Using The Pain Of Your Past To Create Greatness

(Podcast at the bottom)

My childhood wasn’t enjoyable.

It was full of emotional challenges with people very close to me in my life. It involved:

• walking on eggshells around certain people.
• money as a symbol of pain.
• a poor example of relationships.
• almost 50,000 dollars being taken from me.
• narcissistic family members.
• love being used as a weapon against me.

I craved validation and acceptance because I never felt like I was enough. It wasn’t fun. It HURT.

For the longest time, I HATED my past. I was ANGRY.

I remember making myself a promise that I’d never be like that. I wouldn’t waste my life away. I'd create something amazing that provided us with an incredible life. So I started an online business helping people get healthy from home.

Only one problem: everything I tried didn’t work. I was SO stuck.

I'd need a mindset call to get motivated. Then I’d be hyped up for a couple days, and I’d message my sponsor and say, “I sent 200 invites!” Basically, i was begging them to validate me. When I looked at my to-do list to become a successful business owner, it overwhelmed me, and I’d shut down. It was like fighting a ghost.

The Infinite Perfection Vs. Guilt Loop.

If I didn’t get my entire to-do list done, it was like a kick in the nuts. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have success and wouldn't feel fulfilled. It was back and forth, and it ended up leading to these bouts of depression, where I’d find myself on the couch 4 days a week, wanting my life to change so badly, but not being able to get myself to do it.

My laptop was staring at me, going, “DUDE change your life already!” but I just didn’t care… but I cared so much at the same time. Does that make sense?

Then, I started getting pissed off at myself that I was depressed, for being less than I could be, and for being so stuck while pretending things were so great.

Now, my life is truly incredible. I’m:

• at peace with my past.
• living a life of abundance and genuine happiness.

I don’t say that to impress you. I say that to impress upon you that if I can do it, you can do it too!

Closing The Gap Between Where You Are And Where You Want To Be

How do you go about reversing that type of life?

"Biography Is Not Destiny" - Tony Robbins

No matter what experiences you’ve had, it does NOT determine the future of your life. It doesn’t matter if you:

• have been in business for years and you haven’t made a dime.
• had a mom that scream at you every day of your life.
• were beaten.
• used alcohol or drugs.
• lost a child.
• were raped.
• went to jail.

Your past DOES NOT dictate your future.

But it can provide you with precious lessons on how to pursue your life. How have you used YOUR PAST to limit you?

Have you set LESS ambitious goals because you haven’t been able to achieve your goals in the past?

Have you used your financial situation as a reason to why you have to stay so stuck and can’t break through and live a life of abundance?

Change What The Past Means To You

Your life is literally made up of 2 things.

1. Events
2. The meaning you give to each event

If a man opens the door for a woman, and she’s really excited about it and very grateful, why? Is it because he opened the door? Or is it because of what she thinks a man opening the door means?

Because that same dude can open up a door for a different woman and she’s all pissed off thinking, “I can get it myself, you pig…”

Did the event change? Nope. It was her interpretation of the event.

So look at the most significant limitation of your life. Is it your mommy issues? Daddy issues? Relationship issues? Is it an epic failure from your past? What baggage are you giving a disempowering meaning to without realizing it?

Life changes when you put intentionality behind the meaning of everything.

If you intentionally choose a definition that leads to a better life, you’re setting up the game so you can win it.

I changed what my mommy issues meant to me. I stopped blaming those challenges for why I was so fucking stuck. I opened my heart again.

Closing your heart because of past pain doesn’t protect you from the bad.

It keeps all the pain locked inside you and keeps out all the good.

Life will keep breaking your heart until you finally decide to open it up again.

So what/who do you blame for why your life is the way it is?

Tony Robbins' "Conscious Blaming"

When you look at this situation or this person, what did it create within you? What good came out of it? There’s something there that’s a blessing in your life BECAUSE of that situation. I'll use my life as an example:

• If $50,000 weren’t stolen from me, I wouldn’t be hungry for freedom.
• If my parents didn’t scream, yell, and eventually get divorced, I wouldn’t be nearly as loving of a husband as I am to her.
• If love weren’t used as a weapon against me my entire life, I wouldn’t have so much empathy and so much love to give.
• If my business didn’t fail for years, I wouldn’t have learned what I needed to learn to create freedom in my life.

So take an analysis. What did your past actually create that’s amazing? You can focus on why it sucked, or you can focus on why it’s great.

What’s wrong is always available. But so is what’s right.

The pain of my past was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because it created me. So, what if your worst days were secretly the best days of your life in disguise? What if your trauma has the gift inside it to lead you to emotional freedom?

Life Is Always Happening For You. Not To You.

What if you adopt that as a belief?

What if you stop making those situations you went through "wrong," and you start making those situations "right."

Did it hurt? Absolutely?
Is it still painful? Probably.

But it was never wrong. Because it created you.

And you’re exactly where you need to be.

So if you’re gonna blame someone for the reasons you’re stuck in life, you’d better blame them for the good shit that came out of it too.

Because they played the role they were meant to play. My life changed when I decided that the pain of my past was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t be the man I’m proud to be without that pain.

The same is true in your life. They molded you, sculpted you, shaped you into who you are today. And who you are today can use that pain to impact the world.

Can you imagine how you would share to your audience with that type of empathy and awareness? How would you raise your kids differently to take ownership of their lives?

Can you imagine the community of hope you’d build from changing what the past means to you? You’d be a leader in your life instead of a follower.

How would everything change?

You don’t control what happens to you, but you DO control how you respond to it!

EVERY part of your past is a message, a lesson, a gift that you can grow from. If you view your past that way, you can use it to CHANGE your future instead of being stuck there.

So stop making where you are right now considered wrong. It’s not. It’s precisely where you need to be.

Seeing Your Current Good Is The Only Way To Increase More Good

Find the blessing instead of the fault.

Change the meaning. Change your stars.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR FUTURE.

Something you’ll quickly learn by working with me, ESPECIALLY through my online course Appreciation Academy: Happiness is trainable.

It’s not a byproduct of life events. It’s something you condition into who you are.

Happiness Is Trainable

But so is sadness, depression, and anxiety. How intensely have you trained those emotions to be part of who you are? How have you used those emotions as a way out?

And believe it or not, I’ll teach in Appreciation Academy how to be able to choose your emotions at any point in time, how to forgive when you don’t want to, and how to instill happiness into who you are… but you need to understand the overall concept that happiness IS trainable.

It starts by adopting a new meaning to your pain. The next year does NOT need to be the same as the last year. Biography is NOT destiny.

It’s time to smile about your past and take responsibility for your future.

When you’re one of the few that does, you’ll find abundance. You’ll find emotional freedom. You’ll find genuine happiness.

Raise your standard and take responsibility for your life and your happiness.

It’s time to take 100% responsibility for your life.

It’s time to take YOUR control back.
This is YOUR life. Not the people from your past.
It’s YOURS. OWN IT.

The type of thing that would have destroyed you before doesn’t have to kill you anymore. The rest of the world isn’t going to wait for you to get your shit together, but you can decide right now that you’re going to take 100% RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE.

For many people, everything is someone else’s fault. Every problem most people face can be “explained away” with some great reasons why they can’t make any changes to the situation or the outcome.

Not you. Not anymore. You’re going to USE your past to create greatness.

If you elevated your life above the pain, how could your past be a great thing? How could you use it to inspire others? How would you inspire differently?

You’d become a beacon of hope for those who can relate to your pain. That’s precisely what I did with my life. I became a beacon of hope from those who feel stuck. I used my pain to help people break through.

Without my pain, Appreciation Academy wouldn’t be as influential as it is today. You have pain that you can use to help others too.

Happiness is trainable. And success won’t happen until you learn how to be happy. Most people believe that if they could just change the past, they’d be satisfied. Not true.

Changing the past doesn't create happiness.

Business and success don’t create happiness.

Changing the MEANING of your past creates happiness.

Happiness creates business success.

And happiness is trainable.

It's Never Too Late To Have An Amazing Childhood

Imagine for a second how the world would change, how your business, your marriage, your relationships, your daily motivation, your productivity would improve if you learned how to be happy?

How much more motivation would you have?
How much more productive would you be?
How much faster would you hit that rank if you weren’t dominated by pain?

If you learned how to be genuinely happy, how fast could you get unstuck?

Faster than you could ever imagine. It’s like flipping a switch.

Instead of shrinking your dreams down to the size of your current life, you’d follow the road less traveled, and you’d build your life to the size of your dreams.

You’d build a life you’re proud of.

If this is something that you KNOW you need to break through and you felt just a taste of it in this blog post today, I’m telling you: INVEST in Appreciation Academy. It's truly life-changing.

That program will rip away the layers of pain and limitation that are keeping you stuck from becoming the person you need to be to live the life you actually want to live.

You won’t regret it.

And as always, THANK YOU so much for reading! It’s a privilege to serve you.

Share this blog post if you found it valuable today!

With love, 

Brad