Protecting What Matters with Trent Shelton

Are you struggling to maintain your equilibrium in a world that constantly pushes your boundaries? How many times have you said "yes" when every fiber of your being was screaming "no"?

In this heart-to-heart with Trent Shelton, we dive deep into the art of safeguarding what's truly vital—our peace. I'm stoked about Trent’s upcoming book, "Protect Your Peace," which adds a fresh perspective to the conversation on emotional well-being. 

Our honest discussions shed light on the challenging lessons surrounding trust, letting go, and the real struggle to maintain inner calm amid life's chaos.

So, if you're ready to stop shuffling your feet at the edge of life's battlefield and start living your best life, this is one episode you've got to hear. Tune in, set your boundaries, and learn to protect what truly matters.

IN TODAY’S EPISODE, I DISCUSS: 

• The art of setting boundaries for personal growth
• Choosing peace over people-pleasing
• The impactful strategies from Trent Shelton’s book "Protect Your Peace"

CONNECT WITH TRENT SHELTON
Visit Trent Shelton’s website: https://www.trentshelton.com
Pre-Order 'PROTECT YOUR PEACE' to receive bonus gifts: https://www.trentshelton.com/book
Follow Trent on IG: https://www.instagram.com/trentshelton/?hl=en
Subscribe to Trent’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkwdk8T8kJAzH7CusCv8QoA

RECOMMENDED EPISODES FOR YOU
If you liked this episode, you'll love these ones:

• Are You Really Living a Rich Life or a Bankrupt One?
• A New Path to Conversation, Connection & Conversion with Natasha Willis
• Fulfillment & Wealth Through a Personal Brand with Rory Vaden
• Build Wealth & Live a Rich Life at Any Age (My son's journey)

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Transcript

Mel Abraham [00:00:00]:
This conversation that I just finished with Trent Shelton is off the charts. If you don't know, Trent Shelton is an ex NFL player. He played for a couple years in the NFL, but he had a tragic loss of a dear friend to a suicide. But he has been on this journey to get people to live their best life, to get people to step into who they are truly meant to be. And we have this conversation about protecting your peace, about protecting your future. He's got a new perspective on, hey, do you need boundaries? But boundaries really aren't walls, they're bridges. And we have this deep conversation about how do you bring richness into your life by being all you can be. This episode of the affluent entrepreneur show is off the charts.

Mel Abraham [00:00:51]:
Get in there. Watch Trent Shelton. Listen to what he's got to say. Take it all in. But more than that, make it part of your life. All right, enjoy this episode, the affluent entrepreneur show because I know that you're going to see his heart, his soul and the magic that he can bring. All right, see you in the episode. This is the affluent entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation.

Mel Abraham [00:01:16]:
I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom because that's what it really means to be an athlete. Entrepreneur. Oh, my God. Trent Shelton, we got you in the house. This is going to be such a cool thing. I did an introduction beforehand, but I just want to go a little deeper here because I think it's really important for y'all to just get perspective. I met Trent a while back and there was this connection point because I think we're two different people but cut from the same cloth.

Mel Abraham [00:02:16]:
You're going to see as we talk with Trent, he's got a huge heart. He's a big dude, but he's got a heart that's bigger than him and a heart to serve, a heart to change, a heart to direct, a heart to light the way when people are in pain. And I think that we are in a situation or in a time where there's a lot of distractions, there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of things going on and protecting our peace, which is his upcoming book, which we're going to talk about is huge. And we often wonder that why we feel unsettled. And maybe it's because we're not protecting our peace. Trent, welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you here.

Trent Shelton [00:03:03]:
Mail. I appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me here and thank you for just your friendship over the years. You're a very special person. So I want to make sure I know your audience knows that, but I want to make sure they hear that from me. So thank you for your heart and thank you for your service, man.

Mel Abraham [00:03:17]:
You got it, brother man. Hey, just for those that don't know Trent Shelton, first off, shame on you. And second, can you give them just a rundown of Trent? Because kind of like a lot of us in this space, including me as an accountant, I never thought I'd be doing this. You never thought you'd be doing talk. Let's start off with how did you get here? How did you get here? Why did you get here? Why is it so important?

Trent Shelton [00:03:43]:
For sure? So background on me. I'm a sports guy. Played football, all the sports growing up, but football was my main sport. Got a chance to play in college, got a chance to briefly play in the NFL. And that was my life. That's all I wanted to do. It's all that I knew since I was a four year old kid. A curveball hit my life like most of us when I made it to NFL.

Trent Shelton [00:04:04]:
I always tell people that was my biggest dream, but ended up being my biggest nightmare because it didn't go the way I wanted it to go. Got cut, got released, few injuries, and it brought me to a point in my life which I call the breaking point, which I had a choice to break down or break through. And I'm going to be real. I wanted to break down because I thought there was nothing else to my life. Two situations really pushed me into what I do now because I want to be clear, I never wanted to do this. I never was like, I'm going to start a business to be a speaker or a coach. That wasn't my thing. But two situations happened.

Trent Shelton [00:04:35]:
Number one, Tristan, who's my son, the birth of Tristan, and as we know with kids, kids will make you look yourself in the mirror and say, man, you need to get right as a man and this child is going to follow your path. Are you proud of the path that you're leaving? And I can honestly say at that time I wasn't. So Tristan helped me become a better man. And then about 2011, when it got really real for me with rehab time was my best friend committing suicide. And he took his life. He lost some things in his life. Lost a sport, lost a relationship, and he killed himself. And so it was my promise to him that I would help people know their worth.

Trent Shelton [00:05:12]:
I would help people know they're not alone. I would help people know that no matter what you lose, you don't have to lose your life. And that was the start back in 2009, 2011, and it pushed me into what I do now.

Mel Abraham [00:05:24]:
So good. It's funny how life does this. I totally agree with you. Having my son and being a single, full time dad, they are mirrors, and it's what drove me. And then to have that tragedy and for you to have the awareness or the ability to wake up and say, oh, man, this has to not be for naught. There has to be something good that comes of this loss and this tragedy and this hole in your heart. So that was what started rehab time.

Trent Shelton [00:06:06]:
Yes, sir, that was it.

Mel Abraham [00:06:09]:
Well, since that time, your primary focus is really helping people be the best they could be. I always say that you can't be as good as you can be until you are all you can be, and you help people become all they can be. And that's the thing that I think is so cool to watch. So I want to shift a little bit to some of the things in the book. This is not your first book. You've done a couple of books, but this is the book that you say it's been a decade in the making. This is the culmination of a journey with you. And there's some things in here that you talk about.

Mel Abraham [00:06:58]:
The title is protect your peace, but in order to protect your peace, what does that mean? What does that mean? Because I have my perspective on it, but I think that there's a whole lot of people that have no peace in their life.

Trent Shelton [00:07:12]:
Yeah, I mean, protect your peace. That's why it took ten years, because it's such a holistic approach to life. And I break it down in three areas. Protecting your energy is a part of protecting your peace. So protecting your energy, obviously, the things that. Using your energy wisely, getting away from things that drain you or getting around people who energize you, understanding how to set boundaries, et cetera. The second part is protecting your mind. If you have no peace of mind in your life, no matter what's going on, it's going to be a rough life.

Trent Shelton [00:07:48]:
So really focusing on your mental health and trusting your vision and guarding your focus. And then the last part, to me is probably the most important part is protecting your soul. And that's the internal deep stuff that a lot of us know about, but we don't really always address and think about. So what's fulfillment mean? Internal alignment. And so that's the journey I take people on. And if I can put this peace in one definition, I always say peace is something you'll never experience if you keep allowing the things you can't control to control you. So it's, how can I be good even when everything is going wrong? How can I know everything's going to be okay, even when externally, it doesn't look like it's okay? And so that's the journey I take people on in this book.

Mel Abraham [00:08:37]:
It's so good. And I hope those of you that are watching and listening, you start to get this, because we're all going to have problems in our life. We're all going to have stuff that happens in our life that we start to personalize, we start to allow, when we start to allow it to define us, now we're in trouble. And I think that's what this really becomes, the power of it all. Here's the question. I want to get a little tactical at times, too. So I know that one of the things that help us protect our peace is to be really clear on boundaries. And I think that we live in a world with media, with social media, with trolls, with cyberbullying, with access to us beyond what maybe you and I grew up with.

Mel Abraham [00:09:42]:
That means that if we're not careful, they don't only have access to us via our computer, they can access our soul if we're not careful. And so when we're dealing with these kinds of things, what are some of the suggestions that we. There's two questions. The suggestions that we should be looking at to try and put the boundaries up, that they are good to protect our peace, is one question. Then on another topic on boundaries is also those that are actually in close proximity to us that have learned to infringe on our boundaries, and now we need to enforce them. And they go, you've changed. And just dealing with those two things, because I think navigating the boundaries first becomes really important to setting the stage for some of the other things.

Trent Shelton [00:10:36]:
Absolutely. I think it starts with taking the stigma out of boundaries. We had to worry. Boundaries, we think, like brick walls and top flight security in our life, nothing can get in. That's not what boundaries are. They can be that if it needs to be. But boundaries are beautiful. I like to think about boundaries as bridges.

Trent Shelton [00:11:00]:
Right. Leading you somewhere. So the first thing I would ask the person listening to this is, what do you want in your life? Do you want peace in your life? Do you want more financial freedom in your life? Do you want a happier relationship, like, getting clear on what you want in your life? It starts there, and then you reverse engineer, okay, in order for me to receive more peace in my life, I got to set a boundary up that's preventing the stress from coming in my life. And so when you look at that, where is it leading you to? So, that boundary you set, even in your relationships, like marriages, should have boundaries. It's not a bad thing. I believe that boundaries aren't there to keep things out necessarily right, but they're really there to let the right things in. So I'm setting this boundary to make this situation better, whatever it is. So if it's a boundary with social media, I'm setting this boundary to make it better for me.

Trent Shelton [00:11:56]:
If it's a boundary with my kids, I'm setting this boundary to make it better for me. Like, I set a boundary with Tristan when he was about, I would say, ten years old. And it was hard for me to set this boundary, because I never told this story before, but we called it daddy shot, right? So, daddy shot was in the morning. I would get him dressed. I would comb his hair. I would do all the things, and I loved it. And I didn't want to set this boundary, because it's like, man, he's growing up. But I said, I got to let him figure this out himself.

Trent Shelton [00:12:26]:
Because I'm spending all my morning taking care of him and doing all these things, which I love to do, but I'm taking time away from myself when I can be really using this time to work on me. So I remember it had to be ten years old or something like that. I said about. I said, hey, Tristan, the morning is yours, bro. Like, figure it out. Cook your own breakfast. Do XYz. It's all yours.

Trent Shelton [00:12:49]:
And what happened was, over time, Tristan turned into, like, the greatest chef in our family. And breakfast, like, the best pancakes, everything. But I had to set that boundary. I had to stop enabling him to allow him to grow. And so you got to ask yourself, how can these boundaries be beautiful? And I would challenge you, too, to set an internal boundary. And external is different. External boundary is what I said with Tristan. An internal boundary is what I might set with social media.

Trent Shelton [00:13:17]:
Like, why do I need to set this boundary in place? Because what is it doing to my mind? What is it doing to my anxiety and my stress? Okay, cool. I want more peace. Let me set this boundary. So I would tell you, start looking at boundaries as bridges and not walls, and it changes the game for you.

Mel Abraham [00:13:33]:
Oh, dude, this first time I've heard you say this, and I love this because it is. When we start to say we need boundaries, it sounds like we're putting walls up, we're shutting people out, we're closing off. But really what it is, is opening up the gateways for the right things to be in, in the right. And I love that kind of perspective on it. It makes it much easier to start to put things in place because you're putting them in for a positive purpose, for growth.

Trent Shelton [00:14:08]:
Absolutely. I mean, Maria, she put a boundary on me, like, last week, and she put that boundary in place because she said, hey, Trent, I need this for myself. I need this so I can become a better me. And without any question, I'm like, I want you to become a better you. Cool. That's the boundary. I respect it. And it was a beautiful thing, and it's really helped her mentally.

Trent Shelton [00:14:32]:
It's helped her with her life, and I'm all for that. So when you start looking at boundaries as a good thing, I think it changes the game for you.

Mel Abraham [00:14:39]:
So, good. Now, that leads to this other element that I think. And we touched on it because this idea of negativity, this idea of judgment, and there's two types of judgment, and I think goes back to your internal and external. There's internal judgment. We judge ourselves, and we're probably the harshest out of anyone else. Absolutely. But we take on the judgments of others in and of itself. And some of it is coming from love.

Mel Abraham [00:15:18]:
I still remember, like, my mother, she's still alive. She doesn't tell us the year. It's like 90 ish. We've got a range of years. And I remember when Jeremy was getting older, and she says, what does he want to do? And I said, he wants to go into computers. And she goes, oh, my gosh. Isn't that competitive? And she was like, she wanted to shrink down the dream, not because she didn't want him to excel, but she wanted him to just stay safe. She wanted him to be okay, and she didn't want to ever see him hurt or disappointed.

Mel Abraham [00:15:55]:
So it came from a good place, but the result would have not been the full person he is today. And I think that there's that negativity that's truly negative, and I've had those in my life, and then there's that negativity that is more of a protective cloak that we're trying to protect people in there. And when we talk about negativity or if I have someone that's a bad energy in my life, that I don't want to use the cliche term of toxic, but that brings us down, that affects us, infects us and all that stuff is your perspective. To have a conversation and try to shift it or to just cut it.

Trent Shelton [00:16:42]:
I'm always going to voice how I feel. I do believe it's unfair not to give clear communication on why you're setting a boundary. And listen, maybe if it's a stranger on the Internet, block them. Right? You don't have to. I'm blocking you because of this. But somebody that you care about and love, I do believe that clear communication is very important because you don't want to get down the road. And it's like, well, you never told me this, and I never know you felt this. So it's always good to protect yourself by saying, hey, this is what it is.

Trent Shelton [00:17:23]:
This is how I feel, this is what I need. And when I talk about walls, right, always say, you don't set up the wall. Somebody else makes the boundary of wall. So if somebody keeps disrespecting you when you have already said your standard, when you already laid down your boundary, they keep disrespecting. That's when that boundary becomes a wall to say, hey, listen, I can't have you in my life because obviously you don't respect me. So it starts there. But I will tell you this, one of my things over this past year of protecting my peace, and this has been very hard. And I know you probably deal with this, too.

Trent Shelton [00:17:57]:
As a person that always sees the best in people, as a person that always wants the best in people and always wants people to change, you can often see things in people that they can't see in themselves. What really prevented me from protecting my piece, I would say, over the past decade, was I was always trying to change people in the most positive way. And I realized, like, in doing that, people aren't going to change until they want to change. So I was literally drowning trying to save someone or people that didn't want to be saved. And that brought me to a place where I didn't have peace in my life. And so over this past, I would say 365. I have learned to give it to God, as I call it. Here you go.

Trent Shelton [00:18:49]:
It's not my responsibility to change this person. And a lot of times we want a person to fit who we want them to be and who we want them to be. Even with our kids, who we want them to be, even if it's a great thing, might not be who they were created to be. And so I've learned to just let it go. And that has given me more peace in my life than anything by just saying, here you go. Here you go, world. Do your thing with this person. Over time, hopefully, they'll change, but I know I can't be the creator of their change.

Mel Abraham [00:19:22]:
Yeah, yeah. The coast guard, I think it is, has this saying that you have to save the ones swimming towards the ship first. And if they don't want to change, if they don't want the rescue, there's nothing we can do to convince know one of the challenges that I've struggled. So, okay, this is not therapy for Mel, but what the heck, I love to serve. And what that does is I've gotten myself caught up sometimes where I'm so concerned to please others in the process or in the guise of service that I give, not of myself, but I give up myself in the process. And then it's hard to either pull back or find yourself again. And this is something that I've actually struggled with for a lot of years, to be able to be that person, to just bring it back. I think that it'd be interesting to just get your perspective on this idea of always trying to please, always trying to, but under the guise of service and what that is, because I know that it's got to me a few times, and it's put me in some bad places where I'm exhausted, I'm tired, and I wonder why I'm not happy.

Mel Abraham [00:20:54]:
And it's because I've given so much of myself, I have lost myself.

Trent Shelton [00:20:58]:
Yeah, I'm going to say you too. I definitely been there and deal with that. That's a constant battle. In this book, the first chapter introduction is called constant battle. It's a constant battle for your worth, a constant battle for your peace, like, every single day. And I think it's something that we have to be aware of because I don't think it's a war that we just win. You know what I mean? Like, every day is going to be a battle, and you'll get good where you start winning those battles more so when you understand certain things. But for me, I call this in the book, the triple p professional people pleaser.

Trent Shelton [00:21:37]:
And I've been that person. I still am that person at times, but I've realized that that's what I call mi mission. Impossible. And that's the exact recipe on how you lose yourself. So I have measured my service by not pleasing people, because you can never please what doesn't want to be pleased. Like always say, you can give the most perfect version of yourself, and it still might not be enough for the people that need something from you. So I've decided to change the measuring stick on how I measure my service. And it's so simple is, did I give my all to this situation, and did I give my best to the situation?

Mel Abraham [00:22:29]:
And that's it.

Trent Shelton [00:22:30]:
Did I give an opportunity to the situation? And that's it. Because I've had people come back that I've tried to help a lot, and once I took back my help, it's, oh, I'm the bad person now. So, my gosh, I can't get anything right, and so I have to change my measuring stick on how I viewed service. And also, you got to be real with yourself. If you're always pouring out, eventually you're going to be empty. And there's people, I love people, but there's people in my life that need me to be full. Full of life, full of peace, full of joy. And if I'm always giving, even if I'm getting poured into, but as soon as I get poured into, I'm pouring out.

Trent Shelton [00:23:11]:
If I'm always empty, then how can I be the best me for those that need me to be? So I would tell the audience this. Tactically, I believe there's two things that you're in control of as a human being. What you give and what you accept. And I want to focus on what you give. You're in control of what you give. You're in control of how you show up. You're in control of what you do for others. But what you're not in control of is if they accept what you give or not.

Trent Shelton [00:23:39]:
And so you have to be good with saying, I gave my all cool, even if you didn't accept it, even if it was less to you or you had a problem with it. I know in my heart I gave my all, and I'm good with that. And that measuring stick has helped me find more peace in not being everything to everybody.

Mel Abraham [00:23:59]:
I love that because it's self regulated. It's not the results in them. It's simply just looking at internally and just saying, did I do the right thing? Did I give it my all? And did I use the best of my ability? It's binary, yes or no and move on. And what they do with it is on them. That's it. That's so good. And it just seems so simple.

Trent Shelton [00:24:31]:
Things are the hard things to do, right?

Mel Abraham [00:24:33]:
Oh, my God. There's so many times that I don't get sick very often, but when I do, it's a doozy. And it's usually because I've just burned and burned and burned. And I'm not taking the hints and everything. So this is really good to put a pin in it for me to be able to just say, hey, did I give that moment my all? And was it the best that I could give? I'm good. That's so good.

Trent Shelton [00:25:06]:
And you got to think about this, too. I will give them this simple thing, too, and ask them this question. Is it really protecting your piece when you're saying sure, when you know you aren't sure, right, when you're saying yes, when you want to say no. And what you're doing is you're helping people keep their peace. You're helping people. I'll put it like this. I talk about this quote in the book, and it's by a rapper named Nipsey Hussle. I'm not sure if he's the creator of the quote, but he said this line, and I love it.

Trent Shelton [00:25:38]:
And he said, would you rather be at peace with the world and at war with yourself, or would you rather be at peace with yourself and at war with the world? And a lot of times when we're being people pleasers, a lot of times when we're saying yes, when we want to say no, when we need to say no, we are choosing to start a war within ourself because we want to keep the peace. My dad told me this at my event, and I loved him for it. He said, hey, Trent, protecting your peace isn't always about being silent. Sometimes in order to protect your peace, you got to speak your peace and tell people things. And I was like, man, that's so real. And so, a lot of us, we're choosing this war within ourself that we're dealing with. We can't sleep, and we're stressing ourselves out, and we're sick while we're keeping a peace outside in the world. So you're going to have to start some wars in the world in a positive way where it's like they might not like it, they might not get it, they might make you try to feel bad for standing up for yourself, but you have to do this to protect your life and protect your soul and ultimately protect your peace.

Mel Abraham [00:26:40]:
So good. And I think that there's something underneath all of that that we sometimes don't think about. And that is what was the intent. Even if it's a hard, difficult conversation, if the intent is true, is real, is caring, is loving, it's on them to rest with it. But, you know, internally, your intent came from the right place for the right reasons.

Trent Shelton [00:27:17]:
Absolutely.

Mel Abraham [00:27:18]:
So good. This is so important. A lot of the folks that I deal with are in the financial space. They're trying to figure out financial freedom. And one of the critical outcomes that I talk about in an affluent life, when I talk about affluence, people confuse it with opulence. And it's not. Opulence is stuff. Stuff doesn't matter.

Mel Abraham [00:27:44]:
Affluence, though, I think, has four levels, four elements to it. And the first is that it's a meaningful life, and that's internal joy. It's internal warmth. It's internal excitement and vibrancy. And then the second is an impactful life, and that is external in the sense of knowing that we mattered. And then it's fruitful, which is where the money piece is. But then it's peaceful, which is really cool to hear how you frame it and look at it, because I also think that so many people will come to me for the purposes of, hey, I want to have financial freedom. I want to have wealth.

Mel Abraham [00:28:23]:
I want to live this life like I see other people living. Yet in the process, they lose themselves, they lose their peace, and they lose, what I call you're chasing wealth instead of richness. Richness is how we're experiencing the life versus what's in the bank account. And that's why everything that I do is driven to how do we find richness? How do we find deeper impact, and how do we find complete freedom instead of just financial freedom? And I think that the underlying message, or core, at the core of that is everything that you stand for, is everything that you do, is this idea of protecting our peace, protecting our soul, protecting our energy, because at the end of the day, what do we got? Our peace, our soul, and our energy. The bank account doesn't matter because there's plenty of people. You know them, I know them that have a whole lot of money, way more than you and I could ever imagine, and they got no peace. They struggle, they suffer, they're miserable, and it's like this mild misery and beyond every day of their life, and they're tormented. So I think this is where this starts, this idea of this journey to richness.

Mel Abraham [00:29:57]:
You're the starting point. You're the ending point, and you're the midpoint of all of it. Because if we lose this process, if we lose our mind, if we lose our peace, if we lose our energy, if we lose our soul in it, how do we know that we're living the rich life? How do we. How do we just wrestle with that? It doesn't work. I think that those of you that are listening here, it's really important for us to understand as much as you want, tactically, what do I do with my money? How do I make wealth? How do I do this? What trent is talking about and what he stands for is, at the core, what you need to really experience the richness instead of build the wealth. And I hope that you're seeing that come mean, Trent, you've got such a huge heart for service and wanting to see the best in people and bring it out of people. Here's the other question that I have, because I think this all starts and you start it the same way I do when I'm working with someone from a financial standpoint, because you talk about the idea of vision and how important that is when it comes to protecting your peace. I'm assuming that you're leading with vision at some point when you started to put this together and realize, wait a second, you had to formulate a vision for your life first before you could figure out everything else that had to fall in place.

Mel Abraham [00:31:42]:
Tell me how that process works and how that fits into this journey of creating Trent's life and his family's life and our lives as we go through it.

Trent Shelton [00:31:54]:
Yeah, that's a really deep question because I believe in, one of the principles in protect your piece is trust your vision. And it's so hard for us to trust our vision at times because we're so dependent as human beings on external alignment. And what I mean by that is these things have to add up externally. I have to be making a certain amount of money. People have to support me. I got to have followers these days in order for me to know that this is the right thing. And I tell people all the time, when it comes to your vision, it's about trust. None of us, we can plan, but none of us can actually predict 100% our next four to five months.

Trent Shelton [00:32:36]:
Of course, we can prepare and plan for sure, but a big part of life is being able to adjust. And so I'm always working on trusting the unknown. I'm always working on trusting my internal alignment, my knowing inside that this is where I'm supposed to go. Just that guidance, that compass in my soul that says, this is what you're supposed to do. Because I had no physical evidence, external evidence, that this was supposed to be my life. When I talk about it now, people are like, okay, but go back to 2010, when I'm making these videos, I had no idea that it would lead me here. But there was a knowing inside of me, which I call still a principle, protect your peace, internal alignment that was saying, this is it. Even when people said it wasn't it.

Trent Shelton [00:33:21]:
Even when I told my vision to people, which is a mistake, even when I told my vision to people that weren't able to see my vision, right, they didn't have the same perspective as me. I always say it's like taking off your prescription glasses and giving to somebody to see through your lenses of life. And they're like, oh, I can't see. And a lot of us, that's what we do. We go to those close to us, we go to those familiar with us, and they can't see the vision. And by the way, they're not supposed to. Doesn't make them bad people. They're not supposed to see the vision.

Trent Shelton [00:33:46]:
It's not theirs. And so I've had to learn how to trust that if I'm doing the things that I believe is right, if I'm doing the habits, if I'm doing the routines every day, if I'm showing up and knocking these things out the park, I have to know. It's called the gardener's mindset. I have to know that something is growing beneath the surface that I cannot see. I used to go visit my grandpa all the time. He was a gardener, and he had so much faith in knowing. I didn't get it. He was like, we're going to water this seed, and in three, four months, the harvest is going to be here.

Trent Shelton [00:34:24]:
And I used to always, like, I was four, five, six years old, I used to always be like, man, you doing it wrong. But he said, just trust the process. And a big part of that is trusting the process and knowing that if I keep showing up, if I keep trusting my heart, trusting my internal alignment, that eventually, over time, things will align externally. Maybe it might be somebody, hey, you helped me. Maybe it might be somebody saying, man, because of your product, it changed my life. And that's when the external alignment starts to come. And when that comes to me, it's game over. Because now you're like, oh, people need me.

Trent Shelton [00:34:58]:
People need what I created. People need my business. Let me keep going. So it's about trusting in the unknown, and that's how you're able to live in your vision at some point.

Mel Abraham [00:35:13]:
I love that you just said, it's not their vision to see, because a lot of times we're looking for validation from someone that doesn't have the same vision as us, and we can't get it. It's our life to live. It's interesting. I don't know how many of my listeners or viewers know, but I'm an identical twin, so I have an identical. Oh, yeah, he looks exactly like me. And our wives, we have the exact same sense of humor. It's so bad that we ordered in dinner one time. I happened to be at a board meeting the next day when my brother decides to arrive because he lives in Atlanta.

Mel Abraham [00:36:01]:
He shows up to the house that night, I'm coming back late, and Stephanie and him decide to order dinner from the same place that we ordered the night before. My brother never been to the place, orders the same thing the same way. And I'm not even around, and my wife's going, what is? You all have the same sense of humor, which is horrible. But then she says, and it's like you guys use the same brain. It's just a matter of who's using it at the time that you got it. And I'm only bringing that up because the interesting thing is, as I was being raised, and we were being raised just by default, my mom, more than anyone else, thought, well, we're twins. We should be the same. If Mel can do it, Jeff can do it.

Mel Abraham [00:36:54]:
And at the same time, if I get this for Mel, I better get the same thing for Jeff. So let me tell you, we have a whole closet full of tracksuits, one in green and one in blue, because it was always even. But yet we're two absolutely different people. And she thought we should have the same vision, the same aspirations, the same desires, the same goals, and the same path, and it's just not that way. And it wasn't until he left to go to college in San Diego that all of a sudden he was allowed to become his own person. And it changed our relationship. It changed his relationship with the world, his life. And I just think that when you said that about the vision, it's truly interesting to maybe be introspective and ask ourselves whether it's finances, whether it's relationship, whether it's anything else, am I living my life? Am I living my vision? Or is this something that was put on me because of society, because of expectations, because of education, because of credentials, because of siblings, whatever it is, because at the end of the day, you all want to look back on your life and go like the old song does, went, I did it my way because it has to be our way.

Mel Abraham [00:38:21]:
Otherwise that internal alignment is gone. And you wonder where the angst and the friction and the stress comes from. So good, dude. This is so good. This book is going to change so many people's lives if they're willing to go internal and take it on. You took it on. You've been doing it for decades at the hands of a tragedy that came in. And I have watched you for the last number of years that we've known each other and how you serve and how you show up.

Mel Abraham [00:38:55]:
And those of you that don't know Trent, you need to know Trent. Or those of you that do know Trent, you need to know him better. You need to be in that energy. And just watch how Trent shows up and the consistency in which he shows up and take it as an example of what can be on a path that was not something, that was a vision. So I think that this book should be on the bookshelf of everyone's home. It should be read. It should be reread. And it's one of those things because of everything in our life starts with the mind, it starts with the soul.

Mel Abraham [00:39:39]:
It starts with the energy, and then it permeates ourselves to a behavior which creates the results. It's one of those things that I think that it ought to be an annual read. It ought to be something that you reset yourself every year and go back and read it. And if you're in a marriage, if you're in an intimate relationship, y'all ought to do it together. So here's what I want to make sure that y'all get the book. Protect your peace. Y'all read the book. And that you follow Trent on this journey.

Mel Abraham [00:40:13]:
We'll make sure that we hook all of it up in the show notes and everything. Can you let us know where they need to go to get the book to be on this journey and everything? I know that you have some special things available for those that want to be on this protect your peace journey and everything. So let's kind of let them know where they find that and where they find Trent and how they can go deeper.

Trent Shelton [00:40:38]:
Yeah, for sure. I'll just keep it simple. Mail trenthone.com. You go there, you can find all things me. The book is there, the bonuses and all the things that you can get with the pre order, and then anything that I'm doing, it's on my website. All the socials just at Trent Shelton. And I love to connect with you guys and I truly appreciate this conversation, man. And connection, I really enjoyed it.

Mel Abraham [00:41:02]:
Yeah, buddy. It's always so good to chat with you, but to get a chance to have a bit extra time, to just kind of go a little deeper and get what's going on in your heart and your soul and your thinking, this one's a game changer. This one's going to change lives, brother. And I am so proud of you. I'm so proud of how you show up. You're an inspiration to me and I'm better because of you and my life. And I appreciate all you do. Thanks for taking the time, for being on the show, and I can't wait to see how this book soars and how the lives change.

Mel Abraham [00:41:37]:
Brother, you.

Trent Shelton [00:41:40]:
Thank you, man. I appreciate you, man. Protect your peace.

Mel Abraham [00:41:42]:
See you, man. Cheers. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show. With me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur facebook group now by going to melabraham.com/group, and I'll see you there.