6 | Transformational Strategies to Withstand, Recover & Grow with Sean Douglas

In this episode of The Shannon Fox Show, I sit down with Sean Douglas, a U.S. Air Force retiree, TEDx speaker, and Master Resilience Strategist, to talk about how to withstand adversity, recover from setbacks, and grow into your full potential.

Sean shares his powerful journey of hitting rock bottom and rebuilding his life with resilience, mindset shifts, and transformational strategies that help career moms and professionals thrive—even in challenging times.

This episode is packed with game-changing insights on how to overcome self-doubt, handle career setbacks, and create an epic, fulfilling life on your terms!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ The biggest mindset shifts for overcoming adversity

✔️ Why resilience is the key to long-term career success

✔️ How to recover from setbacks and turn them into opportunities

✔️ The power of "growing through" challenges instead of just going through them

✔️ Actionable steps to build confidence and self-worth in your career & life

Connect with Sean Douglas

https://www.thesuccesscorps.com/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/TheSuccessCorps

NOTE: This interview was part of the Dynamic Performance Summit and Sean’s Free Gift was for attendees.

Resources & Links:

🚀 Take the Mastery Zone Discovery Quiz HERE

📲 Follow Shannon on Instagram → @the.shannon.fox

📩 Join the Email List for Career Strategies & Updates HERE

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Kat and Tanner by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

Transcript

Welcome to the Shannon Fox show, the podcast where we empower career moms to thrive. I'm your host, Shannon Fox, a career advancement coach dedicated to helping moms like you leverage your strengths to land your dream job, secure that well-deserved raise, or finally get that promotion—all without sacrificing time with your family. Each week, I'll bring you actionable strategies, inspiring stories, and strength-based tools to help you align your career with your natural gifts and step into your full potential. So, if you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start building the career and life you deserve, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Hello everyone, welcome! I am so excited to have Sean Douglas with me today. Sean is a U.S. Air Force retiree, three-time TEDx speaker, professional keynote speaker, master resilience strategist, international podcast host, and two-time best-selling author. His "why" is that he is a suicide survivor—someone who hit rock bottom with no purpose or passion. He believes that you were created for a purpose, and once you unlock your true potential, you will elevate your life. His mission is highlighted as he is the Vice President on the board of the nonprofit One Life Fully Lived. In a highly interactive and engaging environment—utilizing online mentoring sessions and face-to-face workshops—Sean offers life-changing resilience skills and business positioning strategies to career professionals, military veterans, professional speakers, authors, podcasters, and entrepreneurs that will unlock their true potential and elevate them to new heights in their personal and professional lives. Sean equips people with the tools necessary to live epic, adventurous lives and leaves people better equipped to manage change effectively.

Sean hit rock bottom, never felt loved or valued, feeling lost in the world, and tried to take his life. He now shares his powerful testimony on stages globally and sends the message that at any point, you have the power to say, "This is not how my story ends." Sean spent four years as an Air Force basic training drill instructor where he developed over 600 men and women into military leaders. Sean is energetic and passionate about inspiring others to succeed. Since 2001, he has served as an active-duty Air Force Airman. He started and operated three successful businesses. His book, "Decisions: The Power to Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviors," reflects his passion for inspiring others to succeed and grow through the worst seasons of their life. Considered an icon of influence in the new media space, Sean hosts the top 2% podcast "Create, Launch, Monetize" and "From No Worth to Self Worth" based on his best-selling book. He also speaks at many podcast industry events throughout the year. Watch his popular TEDx talks at www.thesuccesscorp.com.

Welcome, Sean! I want to first start by saying thank you for your service to our country, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, thank you so much for having me! I am honored to be here, and I have been honored to serve for over 20 years in the U.S. Air Force. Now, I am happily retired.

That is awesome! I just appreciate your service. So, for those in the audience who may not know who you are yet, could you talk about this journey of hitting rock bottom and then finding passion and purpose? Can you give us a little background on that and how discovering that true passion and purpose has just been such a life-changing experience for you?

Have you ever felt like you should have been the one to invent the phone, the light bulb, or the car? Like, why didn't I think of that? That's how I felt my whole life. I always felt second best. I mean, I'm a middle child, but I always felt second best. I always felt like someone was first, and I'm like, man, I missed my moment. But you have to create those moments that signify who you are, that tell the story of who you are, and so that's what I did.

Yeah, I hit rock bottom because I put so much pressure on myself. The military put so much pressure on me, and after a few deployments, you see some bad people. You see some bad things—it sticks with you. You wake up with nightmares. You start drinking. You start medicating in different types of ways, right? That's what I did. And so I hit rock bottom to the point where I was losing everything. They were going to kick me out of the military. I showed up to work drunk. I was going to get a divorce, lose my family—I was going to lose everything. And so I couldn't, I couldn't bear the thought that I'm this big of a screw-up. Like, how do you ruin a military career and a family all at the same time?

Yeah, but my military brothers saved me. I didn't check into work for a couple of days, and they saved me. They were there. They found me in my deepest, darkest night-of-the-soul moment, and I got the help that I needed because I had childhood abuse that I never dealt with. My parents got divorced. There was just a lot of stuff, and I was just an angry kid. Yeah, so with everything that happened leading up in my life until 2009, I needed this moment. And we all have a moment that not defines who we are but forges who we are.

I love that. I always say that we're forged in the fire. And so if you've ever been to a Tony Robbins event, they do the fire walk. It’s supposed to signify that you are forged in the fire. It’s like iron sharpens iron, right? And so that moment, that horrible moment that you’re going through right now or that you have been through—you are being forged in the fire. You’re being hardened. You’re becoming more resilient. So don’t shy away from those deep, hard moments. Embrace them. Don’t just go through it—grow through it.

Oh, I love that. Grow through it. Yes. I think everybody has those. I mean, I also had a very traumatic childhood and grew up with that trauma, but I look back and you're right. That moment was, there's some moments where I can look back and say, all right, this is not the life I want to live anymore. And I'm going to make the change. And I have. I've changed the projection of that. I've broken generational curses. My husband has too, so that we're not bringing that on to our kids. And to me, I think that that's huge in that. And so taking something so bad and growing through that, I love that.

And that's part of that epic life that you were talking about. And so, you know, what advice would you give to the women that are listening right now? Like, how do they get to have this epic life that you talk about? And what does that look like? I mean, I guess for each individual person, it's going to look a little different, but what do you want to, how can you advise them?

I love this moment. Everything's going to look different for the person. It doesn't, it doesn't—an epic adventurous life. What does that look like specifically to the person? Maybe it's Disney World. Maybe it's going to the mountains. Maybe it's kayaking, fishing, going skydiving, hot air ballooning, but it's all the same. The activity is specific to the person, but the action is the same in order for you to live the most adventurous life. I have been to every single continent except Australia. Thank you, Mr. Military. Thank you, Uncle Sam, for paying my vacation, but I didn't have to stay in England or Germany.

Like, I traveled everywhere. I looked at it like, I'm going here for the weekend. I'm backpacking through Ireland. I'm going to go to Wales this weekend. I'm going to go almost get stabbed in the subway in France, in Paris. You know, like, it's like, what am I going to do this weekend? Here's how you do it.

And here is what you do. The how is just write down the feeling you want to feel. That's all it is. Just write down the feeling. This weekend, I want to feel adrenaline. I want to feel pumped. I want to feel excited. Not so much motivated, but just, Ooh, I want to be scared of something. I want to be—we're going skydiving. This is it. That's what we got to do, right? So it's the feeling. You're chasing the feeling. And so our brains are just wired for those endorphins and all of the chemicals and all the adrenaline, like all the stuff, right? It's like chasing a drug high or it's like, I want to get drunk. Let's get wasted, right? Because you're chasing the party.

I never drank to mask my pain. I drank so that I could feel it. It was so weird. It was like the opposite. I was so numb from shutting off my feelings because when you're in the military and there are bad guys and you're deployed, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Right. And so you shut off your human side.

Well, in order to feel my human side, I would drink. I became the life of the party. And then if I drank whiskey, I felt this way. If I drank tequila, I felt this way. If I felt this one thing, I felt this way. So it was like, depending on the mood going in was the mood going out.

And so I did a lot of research and my first TEDx talk is called "Hacking Your Brain for Success." And so I looked at fact-based positive psychology research studies, and our brain is wired for defense. And so in order to get out of the rat race and the hamster wheel, you have to have a pattern interrupt. And in order for you to have a pattern interrupt, you have to chase a feeling. And there are all kinds of research studies. Like, the Law of Diffusion of Innovation is a great one.

Uh, it basically talks about, like, are you an early adopter or are you a laggard? Uh, there's another one called the Broaden-and-Build Theory. And, uh, it was a North Carolina researcher who came up with the Broaden-and-Build Theory in 2004, that says that every positive emotion builds on itself and every negative emotion builds on itself. And so if you want to feel more positives, build positives in your life. It's like, Ooh, I want this car.

I never see this car anywhere, but I really love this car and nobody else has this car, but I'm going to go buy this car. And the minute you buy it, you see it everywhere. It's because where focus goes, energy flows. What you focus on expands.

If you want to feel a certain way, go chase that feeling. Today, I want to feel this way. Today, I want to feel this way. And sometimes it's like, you know what, I'm just in a bad mood and I want to honor that feeling. And I want to just feel that. And I want to sit in that, but then I'm going to have to move on.

You can't just sit there. You can't just be in that state. And so if you want to be successful, if you want to live an adventurous, epic life, if you want to do anything extraordinary, you have to chase that feeling of how do I want to feel today? And it's a choice.

How do I want to feel? Do you want to feel like crap? Then you're going to eat like crap, and you're going to talk like crap. You're going to experience crap. Or do I want to live the most amazing life today? And what does that look like for you? The event is different, but the action is always the same.

I love that. I love that. I have not thought of it that way, but yes, you're right. I love—what feeling are you wanting? And I think that that's where your mindset comes into it. And it's, hey, I want those positive feelings. I want positive.

Today, I'm going to wake up. I'm going to have a successful day. Today, I'm going to wake up. Well, yesterday, I woke up. I'm like, I'm going to take time to myself. And so I went and had a day where I didn't really do a ton of work because that was what I had decided in my mind that I wanted to do.

So I love that of, like, it's the feeling and all that, you know, like, the specifics of the action may look different, but it's the feeling that we're all going. So that, that is, that's good. I like that.

And so, it's that moment, right? And then combine it. So it's the visual, but then it's combined not only with gratitude and the spiritual reminder, but it's always going to be the action that you take. You know, and so become a moment maker. Become a moment maker. And maybe the great thing that you do for someone is not only for them, but there's healing in someone else's gratitude. When you selflessly give to someone else, or when you make their day, there's healing in that for you because you were a part of that.

And so become a moment maker and just create all these little iconic moments in your life. You want to live an epic, adventurous life? Create moments. There's a feeling that's involved. What feeling? It's like on stage. They always talk about how it's not what you say to the audience; it's how you make them feel.

And so when we're on stage speaking, we want to make them laugh, but we also want to kind of make them cry sometimes. Or maybe we want to take them to a deep, dark moment and take them on this journey that we lived. And so we use different words, and we use different phrases, and we use different pitches and tones. If we want to be real happy, then we're really happy, you know? And so it's just inflection and pitch and all this stuff. And so right now, you and I, we get to create this moment.

Yes. And then every speaker that comes on gets to create their moment. Yeah. And so that is resilience in the making—creating the moment. Yes. Yes.

I love that. Because even when I get into a mood of just Bah humbug in so many ways, and I'm all about me, that's when I take a moment and say, "Okay, how can I go out and serve someone else today?" Like you said, "What can I do?" And so that's one of our family mottos. If we're feeling overwhelmed, stressed, like—who can I go serve today? Because going out and making a difference in someone else's life is automatically going to make a difference in your life, and it's going to change.

And so it could be something so small, but it could also be like, "Okay, I'm going to go, and we're going to go do this X, Y, and Z." So I feel like that's a moment maker in itself—just going out and doing something, serving someone else, making it about someone else and not about yourself. And yet you still reap the benefits of their happiness. It brings that happiness back to you.

And I think that's a huge moment maker. Personally, I have to do this sometimes because I need to remind myself—okay, it's not about here. It's not about these four walls. Let's get back out and do something for someone else.

Right? It's like when you take your kids to Disney World. It's not for you. I mean, it could be if you like to go, but it's for the kids, right? You don't go see Santa Claus in the mall for you. It's for the kids, right? Think about how happy you are when you do things for your kids and see their smiling faces. It doesn't matter what went on 10 minutes prior, right? Your three-year-old could have had a huge meltdown. She could have lost it in public—right in the grocery store. And all of a sudden, outside the grocery store, they have puppy adoptions. And then she sees the puppy, and all of a sudden, she's happy and giggling.

And you're like, "Wow, she's so cute." Or she has a meltdown right before bed, and then she finally falls asleep. And you look at her and think, "Oh, that boy is magnificent when he's sleeping. I love him so much."

Right? But it's these moments that you remember. No matter if they made you so mad 10 minutes prior, they do something funny and loving in the next minute, and you're like, "This is why I have kids."

This is why I do what I do. And that's how I feel as a speaker. If I create this moment on stage and I get an unlock—the head nods are the best. I look into the crowd, and there are head nods going on. I fixate on that. I point that out. I make eye contact, creating a moment with someone in the audience. Afterward, they come up to me and say, "Man, I just really resonate with that. And I just really appreciate it. Like, like we're in this moment together."

Right? That's what I love about speaking. That's why I do what I do. It's these moments that I get to create. Yeah. That's what I'm chasing.

Absolutely. And so, on a grand scale in your life, create the most epic, adventurous moments. Think about the most adventurous vacation you could ever take and just do it. Say yes and figure it out. Just do it. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, do it.

So I think even going a little further and going back to what we were talking about—self-worth and how you said you were a middle child, you had trauma, didn't feel valued. But I think it goes back to when you make those moments, you really do get to see your value. Because even though you're speaking, or maybe it's these women and they're doing something in their job and career or their life at home, somebody comes up, like you said, and just says, "Thank you. That meant so much to me. I felt like that whole talk was strictly for me."

I feel like that takes—it means a lot. I mean, I know that for me, I've given presentations before and just been open and vulnerable. And when somebody's come in and resonated with part of that, it makes me go, "Wow, I really do have value, and I have that to offer someone." And it just helps my mindset to be reminded of that. Because I was told most of my life that I was unlovable, unsuccessful, and would never amount to anything. You know, and so to get past that and still have certain triggers, obviously.

But then to have someone come up and say that, or just like, "Hey, thanks for just smiling at me today. That meant so much. I was having a rough day. You had no idea that you passing and smiling at me just made me feel better." And, you know, it could be something so small, but I think that helps bring back that value. And I know as women, we typically don’t give ourselves enough credit for the value we offer to the world.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And sometimes it's as easy as complimenting somebody. If you're walking by a stranger and maybe they're dressed to kill, they are dressed for success, and they look amazing—tell them, "Hey, I just think that you really look amazing today." Do you know what that can do for somebody? Just giving and receiving a compliment.

We are very, very good as humans, especially women, at carrying around luggage that nobody else can see. I mean, there's so much baggage—so much luggage that is either from the past, past hurt, pain, relationships, somebody wronged you, a grudge, something, a missed opportunity.

We carry that around with us. Can you imagine what would happen if you just laid it all down and said, "I'm not carrying this stuff around with me anymore. It is what it is."

Acceptance is going to reign supreme in my life. I accept it and move on. Can you imagine what would happen if you received a compliment and then accepted it on the spot and said, "Yeah, that's me."

Thank you. And it just reinforces your brand, not your business brand, your personal brand, your core values, your morals, right? Your standards, right? Somebody comments, you're like, "I received that. Yeah. I'm going to receive that today." You know, instead of being like, "Oh, thanks." Yeah. They’ll downplay it. Because how often do they downplay it? They're like, "Oh yeah, not a big deal." Instead— "Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I am going to accept that."

I love that because I feel like, and I know I'm guilty of this—of going, "Oh yeah, not a big deal." Oh, like shrugging it off. But I should be accepting it and saying, "Yes, that is true. I do need to accept that." And so I think that’s very relatable to many of the listeners.

Yes. Yes. And sometimes we minimize what we’re doing.

It's a lot of work to run a household full of kids. It’s a lot of work in relationships. I feel like me personally, I’m not an expert in relationships, but I feel like if you and your partner have a very mutual understanding, a very loving relationship—it’s different.

I don’t call it "work work." It’s different, right? I call it "you have to try." Right? You have to actually try. And when you put forth effort and try and you have a great relationship, it’s easy.

That part’s easy. What’s not easy is herding a bunch of cats—AKA your children—everywhere you want to go. There are moms that have soccer on Monday, baseball on Tuesday, gymnastics on Wednesday, Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts on Thursday, this guy on Friday, then Saturday dance rehearsals. Then, I mean, it’s every day, every day, every day. You’re like, "When do you take time for you?" "Oh no, I just, I got to do for the kids. Got to do for the kids."

Okay, where’s your self-love? Where’s your self-worth? Where’s your self-care? Who’s taking care of you? Many people I’ve asked that to, and they start welling up, realizing that there isn’t anybody taking care of them. They’re just doing everything.

You cannot give from an empty cup, ladies. Absolutely. Stop.

You cannot give from an empty cup.

You cannot. And what we’re teaching our children—we want to teach our children to take that and do self-care for themselves as well. Because we’re setting them up. By not taking care of ourselves, we’re not showing our kids how to do the same thing. And we keep that cycle going. So yes.

And it’s not Netflix. Netflix is not self-care. You can’t just binge-watch a TV show because you want to escape. That’s just escapism. That’s not solving anything.

That’s true. That’s true, right? Your self-care is centering yourself. Counting those blessings. Creating those moments and having it reciprocate back to you. Right? The law of rest—you get out what you put in.

Yeah. I love that. As simple as that. I love it. I love it.

Well, thank you so much. So, you have a free gift for our audience. Would you like to tell us about that?

I absolutely would. I want to give a gift that is not only meaningful but can really have a lasting impact and effect. And the only way that I know how to do that is to give of my time. So I want to give 30 minutes of my time, okay? There’s a calendar link—schedule a call with me. Free. No obligation to do anything on the call but to listen. I’ll be a sounding board. I will be whatever you need in that moment. We’ll strategize. We’ll come up with a game plan. I will give you some resilience tips. No obligation to do anything else on the call. 30 minutes. I will give up my time. It’s the best way that I know how to give back, and that’s what I want to do.

I want to give you 30 minutes to strategize, to show you how to live an epic life, to show you gratitude, resilience skills, balance your thinking, build that business—whatever tips, strategies, and hacks that I can give you. That’s what I want to do for your audience.

That is an awesome gift. Make sure you take him up on that because that’s huge, everyone! So yes.

Well, thank you so much for being here today, Sean. I really, really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I am honored to be a part of this. It’s amazing what you’re doing. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for tuning in to The Shannon Fox Show! If you found value in today’s episode, I’d love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another career mom who’s ready to thrive. Don’t forget to grab your free Mastery Zone Discovery Quiz, where you’ll uncover your strengths and take the first step toward aligning your career with your superpowers.

You can also connect with me on Instagram @the.shannon.fox for more tips and inspiration.

Until next time—remember, you’re not just building a career. You’re creating a life you love.

Let’s make this happen!