#194 Building resilience, being unbroken, and how to beat negative self-talk, with Michael Unbroken.

___
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
___
Please note, while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.
___

Agi Keramidas  0:02  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast. I am Agi Keramidas and my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards the next level of your life. I interview leaders, authors, successful entrepreneurs, spiritual teachers, exceptional people who will inspire you to improve your life. Tune in for two episodes each week, and make sure you subscribe to get them as soon as they are released.

In today's show, I am delighted to speak with Michael Unbroken. Michael, you are a best selling author, award winning speaker, a coach and a mentor. You are the founder of think unbroken and an educator for other survivors of childhood trauma. Since 2016, you have empowered over 100,000 trauma survivors to get out of the vortex learn to love themselves and become the hero of their own story. You are also a fellow podcaster. And you are on a mission to create change in the world and to end generational trauma in your lifetime. Michael, I'm thrilled to be speaking with you today.

Michael Unbroken  1:22  
My friend, it is my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Agi Keramidas  1:26  
I'm very much looking forward to our conversation, Michael and I will start straightaway actually with some elements of your your story. So you are and I'll go immediately into it if I may, was a survivor of child abuse, as you say. So talk to me about your, your journey. Give us an understanding of where it is that you're coming from. So we can connect to the conversation even better. Yeah,

Michael Unbroken  1:57  
absolutely. And I'll give you the elevator pitch version here. I'll take a couple of minutes. But I want to create context because I think that's very important. So my mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. At four years old, she actually cut off my right index finger. And people always go, Well, how could that happen? And you know, Mother was perpetuating the continuation of abuse, her parents abused her and so on and so forth. My stepfather was super abusive, the kind of guy you pray is never your stepfather. He would beat the crap out of my brothers and I put me in the hospital. And by the time I was eight years old, you know, we were homeless, I was living with over 30 families between eight to 10 years old. And we were often in poverty, our water would get turned off our electricity or heat in the winter. And by the time I was 12, my grandmother adopted me. And you would think that would be amazing. Everything's here to the rescue. But my grandmother was an old racist white lady from a town in Tennessee you have never heard of, and I'm biracial. So imagine that insert identity crisis. And I got high for the first time when I was 12. Drunk at 13. And by 15, I was expelled from school for selling drugs. And you know the thing, man, I just was trying to figure out life. Luckily, I got put into this last chance programme where you get an opportunity to still graduate high school. And I did not basically they handed me my diploma and they're like, Dude, you just got to get the hell out of here. We don't want you here anymore. And I was trying to figure out the solution for poverty. And I thought it was money. So I started chasing money. And I said to myself, by the time I'm 21, I want to make $100,000 a year legally. This was very important. I have family in prison for life. I've been in handcuffs. As of today. My three childhood best friend's had been murdered. I knew what was going to happen if I stayed the path I was on, right. And so I end up getting this job working for a fortune 10 company. At 20 years old, I reached my goal, I started making that 100,000 a year. And then my life turned into a complete and utter disaster. And it wasn't long after I found myself at 350 pounds, smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, drinking myself to sleep. And that's when I attempted to kill myself. I was just done, man. I just could not like money was supposed to solve the problems. But they but it didn't. And the next day I woke up and I'm in bed. And keep in mind here I'm like 350 pounds. I'm smoking a joint, eating a chocolate cake and watching the CrossFit Games. Like dude, if that's not rock bottom, like I don't know what it is. And I went into the bathroom, and I looked at myself in the mirror. And I asked myself a question that dude it changed my life forever. I said What are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have. And here's the thing I remembered in that moment, being eight years old, and the water company had come and turned our water off. Now, keep in mind, I grew up in America, I grew up in a city, and we were so poor, we couldn't afford water. Think about that for a second. And I took this little blue bucket from my backyard, and I went across the street to our neighbor's house. And for the first time in my life, I stole water. And I said, when I'm a grown up, this isn't going to be my life. I refuse it. Now, financially, it wasn't, but in every other way, it was because I hadn't done any of the work. And in that moment, what happened when I asked myself, What was I willing to do to have the life that I wanted to have? The answer was no excuses, just results. And 11 years later, here, I am talking to you. And that process was therapy, group therapy, EMD, CBT, all of the things right, it was NLP, it was having a coach reading a book, going to the conferences, investing in myself, like today, I have over 30, trauma informed certifications and certificates. It was about putting myself in a position to no longer be a victim, but instead to become the hero of mine story. And today, that is what I'm honoured to be able to give to people around the world.

Agi Keramidas  6:27  
Thank you for sharing this violin. There are already many things that I want to ask this, but I will, there was one, one thing that you said that you realise that money was supposed to solve your problems, but you found out that it wasn't. And that's a very common realisation. And I think, for many people, that is what they believe or that what they have been taught that this is what is going to solve or create a happy life. And invariably, everyone that reaches that moment realises that no, that's not interesting, that void show. Just a comment really was I will not go to talk about that much. But it caught my attention because you went there. And rather than getting any better, you get even worse, getting obese and all the things that Yeah,

Michael Unbroken  7:28  
and you know, I think especially for people who live in western states, or first world countries, developed countries, we all feel like money is gonna be that thing. That it's got to be right money is gonna make you happy, money is gonna make your relationship better money is gonna make your kids love you. It doesn't man, because if you're not good inside money will help you find that out. Yeah.

Agi Keramidas  7:55  
And another thing that I got very, very strong point from the quick version of your story that you shared earlier was the how self education basically, you didn't use that word, but self education really transformed you from a place where you had hit rock bottom, and he was suicidal, and all the other things that you you even briefly mentioned, I'm sure there is. And maybe there is so much more there than what you briefly shared. But how from that you changed. learning, understanding yourself, use the phrase doing the work. And I really like that because I think it's so important and there is no shortcut. Sometimes people believe or the promises that this course or this or that will completely close it, but you have to do the the inner work. So do you want to tell me a little bit more about this period of transforming and then I will go back to the childhood trauma and discuss about that. Just a bit about the self education bit because it's, you know, personal development is, for me is the most important thing growing.

Michael Unbroken  9:22  
Yeah. You know, it started because I didn't know what else to do. I really didn't. I, you know, I was YouTube had kind of just started being a thing. And I adjust and like podcasts had just started being a thing. And I was listening to, you know, people who I'd never heard people talk like this before. I never heard people talk about empowerment. I've never heard people talk about taking control of your life. I never heard people talk about the fact that you could create your dreams into reality. You know, the thing is like, what I don't believe people understand is that childhood trauma is this incredible thief of identity. You who you are, who you want to be, who it is that you perceive yourself to be in the world is stolen from you. And so you become, you know, 1520 3057 years old, and you don't know how to be yourself, because you've never been allowed to. And so what happened was, I'm in this position like, Dude, I didn't know how to be me, I only ever did what other people wanted me to do. I only ever hurt people I only ever took I never gave, there was no value. There was never showing up for myself or saying no, because like the dude, literally the most dangerous thing that I could do as a child was have an opinion. And so you learn how to turn off, you learn how to not be a person. And what happened was, I started figuring out, here's where it started Day One moment, one. Like, after having that realisation, I said to myself, I have to get in physical shape. That just that felt to me like to be the most real thing. Because if you go rewind, eight, nine years ago, I was in great shape. I was an athlete, I played a lot of sports, like I loved working out. And you know, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, those things, the late nights, the pizza, you know, those things took over. And and I said to myself, I've got to get in shape. I have no idea how to do this. Where do I begin. And I just started like literally Googling and going on message boards and reading what people were writing. And you know, starting to move my body. And that started with yoga. And from there, it just kind of spiralled. And I was just like, I want more. It was like, you know, the scene in The Matrix, where where Neo sits down in the chair for the first time and tank starts loading up all those programmes into his head. And he's like, I know kung fu. That's what it was like for me. Because I was like, I just want more. And that holds true today. I mean, before this call before you and I had this amazing opportunity to have this conversation, I was an hour into study. Like, that's how I spend my day. I'm always in it, because I want more. Because the greatest thing that I've ever discovered is that I don't know anything. And so when you take personal development, and you it's personal development, it is self education. Nobody is going to do this for you. Like because guess what, nobody cares about you. And that's not to be crass. It's because everybody has their own thing going on. Everyone has their own life, their own community, their own families, their own career, their own things. And so you have to be willing to take accountability for your life. And sometimes accountability literally means picking up a book. And for many people, you're letting $9 be the difference between success and failure in your life. And that's nonsense. You'll go buy coffee, you'll go to dinner and spend $100 You'll buy shoes you don't need you already have to pay or why do you need more, and you won't buy a book, you won't take a course you won't get a programme, you won't listen to the thing, right? That to me is asinine. You're setting yourself up for massive failure. And look here out for caveat, because I know this is true. I was so poor as a child, that we could not afford a $9 book. I will tell you this last year I read 60 books, six, zero 52 of them came from the library for free. So don't tell me you don't have money. You're just making excuses.

Agi Keramidas  13:34  
Seth and I would like to believe that the person listening to this can certainly buy a book. It's not. That is not the reason and you reminded me of what they say that you're not one who doesn't read doesn't have any advantage over someone who doesn't know how to read. Because in the end, it's the same. There's it's not of no use to you if you don't utilise the ability to read and it's yeah, you it's very, very admirable amount of books that you've read. There. I am way behind that's what it was to do this, which I'm very happy about.

Michael Unbroken  14:18  
Yeah, dude, the average person reads one book a year, the average person. Yeah, that's That's true. When you're above average, I think about it's it's

Agi Keramidas  14:27  
sad. I mean, it is sad because that's the richest. And you've written a book and I'm in the process of writing one. So you know very well the amount of work that goes into it. You pull your life's experience and knowledge and therefore, countless hours and days and weeks and months. And then someone won't even look into it as there is there all the knowledge You have distilled, and someone can get that in, in a few hours or in a couple of evenings can get that, but but they want, yes. And it's very easy to change that, really. And I would really like to believe that whoever is listening to this likes to read is into personal development. So

Michael Unbroken  15:21  
I hope so.

Agi Keramidas  15:22  
Mid to, can we, I would like to rewind a little bit and discuss about how your background with childhood abuse allowed you to be doing this coaching work that you do. And there is one one thing I wanted to start as an explanation or as a definition of about the actual term childhood trauma, because I found out that there are obviously some very obvious examples of not like physical violence or molestation, but there are so many other categories that are very subtle, they're not quite as severe. So do you can you give us a brief definition of that before we move on to the next?

Michael Unbroken  16:13  
Yeah, absolutely. You know, here's, here's been my understanding of it over the years, when when I kind of look back, and I reflect on it, the reality is that there are traumatic experiences that are right there in your face where you go, Oh, of course, that makes sense. Right. molestation, you know, Mom cutting a thing or off, you know, being beaten, starved, those things like those are direct, those are in your face. There's also the covert parts of trauma as well, that's grooming where people are trying to get you to be a certain way. There's emotional enmeshment, there's, you know, emotional incest, right? Where where someone is, effectively the emotional partner of the adult as a child. And that one is super dangerous, right? There's divorce, there's not having medical needs met, there's someone in your family committing suicide, there's people in your life going to prison, there's, I mean, the list literally goes on and on and on. And here's what I've come to understand about it. When you look at your life today, right now, in this moment, we are the sum total of all of our experiences. And so that means that everything that's ever happened to us impacts who we are today, and to be dismissive of that, I think, is dangerous. Because people if you're like me, you know, 1520 years ago, I would, I would literally say those things don't bother me. The abuse doesn't bother me, the homelessness doesn't bother me, all the things that bother me. When in reality, I was running from them. I was hiding from them, which, which is very normal for people. And so when you look at and you take measurement of all the experiences that you've had some of those impacts you like, like to me, I think about this too, like trauma could literally be in third grade. You're sitting there and you're colouring a house, and you colour the moon purple, and the teacher comes up to you, and they go, how dare you colour the moon purple? Who do you think you are? The moon is not purple. And that forever impacts you in this way, where you're afraid to be you. Because there's a ramification. There's pain there suffering? So yeah, I think there's levels to it, unfortunately. But I think it's, you know, there are some things just, if you look at the way that people are impacted, some traumatic events do not affect them at all. And they can be these huge, gigantic events. And then the most minor thing that in passing, most of us would never notice, has crippled them. So I think it's really the most important thing, we could define trauma all day long. But I think the most important thing is just having awareness of the experiences of your life and how they correlate to your behaviours to your thoughts to your actions.

Agi Keramidas  19:04  
Thank you. And now that you say that you just said this about having awaring awareness. So let's say someone listening to this right now, hadn't thought of these more smaller things that you just mentioned now? Is there something that one can do to start realising whether there is something like that in the past? That is affecting me right now, you mentioned the been afraid to be you is that one of the most common, let's say, expressions of or results of it?

Michael Unbroken  19:42  
I think, to say most common I think would be dismissive. So I wouldn't want to phrase it like that. But But I think that you can look at some normative behavioural patterns that may be indicative of your past experiences being in your way. What do I mean by that? that, ask yourself this. Am I showing up for myself? Am I getting out of bed on time? Am I going to work when I'm supposed to? Am I lying, cheating, stealing hurting people? am I letting people walk all over me? Am I a doormat? Am I afraid to say no? Am I in deep debt? Am I never in a position where I can stand up for myself? Do I always find myself apologising? Even when I've done nothing wrong? I mean, those that I mean, that's just high level. I mean, that's not even the depths of how do you interact with someone mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and sexually? Are you in alignment? Do you have the ability to freely move about the world and do the things that you want to do? And say no to the things that you want to say no to? There's so much impact, like, I mean, the depth and scope of this is incredible, because it's like, even what I just said, is only a pebble in the ocean. I mean, they're from the way that you wake up to checking your phone to be avoidant too. Are you being honest in therapy, are you being dissociated all day long, and your brain is totally disconnected from your body, and suddenly, you're doing things that you've said you'd never do. And the list goes on, and on and on. And so when I think about it, and you're noticing, and you're trying to understand who you are, and you're trying to figure out the impact of the past, the best thing that you can ever do, and this is hard, is to ask yourself, why are you behaving in the way that you're behaving? Because if you're willing to go deep into that, if you're willing to go into the depth of it, and like you might have to ask yourself, why about 1000 times, right? You know, it's easy, you can tie it back to certain things. Why? Why am I in debt? Oh, because I watched my family be in poverty. And I felt like the only way that it made sense for me to be a functional person, as I have to have the pain and suffering of debt, were tied to the comfort of it, it's way more comfortable to be in abusive relationship, because your parents were abusive to you, they yelled at you screamed at you hit you than it is to be in a loving, caring, calm, empathetic relationship, it's a lot easier to not take care of your body when you're sick, or you're injured, because as a child, they didn't take you to the doctor. Right? All of these things are domino effect. And so in part, it is personal responsibility. And then I think Tony Robbins said something to me one time that was really fascinating. He goes, You know, people are only willing to tolerate what they're willing to tolerate. And if you're willing to tolerate not having a life of the opposite of the chaos and the shit that you grew up with, then that's what you're going to have. And so you know, that deep reflection that you take in looking at and measuring your life and who you are, that is the most important thing that you can do. Because when you get deep into the Y, you're going to discover the domino effect of the experience that happened 37 years ago, that is causing you to do things that are detrimental to your life.

Agi Keramidas  23:05  
I just wanted to take a short break from this episode and let you know about a new project I'm very excited and passionate about. You know, for me, having a podcast made the tremendous difference in my life's journey. And I know the kind of impact it can have. And that's why I'm so excited about this new project, helping coaches who are ready to reach a global audience and increase their impact by launching and scaling their own top quality podcast, even if they aren't tech savvy and are limited on time. So if you've thought about having your own podcast, but you don't want to go through the time consuming learning processes of how to create and launch a podcast, of how to record, edit, host, syndicate and so on -  then I got a solution for you! A solution that takes away all the complexity and allows you to only concentrate on creating quality content, and nothing else. Go to my website AGIKERAMIDAS.COM to find out more about my service and to get your copy of my free guide about creating and launching your podcast. Alright, let jump back to the episode.

I was I wanted to ask you. I'm switching gears my converter I wanted to ask you about the vortex that you talk about and I was wondering if that is elements that you were just explaining before or that vortex that people get stuck in? Is it something what I'm trying to ask is that there are times that you know that you are very stuck. It's very clear There are other times that life takes keeps happening, and you don't realise that you are stuck. So I don't know if my question makes sense.

Michael Unbroken  25:14  
Yeah, it makes sense. So first thing I would say, if you don't realise that you're stuck, it's because you're not paying attention. It means that you're not, look, I you hear this all the time in these podcasts. We're telling you this stuff for a reason, right? Be in your journal, meditate, go to yoga, get disconnected from your phone in the morning, pay attention to your body. Like visualise your future. Because if you're not moving towards your goal, you're always going to be moving away from it. And so whenever people go, I feel like I'm stuck. But I don't know the answer is yes, you're stuck. Because if you did pay attention to your life, you would know what direction that you were heading. Stop spending all of your free time on Netflix. Right? Stop watching football all day Sunday. And look, I'm not saying don't do the things that you need to do sometimes. Because I promise you, brother, there's got to be a time every couple of months. I'm playing video games all day long. I promise you this. But in general, I'm always moving forward. Right? And so the vortex is this place where I think about are you showing up for yourself? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you doing the things you say you're going to do? Do you have personal responsibility? Are you in alignment with your values? Your wants, needs? Interest boundaries? Like are you showing up in your life? Because when you get in your head, right, you have all these experiences telling you, you're not good enough? You're not strong enough, you're not capable enough, right? And then you start to repeat that narrative. And suddenly that becomes your reality. Who am I to deserve this thing? How do I get to have this? Why do everybody else have it better than me? Why does everybody else have the better than me? Right? And you're playing this victim role? Look, I'm raise my hand dude, I'm the first one to admit I played the victim for a super long time. It was easy. It was easy. Sure fault, my mom's fault. My grandma's fault, the community's fault. The teachers fault, Obama's fault, like it's everybody's fault, right? And then you come to realise this, this is the key to life. I'm telling you, if you listen to this, and you hear what I'm about to say, your life will be different forever. What you think becomes what you speak, and what you speak, become your actions, and your actions become your reality. And so if you've just been spending your life, I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not capable enough, your energy will reflect that the way you move in the world will reflect that. And then that will be your truth. And you can sit here and blame everybody else for it. But ultimately, it's your fault. Now look, I need to say this because it's important. We're not culpable. It is not our fault that bad things happen to us. I do not carry the blame of my mother cutting my finger off being hospitalised by my stepfather being homeless as a child, going through all the things that I went through. I do not take responsibility for that. But I also refuse to play the victim. Those things are gone. That is the past, I cannot do anything about it. It's not that I didn't have to cry over it, and go to therapy over and have anger in it and go and do all the work because I fucking did. But I don't let it control me every single day. Because what I think becomes what I speak in, that becomes my reality. Because of the actions, I take the actions to change it. So when you're in this vortex, remember this, that darkness that bullshit in your head. That's a biological experience. And when you continue to let that perpetrate, it's stealing from you. And so every single moment of every single day that you are pulling yourself down, you got to check yourself because here's why think about this.

You're saying things to yourself right now, that are so mean, that if you said them to me, I would punch you in the face. Right? And you expect yourself to be successful. Think about that for a second. It's insane. Like that is that to me is the definition of insanity. How will you ever be successful if you're only ever pulling yourself down? You have to force yourself into belief. You have to force yourself into action you have to do ultimately, and look, I think this is the hardest part about this conversation. Because people will go well, I do affirmations and I journal and I have self love. But that's not enough. You got to prove it to yourself. You have to earn it every day. Because I don't know about you, man. But I've never self loved myself into happiness. It only has ever come from doing the difficult thing that I didn't want to do. Because on the backside of that I discovered the truth about the capability I have of being an effective human being in alignment with who I want To be right. And so this vortex is thing that consumes us all the time. Like it's waiting for you. This little voice right here in your shoulder. Hey, you sure you want to be successful? You sure you want to have love? Are you sure I don't think you deserve it. You better not, you know what, just go destroy your fucking life. And when that voice pops up, you've got to be the louder voice. No, I want this. This is my life, I'm taking it. I'm going to do the hard things I'm going to show up for myself. I'm going to write down my goals and visualise and meditate and self study, and go and get the certifications and show up on the podcast and go to yoga and date with intention and have empathy and compassion and love and do all the things that I want to do. Because I want to do them. You want to change your life. Start with the way you're talking to yourself.

Agi Keramidas  30:51  
That's fantastic, Michael, thank you. And it's it's important, I think, to cut yourself when you do get into that negative inner dialogue or that loop? Because I think that is for many people. It's the difficulty that it plays automatically and they get carried away from from listen before you know the the vibration is lowered because it has intensified. So you said Yeah, and

Michael Unbroken  31:19  
and can I say this? Please? Yes. Should don't beat yourself up because you made a mistake. Have some grace for yourself, have some compassion? Because I promised you dude, I'm gonna mess up today. I guarantee it. But I'm not going to let that one mistake spiral me and destroy my life. You You can course correct that fast. Make a decision?

Agi Keramidas  31:42  
Absolutely. And you, you said earlier about asking yourself the question, Why am I behaving like this? So that, for me is a very important question. When you realise that you started a negative loop or anything that is not aligned to your goals, your values, what you would like to be just, and for me, I don't know what your experience with your clients is. But for me, the the answer that usually comes why I'm behaving this is that I realised that there is a pattern or a programme if you wish, something that gets activated by a trigger. And then unless you are conscious enough to realise that and pull yourself up and stop it, as you said, you use the phrase force, force yourself into belief. And I really like that. Because you have at that time to take the upper head over that limiting voice, and have a louder voice or an action. Usually that will make the voice go away. When you take the action that the voice is telling you not to take. That's when you will feel the happiness you will feel the aliveness. And that's the way to, for me anyway, to make that voice go away by doing the opposite of what he tells you of what did you not do?

Michael Unbroken  33:15  
Yeah, 100% I tell I tell my clients all the time. You have to do the thing that is keeping you awake at night. Yeah, because it ain't going away. It's not going away. You're gonna sit there all night long. You know it to man, you feel it? Like it's in you. It, it scares you. It pisses you off, it makes you upset. It's the truth. Like, that's what it is, man, it's the truth, and you're gonna keep hiding from it. And I promise you this, here's what's gonna happen. You're going to be on your deathbed. And right before you die, you're going to be like, I wish I would have done that thing. And then you're going to be dead, because you're going to die. So you should probably get really comfortable with that reality. And you're going to be in a room. This is my biggest People ask me all time, what's my biggest fear? This is my number one fear in life. That'll be on the other side. And it'll be in a room. And this movie will start to play. And it'll be me in the movie. And it'll be me doing a whole bunch of shit. I didn't do amazing stuff, man, like, like world changing things. And I'll have to sit there and watch and suffer. Because I was scared. Because I was afraid. And the truth is that thing that keeps you awake at night. That is the thing that if you do it, your life will be so different. Your life will be so incredibly different. That you won't even recognise it in six weeks. Six months, six years, 60 years. But you have to be willing to face that fear every single day, man, I write in my journal face fear. I don't know what that fear is going to be today. But it's going to be something. And I'm going to need to acknowledge that I'm need to face it. And then when I go to bed at night, I'm going to go to bed in peace. Because I did the thing, man, there's some nights where I'm like, getting ready for bed, I'm like, I didn't do that thing. And I will get up, I will get out of bed. And if it takes me till two o'clock in the morning, I'm going to do the thing, period. And that's the thing, like, you have to hold yourself accountable in a different level than you ever have before. And you have to give yourself permission to be successful. Because guess what people are going to tell, you know, people are going to tell you, you can't, people are gonna tell you, you're not good enough. What does that have to do with you? Right, and so you, you got to show up, you got to show up. And this is a motivation. I'm not trying to inspire your ass right now. I'm just telling you the truth. Every person I know that is successful. And that is varied by your own personal definition. But every person I know who is successful, they show up for themselves. And they don't make excuses.

Agi Keramidas  36:20  
Yeah. And what you said about facing your fear. And when we take this uncomfortable action that fears was preventing us from taking, then that's when the self respect comes in, and the self love because we feel good about ourselves. And I'm sure that anyone listening to this has felt times like that in the past that they did something that they were afraid of doing and how how awesome it felt. On the other side, I think it's it's, it's the key Michael, to really take your life to the next level, do the thing that is uncomfortable that you are afraid of that you said that keeps you up at night? Yeah, do it. It's it's going to initiate the chain reaction. I think that's what happens. One action, like that creates things that incomprehensible beforehand. Yeah, I've seen it happen many times,

Michael Unbroken  37:21  
and look, and you're gonna fail to, you're gonna fail, sure, you're gonna lose, you're gonna make mistakes, you're going to be like, Man, I just screwed up so badly. But guess what we all do. And that is just data. There's nothing more important than failure, because you're not going to get success without navigating failure. It's not going to happen. And so when you get comfortable with failing, your life will change forever. And Tony is gonna be incredible. And and you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to learn from those mistakes, dude, I've I've failed businesses, relationships, friendships, myself, but it makes me better every single day, because I go, here's what I think about all the time. We're having a human experience. None of us have ever done this before. We're learning in real time, every moment of every day. And so if you're willing to let go of the expectation that you have of perfection, and everything being great, and always being awesome, because you're not, I promise, like, your life will be better. It just will. Because we're all just learning in real time. None of us know what we're doing. Yeah.

Agi Keramidas  38:33  
And the key to this is to reframe the mess mistake, because mistake has a weight as a word. But if you see it as learning experience, it's it's if I do the same thing, what colonies the mistake is easier for you to start beating yourself up, but learn from it and move on you've, we're always doing the best we can with the knowledge and information we have and our mindset, it's always the best we can if it doesn't work in the way that we wanted, or we don't have the outcome we wanted. Learn from it. Change your approach. And that's, that is Tony Robbins that teaches that since you you mentioned him earlier. Michael, it's, it's such a brilliant conversation. Thank you very much. And I will I just realised that I will start I will have to start wrapping it up a little bit. I could carry on for much longer. But I do have some quickfire questions to start wrapping things up. And the first one is What does personal development mean to you?

Michael Unbroken  39:47  
Yeah, it means everything man. Like I think about it every day. It's a part of my life. It's who I am. It's real. Like I remember I'll move faster than us rapid fire. But I remember when I first heard of Tony Robbins, I was like, This guy is full of shit. Like, this guy is so foolish. No, people don't act like this. People don't care about each other people don't try to make their life better. And then I realised that that limiting belief was definitely keeping me stuck. And so now it's like, I just I believe in it so much, man, I've got the greatest mentors on planet Earth. I'm so fortunate man like I Yeah, it's everything.

Agi Keramidas  40:26  
Thank you. If you could, I'm sure you be you have asked this question many times. But if you could go back, meet your teenager self, let's say 16 year old self, what's one piece of advice? You would give him?

Michael Unbroken  40:41  
Nothing? Because I wouldn't be here right now. Like, I don't know if like, you can change the directory of the human timeframe timeline. But that feels super dangerous to me. And man, I love I love my life. When I love my life, I cannot explain it enough. It's not that don't have hard times. It's not like my life was perfect. I promise you it's not. But yeah, I wouldn't do anything.

Agi Keramidas  41:07  
That's the you know, the answer I respect the most because it is also what you were saying earlier, assuming responsibility of who we are in our life. And everything we've done brought us here. So of course, the question is completely philosophical. It's not like you would change it is something like, what's one piece of advice? I want to rephrase it, then what's one piece of advice you would give to a 16 year old that? Yeah,

Michael Unbroken  41:37  
yeah. I, that's a better question for sure. If I gave a 16 year old, who was in a similar situation as me a little bit deeper, the one thing that I would tell them is set a goal that makes your life better. Yeah. And do whatever it takes to get there within your moral character, your values, and preferably the law.

Agi Keramidas  42:06  
And, and on a hypothetical, another hypothetical, Michael, if you could wave a magic wand, change something in the world as it is today? What would you change?

Michael Unbroken  42:16  
I would change the way people talk to themselves. The first thing I would change, the only thing I would change, we fix that we're good. I think so. I really truly believe that. People wish for like money and shit, that ain't going to solve the problem. World peace, world peace is never going to happen unless we change the way we talk to ourselves.

Agi Keramidas  42:37  
To change internally, who we are for the external reality to change for world peace. We have to change us species for that to happen. Emerging from this conversation we had today. Michael, if you were to give to the listener, something actionable, one actionable item they can implement? What would you tell them?

Michael Unbroken  43:02  
Yeah, I would say a two parts. A write down your goals every single day. Because where attention goes, energy follows. And be your goals are actually too small. you're limiting yourself. So 10x that shit?

Agi Keramidas  43:22  
Amazing. How can people connect with you and find out more?

Michael Unbroken  43:29  
Yeah, absolutely, man. And this has been a pleasure. Thank you. I am everywhere on social media at Michael unbroken. And you can listen to the think unbroken podcast that's on iTunes, or think unbroken podcast.com. Yeah, that'd be the best.

Agi Keramidas  43:45  
That's brilliant. I know we had there are so many things that we could have discussed. There are many more, but is there anything that you were really hoping to? Discuss today? No, completely? Missed it.

Michael Unbroken  44:02  
No, not at all. You know, my number one goal here is just to keep it real. hopefully bring some value to the audience. Again, I'm just a passenger on your ship, my man and it's been a pleasure. And if there's something that you think we missed, I'd be more than happy to come back.

Agi Keramidas  44:19  
Thank you. It's the pleasure has been nor mine, Michael, I really appreciate sharing what you shared and I, I really believe that there was some truth value in what was discussed for the listeners too big. So thank you very much. All the very best with your mission and what you're doing any last parting words?

Michael Unbroken  44:48  
But one thing that I would say is where you are today. Doesn't have to be where you are tomorrow.

Agi Keramidas  45:00  
I hope you enjoyed listening. If you have, please share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from it. If you want to know more about what I do, visit my website AGIKERAMIDAS.COM

And until next time, stand out, don't fit in!