From Suicide Attempt To Self-Mastery: Steve Gallegos On Responsibility, Resilience, And Reinvention

A Marine. A cop. A lawyer. A recording artist. A photographer. An author. Steve Gallegos has worn many titles, but the story he tells starts in the ditch—and shows how to climb out with purpose. We go straight into responsibility, resilience, and the power to “yell cut” on a life that’s veered off script.

Steve unpacks how our earliest programming trains us to blame, and why agency begins when we take 100% responsibility. He shares the moment a Hollywood producer crossed a line, how his first thought terrified him, and the decision that followed: walk away, reinvent, and refuse to trade integrity for applause. That pivot opened the door to his book Unshackled, written for women who face coercion, unequal pay, and structural barriers he witnessed firsthand as an entertainment attorney. We talk about boundaries, dignity, and how men can support without centering themselves.

We also get a head-turning rule-breaking story: during a photo op with President Reagan, Steve ignored the no-questions rule and asked for help with his citizenship. That choice led to a phone call from the INS and a July 4th swearing-in. The takeaway isn’t recklessness—it’s discerning when rules are limits, not laws, and when courage serves a worthy aim. From there, we dig into the bedroom-to-boardroom connection, why you can’t compartmentalize pain, and three core scripts to rewrite: “I am not worthy,” “I’m an imposter,” and “It’s too late to change.” Steve’s constant throughline is service: reflect people back to their inherent worth and help them remember who they are.

If you’re ready to step into authorship of your own story, this conversation offers tools, language, and lived examples to make the next scene better than the last. Listen, share it with a friend who needs it, and if it resonates, follow the show, leave a review, and tell us which script you’re rewriting next.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Steve Gallegos
• 2:21 From Rock Bottom To Purpose
• 4:34 Write, Produce, Direct Your Life
• 8:39 Programming, Blame, And Responsibility
• 13:25 Why Unshackled Was Written For Women
• 19:35 Yell Cut: A Hollywood Turning Point
• 25:15 Reinvention And The Search For Worth
• 30:35 Rules vs Laws: The Reagan Story

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

Welcome back to one moment with Mr. U. Of course, I'm your host, Mr. U, in studio with us, former U.S. Marine Sergeant, law enforcement officer, sitting in song like a recording artist, international speaker, award-winning author, take a breath, public photographer, civil trial lawyer, and overall renaissance man. Steve Gallegos is in the house with us today, man. Steve, how are you, brother?

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

I'm outstanding, man. I was like listening to that introduction and got, I want to meet that guy. Shoot.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07

I'm excited about this conversation, man. I can't wait to get into this. Customer always asked our guests to come in and kind of share about their background and childhood. What would like life like for young Steven? Where'd you come from? How'd you get from there to where you are right now? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21

Oh my goodness, you want to deep dive right into the dirt, right? Jenny, right from the beginning. Let's go. Let's let's do it. Let's do it. Well, um, it's it's a great question. And first of all, before we dive into that, is uh thank you for producing this show, right? You are I I I know it takes a lot of effort and resources and time, and you're just uh bringing such value to the marketplace. And I hope that your audience uh appreciates you as much as I do as uh for being a guest on your show. So thank you. Yeah, yeah, cool. Two of them, right? Um but in answer to your question, um, Mr. Yu, uh, if life were a straight road, uh mine was definitely designed by a drunk city planner, right? Because absolutely, because I've hit like potholes and detours and dead ends, and at age 17, I hit so deep that um I didn't think I would climb out. And that was when I tried to take my own life, thinking that I was worthless and didn't have any value to offer the world. And so at that moment, um, as dark as it was, it ended up being the catalyst for the turning point um that led me to the discovery of why we're all here in the first place. Um because I believe that we all come to this earth to remember who we really are. And so the challenges, the heartbreak, the losses, the struggles, uh, they're not punishments. We all go through them. That's great. And and I know that every single one of you guests, and I've listened to several of the episodes, I mean, some incredible stories of challenge and struggle. Um, you know, from being uh put up for adoption when you're two days old to, you know, others wanting to take their own life and divorce and bankruptcy and all these kinds of things. Um, but these aren't punishments. I believe that they're reminders because each one of these experiences, they kind of strip away bit by bit who we thought we were, uh, and they help us find the truth of who we really are, right? They help us find the courage, they help us find the strength, they help us connect with the inner wisdom, they they help us connect with with nature and with uh with God, however we may see you know uh God as a as an entity. Um, so yeah, my story started in the ditch, but it's also where I found the map.

SPEAKER_00: 4:02

Oh, I love that, man. I can't wait to hear more about you, but you're you're an interesting guy. I I know that already, but the listeners and viewers are about to find that out. You talk about something some uh areas that I love talking about, but I I want to everybody hear your take on this because it just is so unique. You wrote a book called Tiny Yellow Cut Become the Writer, Producer, and Director of Your Life. I'm loving this. I'm loving this. You're teaching people how to be the writers and the producers and the directors of their own lives. Now, for me, I know you know I I do have God at the center of my life, so I do get direction from him, but there's just a responsibility that we have that we just can't put off on anybody else. There's certain things that we're responsible for. We have a uh a measure of stewardship that we can't put off on anybody else. We can't blame our mom and our dad, we can't blame our brother and sister because they annoyed us, so that's why we didn't get the job done. We can't blame our co-worker, our boss who doesn't like us and we don't like him. We can't blame people for what we need to be doing morally, emotionally, spiritually. But you talk about becoming a writer and producer and director of your own life. In short, what does that mean to you? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01: 5:22

Uh, it means, brother, exactly as you said. It means taking 100% responsibility for where you are in life. And you said that we can't blame others, yet we do it anyway. So the real thing is we shouldn't blame others, but we grow up, we grow up learning to blame, right? Because before the age of seven years old, everything that we learn and and becomes part of us is programmed into us. And so if we see our parents blaming each other, our parents blaming our siblings, our parents blaming the government or the city or the the schools or the the teachers, right? So that's what we learn to blame, right? And we we started, uh mom, I didn't break the lamp, Yusuf did it, right? We start off early, right? And sometimes we suffer consequences as a result of that, and sometimes we don't. We get away with it. And so we learn that, uh, uh, if I do something off the rails, I'm just gonna blame my brother, I'm gonna blame my sister, I'm gonna blame the neighbor, who, whoever. And so we grow into adulthood not knowing how to take responsibility. Yet, if we want something to change, like you said, whether it's your career, your marriage, your sex life, your physical body, your your income, your uh status in life, the car you drive, where you go on vacation, you can't depend on someone else to make the necessary change that's gonna make that shift happen for you. We need to take 100% responsibility, and which is what I teach in my book, is the foundation of the yell and cut process. We take 100% responsibility because we are the only ones that can then yell, cut, right? We yell cut, and we get to call over just like the directors of a movie and television and music and and uh you know the productions, even as simple as a podcast production. We yell cut, stop. I need the writer, I need the actors, I need the wardrobe people, I need the catering people. Everybody that is involved in that production, we say, we need to make some changes right here, right now. I need the script rewritten, I need you actors to do this instead of that, I need your wardrobe people to change these costumes, I need the caters to change the food. You're putting too much sugar and caffeine in these actors, right? First thing in the morning, and then they're going off the rails. So by taking 100% responsibility, you know what? The person that's in charge gets to make the rules, the person that's in charge gets to make the changes, and that's it. And so, unless we assume that role, we're expecting mom and dad and brother and sister and our boss and the government and the government, right? Yeah, like they're they're gonna make the change we need. No, it's not gonna happen. We need to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:16

I can hold my breath.

SPEAKER_01: 8:18

Yeah, exactly. So that's the foundation of the uh the time to yell cut experience.

SPEAKER_00: 8:24

I love this, love this. I think I get a small sense of where you're going with this book. Uh, you want to empower people to break free from beliefs that could be limiting and depleting and kind of live a life of purpose. When you wrote Unshackle, I don't know if you were uh directing it to uh women specifically, but we have a lot of uh listeners and viewers that are women. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you wrote Unshackled. What did you see? What kind of behaviors and beliefs did you see, and where did you see them that prompted you to say, you know what, this book needs to be out because I was supposed to need some help?

SPEAKER_01: 9:50

I love that question. Thank you for it. Yes, um, the whole idea of the book Unshackled and why it was written for women, and it was specifically written for women, because over the years you've announced my experiences as a Marine, as a law enforcement officer, as a trial lawyer, as a singer-songwriter in the entertainment industry, as a photographer, all these things I've done. I've had the opportunity to work with some remarkable people, including many of them remarkable women. Yet in my experience, I witnessed these women go through challenges and struggles like men don't have to, right? Oh, we get abused and we get, you know, teased and we get this and that and the other. But you know, when uh a woman goes into a situation um for an audition in Hollywood, for example, um, and it turns out that she's got to sleep with the producer uh in order to get the job, right? You and I, Yusuf, don't have to deal with that shit, right? Nine times out of ten. Sometimes it happens, like it happened to me when I was um I was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, and I went to a meeting, but I was still pursuing my own music career at the same time. So I went to a meeting at a very, very popular lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel with a producer that I'd been trying to contact for a long time, trying to schedule a meeting. And finally the meeting happened, and here I am, you know, kid in a candy store where this guy's painting my future. We're gonna put you on these stages. Um, you know, you're gonna get to do this, you're gonna get to record here, perform here, and all this stuff, and I'm going, whoa, yay! And then I feel uh his hand going up my leg, right? Going up my thigh. And it wasn't uh a mistake, it wasn't like he was reaching for his wallet and accidentally happened to, you know, touch mine across the uh across the table. And so my instinct kicked in, but the even before that, and here's the danger of this whole thing, you Youssef. My first thought was maybe I should just give in and and and see where that goes because I want what's on the other side of this experience. I want it so bad, being on that stage, having that recognition, right? Being that international singing superstar that he promised that he would help me get to. But then the Marine and law enforcement officer kicked in and I took his hand, twisted it off my leg, and threw him to the floor, right? And I left. But that was just one experience for me. But as a lawyer, I had numerous clients throughout that period of time in the 80s and 90s come to me with these horror stories about assault and abuse and all these invitations and uh um things that they had to experience, and they had to keep quiet because they wanted to keep working in the industry, right? And a lot of these were women. And so I wrote the book because women they're being attacked today, right? There's there's uh there's proposals to deprive them of their voting rights, there's proposals you know that that exist that tell them what they can and can't do with their bodies, um, and and all those kinds of things, right? They don't get paid equal to you and I for doing the same work. Um, you know, the society and and government and politics just draws all these distinctions that really, really impact women, and it hurts me. It hurts my heart to know that it wasn't until the what, the 50s that women had the right to vote in this country? Uh you kidding me? These are my sisters and and my wife and my you know, my friends and my mom, right? How is it possible that I could look at my wife and say, you are less than me, and you don't have the right to vote? I no way. And so I wrote unshackled to help women recognize that, yeah, they're going through some shit. And I'm a man helping them through this mess, but this mess is a universal mess. In other words, you and I go through it as well in a different and varying degree. And so um, I wrote this book for the women, and then the book for men is called Unleashed, and that is in the works right now. It'll probably be released in the spring of next year, but it teaches them again where these stories come from, where these ideas that we have about ourselves come from, and it's generally it doesn't come from us, right? It comes from the world, the rest of the world tell us that you're you're too black, you're too fat, you're too skinny, you're too tall, you're too whatever. And so you can't do this because what you're black or you're brown. It that's just ridiculous, and we we can change that.

SPEAKER_00: 14:45

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that, man. I love to hear a specific moment in your life where you had to yell cut and kind of change the trajectory that you were on. Do you have a story like that?

SPEAKER_01: 14:56

Oh, yeah. And and I just alluded to it when I was um in the uh in that meeting with a producer at the Beverly Hills Hotel, right? After that event, I went back to my office and I had tears in my eyes as I'm driving back to my high-rise law firm office, corner office, overlooking the four or five freeway in Westwood. You know, I was at the pinnacle of where most lawyers would want to be in their career after, you know, 10, 15 years. I was there. And yet this happened to me. I allowed myself to be put in a position where this happened to me, where I was degraded and I was objectified and I was abused, right? Because of something that I wanted, right? Not the abuse, but something I wanted on the other side. And so I had to yell, cut, and say, okay, this is not gonna happen anymore. And what I did was I made a shift. I had to look deep inside Mr. U to determine why I want to be a part of this industry that is so negative, so predatory, so abusive to so many people. Why do I want to be in it so much? And it led me down this, man, rabbit hole where I had to really, really deep search. And what I found at the end of the day was, after a lot of soul searching, was that I wasn't looking necessarily to be the next modern-day Julio Iglesias, although that was my claim to fame at the time, because he was the man, right, at the time. Um, and probably still is in many respects. Um, I didn't want the lack of privacy. I didn't like going to red carpet events like I had already been used to, where people would come up to me and go, Hey, Steve, hey man, how you doing? Listen, do you think you can get this script over to Spielberg or do you think you can get my CD over to Sony Records? And you know, in other words, they were wanting for what they thought they I could offer them and get for them open doors, as opposed to me as the human being, as you know, beautiful as I am, right? So I learned then that I didn't want that. So I had the Yel Cut on that industry and I reinvented myself. I left Los Angeles altogether, left the practice of law for a while, reinvented myself in Dallas, Texas, as a commercial photographer. Because I thought that, well, if I can't make it as a singer-songwriter, that industry is so negative. How else can I get love, respect, and admiration? That's what I was looking for, right? Because I didn't have it. So I sang because I thought singing gets me applause, singing got me praise, singing got me attention.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:49

And early on, um, like I said, I tried to take my life when I was 17, and it was because the way I was programmed was to believe that I was good for nothing. Um, but there was one thing I could do as a child, Yusuf, that um everybody stopped and applauded and yelled for more, and that's when I opened my mouth to sing. So I became like one of those Pavlov dogs where you ring the bell and you salivate because you think food's coming. Well, I I sang in order to get love. It didn't realize until much, much later that that's backward thinking. That's wrong. I was pursuing music and the entertainment industry and being on stage for the wrong reasons. And many of us do that. We pursue relationships because we think we're we're seeking love, but yet we don't have it to give ourselves, and that's a bad position to be in.

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

Absolutely, absolutely. Man, we are not our story.

SPEAKER_01: 18:42

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00: 18:44

I love that little bit that you you fancy yourself a rule breaker. I'd love for you to get into what that means, what that looks like, because somebody might just look at that and say, Oh, he's a rebel. Just kind of ride with you, don't really know where they're going. But but kind of share what that means to you to be uh a rule breaker, even for a good reason.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Thank you, thank you, thank you for that question. It's a it's a it's a fun one, and I've had a lot of fun with it. And my wife loves to call me a rule breaker because um, from my perception, and this is to be distinguished, audience, this is to be distinguished from a lawbreaker. Okay, those are two completely different things. I have broken laws in the past before, no doubt, driving laws and all these other stuff, right? Um, but I do not consider myself a lawbreaker, but I will break the rules if and when I feel that they are impeding my progress or impeding the progress of my mission or whoever I'm with. Um uh and and so I believe that rules are meant to be broken. They're guidelines, right? And they're parameters, but those are somebody else's parameters. Those don't happen to apply to me, for example. Okay. Um back in the 1980s, oh, I moved to this country when I was seven from Chile. So I was an immigrant. I had proper documentation. My parents came over here legally, yet when I'm now out of the Marine Corps, the Marines promised me that, hey, when you join the Marine Corps, you'll get your citizenship automatically. Yay! No, it didn't happen that way. So I'm out of the Marine Corps, I'm in my early 20s living in Santa Barbara, California, and I'm a police officer as well. I was married at the time, my wife and I one weekend decided to make the trip from Santa Barbara down to Tijuana, Mexico. When back in the 80s, you could cross the border, Yusuf, and have the best time of your life. It was safe, it was it was fun. You could you could eat plates of lobster and shrimp and margaritas to the galore for 20 bucks per person, right? It was just magical time to go down there and experience the beauty of Mexico.

SPEAKER_00: 20:57

Long time ago.

SPEAKER_01: 20:59

Yeah, long time ago. Coming back across the border, the U.S. Border Patrol stops me at the gate at the uh entry and they say, they asked me a very unique question. They didn't say um where you're going or anything like that. They asked, Where were you born? Okay, so I had to tell them. I was born in Valparaíso, Chile. And so they said, Well, let me see your credentials. And I showed them my credentials. Here's my police officer badge, here's my you know, certification. I didn't have my gun with me, thank God. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be here speaking with you today. I'd be in some prison somewhere. Um, so long the the short of it is that they uh sent me into the secondary uh examination station and they weren't gonna let me back because I wasn't a citizen, right? I had applied for citizenship at the at the time, but I hadn't heard anything from the government. And so I begged these guys for a couple of hours. I said, Look, how can I be a bad guy if I'm a cop and I work and all this stuff, and you know, a former Marine and all these things. And so finally they relented and they said, You've got two weeks. We're gonna let you in, but you've got two weeks to report to the immigration station and get this taken care of. I said, Fine. Well, the next couple of days, I'm in the immigration station getting this taken care of. They stamp a six-month visa in my Chilean passport and they said, You're all good. You should hear from uh your citizenship application within the next six months. You're fine. Well, six months go by, haven't heard anything. I had been following up, but here I am now, an illegal alien. Having been a Marine, a police officer, all these things, I'm illegal subject to deportation. By this time, I'm in law school. I had quit the police force, and I'm parking cars for a living during the day. Now, here's where I get to the story of breaking the rules. The parking service that I worked for got hired by the U.S. Secret Service to provide valet parking services for then President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, who, if you remember, Mr. U, they had the Western White House, right, in California. And so they were there to celebrate Nancy's birthday. And they needed parking services. So I was one of the four selected to go provide parking services, right? And so here I am. I'm opening the door for people like Colin Powell and and and the bushes, and you know, just all kinds of people that I probably, you know, didn't recognize then, but nowadays it's like, oh my goodness, look at these guys. And so during a break in the proceedings, Secret Service agent comes out and says, The president would like to know if you would like to have your photo with him. And we said, heck yes. So they lead us to the back of the house. We're standing in the yard, and they said, The president's gonna be out momentarily. Do not talk to him, do not ask him any questions, just smile for the photo photo photos. And the photographer's setting up. Well, here comes Mr. President. To me, he looked like John Wayne coming up, a man's man, just you know, tall as a you know, an oak tree and and big, because I'm 5'9, he's like, I don't know, 7'20 or something, at least in my imagination, in my mind, he was at the time, right? The president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, is out coming toward us, and he's coming out and he says, Well, hello, and we shake hands, and then he says, Well, we're waiting for the photographer to finish setting up. He says, Do you have any questions for me? What was the rule? What was the rule?

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

No questions.

SPEAKER_01: 24:39

The rule, no talking, no questions, just I asked him, I said, Mr. President, not so much a question, but I have this issue I'd like to talk to you about. And so I explained to him that I'm an illegal immigrant, haven't been a marine police officer in law school, all this stuff. I've got credentials at the wazoo that I'm a good guy. So he says, write me a letter, and when I get back to the White House, I'll look into it. I didn't know whether he was or wasn't. I didn't know whether this was just politic, a politician talking, but I did. I took him up on it. So within the next couple of weeks, I compiled everything, wrote a beautiful letter with a stack of documents, you know, my commendations as a Marine police officer, and boom, send it off. But two months later, I get a call while I'm at work at the parking lot, and it's Steve, it's for you. Go to the phone. He says, Hello, this is the deputy commissioner of the INS, the immigration service. I thought it was a joke. Yeah. And he says, and this is what he says, Mr. U, the president, Ronald Reagan, received your letter and he has forwarded it to me with directions that I am to make sure that your uh citizenship application gets resolved. Wow, right? Here it is, the most powerful man in the world helping me. Who was I? I know who I am now, but at the time I didn't consider myself being, you know, the the uh even qualified to speak to him, much less to be the the subject of his attention, right? And his service. And so, yeah, so there was now in 1987, I got sworn in as America's newest citizen, uh, riding in the uh 4th of July parade in Santa Barbara, California on the back of this beautiful 1956 Chevy convertible. I'm in my Marine Corps uniform, just waving to the crowd. All because, why? All because all because I broke a rule, right? A rule that was set for me by someone else, and I dared to speak my mind to the most powerful man on the planet.

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

I love it, man. That's an awesome story.

SPEAKER_01: 26:58

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 26:59

We got time for a few more questions. I gotta stick to the script on this, but I gotta be good.

unknown: 27:03

All right.

SPEAKER_00: 27:05

So we had a term I thought was so strange. Like, he gotta explain it to me. Who you are in the bedroom is who shows up in the boardroom. I'm gonna say it again for those in the back because I need to hear it myself again. Who you are in the bedroom is who shows up in the boardroom. Now, this might have kids watching this show, so I mean, I want to make sure we we good. Are we are we gonna be okay with George Bob?

SPEAKER_01: 27:31

I'm gonna yell cut on that one. No, it's uh thank you for that question. And yeah, that's a fun one. And yes, it's it's uh uh it's the answer is suitable for children of order two and up. Absolutely, absolutely. For all it's it's suitable for all of God's children. Um and and here's why I say that. It's a talk that I've given. Because I believe that who you are at home, so the bedroom represents the home. The rep the bedroom represents your private side. The rep the bedroom represents who you are behind closed doors, whether it's in the kitchen, bathroom, garage, wherever, right? So who you are at home, who you are in the bedroom is who shows up at work the next day. Meaning whatever happens in your private home life cannot be extricated from your work life. A lot of people think they can compartmentalize, but the truth is we can't. Because if I'm sad at home, if I have trouble in my marriage, guess what's gonna happen the next day when I go to work, Mr. Yu?

SPEAKER_00: 28:42

You're gonna be sad at work in the shooter.

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

Exactly. And what happens? I snap at people, I kick the dog, I write, I shoo them out of the off. I go, just do your job and shut up and leave me alone, kind of thing. Exactly. That happens every day at work, and people are wondering why is Bob so mad at me? Why is why is Mary yelling at me? Why is why is Susie so off, you know, she's like, wow, she's on the war path and stuff. Well, if we take a look and really look at that person, something's going on internally, something's going on at home, right? It's the kids, it's the mortgage, it's the finances, it's on the brink of bankruptcy, it's all these stresses. And so when I say that, who you behave, how you behave, who you are, and how you behave at home is going to show up at work the next day. So, meaning the message meaning that we need to be careful because those things are intertwined, right? We go and put on a happy face at work, yet inside we're dying. People know it's like the dog that can smell your fear, right? People know when you're not being genuine and authentic. So we need to take care of business at home with ourselves first, then with our loved ones, our siblings, our spouses, our our the relationships we're that we're in, our parents, etc. And only then can we show up at work and do our job and focus.

SPEAKER_00: 30:13

That makes sense. I love it. All right, next to last question, the the pen ultimate question that you will what are three or the top three scripts, in your opinion, that people need to rewrite in their lives to kind of have the success and happiness that you talk about.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

Oh the top three skips. Okay, here we are. Drum roll number one is I am not worthy. I am not worthy. In other words, I don't deserve this, right? Oh, I don't deserve to make that much money. I don't deserve to go speak to the president, I don't deserve to drive this car, I don't deserve to live in that neighborhood, I don't deserve to wear these clothes, right? All of these things that we tell ourselves because we lack the education, we lack the financial resources, we were born on the wrong side of the tracks, we were born in New York, or we follow the New York Giants and not. The Dallas Cowboys, like everybody should, right? We go, wait a minute, how did we get there? Well, after yesterday's performance, Dallas, I'm so sorry. Um, yeah, so maybe the cowboys are thinking we don't deserve the win, right? And and so, you know, right? So that's why that's why they're playing so bad. I'm sure that if I sat down and spoke to the players, we would probably find one or two of them or more that have that mindset. And so we have that mindset, we need to change it and get rid of it. Number two is um uh the imposter syndrome, is that I'm not qualified to be here. In other words, you ascend to the vice president or president or CEO position, yet inside you're going, oh my God, I'm a fake. Um, I didn't go to Harvard, I went to a smaller school, and I wasn't an A plus student, I was only an A minus or a B student, and all of these things. And we start questioning our value, we start questioning our abilities, um, thinking that one day someone else is gonna come along and say, you know, you're an imposter. And again, this goes back to our upbringing um as kids when we were told uh we raised our hand in school.

unknown: 32:27

Mr.

SPEAKER_01: 32:28

Yu, did you ever do this? Raise your hand in school to answer a question. And did you ever give the wrong question? Give the wrong answer.

SPEAKER_00: 32:35

I'm gonna say no, because this is my true and I would be embarrassed, but I'm gonna say I just every time, sir.

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

I remember, I remember one time I was asked the teacher was going up and down the rows and giving everybody a word, and we had to describe what that word is, right? Define the word. We had to stand up, and so my word was shrug. I'm an immigrant to this country, I never had heard that word before, so what did I do? I went like this, and she said, Yeah, that's right. Winner, winner, winner, chicken dinner, right? What does shrug mean? Oh no, and I got it right. So all you gotta do, all you gotta do, man, is show up and participate. That's that's really what it is. And then the third most common story that we tell ourselves is that it's too late to change. Oh, you know, been in this for so long. I'm in my 40s or in my 50s, 60s, 70s, wherever. I, you know, I I I I've had this job for 20 years. How am I gonna go out and find my own and launch my own business now? Who am I to write a book now? You know, it's it's been too long, and and who's gonna read it and all this stuff, right? It's never too late to change. And there's examples of that all around stories, all I mean, all around society, all around history of people who didn't find who they wanted to be and come to terms to who they wanted to be until they're in their 50s, 60s, launching great companies and and and miracle cures and those kinds of things. So you are worthy, uh, you're not an imposter, and it's never too late to change.

SPEAKER_00: 34:20

I love it. Those are all three really good scripts. All right, coming over our last question of the episode is how we close out our show every single time. For you guys that are watching and listening, you can reach Steve Gallegos at www.stevie uh with i stevgsuccess.com. You can read Steve Gallegos at www.stevgsuccess.com. The address is on the screen and also in our show notes. If you're listening, you gotta get into the show notes so you can get that information. And of course, if you want to reach out to me regarding coaching or podcasting, or have questions about entrepreneurship or anything of that sort, faith, whatever you have a question about, QR code in the upper right-hand corner of your screen, grab it, book some time with me. I'd be happy to have a chat with you. Happy to do so. Last question of the episode, uh CMV question. I feel like I theoretically and temporarily remove what you've done up to this point, not to diminish you, but just as an exercise, skills, talents, uh hobbies, business ventures, vocations, erasing it. What is Steve Gallegos doing today? Obviously, something he's never done before, he hasn't done. Maybe he thought about it, but he's never done it. In your opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 35:38

Wow, what a what what a question. It's like if I was just uh dropped into this planet today, not having done uh any of the things that I've done, um you know, Mr. Yu, if you erased all of it, the Marine, the lawyer, the singer, the photographer, the speaker. Yeah, I think that somehow, one way or another, I would still end up doing what I do now, which is helping people see themselves differently. And here's why I say that. I I'm not skirting your question, it's a fun question. Um, but I know who I am. And who I am right now is the core of my being. So this isn't, I'm not one of these individuals that's jumping from one career to the other just to test it out and try it out and see, hey, well, how does this coaching author thing work? And let me try it and let me just give it a try. But my real passion lies in being a chef or uh, you know, uh designing automobiles or something like that. I know that I'd be wandering somewhere, either with a camera or a notebook, listening to people's stories and reminding them of how extraordinary they already are. Because I think that no matter the titles I've held, or you know, the common thread is I've always been drawn to that spark of helping people remind themselves of you know that we're one and that they are one, that they are one together with the creator. So if everything I've built disappeared, I'd probably still be doing that, helping people remember who they are, one story at a time.

SPEAKER_00: 37:33

You know, every time I ask a question, I always think about what I know about the person, what I've learned through time with them. And I've always just seen a coach teacher since I've been thinking about this question. So that's what that's what my answer would be. If somebody would ask me, what would Steve Gaygos be doing? He'd be a coach teacher, probably a little bit of both, because you couldn't help yourself. You had to help people.

SPEAKER_01: 37:54

Yeah, absolutely. And we're all here, we're all here as guides. Yeah, you know, we truly are. We're here to serve each other. I I believe, Mr. U, that that is our core purpose on this planet. You are serving others as a speaker, as a minister, as a podcast host, as a husband, as a as a father, as a friend. It's you're serving others, whether you choose to do it as a realtor, a doctor, or uh a neurosurgeon, or as someone who flips burgers at in and out. It's in service of someone else. And that's who we really are.

SPEAKER_00: 38:33

You can find Steve Gallegos at stevgsuccess.com. You see what he's doing. He he's he's done everything, he's a wealth of knowledge, so you definitely want to pick his brain. Uh definitely check out his books unshackled for sure. And he's got another one coming out for men specifically. I'm excited about hearing more about that. But thanks for all you guys that are watching and listening to our show here today. We will have all this episode will be up on all the live on all the socials, it's on almost all the socials right now, but a couple of them. And then the rest will be up before within the next hour or so. And then on listening platforms, if you listen to your podcast, you don't really watch podcasts, you listen, it will be up within the hour. That's Steve Gallegos, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Mr. U. We're out of here. Have a great day. Thanks again for watching and for listening.