I took my first sip of alcohol when I was 11 years old. We went behind there and we opened up a bottle and took a few sips of it. And, you know, I didn't get drunk at age 11, but I fell in love with the rush of it. Part of the story that we're not sharing right now is through all of this success in basketball, I am partying like no other. I'm drinking, I'm doing drugs, I'm smoking pot, I'm snorting cocaine.

I mean, I am all into the party scene. By the time my senior year came around, I was a complete mess. And Aladdin says, I'm not worthless and I don't have fleas. And I think that's an interesting thing to look at because I think sometimes that's the way we see ourselves. Like we're just a worthless street rat.

We got fleas. And then sometimes you have people telling you that's who you are. Yeah. And typically, you know, when you're young, you don't know how to process information. When someone older or someone even your own age says something mean about you, a lot of times you just accept that as, oh, that's how people see me.

So that must be true. The best definition I've ever heard of depression is pretending to be someone you're not. I'm going to say that again. Pretending to be someone you're not. I easily should be dead right now.

I should not be here because of what I went through. And I know I'm one of the lucky ones, honestly, but I'm grateful for all of it. Welcome to Yes And Land, where we say yes to the reality of yesterday and today. And we say and to the possibility, growth and imagination of tomorrow. So welcome to another episode of Yes And Land.

We are very excited today for an amazing guest who is inspiring people worldwide, really, because he has a podcast, the Belize Cast podcast, which is in the top 100 for mental health podcasts worldwide, which is just phenomenal. And Todd's story is in itself inspiring and really excited for what our listeners are going to be able to gain and learn from hearing his story, learning about the things that he shares with the thousands and thousands of people that he coaches, that you've spoken to at conferences, at meetings all over the country. And so I'm excited to dive in today about our beliefs, our beliefs of who we are and what that means. And we're going to take a look at one of my favorite Disney movies, which is Aladdin. Such a good one.

We might even dip into Spider-Man a little bit. We're going to see where that takes us, right, Todd? Absolutely. But Aladdin is a classic. Me as a child born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s.

Like Aladdin was one of those like core peak movies. And so really excited to have you on today, Todd. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Ryan. It's an honor and love what you do.

And, you know, this is an amazing show and just kind of like the platform you've laid out. It's amazing. Appreciate it, Todd. So we're excited to kind of talk about, and we're going to dive into some like hard stuff that you went through, which I think is really, I think it's really beneficial because we all live in stories, right? The stories of what our lives are, the stories that we tell ourselves, stories that inspire us.

I mean, it's part of why I love Disney movies, right? Disney is one of the best at telling the story and stories are compelling. That's what helps us learn and grow. So let's like, let's take us all the way back. Usually I do take people back to like, I want to know about them growing up.

This is a particular importance in your story, right? Because of some of the things that shaped you from such a young age. So Todd, like take us all the way back to young Todd. Well, young Todd was a very insecure and scared little kid. I was a really skinny kid.

I was self-conscious about that, my whole upbringing, to be honest. But you know, I played sports, I played all the sports and I loved it. You know, I had dreams of playing in the NBA. Basketball was really my sport that I loved the most. But you know, at such a young age, I took my first sip of alcohol when I was 11 years old.

My dad had a wet bar in our basement and both my parents worked full time and me and my little brother who's even younger and 11, he was nine. We went behind there and we opened up a bottle and took a few sips of it. And you know, I didn't get drunk at age 11, but I fell in love with the rush of it. My dad was a drinker. They would throw parties at our house.

So I kind of grew up around this. It just, it was normal. I didn't think I was really doing anything wrong. But when I, you know, when I was taking those drinks at age 11, I knew that at age 11, I probably shouldn't be doing this. There was a part of me going, okay, this is wrong.

But again, I learned at an early age, I had this all or nothing mentality and which could be a really good thing if it's directed in the right, you know, direction, right? But if it's with the wrong thing, it can be destructive. And that's really what started to happen is I fell in love with that kind of lifestyle. And that opened up the door to just all kinds of havoc and heartache and pain in my life. So you're and your brother too, at that time, but he, did he end up having the same kinds of issues or problems or no?

Can I steer clear from that? No, he, I mean, he, he would, he would socially drink and share stuff during, you know, high school and stuff, but you know, he didn't get into, you know, addiction. He didn't become alcoholic like I did. And so he had a little different mentality around it. So it's interesting how, you know, it played a different role in both of our lives.

I'm assuming you guys have gone back and talked about that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We, we talk about it all the time. Yeah. What, what was the difference for him? What, why, why do you guys think that he didn't go down that path that you went down? You know, honestly, we, we were not sure.

I think it's just more personality. Like even my dad, my dad couldn't understand later on when he saw him, I was drinking heavily, like, why can't you just have one? You know, my dad could have one drink and he's fine. Yeah. You know, I, I, my mentality was, well, why have one?

I'm going to have 10 because I'm doing it for the effect. Sure. You know, wasn't necessarily the taste per se. It was more like, I want the buzz. I want to feel, I want to feel it.

Yeah. And my dad was just like, you know, just, just have one. He couldn't understand it. And my brother was more like the personality. My dad, my mom, she went through addiction.

She was an opioid addict and a chain smoker. And, and I was a lot like my mom. We were very, we kind of had an anxious personality. Yeah. And I, again, all or nothing was my mentality is like, if I'm going to do it, I'm doing it.

I'm all in. And it's been a really good gift, I guess, if you will, to have that mentality, cause I now have it pointed in the direction. Yeah. Well, I was going to ask you, yeah, cause it's, cause things like that can be for good and for bad. Sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And I just, you know, started pointing in the wrong direction as a young kid, cause I didn't know any better. And that just opened up the door to, you know, a life at the time, you know, kind of drugs and alcohol and partying and, and again, a lot of, like I said, a lot of heartache and pain. When I think what's interesting about your story too is, is you start down that path and, and yet for a while it was like, you were still finding success in things because you were a basketball player, right? Yes.

And not just a basketball, you're a good one. Yeah. I mean, not early on, but yeah, I, I was pretty athletic as a kid. I played soccer, baseball, football, and basketball. And early on I decided, you know, I don't want to focus just on basketball.

And about sixth, seventh grade is when I decided I'm going to just quit all the other sports and focus on that. And I still played some of the other sports, but my heart wasn't in it, man. I just, when it came to practice time, and this is that all or nothing, I would practice two or three hours every day by myself as a young kid. I mean, who, who does that? Very few, Magic Johnson.

Yeah. I just wasn't as big or as talented as magic, but anyway, so that really played a big role in my success in sports because all right, if I'm going to play sports, I'm all in. Yeah. And man, I, I would practice two or three hours. My dad had poured a basketball court on the side of our house and I lived out there.

If it snowed, I would show, I was the kid, I'm out there shoveling off the snow and I would practice. My hands would be freezing. And, but I just loved it. And I just, that I wanted to make that my life. And you, so you played in high school, played in high school and you guys had a bit of success with that.

We did. Yeah. I played with some amazing players. We had amazing coaches. You know, by between my freshman and sophomore year, I grew eight inches, which was amazing for basketball.

Right. Yeah. Cause then you learn, you learned to handle the ball before then. So you had good handles and then you get the height to add to it. Yeah.

Well, really I'll have to tell you a story about the good handles and which there's some thunder. Wow. That is that's some good thunder. Like this make this story here we are like we're in it now. Yeah.

Anyway, I, I, you know, practice, like I said so much and between freshmen and sophomore year grew the eight inches, but I had also improved a ton in basketball. So by the time I'm playing the sophomore, I'm, I'm the starting point guard for the sophomore team. I lead the team in every category. I'm playing a little bit of varsity. We take first in state.

I played a little role in that, but junior year, we took second state. I led the team in every category. I was playing varsity and then senior year, starting point guard, a team captain, and we took first in state again. But the end of my sophomore year, the last practice of the year, I had my hand broke. I broke, grabbed a rebound.

I was going back up with it and a guy that was guarding me grabbed the ball in my hand. As I went up, he pulled down and snapped my finger in half right in the middle of my hand. And so when I had closed my hand, this finger was twisted. It would touch over here. I'm like, okay, something's wrong.

So I had to get four pins put in my hand. I've got the scars still, and didn't stop me. I thought, well, I had to have my hand in a sling with pins in it for eight weeks. I practiced eight weeks of basketball left-handed and I'm telling you, I practiced. If there was pickup games, I would still go play the pickup game and I would just play left-handed.

I would shoot left, dribble left. And so between sophomore and junior year, I was almost, if probably not better with my left than I was with my right hand. Wow. Isn't it interesting how things like that play into like you want to develop the skills, especially if you're a point guard, to be able to use both hands, right? In basketball, it's such a skill, but it's really hard to get kids to do it because it's uncomfortable, right?

You're like, okay, you want to use your non-dominant hand. You want to become really capable with that, but like who's going to sit there and do it? Well, with pins in your hand, you're going to. Absolutely. And you know, there's a beautiful, amazing book called live your life from crescendo by Steven and Cynthia Covey that they wrote.

And there's a quote in there where they said, you don't know how strong you are until that hidden strength is forced to come forward. And I was forced to practice left-handed. Now, yes, I could have chose not to, but it, it really taught me something that, man, I can do anything. I put my mind to who cares if my hands broken, I'm playing left-handed and I did really well. Like I would just people had a hard time guarding me where I could just dribble left-handed.

So by the time junior year came around, man, I was, I was unstoppable as a point guard. At least I felt that way. Sure. And, and that sprung into some college offers, right? Yeah, not until after my senior year, I got offered a full ride scholarship and, and accepted it.

And I was so excited. I've got my college paid for, but part of the story that we're not sharing right now is through all of this success in basketball. I am, I am partying like no other. I'm drinking, I'm doing drugs, I'm smoking pot. I'm snorting cocaine.

I'm doing mushrooms. I'm drinking cough syrup. I mean, I am all into the party scene. My parents would go out of town. I throw a kegger at my house.

My house was the party house and I wore it with a bad, badge, you know, like a badge of pride, you know? And by the time I senior year came around, I was a complete mess. And I would just mask it, you know, on the court, I was still doing pretty good, but not, not to the level I should have been doing. So, you know, coaches, friends, even my family are like, what's wrong with you? They'd see me out there on the basketball court and I looked lost because, because I was sure.

And I was really sad, really depressed, but again, just put on a face like everything was okay. Why do you think that was at that time? Why were you feeling so, so lost? Well, one, I thought I looked funny. I had this belief system that I looked funny.

I was no good, that I was stupid. And I was, I mean, this, I can laugh about now, but at the time, and people can laugh when I say this, I got a five on the ACT, my senior year of five. I think you get three points for signing your name, but it just confirmed, oh, I'm stupid. Yeah. But I didn't tell people this.

And so I was, I just walked around depressed and miserable. And especially when I would drink and party and get high, that would just magnify that depressed feeling to the point where I had thoughts of ending my life. So this went on my senior year. And I noticed this voice in my head, you're pathetic, you're no good. You'll never make it, that kind of thing.

And so fortunate, still got a college scholarship. What I thought, man, I did it even though I had a rough year and, but that didn't turn things around. And I ended up losing that scholarship because I was getting high and drunk, you know? And so when that happened, that's the wheels fell off. Yeah.

So even, even though you're outwardly, you know, with basketball, with you, you being the captain of the team, you guys taking state, getting this full ride, looking outwardly, very successful inside, that's not what you believed about yourself at all. Not even close. Yeah. The outside appearance, someone might go, oh, he's gone at all. Yeah.

You know, because like for me, it's interesting hearing a story like that. If I hadn't heard the other part, like I love basketball. I did a bit the same thing, which is when I was a little bit younger, I decided like basketball was my sport. I wasn't going to play other sports. I loved it so much.

I just wasn't good enough. Like, and it was like devastating, right? I made the ninth grade team, didn't make the 10th grade team. It was just like, oh, this is what I love so much. And when I hear somebody else like, oh, I captain the basketball team, like, oh man, he had it all.

He's so lucky. Wait, we all have things we struggle with. Wait, there's more that's there like we have to learn things about ourselves. We have to come to believe things about ourselves. Yeah.

And so I think this is a good time for us to pull in Aladdin, right? Because with the story with Aladdin, obviously he's an orphan. He's a street rat, right? They call him. And there's a scene where he's in the streets of Agrabah and there's somebody of some importance down the street on a horse and he's kind of a lens, kind of getting in trouble.

And the, the, the, whoever this individual is says something about him being worthless. Yeah. And Aladdin says, I'm not worthless and I don't have fleas. And I think that's an interesting thing to look at because I think sometimes that's the way we see ourselves. Like we're, we're just a worthless street rat.

We got fleas and that's what we believe about ourselves. Yeah. And then sometimes you have people telling you that's who you are. Yeah. And typically, when you're young, you don't know how to process information when someone older or someone even your own age says something mean about you.

A lot of times you just accept that as, Oh, that's how people see me. So that must be true. We may not say that out loud to anyone, but internally we, we accept it, you know, and, you know, the Aladdin scene, you know, Latin, you know, believed he was there or didn't believe that. But yet, you know, society viewed him as this street rat, right? And, but man, he was, you know, he was high on life.

If you look at the show, man, he's, he's just, you know, going through life, energetic, loving life and not afraid to go do whatever he was doing. You know, for sure. Yeah. What it's, you know, with, with something like that, it's interesting. I think these days, when we talk a lot about beliefs and believing in ourselves, I think sometimes it's easy for us to think like, oh yeah, everybody's going to support you and say that you're, you can do great things.

And we're, we're, we're changed in that way and we support each other. And I think we don't a lot of times, I think you're, I think to your point is people will sometimes tell us that we're not. Yeah. And sometimes it comes in ways that maybe it's not intentional and sometimes it really is. Yeah.

And sometimes people are trying to tell us that we're just street rats and that we're not worthy of something better or something greater. Yeah. And we get that from a lot of places. I've heard a term recently called thumb thugs, right? Where like people online will make comments, right?

Bring us down and say that we're not worthy and say horrible things because they can hide behind a screen. Yeah. But then we start maybe believing those things about ourselves. Unfortunately. Yeah.

So as you are experiencing this stuff, you, you're kind of going through these addictions and to a large extent, it sounds like hiding a lot of what this depression and beliefs about yourself were. Yeah. When does it come to a head? It was, you know, after I had lost the scholarship, I became just this angry, depressed, drunk. Every time I would drink, I would punch holes in the law, throw chairs through windows.

I pick fights with people. I'm not a fighter, but I was just, I was hurting so bad that, you know, we, I often say alcohol is like a truth serum. It brings out what you're really feeling. And when you're hurting, it comes out because you don't care. You don't care what you look like.

You look like an idiot. You're like this sloppy crying individual, but it was really all this pain that I was experiencing. And, you know, my identity back then, if you would ask me, who are you Todd? I would have said, I'm a basketball player. I know that that's wrong now, but at the time that's what it was.

And so when that went away, that's why I thought I just rather be dead. And so it came to a head when I decided I was going to end my life. Basketball was no longer going to be part of my life. So I thought I don't want to be here if that's the case. So I decided I was going to end my life and I planned it all out.

And thankfully I had this miracle happen that changed the course of my life. But up until that point, I was just, my friends at this point were graduating from college, married, looked like they had their lives all together. And the story I was telling myself about me is like, I'm behind and never catching up. And I'm just this loser. And that was the belief.

And that belief was just like, it was crushing. Because I truly believed it. But I would never say it out loud to anyone, but internally, that's what I thought of me. Yeah. You know, and so you're, you're going through this and having these beliefs about yourself.

You're seeing the people around you, you know, being successful, having successful lives, getting married, graduating, probably getting good jobs. At some point in time, your beliefs started to change. Yeah. How did that come about? Well, geez, it was a long process.

Yeah. You know, you know, like I said, I had a miracle that took place. I reached out to, to a God that I didn't believe in. That's what you call it. That desperation.

Yeah. And I reached out in the darkest moment of my life and I got a response. I got an answer. And I really believe God usually typically works through other people. And this guy took me under his wing.

He's my mentor to this very day for over 40 years. And this guy was the answer to my prayer in desperation. And he took me under his wing and he has mentored me ever since. And I'll never forget what he said. He says, I'm here for you, but he goes, this is going to be the hardest thing you'll ever do.

And he wasn't kidding. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through at the time. And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today. So he took me under his wing. He believed in me and even told me that when I didn't believe in myself and just hearing him say that to me, it was like this sliver of hope.

And I thought, okay, if this guy believes in me, this is worth following him. So I just followed him. I did what he did basically. How did that connection come about in the first place? Because, you know, when we think about influence that we can have on others and things we try to do to help others, that it doesn't always resonate with somebody.

If we tell them something like that, right? What was it about this situation where you could hear what he was saying and that he was able to connect with you? Well, a couple of reasons. One, I played basketball with him at Brighton. Okay.

So, and I always, he was the 4A state MVP. He was an amazing basketball. I looked up to him in so many ways. And again, you want to think about someone who had it all from my view, this guy had it all. He had the, you know, he was dating the head cheerleader, you know, seriously the typical story.

I mean, just a total stud athlete, college scholarships, offers all over the place. And this was the guy I looked up to. I never told him that back in high school, but internally that's what I looked up to, but it, it fed the narrative that I wasn't good enough. It did. So, so he reached out to me on a prompting after I had reached out to God in prayer and said, Hey, I need to talk to you, Todd.

And I hadn't talked to him since high school. So here he is calling me out of the blue, asking me to come over. And he basically told me, you know, I'm going to help a lot of good, you know, a lot of people in your life, you're going to make a difference. You're going to help a lot of kids. He kept saying this and I'm in the height of my addiction.

He has no idea. And I'm like, dude, I told him to stop because when someone pays you a compliment and makes you uncomfortable, it's because you don't believe it. I didn't believe any of it. And I said, Hey, I don't know why you're saying all these nice things. I'm a mess right now.

And he just basically said, the Lord came to me last night, Todd, and says, we need you on our side today. And it was just like, I knew it in that moment, Ryan, that that was the answer to my, to my fast and prayer that I had reached out in desperation when I didn't even believe in God, I wasn't raised religious or to believe in God at all. And I was like, man, here's my answer. And that's why, and when you're desperate, you'll, I was just ready to listen to anyone. And thankfully it was him and he was ready for the call on his end.

If that makes sense. He was like, I'm here to guide you and help you. And he did he from that day four to this day, you know, he's the guy I can call when I'm struggling. He's there for me. When we, when we take a look back at Aladdin, you know, and we take a look at the, the, the character of the genie, you know, in what, in what ways did, do you see the genie as being a little bit of that guide to Aladdin as he's struggling to figure out like who he really is?

Because, you know, once, once he's wanting to be with Jasmine, he meets her, he's like, this is a girl for me. He thinks he's got to be somebody that he's not. He thinks he's got to be Prince Ali. Fabulous. Right.

What, what, what about, what about the genie is a guide? If you, do you learn from that movie and also from this close friend of yours, who was a guide to you? Yeah, I love that question because I think I've learned now when we speak it, we create it, we're almost like that's becomes the genie, if you will. And this genie was basically guiding Aladdin in so many beautiful ways. Like, Hey, what do you need?

What do you want? I'll give you system. We have whatever I say to myself becomes my reality. So if I say I'm a loser and I'm no good and I look funny and no girl's ever going to want to be with me, I'm stupid. It's as if the genie says, okay, your wish is my command.

You get that. And so, and I don't think the genie wants that for us per se, you know, especially in Aladdin, you know, it's like, Hey, whatever you want, I'm going to give it to you. You can be whoever you want to be and get whatever you want. And I just think we got to be really careful what we tell ourselves because that becomes our reality. You know, there's an old Latin proverb that says, believe that you have it and you have it.

It's so simple, but yet so profound and big. If, if whatever you say, and it's as if you're telling the genie, here's what I want. And I love the genie in that because one, it's the voice of Robin Williams, who I'm a huge fan of. And, um, but it was, it was almost like helping him guide him away. Just like eventually he had to find that, you know, you're good without all of this stuff, who you are to your core is, is enough.

Right. And that's what, but I didn't know that about me. Yeah. One of the best scenes I think in the movie is where he's now Prince Ali, he's going on the balcony to meet Jasmine. The genie is trying to help him.

He's trying to ask the genie what to say. And it's a gag at the time because the genie becomes a bee and he's buzzing around, something. And it's kind of last line that he says is like, you know, whatever, but be yourself, be yourself. That's exactly right. And it was a hilarious line and I loved it as a kid.

But when I go back and think about it, it's like, you don't gotta be Prince Ali. That's not who you are. Yeah. Right. And you're not a street rat either.

Yeah. You're, you're somebody who has a lot of love and kindness, who does the right thing. Even when you didn't know Jasmine was the princess, you're out there protecting her in the street from these people who are trying to cut her hand off or do whatever they are. Right. Like at your core, you are, as it foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie, you're the diamond in the rough, you know, and that be yourself, the genie really guiding him.

Like I can grant all these wishes to you. I can give you these things that you say you want at the end of the day, Aladdin, be yourself. Yeah. The best definition I've ever heard of depression is pretending to be someone you're not. I'm going to say that again, pretending to be someone you're not.

That's why that line is so profound because I think our worth is set the moment we were born, maybe even before our worth was set, but yet obviously we go through life and we go through challenges and things happen. Right. So we start doubting our own value as a human being. So we think I got to go be this and then I'll be okay. Cause I thought if I'm a good basketball player, that there it is.

I'll have everything I want when that got taken away because of my own choices. Yeah. It's like, okay, who am I really? And at the time I just thought I'm a nothing, but I didn't know any better. See, what I realized now is who I was made me a good basketball player.

Basketball is just what I did. I didn't know that then, you know, so that line in Aladdin is so profound and so beautiful. Just be yourself because yourself is enough. You're unshakably good. I have this saying over my wall in my office that I have my clients read and it says the most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognize there's nothing wrong with you.

Have them read that on day one, 10 out of 10 of my clients start crying and I'll say, has anyone ever told you that? And they're like, never. And I, and I hop and that's when I go into you've been pretending to be someone you're not. Cause when I was drinking and doing drugs, I was pretending to be someone I was not. It always left me empty.

I was always depressed cause I was out of alignment of who I really was and it wasn't basketball. Yeah. And that's, it's a, it's such a beautiful tie in there. And you know, at, at the end with, with Aladdin, I mean, what we see is, um, Jasmine didn't love him because he was Prince Ali. She didn't love him because he had the outward stuff that he was trying to be somebody wasn't she loved him because of who he was.

Exactly. And he didn't need to be somebody different and people in our lives, um, can love us for who we truly are. And sometimes we want to, we want to mask it. We want to hide it because we don't think that people will. Now, I don't, I don't think it means that everybody's going to love us.

Sure. Now, if they know, uh, you know, who we truly are and maybe know some of our mistakes and stuff, but the people who truly love us will, they'll accept us for who we are. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see that manifest for you of once, once it kind of came to head with the addictions you had and, and, and people understanding and realizing the, the, the shortcomings that you had, did you have people who loved you more and they have other people who then judged you and, and, and, and left your life?

Great question. And that was one of the toughest things I ever went through. So because, you know, I have a group of friends who I loved to this very day. And matter of fact, you know, I'm going to be with them tonight, even, but there's like 15 to 20 of us. And I'm not kidding you, we've been friends our entire lives.

It's a very rare thing, but they all, they were part of the party scene, part of the drug scene. And when I was turning my life around, I had to walk away from that group. Not that I didn't like him anymore or love them anymore. It was, I knew that I can't be around that atmosphere because I'm going to crash and burn again. And so I had to walk away from that at the same time, you know, turning my life over in it into a good direction and, and trying to follow this God that was saving my life.

I even had family members that were shunning me for that. So I felt so alone for a long time. And that was a tough, tough time in my life. And I look back now, it's the best thing I ever went through. Right.

But it was one of the, that, that was harder than overcoming alcoholism and drug addiction was being alone and walking away from my friends and some family members at the time. I think, I think so there's some real depth here that I, I want people to understand, which is, you know, you choosing to make the change, it wasn't like it changed overnight. You know, it wasn't like suddenly, okay, I realized I've got these addiction problems. I'm going to turn to God and now life is amazing. Yeah.

You, you had to go through this process. You had to go through this process of I've got to let go of this friend group for now. I'm going to have people who are going to judge me and leave my life right now. And that's hard. And it's, it's not easy.

And so it's not, it's not just a change overnight. Suddenly everything is butterflies and roses. It's a process. It's a process of, of becoming or realizing who we really are. Yeah.

And you're tested to the core. Are you really serious about change? Like, are you really going to stop drinking? Are you going to stop doing drugs? Are you really going to stop that behavior?

And it's almost, I don't know what it is, but man, it's like every time I've noticed in my life, when I decide I'm going to do the right thing, I am tested on a level that is unbelievable. It's as if it's meant to be that way. And I just think, but that's where we become resilient. That's when we become resourceful. That's when we become strong.

That's when you realize you can do hard things. See all those things I'm listening now, that's who I am. I'm resilient. I can do hard things. I'm strong.

I'm brave. I'm tenacious, you know, and I didn't learn that had I not gone through that. I heard this quote, I don't know who said it, but you can't have a strong character in an easy life. And man, this has shaped my character and I would not have that had I not gone through that. So yes, it was horrible, but I'm grateful for the process.

I'm grateful for all the things that I've done. I'm grateful for the drink at 11. I'm grateful for that whole, the whole thing. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I easily should be dead right now.

I should not be here because of what I went through. And I know I'm one of the lucky ones, honestly, but I'm grateful for all of it. And I think, I mean, my belief is that in part the reason you are is so that you can inspire others, right? We all have a greater purpose, right? And I think that's one of the things that I've seen from learning about you and about your story, which is you don't take that for granted.

And that you use that to help other people. You know, one of, one of my favorite authors and public speakers out there is Simon Sinek, who you know well, so well in fact, that your story's in his book. And he talks in that book, I believe it's in the book, Finding Your Why, which is, for those of our listeners who don't know Simon Sinek, a guy always say like, go back and watch his Ted talk about Find Your Why. Cause I quote him all the time on this podcast. I teach my team all the time about him.

We're really big believers in a why, but the reason that he used your story is because of kind of what you went through in your why discovery through that process of the really hard thing you went through. What was that? What was the why that you discovered through going through what you went through? Yeah, that, you know, thank you. And I'm a huge fan of Simon.

He's an amazing human being and obviously doing amazing things out there. And he's one of the greatest motivational inspirational leaders out there. I, you know, I learned through the process of giving some money away at a lemonade stand of all places that I was earning at the time as a bartender, but giving my money away to this little girl at a lemonade stand is what really truly made me realize what my purpose is. Because the reaction to, I gave her all my money at the time. I had like $40 worth of change in my car, gave all this money to her and that all or nothing mentality kicks in.

And I thought, if that girl, it was on a Saturday when I had done this and I'm still struggling, I'm still relapsing, I'm drinking, doing drugs, struggling. And this was even after the, the, when my mentor reached out to me and was the answer to the prayer, I'm still struggling. And I gave all my money to this little girl and her, her reaction to what I, when I was giving her all this money, I mean, she got emotional. She was jumping up and down and I was like, Whoa, I want to do this. Like, this is amazing.

Like I'm actually having an impact on this girl like this, like I didn't realize I could make someone's day. And as I pulled away from that lemonade stand, I had to pull my car over, I put my face in my hand, I just sob for like 20 minutes. It was like this soul cleansing cry. I mean, I literally was, it was like all this pain was leaving my soul. And in that moment, I believed that I mattered.

In that moment, I wanted to be clean. In that moment, I wanted to make a difference. You know, there's a beautiful quote by Ferdinand Fosch. He says, the most powerful weapon on earth is a human soul on fire. This lit my soul on fire and that all or nothing mentality kicks in.

So next Saturday, I drove by that same spot on purpose, just in case she might be out there. Sure enough, she was, I pull up, she recognizes me, she freaks out. I give her all my money again, that I earned as a bartender that week. And I do this every Saturday for the next two and a half months. And every time I pull away, I start crying.

And that's when I realized this is what I want to do. I want to make a difference in people's lives. So how can I take what I went through and do that? And that's when I had this inspiration of creating a drug education program for elementary school kids ages, or fourth, fifth and sixth graders. And it was called sly dog, which was my nickname in high school.

And the model his motto was drug free. That's me. And it was this animated cartoon character. It was a dog's head with a human body. And it was really like an alter ego of me.

And I went around to all the schools with this mascot, this cartoon character. And I spoke to over 350,000 kids over the next five years. And parents would come up to me and say, man, my son or daughter loves your program. Would you meet with them one on one? I'm like, yeah, sure.

Didn't know I wasn't planning on that. And that's what turned into what I do today. That's been my career. I've experienced, I mean, it really is. That's where I found my why.

And it's like, I, you know, I was, I couldn't tell you how excited I was. You know, I'm sorry I'm throwing all these quotes, but there's a Mike Mark Twain quote that says the two most important days of a person's life or the day that they were born and the day they found out why I found my why at that lemonade stand. You know, you give to get, I gave away all my money, but what I got in return was my life. When you, when you have experiences like that for you, when do you know is the right time to do something like that for you? What, what, what, what guidance have you followed?

Or when does it, because you could just give away all your money all the time. Sure. Right. And, and, and we just people poor as all get out, right? We'd be, we'd be, um, not, not doing very well, not be able to have as much impact.

Where, where do you find the difference of like, this is the right time to go do this thing for this person to give my money to this girl, this lemonade stand, or to spend my time talking at schools or meeting in these one to one. Right. Great question. You know, call it the spirit, call it a voice, call it a prompting. You know, the, uh, the Greeks used to call it a, a Kairos moment where it was the tap on the shoulder that says, Hey, turn around.

This is going to make your, is going to change your life. And that's really what happened. I drove past the stand initially and I noticed, I was like, I had no big deal. And that's when I had the tap on the shoulder, the voice, the, the, the prompting that said, turn around and give the, all the money away that you have in your car to this girl. I thought, wow, I'm going to do that.

So I've learned to listen to that prompting. It's not always there. And sometimes I don't listen to it. And sometimes I make mistakes there too, but you know, I just believe that, um, if you want to be, give it away. If you want to be inspiring, go inspire someone, go give that away.

It doesn't always have to be money. Give away inspiration, give away love, give away compassion, give away understanding and forgiveness. And you get it 10 fold in return. I think it's the most powerful principle on planet earth. If you want to be, give it away.

And I learned that from a guy named Neil, Neil Donald Walsh. I, you know, what I think, what I think is interesting is I think if, if any of us sit here and hear this and think about it, right. There's times where we have that top on the shoulder as we're driving by and we don't turn around. And we just keep going. I mean, I can, I can think of it.

I can think of it with lemonade stands, right? I literally can think of it with lemonade stands. Like when I go to pick up my boys, I know there's this little path that I always follow to go pick them up. Um, and there's sometimes this little lemonade stand there. So like I can think of times where you feel that tap on the shoulder and you don't.

And I think we get that tap sometimes too, say we think about some of your lives to send a text and we don't send the text. You know, and I would say, you know, for me, we, we always wait till the end to do actual takeaways, but I'm going to throw one out there right now, which is if anybody's listening to this, like, and you just had that tap on the shoulder moment to text somebody in your life, to text somebody that you know, somebody that you've been thinking about so much, you haven't connected with a long time to send it right now. So just like pause, pause the episode, just send out that text and don't have to say the perfect thing either. No, you know, I, your friend who ended up being your lifelong mentor, like, I don't, I don't know that he knew the perfect thing to say, but he just said, he said what he felt. He said what he felt.

And he was, and you know, to this day, we talk about it all the time. I mean, he was nervous to even call me and to be scared to death, but he, he went with the prompting and went with it, not knowing what was going to happen. Like he's blown away where I'm at today. He can't believe it. Like to this day, he's like, he goes, can you believe what has transpired?

Had he not done that? I mean, maybe someone else would have reached out. I don't know, but I'll tell you, I think I would not be here. I think I would be dead. I'm not kidding you.

And I don't say that to be dramatic. I just really, where I was mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, I was a mess and I did not want to be around. So had he not done that listen to that prompting. So you never know. You're right.

Pause this for a minute, send that text to someone you haven't talked to in a minute. It might be a parent or friend or a sibling or one of your kids. Hey, just thinking of you today. Love you. Can be as simple as that, you know, but I'm, I I'm really big on trying to listen to that prompting.

Definitely not perfect at it, but I'd really do try to do it. And as, as we do it more, we get better at it. Yeah. And you notice it more too. Like you really do notice it more.

I think when we have a, an attitude and an intent of someone needs me today, who am I going to help today? Who is it? And it can be as simple as I hold the door and pay him a compliment as I walk through the door. It does not be big. A little, a little, you know, compliment can, you know, save a life.

It really can. Yeah. Um, when, when we talked before and preparation for this, I think you told me one of the people that you, uh, really like is James Allen. Yes. And I wrote down a quote from him, uh, which is maybe one of the core things that he says, uh, a man is literally what he thinks his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.

Yes. And as you're saying that, I think to me, it's like, as you do it more, part of what it does is you think about it more. Yeah. And when you want to focus on the good and focus on those things, it becomes more a part of you and more of your character. And then it becomes easier and easier to do those things and find those things.

Yeah. It's like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Yeah. Yeah.

How does, how does that, that quote as well play into the idea of the beliefs that we have about ourselves? Boy, James Allen's is another one of those giants in my life that saved my life. You know, my dad, when I was in the height of my addiction, didn't know what to do with me. There wasn't a rehab on every street corner like there is today. There was no talk of rehabs back then.

So he handed me that little teeny book as a man thinketh and asked me to read it. And I did whatever good kid would do. I threw it on the bookshelf. I forgot about it for two years. And one day I decided to open it up and read it when I was trying to get my life back together.

And it was right around the lemonade time. The lemonade stand story is when I started opening up this book and there was a paragraph in this book that changed my life. And if it's okay to share it, cause it goes along with the quote, because it's from the same book, but it says of all the beautiful truths that pertain to the soul that's been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening of fruitful and divine promise and confidence than this, that you and I are the master of our thoughts, the molder of our character and the maker and shaper of our condition, environment and destiny. And when I read that, I went, Oh, I'm in charge of my thinking, not this random thoughts. It's coming in telling me I'm stupid, no good, can't do it.

No, I can control that if I'm willing to put in the effort. That's what that paragraph taught me. And it's been a long road since, you know, like trying to dial that in and I'm pretty good at it now. I've been doing it a long time, but that, that paragraph stood out. It was as if I needed, it was an answer to this internal narrative problem that I was struggling with.

Like you are in charge Todd, and there's nothing more gladdening and fruitful of that. It was like, Whoa. And so our, you know, our mind can be our best friend or our mind can be our greatest enemy. And, but I realized I'm in charge of that at the time. I didn't realize that until I had read that.

Before we jump back in, can I ask you a quick favor? If you're enjoying the journey so far, will you like rate and subscribe to our show? It helps us reach more people like you. We can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality. And, and you know, one of the things that I think we sometimes struggle with is the opposite, which is the victim mentality that things are happening to me.

Yes. You've obviously coached a lot of people. You've spoken to a lot of audiences. So I, so I do divorce, right? That's, that's what my, my, the core of my job is.

That's what my firm does. We do divorce. I imagine that you've coached people going through divorce, thinking about divorce, having gone through divorce. What are some of the things that you see people struggle with when it comes to this belief, right? And not being a victim in these difficult situations because divorce is so hard.

It's brutal. It's, it's really, really tough for so, so many people. It's something people struggle with. And a lot of people struggle with the belief about who they are, that they're not good enough. Right.

And then they start to mask and have other problems. So what is it that you've seen as people you've coached going through those situations and what do you tell them? Yeah, great question. You know, and, and you know, the people responding to me who are going through a divorce, they, they liken it to going through someone passing away a death. And you know, it's brutal.

And even if the divorce is the right thing for the couple, it's still brutal because you're emotionally attached to this person. And so anyone listening right now, I'm not, I'm, please don't take that. I'm, you know, minimizing your pain through this, but what I've noticed in whether it's divorce or any other big problem is those are the moments that we truly do forget who we really are. And truly a lot of people can't even answer that question. Ryan, if you were to walk up to 10 random people, who are you?

They can't answer the question. And to me, that is the single greatest question we have to answer with conviction. Because again, when I lost basketball, I didn't know who I was. I thought I was basketball. So I've had a lot of people who have been through a divorce where they think I am this, I am this relationship.

So when that gets broken up, they're lost kind of like what I felt. And I understand why they feel that way. But it's in those moments, if we know who we truly are, it, it will soften the blow a little bit, but it also keep you on the right track. It's when we veer off and we start pretending to be someone we're not. Because in those moments, I would tell anyone that you're resilient, that you're powerful, that you're brave, that you truly can do hard things.

I know it hurts as you're going through it, but if we can remind ourselves in those difficult moments, that will keep our footing sure. Right? Instead of pretending, you know, a lot of people will go start drinking or they'll blow up their lives over a divorce, which again, they're hurting so bad. They don't know how to handle the pain. Right.

But that's why we got to know who we are and be able to answer it with conviction. And it's all those things and more, and we could go more into detail on that. But I think I would tell that to anyone going through anything. Who are you really? And if you struggle with that, I would say, think about a baby that's walking.

And we're watching this baby stand up, fall down, stand up, fall down. Right. They're trying to learn to walk. Right. And you've never heard of a baby fall down once and go, you know what?

This walking isn't for me. I'm going to roll around the rest of my life. Right. You never hear that. Right.

Right. So as we watch this baby fall down and get back over and over and over again, I'll ask my clients, what are the characteristics of this baby learning to walk? And they'll say, well, they're disciplined. They're believing. They're courageous.

They're resilient. They're determined. They have grit. Right. The list goes on.

Right. They forgive themselves instantly. And then I'll say, yeah, I totally agree. Where did they get those characteristics? You know, and they have to get to the conclusion of they were just born with them.

And then I'll look at that client and say, what does that mean about you? They're like, well, I have them too. And I go, yeah, you just forgot you didn't lose them. You just forgot you had them. My job is to help remind you that there it is.

That's who you are. So no matter if you're going through a divorce or addiction or what have you, whatever challenge, if we can stay true to who we are, and that's not easy. I know that, but I'll tell you, that's what will get you through it. That's what will get you through it. It's when we forget and we go blow up our lives and start pretending to be someone or not.

And I get it because you're hurting. I don't want you to hurt. And anyone listening to this, if you're going through a divorce, I'm sorry. And I feel for you, but I'll tell you, you are strong. You're resilient.

You're powerful. And sometimes you have to go through something like this for you to realize how powerful you really are. So hold on and stick that out and remind yourself who the hell you are. One of the things I think that I see people forgetting is, I think a lot of people in general want to believe or want to be a kind person. And I'm a big believer in kindness.

It's one of our core values that we have here. I can tell the moment I met you, brother, by the way. Well, I appreciate that. I can feel that from you. And I think it's really easy to lose that when you go through something really hard, especially divorce, because it's hard.

It's not easy. And if you want to be a kind person, when you're going through something like that with somebody who, it might be betrayal that you had, it might be devastation of something that happened that caused this divorce. It's really hard to remember that you are a kind person. It's hard to remember the core of who you want to be. I love the live action Cinderella.

And one of the things that her mom teaches her, which is a quote we use all the time here, which is to have courage and be kind. And I think many times it takes a great degree of courage to be kind in those situations. And I think some people don't realize how much impact the kindness or the lack of the kindness will have on their kids that are going through this divorce as well. Because the kids will see it, they'll be exposed to it. And if a parent can remember who they are and remember the kindness they want to have and try their very best to co-parent more effectively, it benefits their kids.

And they don't. And when they forget that, and then they revert to nastiness and harshness and things like that, it just really detrimentally affects those kids. But it's such a hard thing. It is. And in pointing that kindness to yourself as you're going through it, be kind to you.

That is such a good point. And I'm probably the toughest one because yes, we should be kind when we're struggling. But again, what that is, is when we're lashing out, that is our hurt coming out and we're projecting it onto those around us. And again, I understand that. But that's why we do need others.

That's why we need each other. That's why you're doing this podcast. That's why we need to lean on people in times of need. We need each other. That community is powerful.

And if you're going through a divorce, the one way to help you be kind is talk to someone, tell them why you're hurting. Go to the deep recesses of your soul and express, I'm hurting and here's why. Have a good cry with this person. Cry it out. I'm a cryer because I think we have to allow these emotions to come through it.

We were designed to fill emotion and we're built to regulate them. We are built to do it. And part of that is let's connect, let's talk. So part of the, the, if you want to be kind to yourself and others around you, as you're going through something really hard, talk to someone, reach out, see a therapist, go talk to a mentor, see a friend, listen to this podcast over and over and over again, share it with your family, that kind of stuff. So what would you, what would you tell to somebody who has a loved one going through that hard thing?

Because I think that's sometimes what a lot of us will struggle with is we want to be there for somebody. We want to support them when they're going through something. We want to be a listening ear. How, how would you coach them to be a guide or a mentor to other people, the loved ones in their lives that come to them in those hard times and express that they're struggling? Yeah.

I think the best thing is I'm here to listen to you. Go ahead. You know, I think a lot of times we want to give advice, which advice is good, but I think a lot of times if someone's reaching out to you and they're struggling, they want to vent and they just need a listening ear. They don't want advice in that moment. If they want advice, they'll tell you.

And I think, I think one of the best things we can do is be an empathetic listener and in telling that if, like if you came up to me and say, man, I am struggling, I need help. I'll be like, okay, I'm here to listen, brother. Tell me what's on your heart. And I'm going to shut up. And then when you are ready for advice, you're going to tell me, Hey, what would you do here, Todd?

Or what would you, Oh, okay. I'll give you some advice. But if you just need to vent and cry on my shoulder, I'm here for you. I think if we'll do that, that will go a million miles further than, Oh, well, you know what? You shouldn't let this bother you and, you know, screw your other who's divorcing you and, you know, don't listen to, they don't want to hear that because they're hurting.

Let them unleash the hurt. Let it come out. I don't know if this is true or not, but it's a great metaphor. When a lion chases a gazelle and the gazelles running for its life knows it's going to maybe die here, but it gets away. And once it realizes it looks around, it's safe.

It's finally safe. It will fall down and shake violently because it allows the anxiety that it was experiencing to come out and it experiences the, all of it and basically processes it and then pops back up and goes about living another day. And everything's good. And I think it's a great metaphor for us that we need to shake violently sometimes, or in other words, express what we're going through. A lot of us just suppress, suppress all.

I'm just going to bug Ryan. If I go, if I go talk to him, he's just, I'm bothering him. No bother him. Yeah. Bother me.

Yeah. But you're not bothering. That's the key. You know? So I think, I think that is the key to just be a listening ear.

And when they want advice, they're going to ask you for advice. And, and I, and this might be me. It's so hard for me because I mean, my profession is giving people advice all day. You know, literally what I get paid to do. I was trained to do.

I get paid to look at problems, solve the problem, provide the solutions. And when I have my loved ones come to me or my wife comes to me, it's sometimes hard to just like, Ryan, this is the role here is just listen. Just listen, let, let, let them get that out. Let them shake, let them have that expression. And it's a really good reminder to me, you know, because if, if, if you're either the one that always wants to solve the problems, or you're just the one that always wants to listen, and sometimes they need advice, like adapt and learn.

I, I, I, it's really, it's a good reminder because there's times where I just need to be a better listener and just absorb it and listen. It's funny. Cause sometimes I'll, my wife will be sharing some, I'll even say, do you want some advice here? Or do you, just need my ear and she'll nine, nine times out of tension. I just need you to listen to my, okay, beautiful.

Cause I'm, I'm like you too. I'm like, well, I know you could do this and I've got this. I mean, this will help you. Cause you've got all the things, right? I got all the answers supposedly.

Right. But yeah, yeah. So it's, it is tough, but I think in any relationship, if we can be more of an empathetic listener, you know, communication or lack of is I think one of the leading causes of divorce is that we're not communicating or at all, or we're doing it the wrong way. So if we can learn to be empathetically listening, it's a skill like anything else. If we practice it, we get better at it, but no one teaches us that when we get married, it's like, Hey, good luck.

You know, don't, you know, don't fight, you know, you're like, okay, whatever. Yeah. Anyway, it's actually really insightful thought, because I doing this, people ask me all the time why I think people get divorced. What's the most common reason I get asked it dozens and dozens of times. And that is the answer I give them is communication.

That is actually exactly what I tell people. It's communication because whether or not it ends up being cheating or finances or fighting or addiction, like at the end of the day, when the couple fails to effectively communicate together, that's when the cracks come in and they don't get fixed and they don't get solved. And then it becomes something much, much worse. Well, and it makes sense though, if you think about it, because when we communicate, we're connected. Like if I feel heard, I feel so good about myself and vice versa.

Right. That's why connection is so powerful. You know, in my, in my business, the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's connection. And we learned that from Johan Hari, who has an amazing Ted talk on that, by the way, and which I haven't heard and I'm going to listen to, and we're going to have the Ted talk. It'll blow your mind.

And this guy's awesome, but he talks about just how powerful connection and we're never more fully alive than when we're connected. So your spouse or a girlfriend or boyfriend, when you are connecting, dude, that's the magic. So yes, it makes sense. If we're not communicating, we're not connecting. And if we're not connecting that, then we're left to our thoughts.

And then when our thoughts are running wild, now we start, then we start pretending to be someone we're not. And then we come in lashing out and da da da da and just, it's a snowball effect. So get back to empathetically listen. I do this thing called a 10 minute miracle. I don't know if we have time to share this.

Yes, I want to hear it. Okay. So I'll be fast. No, I'm ready. So with the couples, I'll do this all the time.

It's amazing. I call it the 10 minute miracle. And what it is, is we sit down as a couple and I'll, I'll use my wife as an example. So her name's Bonnie. So we'll sit down and she gets five minutes to talk about her day.

Okay. And I don't, I can't say a word. This is her time. So I sit down and I listen, she can tell me whatever she wants about her day. Good, bad, all of it, what she did, everything, all the details, everything.

And then at the end of her five minutes, she talks about any regrets, resentments and appreciations. Okay. And she might say, I have no regrets. She might say, Todd, I resent you a little bit today because you left this morning. Didn't say goodbye.

You left the kitchen a mess. I resent that. And I'm still just listening. And then she ends with appreciations. I want you to know how much I appreciate you as my husband, how hard you work.

I want you to know it really is inspiring to me. Now, when she's done, now I get five minutes. Now, since she brought up a resentment, I addressed that first. I own it. You're right.

I left early, I left the kitchen a mess. That's on me. And I apologize. I heard you say that. So I own it.

Then I five minutes about my day. And then I talk about any regrets, resentments, appreciation. I might say, I regret that I left this morning without saying goodbye. I have no resentments towards you at this moment. And I appreciate you as my wife for always loving me.

No matter what it means, the world, you're the best mom. And then we stand up and do what I, you know, that I've learned about the eight second hug, you know, psychology will say when you hug for eight seconds, your hearts will start to beat at the same bait connection at the same rate connection. Right. And we'll do that. And I'll tell you, if we do that five days a week, that's 50 minutes and resentments are being brought up in the time they need to.

And I have couples do this who have not been doing any of this. Right. And it's a miracle that what starts to happen. I have couples that come to me, they're going to get a divorce. I haven't do this 10 minute miracle for, for if they'll commit to it for the next couple of weeks without fail, they'll be like, yeah, we're, we're finally connecting.

This feels good. We're not going to go, we're going to put that divorce on hold for a minute. And it's amazing what starts to happen. I heard a statistic. I don't know how accurate this is, but the average couple speaks 28 minutes a week to each other a week.

Right. And in that 28 to 30 minutes a week, it's all surface stuff. Hey, I need you to go to the store. Can you pick this up? Hey, the kids need this, the kids who go, which is all, yeah, we got to do that.

Right. But we never sit down, especially when we got busy lives and put everything on hold. So if we, if we did that five days a week, that 10 minute miracle, you're almost doubling the national average and you're bringing up things that matter and you're connecting and everyone has time for 10 minutes. Everyone does that's, and can it be longer than 10? Yeah.

If it needs to be, it needs to be, but you follow the same pattern. It eliminates ping pong communication. You're listening. I'm empathetically listening to you for five minutes. I want to hear about your day to go.

I'm not going to chime in. Not that I'm going to listen. I love this. Yeah. It's interesting.

I, when, when people will talk to me about divorce and a lot of people say like, oh, well, you probably want people to get divorced. And it's really interesting. Maybe there's divorce attorney attorneys out there that do maybe, you know, there's a lot of divorce attorneys out there, but like when I say nothing could be further from the truth, I mean it because I tell people all the time, I am not in the business to tell people to get divorced. If I meet with somebody and I think that there's an opportunity for them to, to fix a relationship and I can connect them with a therapist or something like that, a hundred percent. I'm going to do it.

Wow. That's awesome. If people need to get divorced because sometimes it's the right answer. I myself am. Yeah.

My, my two boys are with, with my head. Sometimes that's what you've got to do. But sure. When, when couples can figure it out and they can fix that communication and, and it can be to the end of the day, I mean, I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

Yeah. And every day we get in the phone and talk in my drive home. And I hate talking on the phone. Like I hate it. Like I've obviously had to talk to clients sometimes on the phone.

Like it is what I got to do. I hate it, but that is one thing that I've found an opportunity for us just to, we just do it every day. We do every day. Now I love the idea more of us sitting down as well and having that communication. Tell you it's a game changer, but I love that you're doing that.

And you know, the best definition of love I've ever heard is sacrifice. So you just said it, you don't really like talking on the phone at all, right? But you do it. Why? Because you're sacrificing because you love her.

That's what it is. You're doing the thing because you know it matters for the relationship. That's sacrifice. That's love. Yeah.

And love and sacrifice when it's coming from both sides, it creates that connection. Like you're talking about. It's amazing. Yeah. That's where the magic is, man.

Yeah. I love it. Okay. So we're going to get to a couple of fun segments real quick here before I do though. What should I have asked you about the topic we're talking about or about Aladdin that I didn't about Aladdin, Aladdin or the topic overall, but I haven't asked you yet.

What did I miss? Boy, boy, you're putting me on the spot here. I mean, you've asked some great questions. I mean, it's been awesome. I don't know.

I think, I think maybe the question would be why do we beat ourselves up so easily versus just being the opposite, right? Positive and believing. I mean, I think that's a big question. A lot of people wonder like, why is negativity when the day seems like, you know? And I think what I've learned is that, you know, we're emotional creatures and we, believe quickly what we hear, right?

Especially as a kid, right? I'll give you an example of why I'm saying this. I had a client when I met him, he was in his mid fifties, heroin addict, slamming heroin. And one of the exercises I have my clients do is I have them write down all the negative things they tell themselves. And as a way to kind of like, let's put, let's get the negative narrative in the head out on paper.

Let's see it. And anyway, he does this process, right? And his list was a mile long. And at the top of his list was I'm stupid. And I asked him, here he is in his mid fifties.

I said, where did that come from? Like, you know, and he said, well, when I was in fifth grade, I was at parent teacher conference and overheard the teacher tell my parents, your son's not very bright. So this poor fifth grader hears this and he's devastated. He is crushed. He's like, my teacher thinks I'm stupid.

And he bought into it. He just agreed with it. He agreed with it. You know, the book, the four agreements calls that black magic. And he bought into it.

And from that day forward, he told himself he was stupid. And then he proves it by getting bad grades, hating school, and then he eventually drops out. And so I asked him, do you still believe you're stupid now? And he goes, yeah. And he goes, I go, how has that held you back in your life?

Well, he goes, well, I didn't go to college. I do low paying jobs. I walk with my head down. I'll never read a book in front of someone. I'm miserable.

I stay out of social situations. And I look at him. I said, that's why you slam heroin. And he's like, what? Yeah, there it is.

That's why you do what you do. And anyway, kind of blew his mind. And it's just interesting that no one teaches a fifth grader how to process that negative news or that negative statement. Right. It's like, you know, you've, this is pretty popular saying, you know, you tell a girl, she's beautiful.

She remembers it for a day. You tell her she's ugly. She remembers it for the rest of her life. Right. It's for some reason we've, we latch onto that negative because there's such a, an emotional response to that negativity.

And then that becomes habitual and then so on and so forth. And so we have to actually really be careful and mindful and intentional of telling ourselves positive things about ourselves because negativity in the world, especially now with social media, we are bombarded with so much information that's negative. And it just wins the day. Unfortunately, no, I know not with everyone, but man, I'll tell you, I see it widespread. I speak all over the place to speak to kids.

This is their wrestle. I mean, kids in junior high and in elementary school are already believing they're not good enough. They already believe it. It's like, well, where that come from? They weren't born believing that they learned it somehow.

And so it is an issue. And I think that's, that's, that's my life's work is I want to help these kids flip that around and tell them the truth. You know? And so I don't know if that, that does. And, and, and it, it leads me to another thing that I, that I want to get your take on real quick and then we'll hit our, hit our fun segments.

So I wrote in another quote from the movie and I'm actually going to, I'm going to alter it a little bit and I'll tell you why. So the quote is Jasmine, I do love you, but I've got to stop pretending to be something that I'm not. And I'm going to change it because we're yes. And Jasmine, I do love you. And I've got to stop pretending to be something that I'm not.

So I just like to change that because it's a yes. And right. We want to be a yes. And here. What would you tell people if they are in that zone of believing something wrong or negative about themselves?

What should they believe if they're going to be able to come to their own, have more love, have more connection, have more love for themselves and more kindness to themselves? What do they need to believe about themselves? What should they believe? Well, the belief is your worth was set the moment you were born. Like if I asked someone, what is your, I'm going to, I'm going to do it with you right now.

If I was to ask you, what's your value as a human being from zero to a hundred. And if you're being completely, just brutally honest right now and vulnerable, where would you put yourself on that scale? My work to like humanity or like who I am. I'm not even going to, I'm not even going to, I'm going to just, what are you, what comes to mind? Like where are you at on it?

Just go with it. 70. 70. Okay. Where are your kids on that scale?

100. See, there we go. See your kids make mistakes. They're not perfect, but you're in your eyes. They're at a hundred.

They always will be. They'll never, they'll never vary from that hundred. So the answer was a hundred. You may have wanted to say that too, but the truth is you're at a hundred and still is everyone listened to this because the only reason why our value fluctuate is just with our own thinking. Because anyone listen to this, you have kids, where's the value of your children.

They'd be like, they're at a hundred period. No questions asked. You can answer it so fast. You don't even have to ask it. Right.

But when we think of ourselves, isn't it fascinating? We wrestle with it. Right. One of the things I do too, I also, I like to ask the crowd, I'll say, don't you guys think people are astonishing? And the crowd was like, oh yeah, yeah, people are saying, well, what does that mean about you then?

And you see him just get really uncomfortable. All of a sudden I go, isn't that fascinating? Did imagine if you showed up today believing you're astonishing, how would you carry yourself if you actually believed it? Because the truth is you are, I don't know. I don't care what you've been through.

I don't care what you've done. I don't care what someone's done to you. You're astonishing. But most of the time we show up believing we're not good enough that no one likes this. We're not handsome enough or pretty enough.

We're stupid, but the list goes on. And yeah, yeah, I'm about a 70 or whatever. And again, I know I kind of set you up for that, but the truth is we look at ourselves as lower. And what's interesting though is I had to be honest because you asked me to be, because academically I wanted to say a hundred, right? I was like, okay, this is what it needs to be.

No, but like, let me be honest. And if I'm honest, that's what I think. Right. And so we all, we all have work to do, right? We're all in moments where we're like, okay, yeah, I'm 70, I'm 50, right?

I'm 30, 90, not a hundred. Yeah. And you feel that way, but again, your value is at a hundred. Yeah. And there's days where I feel like I'm at a 20, you know, jeez.

But I have to remind myself, yeah, but my value didn't fluctuate just because I feel a little down today. Even if I made a mistake and I'm beating myself up with a mistake, I got to catch it and go, why am I beating myself up for this? What's the point? I mean, do I need to beat myself up for the next week? I mean, again, guilt's good because guilt reminds us don't do it again.

But if we hold on to guilt too long, it turns into shame. And shame is the lie. Shame is I'm not good enough. It really is. It's the killer.

That's what will keep you stuck more than anything. So yeah, it's okay to feel a little pain because you made a mistake, learn from it and tell yourself, okay, I'm going to be better today. I'm going to be 1% better today than I was yesterday. Yeah. It's guilt is I did something bad.

Shame is I am bad. Yeah. And shame is a lie. It's such a lie. I mean, Brene Brown does so much on shame.

It's so amazing to help us understand why shame is so harmful and why we need to eradicate that in our lives for sure. Amazing. Besides this podcast, I actually own a law firm, RCG Law Group. And I'll be honest, most people think only about calling a lawyer when something has gone sideways already. We'd rather you know who we are before that happens.

So if you ever need this, we're right here. This has been so good. Okay, so we're going to move real quick to some fun segments and then we'll circle back to your three actionable takeaways. Okay. We were given some people some things they can do today and I still want you to get to do those, but we'll come back to three very specific things.

So the first thing when we have is called this or that. Okay. So it's just whatever of these two you think, right? And it could be controversial. So if it is, we're going to have a little discussion about it.

Okay. The first one, Abu or the magic carpet? Magic carpet. Okay. Tell me more.

I just think I love magic and a carpet. I mean, come on. When I watched that, it's like, who wouldn't want a magic carpet? Right? It's the coolest thing ever.

It's so cool. And I just, I mean, even as a little kid, I used to wish I was magic and I wanted to like, if I could make something appear, like I always would, I would dream of having pancakes because I w I would, I loved pancakes. So I'd be laying in my bed, starving as a kid. Like, I wish I was magic to make pancakes appear right before my very eyes. So that's probably why the magic carpet.

I love it. I think it's awesome. Oh yeah. It has such a great personality too, like in Adam and object, they did a great job making the carpet have a personality. Yeah.

So, it was so awesome. Give me some Tassel. Cave of wonders treasure or the Sultan's palace? Cave of wonders. Okay.

Because it's wonders. You don't know exactly what's in there. There's, it's the palace is predictable. Yeah. I think the cave of wonders is, it's a variable.

You don't know what's in there. Yeah. That's why you wonder what is it? Yeah. And I think it's interesting with it too.

Now that you say that, like, that's why the, is it the, is it a lion head or whatever that they go into? Yeah. Right. What it says is like, the only one that can enter is the diamond in the rough. Yeah.

There was somebody who's going to actually appreciate what's actually in here and maybe not get lost in all the treasure, the coins. Exactly. I like where you went with that one. I was actually thinking palace. So I like, I like your answer there.

Okay. For songs in Aladdin, Prince Ali or a whole new world? Oh boy. God, that's a tough one. I'd probably go with Prince Ali.

Okay. Yeah. Just again, it's just catchy. I like them both, but yeah, I would probably go with that one. Prince Ali, you know, has a good beat to it.

Totally. Makes you feel good. And Robin Williams again, going back to Robin Williams. And you got Robin Williams. Yeah.

So again, I'm a huge fan. So great. So great. Okay. We'll go to just general stuff.

Road trip or flying on a plane somewhere? Road trip. You're a road trip guy. Okay. Yeah.

I don't like flying. Really? Yeah. I'm not, I, I'm better now, but man, I used to be petrified to fly. And what did you do to overcome it?

Got on a plane. Just did it. Just kept going. Yeah. Okay.

Todd, that means, that means we need to have you have some conversations with Dawson, our producer. Oh, he is not a plane guy at all. I learned. Okay. And so you understand.

Yes. So he gets it and, and we need to, we need to get him to Disney World with his sweet wife. So that's a long trip. That would be a very long road trip. So we're going to have to have you, you know, do some, uh, yeah, I'm talking with Dawson, connect and get him to overcome that, uh, the fear of flying.

Yeah. Um, that in relation to that, you have like a playlist for your road trips. Do you like go to a certain 80s music guy? Yeah. I think 80s is the best music.

Um, I'm also kind of a heavy metal guy back in the 80s as well. So I like a lot of that kind of stuff. What year are you born? Oh, 68. Okay.

68. So you're hitting 80s at a time where that's like the core of your coming into your music, your tastes, your choice, not your parents. Exactly. That's why for me, it's the 90s. Yeah.

I was born 82. Yeah. So like 90s are like, Oh, I could always go back to the 90s. My parents were, I mean, not old when they had me, but a little bit older. So I kind of skipped the 80s.

They had me listen to 60s and 70s. Oh yeah. Classic rock and that kind of stuff from the 60s and 70s. I didn't really know much age. My new Michael Jackson, he was the best.

Uh, but a lot of 80s stuff I didn't, but like when we grow up and when you grow up, exactly. Yeah. Um, okay. Because you're a basketball guy, NBA finals or March madness. Oh boy.

I would say March madness. Now, probably 20 years ago, I would have said NBA finals. Why did that change? Well, for one, I went to the NBA finals when Michael Jordan was playing the jacket. My dad had season tickets.

Yeah. So I went to a couple of those games. So I saw it live. So that's why back then NBA finals was everything to me. I think, I just think the NBA has changed in a lot of ways that I think it's kind of made the product worse in my opinion.

Sure. Um, I love just March madness, just the raw grit. It's one and done. And you get the Cinderella stories. People like, cause anyone could beat anyone at any given night and just watch these amazing, uh, no name schools that can, you know, somehow win two or three in the tournament.

So I, I just love that part of it. Yeah. Yeah. March madness for me is it's my super bowl over here. And I love the super.

Don't get me wrong. Like I'm a sports guy, but the first two days of March madness, I take those off. I, in my house, I have, it's, it's really excessive. I shouldn't, but I have four TVs on the wall. I had a game on HTV and I sit there and bring in Buffalo wild wings, bringing pizza.

I'm just going to watch those games. Right. Like I just love it. It's green more. I love that.

Oh, fun. Yeah. Um, okay. Being on stage or a one-to-one conversation with you, what's the work that you do? You're asking me an impossible question.

Cause I love them both. I was hoping it would be really hard if I have to pick one, I'll probably say on stage. Okay. Yeah. That connection in the room.

I've had so many experience where the room was just, you could feel the energy that everyone was on the same page. That is power. And boy, that is just, I don't know how to explain it. It is amazing. But I've had that as well with the one-on-ones where it's like, there's this connection kind of like what we're having right now.

Even it's like, this is cool. This is amazing. Right. It's like, I liken it to, there's no drug that I ever did that could give me this feeling. Right.

And the feeling I'm on when I'm on stage, that, that authentic connection, there's no drug on the planet that gives you that. It just doesn't. I mean, that, that resonates for me. I mean, I haven't talked on stages like you have, but I was a theater kid. Oh yeah.

So you, and one of the reasons why I want to be in court as an attorney, that performing on stage and doing so advocating for somebody, right? Like advocating for some, yes, but there's, there's a, there's a performative nature that like is a drug for me. 100%. When you've got somebody responding and connecting with what you're able to say or do on a stage for me in court as well, like, oh, there's something cool about it. Yeah.

And you know what? Can I digress? Yeah. If you don't have time for it, it's okay. But I would love for you to share with our audience, your on stage experience that you had at the prison.

I heard you tell that story. Yeah. And my, my, my best friend works at the jail, which I know is different than the prison, but he works the jail. My grandma was a prison guard at the prison when it was in Draper many, many, many years ago. Wow.

Very, very long time ago, she was. And when I heard you tell that story, it just really connected. And so if you have time, I'd love for you to quickly share that story. I think it's so good. Yeah.

So I got invited by toast masters to go speak at the Utah state prison. It was before COVID. So as the prison that was at the point of the mountain, that's no longer there. They moved it, but I absolutely said yes to it. And, but I was a little nervous.

I've done a lot of speaking at the Salt Lake youth detention and younger kids who were locked up, but I had never been invited to the prison on this scale. Right. And so I said yes. And I get out to this, you know, to go out to the prison and this might sound funny, but it looked like what you think prison would look like. It had big fences with barbed wire on top.

And it just kind of a little eerie feeling. You got to go through metal doors and had to go through a metal detector. They did a background check on me, the whole nine yards, had to take my belt off my shoes, couldn't go in there with my watch or phone. Nothing. I mean, it's just, it's a different experience.

Right. Well, they had three guards that were there waiting for me to kind of give me the lay of the land. Right. And there was 120 inmates waiting for me in a, it was a place called Promontory out at the prison. It was a center block wall gymnasium with a wood floor.

And these guards said, okay, before you go in there and they're just kind of tell me what's going on and what they expect. And, and one of the guards said, you know, if something goes down in there and make sure you're standing by one of us. And I'm sitting there going, is there something going to go down? Did you hear a rumor? Right.

You're going to go after the guest speaker. And he's like, no, we just have to tell you that now my heart's really pounding. Right. So I walk in there, 120 inmates, dude. And they're sitting straight up.

They're not talking to their neighbor. And it was like, you could hear a pin drop so they could hear me walking in wood floor, center block wall. They all turn and look at me. All 120 of them. You want to these guys thinking of me right now?

Right. So I sit down and before I get up, they want me to take an hour and 15 minutes. They have three inmates. They're going to spend five minutes each sharing their story. I'm like, okay, cool.

So I start listening to these guys. They stand up. These guys are getting emotional talking about their stories. I'm like, where am I? It was amazing.

And the last guy, before he sat down, before I have to get up, he says, if you don't own your story, it owns you. And I was like, that's what I needed to hear. I'm just going to stand up and own my story. I even told him I'm still in that line from you. And so I get up and I start sharing my story to this, you know, all these prisoners, 120 of them, and I'm about a half hour into it.

And I could tell we were connected. And then I had that tap on the shoulder moment, ask him this question. I've never done this before. I never even planned. I mean, I had planned what I was going to share.

This wasn't part of the plan. It was like asking this question. Here's the question I asked him. How many of you by the show of hands are criminals? You know, all the hands go up and they're like, dude, we're in prison.

Yeah. They're looking at it. And as their hands were raised, Ryan, I said, why are you guys lying to yourselves? Why are you lying? And, you know, hands start going down.

They're like, what? You know, now they're talking to me. What's this clown doing? Right. And as their hands went down, I said, you guys are lying.

And I said, how many of you by the show of hands committed a crime today? And luckily no hands went up because I don't know what I would have done to have a hand go up. I'm like, oh, well, get out of here. And then I said, how many of you committed a crime yesterday? Raise your hand.

No hands go up. I said, see, you're lying. And then I asked them these questions. How many of you by the show of hands have told the truth just today? So far, look like every hand went up.

How many of you have done the right thing when no one was looking? Look like every hand went up again. And then I said, how many of you have followed all the rules here today in prison? Every hand goes up. And then the last question, how many of you have shown respect to your cellmate today?

Just so far today, every hand goes up. And I said, see, you're lying. You guys tell yourself you're criminals, but you just told me you're honest, you have integrity, you're respectful, and you're caring. And Ryan, had I not been there, I wouldn't have believed it. I got a three minute standing ovation.

These guys stood up and I'm not kidding. Just started clapping, screaming. And I thought I was being punked. And when I say three minutes, I'm not exaggerating for the story. I swear it went three minutes.

I was just like, I started getting emotional. I'm like, and I'm like, I wanted to go guys, sit down. I get it. They just kept going. And there was a guy like the third row going like this.

I'm like, what? He goes, Hey, can I come give you a hug? I'm like, sure. And he comes up, the guards tackled him and no, I'm kidding. Guards didn't tackle him, but he did come give me a hug.

I guess afterwards I found out he got in trouble for doing that. But anyway, he comes up, gives me a hug was they sat down. I shared this powerful truth. What follows I am follows you. And after I was done with my talk, all 120 of those inmates came up, shook my hand, gave me a hug and said, we have never had anyone ever tell us that.

Thank you for telling us that. I said, I'm just here to tell you the truth. And they have a therapist that's there 20, you know, they rotate therapists. That's always there. The one that happened to be there at the time I spoke said, I'm never going to let these guys say, call themselves criminals ever again.

And I'm like, wow, that'd be cool if they actually did that. Well, this past June, I got invited to go speak at the new prison. And sure enough, they do not let their criminals, if you will, call themselves criminals anymore. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. And like, yeah, ever since we heard you speak there, we don't do that anymore.

Like, wow. So this, this week, I attended the Jordan School District Career and Technology Economic Summit. And they had a representative from the Department of Reception there. Oh, really? Who helps recruit kids.

Okay. And it was really interesting because as I heard her talk, I can't I wish I can remember exactly the title she used. But she didn't say criminal. She didn't even say inmates. She used a totally different term for the people who are there.

And when I when I when I heard your story, and then I heard that, I thought that that matters. Like it matters not just to them themselves, but also like what the Department of Corrections is doing the way that they're talking about people that they're there to, I mean, to guard but also to help. I think the Department of Corrections here in the state of Utah is a really good job of taking this focus of trying to get people to be able to be reintegrated into society in positive ways. I've been very impressed because I did a tour there last year as well, this new prison, and of the work that they're doing to do that. And hey, that's the impact that you had.

Oh, yeah, that prison though, the new prison, no one's breaking out of that. Oh, no, dude, I thought I wasn't coming out, dude. I was I got claustrophobic. I was like, this, this is a lockdown facility, man. There is no one coming out of here.

Like they're not going to escape from this place. That's what I felt. But yeah, no, I yeah, it was it was an amazing experience. And it goes with, what psychology tells us, what you believe is the way you behave 95% of the time. So whatever the beliefs you have about yourself, that's how you show up in life.

So if we're telling these guys and girls that they're criminals, and that's their identity, no wonder it's a revolving door, they leave their one a criminal anyway. So what do they do? They go do a criminal act. But if they start going, No, I'm not a criminal, guess what behavior starts to change. The behavior changes, because they change the belief about themselves.

Yeah. That's fascinating. That is. That's why I love doing the work I do is helping people unravel their belief system that is holding them back. Yeah.

Right. That's so good. And that's the magic carpet right there. That is that is. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Let me go on that that detail. Yeah, no, thanks for asking him up. I just I needed to have our audience hear that. No, thank you. I think it's so impactful.

I think it's so important. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll come back to our rapid fire now. Okay, ready for this? Oh, boy.

I know. Here we go. Here we go. Favorite Disney movie. Wow.

I think it's Spider-Man. Oh, man, which one? There's so many, but even the most current one that just came out. Wow, it is amazing. Like just so well done.

I it's tough. You know, Tobey Maguire is amazing. Spider-Man. I mean, it's a tough one. Garfield was really good.

They're all good. I just I like if I could pick one, I would I would watch all the Spider-Man's for sure. Yeah, Spider-Man is a great character. So good. He goes through so many struggles himself.

Absolutely. Right. And, you know, when he's not being Spider-Man, he's going through the struggle of who am I and I'm not good enough. I'm a, you know, I'm kind of a nerd. I'm I don't fit in.

I mean, I can relate. And maybe that's why I like it so much because I can kind of relate with going through that process. And in the newest movie, it was so much of that of like, him going through struggle of who he really was and what he was supposed to do and ultimately was connection. Yes. With the people that he loved.

Yeah. Which is what helped him overcome the absolutely. Yeah. That's a good point. Such a good movie.

Okay. Favorite Disney song. There's so many, Todd. There's so many. Oh, man.

I don't I don't even know how to answer that one. I don't even know because there's so many I've forgotten probably most of them to be honest. Go favorite Disney song. I don't know. I'll just I'll stick with Prince Ali.

Okay. There you go. Yeah. I mean, that's a that's a that's a good one. And again, I that's tattooed on my brain because I watched that so much with my children.

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Terrific one. How about this favorite Disney princess? Yes.

Wow. You're asking some tough ones. Probably Cinderella. Yeah. Classic.

Yep. Yeah. That's a classic. I grew up with that. Yeah.

Really powerful story. Again, someone who was pushed aside, looked down upon as a no good nobody. Yeah. And yeah, told she wasn't good enough. Exactly.

Had to believe that she wasn't good enough. Yeah. And then the fairy godmother helps her see who she really is. Exactly. Yeah.

So good. That's such a good answer. Favorite ride at Disneyland. Yes, Space Mountain. Yeah, Space Mountain.

And then I was gonna say something else, but it wasn't it's in California Adventure. But yeah, Disney ride Space Mountain. Give me California Adventure. Oh, the they changed the name Guardians of the Galaxy. Guardians of Galaxy.

Yes, that is my favorite. I rode on it when I was in high school, even junior high. And to this day, that's my that's the first ride I run to. Yeah. And by the way, I'm running.

Think of this. You're running. Yeah, I'm running. I'm the I'm the dork who is running down trying to get in line. Same.

Yeah. Totally. My kids are looking at me like, what are you doing? Like, let's go. We love to rope drop.

There's a 10 minute wait. Let's go. Yeah. We love to rope drop. We love to get to the first ride.

Same way. We always had the kind of debate about which ones to go to. My daughter loved my 10 year old love Space Mountain. Yeah. So she wants to be like, don't let go to Space Mountain.

Let's go to Space Mountain. My other daughter who's six. It's usually like Peter Pan. Yeah. One of those rides.

We're always kind of like, when we go to but oh, we love we love rope dropping. Disney character you'd hire as your own life coach. This one's digging deep. I don't know that there's good answers here. I just was thinking like, is there a good guide in any of these Disney movies that you would really love?

Well, maybe the genie. The genie would be fun. I mean, it would be fun and exciting. And yeah, it would give me what I want, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good one. I yeah, I'd probably have to go with the genie. How about which Disney villain you would like to coach? I think you could coach Ursula myself. Ursula would be good.

God, there's I'm trying to think of the one that's on my mind. I can't think of the name though. Yeah. Ursula would be good. Because I think Ursula believes about herself that she's just this bad person.

Yeah. Right. When in reality, she didn't. I mean, she's got some magic, obviously, she can do she could have used that for good. Yeah.

But she believed, you know, this lie that she's this horrible person and needs to do things and needs some slave people. Right? Yeah. Obviously dealing with some kind of child trauma for her. For sure.

No, for sure. She would be a good one. She'd be a challenge to Oh, man. Yeah, be very challenged. Challenge.

She's a little manipulative, right? She might tell you what you want to hear at your turn to coach her. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally true. Okay, here's here's the last one of the rapid fire, which is not so rapid fire. Just kind of whatever you think. But how are you saying yes and in your life right now? Boy, I'm probably saying Yes to that life is fantastic.

And it's challenging. That's a good one. Because I do. I I really am. I think life is most of the time really fantastic.

I do. And I don't say that like I know there's a lot of pain in the world. I've been through a lot of pain. My life isn't perfect either. And that's the end part.

And I still have my struggles. Yeah. You know, even though I speak on stage, I do my own podcast, I'm sitting here with you. And I do all these things that I'm saying some probably hopefully some cool things for your listeners and things that will help them. I still have my battles.

I still, you know, I wake up some days going, man, can I do this? I wake up sometimes going, man, this is gonna be a tough day for some reason. So yeah, life is fantastic. And it's challenging. And I have my challenges.

Yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah, I really appreciate that answer. Because, you know, sometimes it is easy for people to see someone who's doing some amazing things like you are and think, oh, he's got it all figured out. It's 100% joy and happiness all the time. And that's just not real life.

Yeah, it's right. We have challenges, we have struggles, and we will continue to. Yeah. And we can still recognize the great things and be optimistic and be positive about what life has. Yeah, it's a great answer.

Okay, so Todd, what we'd like to end with is three actionable take away, something that somebody could put into effect in their life today or this week. What would be your recommended three actionable takeaways? Yeah. So I would write down one negative thing you tell you about yourself, put it on paper so you can see it, put whatever's at the top of that list. What is the number one negative thing you're wrestling with right now?

Okay. That'd be the first thing. Second thing, then flip it. So if I put down, I'm stupid over, if I flip this, I'm going to put I taught him brilliant. So I'm going to challenge you guys to do that, flip that name and then create a power statement around that new narrative.

Right? So for instance, it could be something like, you know, I taught him brilliant, but I'm also powerful, resilient, and kind. And, and I'm going to tattoo that onto my brain. So, and so our brains aren't wired for happiness or sadness. It's wired for repetition and repetition is how we create a new neural pathway.

So the take away, so the actual item is right down the negative, flip it, add the positive and then create a statement around that. And then memorize that, but not just memorize it. Understand what it truly means as who you really are and say this and repeat it over and over and over. And there's this beautiful thing called the 21 90 rule. It takes 21 days to create a habit, 90 days to create a lifestyle.

What that 90 day does is it takes your anything in your short-term memory, puts it into your long-term memory. So that statement will become kind of like your motto, your why, if you will. And you can tweak it and you can change it too. Don't, once you get it dialed in, doesn't mean you can't go change it. If you do this for a minute and you want to change it up, change it up.

But I'll tell you, I've done this in my own life and I still do. And it is again, the story we tell ourselves is the most powerful force. And so we got to make sure what is that story that we're telling. And so this will help you create that. And it's a simple start.

It doesn't maybe fix everything for you in this moment, but I'll tell you, it's a good start the right direction. Yeah. And if I could add something to that, what I would say is don't not do this because you think it's woo woo or because you think it's silly or you whatever, like these types of things actually can, they can create the new neural pathways. They truly can make a difference in us seeing ourselves differently. They really, truly can.

Yeah. Ask yourself, isn't it interesting? We can be comfortable beating ourselves up over and over and over and over again, but heaven forbid we say something nice about ourselves. And again, a lot of people, because it makes us uncomfortable. Get uncomfortable.

Yeah. Get in front of that mirror. Tell yourself this statement over and over again. Look at yourself as you're saying it. Get uncomfortable.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm telling you, it will change your life. I get it. You don't just gain confidence by shouting affirmations, but you gain it by building up a stack of evidence. So then that's the next thing is when you're saying these things at the end of the day, write down, where is the evidence that I was this powerful, brilliant, kind human being?

Where's the, where's the evidence? And if you can bullet point two or three things, that's the formation of the new belief system is that your brain can actually now see evidence. Cause we're also always looking for evidence. Always. We beat ourselves up.

We see evidence all over the place. Oh yeah. Look, this is proof that I'm not a good person. There's proof there too, a good person. You just don't see it yet.

So start writing down where's the proof. Start stacking that evidence. Stack the evidence, baby. Brilliant. I love it.

Todd, thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks for having me. For sharing your story, being so vulnerable with us, helping us to see the path that, uh, that you've lived and how you're inspiring. So, so many people, what a joy, what a pleasure it was to visit with you. Thank you.

Uh, thank you everybody for joining us. Um, we hope you continue to say yes. And in your life, thanks. As you leave this conversation, remember that yes, the past can hurt and you can either run from it or you can learn from it. So here's to learning and finding joy in the journey.

See you real soon.