back. And um, it's just a moment in time when you release, right? You release that slingshot, it's just that's a moment, it's not this like it takes forever to release. It's just as soon as you let it go, you let that thing go, boom, and now you're forward, right? And that's comfortable. Yeah, I mean, people have asked me so many, you know, this question I get all the time like, what's the process of healing? Where did you start? How long did it take to get better, etc.? Um, it's not like a a destination. I didn't get to this, you know, platform where I'm like, oh, I'm healed now. I've done three months of therapy and I'm healed.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

You know, it's like uh yeah, graduation from therapy.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Right. Well, dude, I mean, that that's the thing that people are looking for when they go to therapy or they go to or they read a book or they they go to a uh a therapist and they'll say, Well, how long is it going to take until I'm better? It's like, hey, brother, this is a you're on this train for the rest of your life. Like, yeah, this is a continuous process. So it's just this moment that you make the decision to start being better, then you start making progress.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

So Yeah. My man, you are unstoppable, brother. And uh, I'm so proud of you for what you're doing with this. I'm so grateful for your story, and uh, I'm so inspired, like you mentioned, not by the not by the trauma, but by the the power of the human heart and your decision to turn it around and to do something so magnificent. When

Hope As A Message On Stage

SPEAKER_01 34:29

you when you go and speak, what's your message? Like what do you what do you tend to share with people so much?

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah, a lot of my clients or the audiences that I go and speak to, they are looking for hope. So that's the big thing that I speak about is is hope. It's just holding on. It's gonna be, it's gonna eventually the pain is gonna subside. You just gotta hold on. And I think for hope, I'll tell you from experience, like as a child and as a man, people like me needed to see proof. I needed proof that there was a way that I could survive. I think I wrote about it in the book. I certainly talk about it a lot when I read the book A Child Called It. Uh that book, that book gave me insight and it said, okay, Seth, like you I knew that when I was 10 years old, I would be a published a published author one day. I knew it. I would either write a book or there would be a movie about me. And it wasn't in in vain. I didn't think about it in vain, but I I knew that if this book made such an impact on me, then I could certainly do the same thing and help other people. And so it gave me hope, is what I'm getting at here. When I was 12 years old, I I was at my grandparents' house. They had adopted me at this point, and I was watching football highlights on YouTube, and you know, all the classic football highlights that they used to put out. And I came across a motivational speaker. His name's Eric Thomas. I was 12 years old. I watched Eric Thomas deliver the how uh how bad do you want it and how bad you want to be successful story. He talks talks about the guru, the bees holding him underwater, how bad do you want to breathe? Bro, I was 12 years old, I was locked in. And after he delivers that story, he talks about how he was homeless. He grew up with a single parent household, he was eating out of trash cans, he dropped out of high school. And I was like, oh my gosh, man, if this guy can go on this stage and tell this story, and I can feel it right now. I can feel that my body is like, I can feel it. And so I said, if he can if he can produce that kind of feeling in somebody through a screen or through a stage, through an audience, then I can do the same thing with my story. And so at 12 years old, I I kid you not, I had the expectation and the hope that I would be a speaker one day and I would share my story on stage to help other people. And lo and behold, you know, 20 years later, or I guess 15 years later, that's what I'm doing now. And that's that that was the the that's the message that I try to give other people now. In two ways. I'd say that people that have gone through what I've gone through, there is a positive side of life. I would say that I offer that story and that way of getting to that positive side of life. But then the people who work with people like me, right? So any of the first responders, that's that's like a big part of my audience, my client list, I guess you could say, um, or or social workers, things like that, nurses. I talk to those people a lot and I tell them that when you walk into those rooms and you have that victim, that child who's just desperate for they just need a light. They're in a dark tunnel, they just need a light, they need something to hang on to, they need somewhere to look to, somewhere to go. You are that person. So that's my message to the first responders. And I'm so passionate about that because I don't know if you came across it, but I I found the police officer who uh you know handled my case, and and I have such a such a deep appreciation for him and the way he handled that case. And so when I go and speak to people, I tell them because I thought about Chad Couples from Bluffton, Ohio. I thought about him every single day for my entire life. Every single day I thought about him and what he did for me that day when he stepped into that emergency room, you know, and so that's the big message that I give for the people who have gone through it that there's another side of life, but those who are helping people get through it, that you are the absolute light, the rock that that person needs. And I am proof that the work that you do matters.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

I think one

Purpose Built Through Hard Things

SPEAKER_01 38:33

really cool last thing for us to just throw in here is that you know, like the the takeaway from all this is that there is power in pain and challenge. That's where the power comes from. That's like if we're using the slingshot analogy, we're gonna beat that one to death, and like the powers and the pullback, you know, and like some people unfortunately, like there's an obviously horribly difficult uh experience whenever you are subjected to being pulled back and others aren't. You know, why the fuck does this happen to me? This is bullshit until you like this man has done, decide, no, this is happening for me, and now here's my chance to bring this love to the world. And then you turn that shit around. If you have lived life with you know nice socks and you know, TV and uh serial for on Saturday mornings, then the the power is still available to you because pain and challenge is always available to you. It's just chosen. So get out there and work on something hard, get out there and go tap into pain. Maybe it's a run, maybe it's an ice bath, maybe it's just doing as many push-ups as you can today, or having a really hard conversation. How about that? Because that's probably one of the most challenging things that we can do. You know, so if you're listening to this and you're like, you know, that's an incredibly dope story. And in some way, you're like, you know, I wish I had a cool story. It's all about the whole, the whole story is turn the pain into power and use it for good, which is exactly what Seth's doing and what we can all do.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah, man, absolutely, absolutely. I think um, you know, you had mentioned when you're pulling this thing back or you're getting dragged back in life. Sometimes you think, why is this happening to me? And I think that a lot of people try to find this is a lot of people try to find purpose. You know, why did this thing happen to me? And, you know, I I don't I think I have probably a different take than most people. I don't look at it like I went through anything for any reason. I don't think that I went through these things so that I could be here today. I think that I have given myself the purpose. Okay. I think everybody has a whiteboard. You have this whiteboard up on the wall, and whatever you want to do in life, you just put it on that whiteboard and you make that your purpose. My purpose is my family, my purpose is my kids, my purpose now is to inspire other people because you know, purpose is everything outside of you. It's not for you, it's for everything outside of you. Your passion is is in here, your passion is for you, your purpose is for the world. And so you want to feel purpose. Well, you have to do things to feel purpose, like you just do. Passion is for you, purpose for is for others. So if you feel less than, you feel behind, you feel like uh, like you said, you know, people don't want to go out there and choose the suffering. You go out there and you choose those things and you accomplish things and you go through hard things, your your mind will reward you, humans. As much as we want comfort, we are so rewarded by the pain. We are so rewarded by the suffering, right? Everybody hates running. Nobody, nobody loves running. Running fucking running sucks, man. But when you go out there and you put a smile on and you fucking run a hundred miles and you get done, you're you you'll tell the whole world. It's like the meme of the guy who's a marine, right? You go five minutes without telling somebody you're a marine and your head's about to explode. Yeah, why? Because there's so much suffering that comes with being a marine, you're so proud of the things that you've gone through. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah. Seth

Where To Find Seth And Support

SPEAKER_01 41:50

You Man and uh sincerely thank you so much for your um like your story and the way you decided to work with the energy life's given you. It's so awesome to witness you on this path and to like uh I'm just cheering you on, brother. So thanks for encouraging me today. Thanks for encouraging the listeners of uh Let's Keep Talking. And uh uh where can people learn more about you? Obviously, uh strength strings be on the shadows on Amazon. You can get it there. Uh on your Instagram, where can they find you? Where can they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yeah, really Instagram is probably the best place. Um yeah, you know, it's just my name, Seth Gale. I have a website as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Um Gail is called G-E-H-L-E.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yes, sir. Yep, yep. So yeah, Amazon's one of my books that if you read it, please leave a review. Um I'm almost at a thousand, so that's pretty incredible. Um yeah, man, reach out if you have any questions, want to talk, go do fucking great things in life, and thanks for having me on.