Who Are You Beneath It? The Silent War of Identity with Dr. Stephen Crawford

Who are you beneath the armor?

Not the title.
 Not the role.
 Not the version of yourself you became in order to survive.

In this episode of Your Thoughts, Your Reality, Michael Cole sits down with Dr. Stephen Crawford, a keynote speaker, leadership coach, best-selling author, and powerful voice in personal transformation.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Stephen brings a grounded and deeply human perspective on resilience, identity, communication, self-leadership, and what it means to stop performing who you think you have to be—and start becoming who you truly are.

Together, Mike and Stephen explore one of the core battles within The 10 Silent Wars: Identity.

They talk about how people inherit stories, scripts, and beliefs about who they are based on their environment, upbringing, roles, pain, and survival patterns. Stephen shares how the armor that once protected us can eventually become the very thing that keeps us disconnected from our voice, our truth, and the people we are here to impact.

This conversation directly connects to several of The 10 Silent Wars, including:

• Identity – “Who am I beneath the role, title, and armor?” 
• Emotional Armor – “What did I build to survive that now keeps me disconnected?” 
• Self-Worth – “Do I matter beyond what I achieve or perform?” 
• Connection – “Can I let myself be truly seen?” 
• Legacy – “What message am I here to leave behind?” 

Stephen also opens up about the loss of his dear friend Brianna Smith, the powerful role she played in helping him become a fuller version of himself, and how being truly witnessed by another person can change the trajectory of your life. Through that experience, he shares how his message, voice, and mission evolved into what he now calls his life’s work: The Five Stages of Resonance.

This episode is not about polishing the outside.

It is about returning to the whole self.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  Why identity often becomes tied to roles, titles, performance, and survival 
•  How old stories can shape the way you see yourself and your future 
•  Why the armor that once protected you may now be limiting you 
•  What it means to be truly witnessed by another person 
•  How communication changes when you speak from your whole self 
•  Why resonance, integrity, and alignment matter in leadership and life 
•  How letting go of who you thought you had to be can unlock who you truly are 

If this episode resonated with you, don’t just move on to the next thing.

There’s a reason this hit—and it’s worth paying attention to.

Start by connecting deeper with the Your Thoughts, Your Reality community:

👉 https://yourthoughtsyourreality.com/

You can also watch and subscribe on YouTube to stay connected each week:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@YourThoughtsYourReality

And if you’re ready to take it a step further and create real change in your mindset, identity, and direction:

👉 https://empowerperformancestrategies.com/

Because your thoughts shape your reality…

And who you become begins with the courage to look beneath the armor.

#Identity #EmotionalArmor #SelfWorth #Leadership #PersonalGrowth #Mindset #Veterans #HighPerformers #The10SilentWars #YourThoughtsYourReality

Explore more episodes, resources, and updates from Mike Cole at:

https://YourThoughtsYourReality.com

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Transcript

Who You Are Beneath The Armor

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dr. Stephen Crawford is the keynote speaker, leadership coach, and best-selling author, and powerful voice in personal transformation. Today, we're going to talk about who you are beneath the armor, not the title, not the role, not the version of yourself who had to become, you had to become to survive. For a lot of people, especially veterans, leaders, and high performers, identity can become attached to what we do, how we perform, and how strong we appear to be. But at some point, the armor that once protected us can become the very thing keeping us disconnected from who we truly are. Today's conversation is about identity, communication, resilience, and what it means to go. Let go of the old story long enough to discover the person underneath.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Michael is a dual elite certified neuroencoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations, dedicated to guiding military veterans and to navigate the intricate pathways of post-employment life. Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles for procrastination, self-doubt, fear, and more. Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

As I was saying, Dr. Stephen Crawford is a keynote speaker, leadership coach, best-selling author, and the powerful voice in personal transformation. Raised on the South Side Chicago, Stephen brings a real, grounded perspective on resilience, identity, communication, and self-leadership. His work helps people break free from limited beliefs, old stories, and the armor they have worn to survive. With Deep Military Reach through his father's service in Vietnam, Stephen understands the importance of identity, voice, and the healing beyond the roles we carry. His message reminds people that transformation begins when we stop performing, who we think we have to be, and start becoming who we truly are. And he is a personal mentor in friend.

Stephen Crawford’s Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Stephen, welcome to your thoughts, your reality. Tell us a little bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Oh, you know, I think you you covered a lot of it. I mean, honestly, the one of the biggest, funnest things that I get to do is really, I think that one of the my my favorite quotes is that everything that has been said has already been said. But because no one was listening, we have to say it again. There you go. And it's so true. And it's like uh because life becomes redundancy, because we live out our lives, and then I think the first half, and then we start remembering who we really are because uh we stop caring so much about what other people have opinions about, and because of that stance and that choice, I think it just develops us so being from the South Shore of Chicago, being in a place where I grew up where I believed the version of the world, the story and the script that was passed on to me about who I was, based upon my gender, based upon my ethnicity, based upon the echo, you know, social economic environment that I was raised in and the education system that I was raised in, you get told, you get scripts, you get handed ideas. And then you got to go figure it out for yourself, only to find out that the world is not waiting to invite you into the super life that you think you should live or want to live. But I believe we always have an internal calling, a homing device uh placed in us by God that really drives us to a place where we can really figure out who am I, where am I going. And I think through those crazy things, it's taking me all over the world to spend time with well over three million people now and just really having uh impact on the world, coming from a place where those things shouldn't have been possible. Uh, but even in the middle of that, there had to be transformations and evolutions along the way. So I'm just glad to be here, man. Glad to be with you because uh we've hung out uh quite a bit and just really being able to finally, after two years of trying, uh we're here. So still glad to be here with you.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

I love that. And Steven, your dad is paid.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know, I know that was that was a big thing, right? It's like it was, it was, it was fun. You loan me, you loan me five bucks, I didn't have any cash, you owe me five bucks, and you said, listen, I'll waive it once you come on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

So yeah, I think it was you didn't have any cash, right? Awesome, awesome, man. So, you know, I want to talk about before we really dive into it, and we'll talk about it more later, but your your new book, because I know that's kind of where we're really diving in and delving into really this conversation.

The Five Stages Of Resonance

SPEAKER_02 4:43

So tell us about the book that you have coming out.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So the book is called The Five Stages of Resonance, and it really is probably speaks to the center of who I am as a person, starting as a young child who felt invisible and didn't really see himself, but through the process of witnessing a grandfather who could command an audience and through his voice, had a unique way of moving people and really wanting to identify with that, and him seeing me at five years old. When I told him, I said, This is what I want to do. I said, Granddad, I want to preach. Uh, him seeing me and putting me in that sacred place in the Black or African-American church where I got to speak and share, and that building the confidence, but also that creating kind of a division of two personas, right? And Carl Jung talks about the persona, which is the is the acceptable version that we feel acceptable to the world. And so there was a part of me that was what I felt was the real me, and the part of me that was a projection that grew out of a skill and a talent. So, you know, that kind of is the starting place of it all. And really, it is all about coming home to yourself and being able to speak from a place that can not only just command an audience, but really uh resonate in the point where we're not just seeking information transfer, but true transformation.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Oh man, love it. Cannot wait to read it. I cannot wait to read it. So that's gonna be the mail today for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Well, I got it, I got it. The author's copies are they'll get here today, so I'm excited about that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

I messed my thing, but so I I I love that. So let's talk about you know this the first silent war, right?

The First Silent War Of Identity

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Which is identity. And I think that really connects everything you know we're talking about, and and of course, part of your book and so on. So, what does the you know that really mean to you first one? Or I mean your identity, the first silent war.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So when a person, whether it be a veteran or a leader, I I think all of us fight a war, right? Coming up, you know. I truly believe that every human being that comes onto this planet is put in a place of perfection, of completeness. And when you are in the womb, you're completely warm, you're covered, your body, your mind, your spirit, and all of the things that make you you and the social field, all are there protecting you. The ambient sounds of warmth and conversation on the outside feel incredibly, incredibly warm. And so you're growing and developing, and everything that you need, even before you know you need it, you need calcium for your bones, you need oxygen for your lungs, and all those things are coming into you. If you need vitamin B or whatever, you can call forth whatever you need, whether it be hydration, everything is perfectly available to you. And then one critical moment, it's a necessary transition, but you start to see a light, and then you begin to come into a world. And that world on the outside is supposed to reflect the perfection that you had or the community that you had on the inside. Unfortunately, we come out to fractured people, broken people, people that have their to meet their own needs, and things get missed. And Gabor Matei, I think one of my favorite quotes by him that he said in a lecture one time was that most trauma that people deal with doesn't have to do with what happened to them, but the things that were supposed to happen that did not. And it is that that that fracturedness that we walk into that we're trying to figure out in a world, getting our needs met, but we're dealing with people that need to get their needs met. And and this really strange dynamic really begins to, and it goes on through life. And so the first time that this happens, the world is perfect, the world is nice, you know, Santa Claus exists, you know, we love Christmas carols and Fourth of July fireworks and all the things, at least for the people in the United States, that's our stateside audience, right? Right. We're having all of this incredible experience with life, and something happens. For many people, it could be a divorce, it could be abuse, it could be neglect, it could be something happens where the world was not the way we thought it was going to be. And then the big people don't have the insight to help us process that information. And so, in that kind of state of confusion, we have to mask up. We have got to put on a mask, we've got to put on something that makes this world livable, that makes this world understandable. And so we create strategic, maladaptive behaviors to put on ourselves, to protect ourselves from continuing to be hurt or experience life in this new reality. And Michael Mead talks about the that's something we can go into, but it's a form of initiation where the world you were living in is no longer the same. And I call that a primary wound. And that wound is what we begin to carry and cover up. So in order to cover it up to make the world okay, we start that process of covering up. And some of us avoid and go into seclusion, some of us become victims and become helpless, others become angry and rageful because we think that's the strategy that gets us where we want. And some of us just become pleasing and amiable and happy all the time. But all of those are really not, they're they're not living in our authentic selves. And so that's when when I look at think about what does that mean to cover up? It's putting on that armor that makes you feel safe and protected because you learn that living from the heart, the world isn't ready for that.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, I I I love so many things you said, and honestly, I could sit and just listen to you keep going, man. So so literally that that perspective, right? Is we're we're protected, we we we come out and the real world is there, right? And we we build up those armor, the masks, all of those things that we do. So I really love that you told that story like that because it really puts it in a a beautiful picture, if you will. So totally going off off questions already.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I told you we might go up there one or two, but that's we don't need any questions. We can just stop.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

So, what are some of the things that I can ask personally, some of the things that you know for you made you build up more?

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SPEAKER_01 11:41

Well, see, I came from a big family, and I think depending upon what size of family you come in, it will vary very significantly. But

(Cont.) The First Silent War Of Identity

SPEAKER_01 11:50

I have 10 siblings, and but I grew up with eight in our kind of our our foundational home, and my mom and dad are both loving people. And when you begin to, but as children, you begin to develop an understanding of the way the world is, and what seems like invisibility could be could be also projected on as neglect in the mind of a child, it probably is, but it's really just mathematics. You can't give equal attention to everybody, and so as things are moving, as you can imagine with eight children. I started as a child really looking and determining, to no fault of anyone else's, that I wonder what would happen if I didn't show up for dinner. And I would sit under my bed and literally pretend to be invisible. And some nights I just got hungry, and I just went down to dinner. Other nights I I went to bed hungry, almost as a punishment, believing I was punishing people for not seeing me. I was like this little scientist. I remember going to malls. My parents thought I was just absent-minded, going to malls or stores, and there's several times where I would get lost, but I wasn't getting lost. They were busy, and I literally would sit there and wonder how long it would take for them to notice that I wasn't there, and then I become so determined in that spot that I literally became invisible. As a matter of fact, one of my most incredible superpowers, as you will, is seeing things in people that no one else sees. And the reason for that has to come from this place of this sense of invisibility, this sense of non-importance that I didn't matter. If I were to disappear, I wouldn't matter. And so I found a way to say, all right, I don't matter, but I'll project a personality that does. So I became incredibly extroverted, incredibly so some people shrink back, but me, I did the opposite. I went big. So my persona became much bigger. But what that does is the persona requires a lot of energy to maintain, it requires an incredible amount of intensity and to to to keep that projection going when it's not really the authentic version of you.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, and and I think we all I shouldn't say that. I know I I had some of the same thing. You know, we we were uh it was just my mom and a and a decent sized family, wasn't five, but you you you you want to see where you fit in, right? And that's kind of part of it. And you build up that armor then to protect yourself. So I I love that you said that. So when was it that you realized that building up the armor didn't actually fit you, it

The Childhood Roots Of Invisibility

SPEAKER_02 14:30

wasn't serving you. Let me rephrase that.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Okay, yeah, all right. So you're not gonna make me emotional on this podcast. This is not uh one of those things. This isn't this is not the Oprah Winfrey show. We're not gonna do this, but I I I have to tell the story because it's so relevant. Thank you for being below me. I was I was I was at a leadership, I was at a leadership event, and as I was we get done

A Hard Truth From A Witness

SPEAKER_01 14:53

speaking, typically when I get done, and it's it could be in this case, it was in social circles and everything else like that. People tend to thank the speaker, or you speak in any form of fashion, say, You did a great job. And so a couple walks up towards me, and I'm thinking, This is this is going to be that. And oh my goodness, I'm getting emotional already. And I remember a woman looks at me and says, uh, or her first words was, I think you're gonna need to sit down. That is not my good job. Talk. Right. Uh I said, she said, I think you should sit down. And then she proceeds to sit down. So I sit down. Her partner then rolls her eyes and walks away, and I'm like, okay, what's this all about? She says, You know, you project very confidently and very well, but I keep wondering, you've got so much potential. What would happen if it's like you're speaking behind a wall of self-protection? And I wonder what would happen if you came from behind that wall and share what share what really was. And I was trying not to be offended, right? It's like, right, like, who are you? Again. And and and and I was really, really impacted by that. And it started a journey, and this is a few years ago, and the two of us became really, really close because my desire was to amplify her as I saw what she was trying to contribute to the world. And so, and this is my dear friend who uh we lost last year, Brianna Smith. And we had this really meaningful conversation the first time, but then we set up a time just a week later, had this. We probably talked for about four hours about these things because she could, and she began to pick away. I know what you're trying to do, I can hear what you're trying to do. And she helped me try to get a vision of what it meant to speak from a place of living and authentically. And we had arguments over you, well, you can't do this in public and speaking. I've been doing, I'm a professional, you can't do that. She says, Well, one of the most powerful things she's ever said, she said, I told her you can't speak to people directly because if they're out of sync, then they'll deny this. And she says, Listen, if you lead with love, you'll never guide people to where they are unwilling to go. And she just really began to, and so we had this really, really deep dynamic and traveled all as I traveled all over the world. I was all we were always in touch for the last few years. So losing her was a really big, big piece that actually helped was the impetus for this book, where I really got serious and nailed down my journey and many of the things of bringing myself to a place where I'm operating at a different level than I was just four years ago because of the impact that that woman had on my life. And I'm grateful for. And that's that's one of the hardest things about the birthing of this book was that it came through such a painful process.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Yeah, and and and Stephen, thank you truly for for being vulnerable and discussing it. I I know uh the effect because it's absolutely beautiful person. You know, I was lucky to be on a training with her with you, and and so on. So I I want to say this, okay? She is freaking right.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

She was freaking right. I I I know it, and it's been very disruptive. It's been very my whole life was disrupted from that conversation to now. It disrupted so much, and uh and so much was unearthed, so much has been continues to evolve. And this is why I tell people I said, listen, everybody needs a witness. And the fact that she saw the little boy in the mall, and she said, You're asking the right question, do you matter? But you're using the wrong data points. You don't need to live in a place where you're just looking to confirm your biases, you need to just be witness for who you are, and she became that witness. And although it didn't, even though she disconfirmed the theory, not by giving me better information, but by simply witnessing who I was and telling me what she saw. And, you know, going from a very polished speaker, but a woman with a poet's gift to curate and to build, she was able to show me a part a version of myself and a vision of myself that allowed me the freedom to really begin to speak at a different level. And my entire presentation style, I'm not as polished, my diction isn't always perfect, my words are not all. I used to be very, very intentional about every part of it. And a lot of that gets it gets messy now. But the frequency, the resonance that I'm speaking from is so much more powerful that I watch the impact of it, and it's there's no question about it. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. And even though she's no longer here, she's she did enough work to disconfirm the theory of that little boy. And that is the power of what a witness can do and what it really means, and it's what I get the gift of doing because when I get up on any stage, I speak for two now. I don't just I have the obligation of living out what I call as my holy dissatisfaction with the world and bringing what I feel is my right, but I also have taken on the mantle of doing what she was supposed to do because she's not here to do it any longer.

unknown 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

You know what though? She is. I'm just gonna say that, and then we're gonna move on because I'm gonna get emotional, but she is because every time we speak her name, every time we tell the story, she is. I just want to say so. Again, thank you for absolutely thank you for the vulnerability again. I know this is hard for you. I'm gonna say one thing, Steven, okay? And I'm not I'm not blowing smoke. I I'm not gonna mess up your autopsy. I'm not gonna blow smoke up your ass like that. That amazing movie, Joe, meet Joe Black, one of the best lines ever. And I cleaned it up a little bit. Um but there's a different I've seen a difference, my friend, from where you were before, because you you're already amazing. Truly. You you you connect with a group of people when you're doing a presentation that is absolutely phenomenal, and you connect even more now. From the Neuro Encoding Institute conference that we saw you at, and you talked about this, you're emotional and button connected because people want to feel, and in this world today, we're so busy and so locked up in in the crap and suspense cycle, if you will, that we we forget sometimes to slow down to be present, and that and that gift for you changes changed your life and your and and your presentation skills. I mean everything. So it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to land. I remember somebody, I think it was Stephen Cropper that told me that once.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

So so thank you, man. Yes, absolutely. And I think it is the reality that when you can learn to speak from the whole self, I was very heavy in mind because you know, coming from a theological tradition

Speaking From The Whole Self

SPEAKER_01 21:56

is one of the most grounded disciplines you can have. You know, of my four degrees, two of them have to do are in kind of the the discipline of theology, and then you come from that tradition, heavy mind. And then you also have for me personally, I was always high in spirit. I mean, starting from my grandfather's church, I was able to see and understand and really begin to be in and to allow the spirit to really be a high part. And most people get wigged out by the word spirit, but I think what you understand spirit is the impulse. Now, what your faith tradition is not relevant to what spirit is, okay? When you do Desire to do good in the world. That's coming from a place of spirit. When you desire philanthropy, when you desire any calling, any connection that has to do with goes beyond your love relationships come from spirit. All those things are primary. So I don't want to get into a theological conversation about this because some people can't do that, and that's fine. You can have your faith, I have mine. But what I will say is that I was really good at listening to what I believe, what spirit says, and being able to move and use intuition and all these things to really have an impact on people. Those things were really good. But my heart, I learned, was not safe to put out there. And so I was, and that's that's exactly what Brianna saw. She saw me speaking where my heart was being preserved. The projection was loud, but the heart was being preserved. And so the heart was disconnected. And most people are completely disembodied. So my body, I mean, coming from the south side of Chicago, where one part of me was hyper-vigilant, always looking at the if I was on the Dan Ryan L train, I'm always looking at the exits. You know, who's coming in, who's targeting me, who's, you know, I had, you know, the gangs that, you know, I got jumped on the bus when I was in high school and they were trying to take the Snicker bars from me. I was raising some money for the wrestling team. And I'm telling you, and I knew that I could have taken these guys. I actually, the reason they picked on me because I literally, in gym class, had flipped them around and and really like all three of them at the same time. So I could have manhandled them easily. But outside of those, the gym class, they were affiliated with the game.

unknown 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And I knew that I could have taken them in a moment, but it would have cost me later. And so I literally, not out of cowardice, but out of literally just intelligence, situational intelligence, that informed my body that my body was not safe. The drive-by shootings, the shots that when we were in school, I mean, we heard those things. We got under the desk sometimes. Those things inform our body. The other thing is that because of my spiritual tradition, as a child, you don't always understand that they tell you you get a lot of do's and don'ts in a faith community. And so I was told that my desires were bad. The things that I wanted, the things in my battery natural. And so I shame myself for desires, and I was freaking out. So body and heart, so I could only show up with two out of four cylinders. And if you've ever driven a car that only has two pistons, two to four pistons work, you know that something's missing. And I'm not saying that you can't be good, you can't be effective. I don't dismiss any of the work I did before I've done the work of the last three, four years. I don't disminit just many of that. I don't dismiss it. The impact was great, the power was great, but it's different. When you get your hold, no, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

No, I'd like to say that you needed to go through that and then with Brianna to get to where you are now. And if you wouldn't met her before, it wouldn't be the same. It all happened the way it was. Believe it now.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah, the time and seasons are important.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's let's dive in a little bit. We we're we're getting a little shorter on time now. So I I want to go through two more things. And the one first one is uh why do

Roles, Survival, And Language Traps

SPEAKER_02 25:50

you think so many people attach their identity to roles title success or the version themselves they had to become to survive? And I know you can speak to this.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah, our primary operating system says the number one important thing in life is to survive. We must survive, and every system fights for life, every system fights for life, it look it fights for the things that it needs. And I think that if we're any type of mask or thing that we put on as far as our identity, we wouldn't do it if we didn't believe it contributed to our survival. And I know this is really strange. So you get someone who is steeped in poverty and they keep making decisions that keep them in poverty, and you're like, why won't they do better? There's something about their context that they believe that is a necessary function of their survival, and they are not safe to leave outside of that. So our safety and our pro is the priority, and because that's the case, the beliefs that we built, and most people believe they believe that they're built, they actually believe their beliefs are the reality. But no, I'm telling you, your you know, your name of your podcast is also your reality. Clause for the podcast. Your thoughts are your beliefs are not your reality, your beliefs are a reality, but sometimes they trap you from seeing actual reality, and that's what really traps us. And so I believe that we put out strategies, maladaptive behaviors that we think and are identified as our personality, but they're not. They're they're they're they're behaviors to protect a three to four or five-year-olds individual. And you gotta be able to aware that awareness is the first step to understand that that those things are breaking you, they're keeping you in a cage.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Love it, man. And you know, when you when you put that identity towards, you know, I'm I am, right? And I know you talked about this as well as I I am, you know, and put the title on it, it it truly your brain thinks that's who you are. So, you know, when you're ready to break free, maybe change the I am statement, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, I mean you you know your identity is, and it's the one that's interesting because a lot of languages don't have the privilege of we have in English that everything is an identity piece. I am hungry, I am tired. No, those are those are those are states, those are not identity pieces, but we conflate them. And I think I do believe that that's a part of what entraps us so much is the words we use and the language we use. So we need to be mindful. I usually say, I have to go pick up my son from general. No, I get to do that. It is a privilege. I don't have to do anything. And so we we have to break past some of the conditioning of our language, uh, because how you do your language, it will lock you into a world that sometimes you'll never get out of it, and you don't realize it's even a cage.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Absolutely, man. Your BS system, your belief system, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

So the last piece I want to go through is taking off the armor, right? We we've seen the darkness now, we want to break it open and bring it, bring everybody to the light side. So give me thoughts, and it can be personal, it could be, you know, whatever comes to mind,

How To Take Off The Armor

SPEAKER_02 28:52

but you know, whether it's how you did it or or just so again, thoughts of man, Steven just spoke to me. I get it, and I I'm so protected that I'm not letting love in, I'm not letting all these opportunities, all those things. How do you break? How do you break open the armor? How do you take it off?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

So I'm gonna give you partially my philosophy. So everybody's gotta figure out a way to overcome their own crowding beliefs. The first belief that I had to unearth, and this is one thing that the first thing that one of the first things that I really and I had to fight with Brianna, because we went back and forth on this, and Marco Polo's, if you know the app, and we're going back and forth on this. I'm like, I'm and I'm I I'm I wasn't giving up my position easily because I grew up in a world in which armor I felt was necessary. But one of the things that was one of the wisest things that I began to agree with was that walking around loving openly and being vulnerable, coming from a vulnerable place exposes a lot of corrupt motives. When you're using energy, most of you don't realize it takes energy to maintain armor, it takes to keep that armor up because it's a simulated version of who you really are, it takes a lot of energy. That energy consumption creates an almost the impossibility for you to actually objectively begin to look at the world around you. And so we contaminate and we create stories around the world around us based upon the energy consumption that it takes to actually protect ourselves. So mindfully, we need to come to a place, one, where we can't spend all of our lives in resistance against what's happening to us. So when I set down the armor, I start to see that everybody wasn't a good person. People that I thought were good people, I kept at a distance that I was allowing in, and people that I thought were had, I wasn't certain about their motives, I began to say, oh my gosh, they're not trying to attack me. I've just created a story about this. So I actually got to be begin to see things more clearly. And walking around with that level of openness, really, there was a sense of freedom. And I made two decisions. One is one of the really big struggles that I think we have in life is we think that love is scarce, is a scarce resource. Maybe we had a crush on somebody in high school, and then you know, we they they said yes, and all of a sudden two weeks later, like, I don't, I don't want to be with them anymore. And we think, and so we think that's love. It's that's not, but you know, we think that is, and so then we say, love is a scarce resource. I've discovered that love is abundant, which means I'm never gonna run out, which means that if I love openly and freely and I never run out, it's just gonna, it's just gonna be able to free flow. The second thing that people are protective is they think that love is unfair. Well, here's the thing it is unfair. But if I have to choose who's gonna win this game, I can lower my expectations of how much love you give me by always saying, Well, I'm always gonna outperform. I'm gonna overperform and I'm gonna win the love game. And so I'm gonna give you more than you give me. So we'll never there'll never be a sense of injustice when you withhold. I'll always, I'm just gonna do that. When you live from that place of freedom, it just really, really it blesses the people around you, but also lives you you you can walk free because you're not holding on to an expectation that somebody's gotta give you retribution on what you have and deserve. So that's kind of the thought. Those are my thoughts on, you know what, taking down the armor, if you can get rid of the beliefs that you can actually control things, which is also a cosmic joke, thinking that you can actually control things, but the armor is all about control and protection, and you're not keeping yourself anymore safe. Uh but when you can love openly and live openly, it changes the world.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

I I absolutely love that, man. And and I think also it's that the expectation is where a lot of the problem is, right? You know, you're a model of the world. I expect this person to do this or this person to do that, which which muddies up the water, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

It does, absolutely. And we just have to free ourselves from living with that, and as we free ourselves from living with that, it just we can really honor so much more of the people around us, of the communities that we serve, of the people that we speak to, to become more resonant. And when you are complete, when you are clean, and you begin to speak, what you begin to see is that there's a reverberation that goes from your voice

Integrity Frequency And Real Resonance

SPEAKER_01 33:16

internally, the bone conduction, all the things that you hear. And when it goes out complete, and what I call the integrity frequency is the first stage of resonance, then integrity frequency, because it's not integrity, it's not a moral term, it's an architectural one, it's a structural one. And so you can have someone that is really evil, but they have a complete integrity, meaning them and their word, them and what they believe, them and their communication, everything is structurally sound because they are absolutely committed to that. And you can have someone who has good moral character, but weak structurally, which and so what you see is whatever you project into the world is based upon the stage of strength of character that you come from. And when you come from a place of strong character, whether you're good or bad, so you can have Dr. King, a Mother Teresa, a Gandhi, you could have a Hitler, a Genghis Khan, you could have people who committed genocide all over the world. All of them had strong character. They had integrity because them and their message, there was no daylight between it. And that's the power of impacting the world. And so we can if we can really embrace that, that can really change lives and make a big difference. That we need to be people of integrity, holding fast, not to your moral code, which I do think is important, but understanding that you become so committed to the things that you believe and the things that you are, that there is no daylight between the words you say and the person that you are.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Love it, man. Absolutely love it. Steven, for the people listening who feel connected to your message, what's the best way for them to learn more about your work, you know, follow you, book you,

Where To Find The Book And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 34:52

or support your what you're building?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

You know, I would love it if everybody could honestly, but I do believe that this this message, the the five stages of resonance, is a is is timely. It is my life's work. I just got a notification. I'm here in my office. 15 books just showed up upstairs. I'm excited about the you know, getting the author's copy. So I would love, I would say it is on Spotify. I'm still working on getting it uh ready for Audible. I do have it in Spanish, both in Audible and Amazon. You can go purchase the book uh in English or Spanish. And I just want people to really, really begin to embrace, to understand, because we need good people that have the light, much light, I believe that uh Brianna brought to the world to really begin to amplify their voice in a way that speaks so strongly and it resonates with people that brings that alignment. And when you're speaking from your true self from your whole self, you'll command any room you walk into.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Love it, man. Absolutely love it. As we know time is the most precious resource we have as human beings, Stephen. We can't get it back. Thank you for spending this moment in time to help our mission and really make a difference.

unknown 35:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

If someone uh something in today's conversation resonated with you, don't just move on to the next thing. Sit with it for a minute. If you know someone who may

Share, Reflect, And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_02 36:06

need to hear this, share this episode with them. You can also join us at your thoughtsyreality.com where we continue these conversations around identity, transition, resilience, and growth. And remember, your thoughts shape your reality. We're out of here.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of the Your Thoughts Your Reality Podcast with your host, Michael Cole. We hope the conversation is talking about thoughts that resonate with you.com.