Table of Contents
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[The Reality of the Dark Places](#the-reality-of-the-dark-places)
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[The Truth About the Coaching Industry](#the-truth-about-the-coaching-industry)
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[Rock Bottom at Twenty-Six](#rock-bottom-at-twenty-six)
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[The Second Chance and the Hard Decisions](#the-second-chance-and-the-hard-decisions)
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[Stop Watching Others Live Your Dream](#stop-watching-others-live-your-dream)
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[The One Tool to Change Everything Immediately](#the-one-tool-to-change-everything-immediately)
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[Winning the War Against Yourself](#winning-the-war-against-yourself)
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[The Path to Fulfillment](#the-path-to-fulfillment)
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The Reality of the Dark Places
I was 26 years old when I put a gun in my mouth. My life just wasn't working at all. And so let me first say that I know and I understand how dark life can be because I've been there.
And I think that there's a lot of coaches out here in the world who sell you lip service and they've not been through anything. You know, I don't personally trust the 23 year old life coach to tell you the truth because they're idiots. I mean, they are.
I'm 40. I've been doing this a decade. I'm still an idiot. I tell, you know, it's funny. I tell my clients all the time, I have no idea why you hired me. I don't even know if I would hire me. You know what I mean?
The Truth About the Coaching Industry
And so the reason that I started there is because I want you to understand, I know how dark life can be. I understand it. And people have come to me for over a decade because they're trying to overcome the darkest thing that has ever happened.
I don't know that I can help you. It was the same thing I say to every person that I've ever coached. I don't know if I can help you.
But what I do know is that I have a set of skills that very much sounds like taken. I have a set of skills and I have a gift that has been given to me because of this life that I'm in that has allowed me to help transform the lives of thousands of people.
I don't know if you're going to be one of those people. Not my job to figure that out. My job is to see whether or not you're ready to actually step into creating the life that you're capable of having.
Rock Bottom at Twenty-Six
And that's the same thing that happened to me. So when I was 26 years old, I hit this rock bottom moment. Life just was not working.
I was 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, partying all the time, cheating on my girlfriend. I was in debt. My business wasn't working.
My brothers wouldn't talk to me. My friends were effectively losers. I hate to say it, but they were. And nothing in my life was making sense. Not all my friends, by the way, but most of them.
And so I'm looking at my life at 26 years old, nothing is working. And so I made this very intense decision, which by the way, I understand when people choose that path, I get it. But my encouragement to you and my hope for you is hopefully you can know that you can make your life different in a heartbeat.
The Second Chance and the Hard Decisions
And that's the thing that happened to me. I was in this space where I had to make some really hard decisions. I had to look at my life and think to ourselves, who do I want to be? Who is the person that I'm going to choose to be?
Because you see, I was carrying trauma, abuse, sexual abuse, being homeless as a kid, learning disability, not graduating high school and you name it. And I was lost. And it was in this place in my life where nothing actually mattered.
And when I say nothing, I mean, I did not care about anything. I could have died at 26. It would not have bothered me in the least bit.
And in fact, at 26, that was the second time that I had attempted. Cause the first time I was 14. I was in my house and my mom was passed out on drugs on the couch and I just could not take it anymore.
Having never met my father in an abusive stepdad, I just could not take it. And so when people are in a dark place, I think, fuck, I get that. Like I understand that place.
And so if you don't know me, I'm Michael Anthony, also known as Michael Unbroken. I'm an author, I'm a speaker, I'm a podcast host, and I've been a coach for over a decade helping people transform their life after trauma.
I wanted to create this show so that I can help you understand how to actually create the life that you want to have. And I'm doing this for two reasons. One, because it's a new personal project.
To tell you the truth, I kinda got bored doing what I was doing. I got burned out doing what I was doing. I felt like in a lot of ways I reached the mountain top of what I was doing, and I needed to step into something different.
And two, because this industry, this coaching industry, this personal development industry is being gate kept by people who have no right doing this work. I'm not gonna name names. It's not time for that.
Maybe I will one day. Maybe I'll get some cease and desist letters. I don't know. Wouldn't be the first time. But I see a lot of these people in the world and I can't fucking stand them. I look at them go, you're full of shit. You don't tell the truth.
You steal your material. You're not showing up authentic. I've been backstage with you. I know that you're a farce. I know you are.
Stop Watching Others Live Your Dream
And so I was sitting and I was thinking, well, who do I want to be? Because a lot of people talk a big game about wanting to change the world. And then they sit idly by and they do nothing about it.
And this is the same thing that people do with their personal lives. They idly sit by and they're like, why does my life suck? I'm like, I don't know Todd. I don't know Stephanie.
Maybe it's because you fucking smoke two packs a day. Then you drink yourself to sleep and you party all the time and you're cheating in your relationship and you're not living life in accordance of the person that you're capable of being and you're blaming everyone else because really bad things happen to you when you were a kid.
And here's the truth. I don't want to take that away from you. Your excuses are completely valid by the way. I'm never going to take that from anyone, but I look at people's lives and I go, man, your life sucks.
Nobody cares though. Nobody cared when my life sucked. I mean, sure. The people closest to me, they're like, dude, you know, you're in rough shape.
My girlfriend at the time she was amazing because she was like, Hey, I'm here to support you. But I didn't care. You have to care about you more than everyone around else around you combined.
And most of you just don't give a fuck about yourself. That's the cold hard truth. But here's the thing. You have to understand how you got to where you are.
And most people have not been set up for success in life because they've never been taught that it's okay to care about yourself. It's okay to love yourself. It's okay to be ambitious.
It's okay to grow. It's okay to leave the relationship, the city that you were born in, the career that you have. It's okay. And we're all human.
You know, here's what's wild. Nobody's perfect. And we see the world and we look at certain people and we think to ourselves, we have it figured out. They have it figured out.
No, they don't. You don't. And I don't. We're just simply all together walking this path, trying to better understand the world.
The One Tool to Change Everything Immediately
But you, as the individual, you have to raise your standard for yourself. Because if you want success, I work and have worked with some of the most high profile people in the world.
Leaders, executives, people that work for major companies that we have heard of. And I've even worked with people who, you know, there are accountants and lawyers and doctors, and they're just regular people in the world who are trying to have a better life.
I've also worked with people who are dead broke, flat on their face, and nothing has worked. And I will tell you the same thing, the success that I see for all of them, every single one of them, came the moment that they made a decision that they were going to raise their standard.
And so here I am, I'm 26 years old and on paper, my life looks pretty good. There's a lot of things working in my advantage, but that's what people see on the outside.
On the inside, I was a complete disaster. I was emotionless. Nothing was working. I couldn't stand what was happening in my life. And I made a very, very rash decision and as I look back in that moment, it was also that decision that started the snowball effect to change my life.
Now it wasn't in that exact moment. It was actually the next morning I woke up. It was Saturday morning. I was laying in bed. Keep in mind, I'm 350 pounds by the way.
I'm laying in bed. I'm eating chocolate cake, smoking a joint and watching the CrossFit games. Growing up, I was an athlete. I played four sports. I was a captain of a couple of teams. I was a letterman.
By the time that I was 26, my life was nothing like I imagined it. In a lot of ways it was, but in most of the ways it wasn't. And so I'm watching the CrossFit Games.
I'm watching those fit, talented, hardworking people in the world. And my morbidly obese ass is laying on the couch watching these people live their dream. And that's what's happening to you.
Maybe not literally. Maybe you're not morbidly obese. Maybe you don breeze even care about the CrossFit games, but something in your life is happening right now where you're not showing up, where you're not playing all out because of fear, because of shame, because of guilt, whatever it is.
Maybe you're leading a company and you're not executing because you're afraid. Maybe you're in a relationship that's not working because of shame. Maybe you won't put out the content because you feel guilt.
And guess what? None of that changes until you address it. And addressing it is the hardest part because we, as humans, we want to avoid pain, right? We want to avoid pain, move towards pleasure.
And that's why I have this joke with my clients all the time. I'm like, if you got an orgasm on the backside of doing this assignment that I just gave you, you would do this assignment so fast, it would make your head spin, right?
But because the work sometimes takes weeks and months and years to actually see the ROI. It's really difficult for us as humans because of the way that we need dopamine and we are all dopamine sick in the time that we live in.
And so you're looking at your life and you're like, it's not what I want it to be. That's step one. That's looking at and going, okay, yeah, this is not it. This is not where I thought I was going to be.
And then it's starting the process of doing something today in this moment, your life might suck. And trust me, my life has sucked. I have been at rock bottom.
You don't put a gun in your mouth because life is good. I assure you that. But I have seen how amazing life can be when you start showing up for yourself every day.
And so I'm to give you one tool in this moment that will change you forever. This one tool, if you use it right now, will start the process of your life becoming better. And it's very simple.
In the moment of hesitation of not wanting to do the thing that you know you're supposed to do, do it anyway. That's it. That's the tool.
You sit in this moment. You're like, okay, I want to write a blog post. I need to fire an employee. I need to ask the girl out. I need to whatever the thing is in front of you, call a therapist, hire a coach, go and sign up for the marathon.
I don't know what it is for you. But in that moment, the second you think that that's where you make the decision. You go, okay, I'm going to do this.
Because if you make the decision immediately like that, the brain does not have time for you to talk yourself out of it. And that's what most of us do. Right? We talk ourselves out of our dream and our goal and we go tomorrow.
I'll figure it out tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. We talk ourselves out of the healing journey. We go, man, I don't know if that's for me. I shouldn't do therapy. I shouldn't do coaching. I don't know what that thing is. Right. And it's different for everyone.
Winning the War Against Yourself
And so the thing that I encourage you to look at in your life right now, where are you hesitating? Where are you hesitating? Because as they say the old proverb, he who hesitates in war is lost.
And my friends, life is a war. I mean, yeah, there's real wars happening for sure. We all know this, but life, this day to day thing where you're showing up and you're trying to figure out this is a war.
There's no way around it. And if you want to win this battle, this is a battle of you versus you, you versus you. Every single day, the battle that you're actually facing is the mirror.
It's you giving yourself the ability to show up and live life on your terms, making decisions that fill in alignment with who it is that you are at your core that are going to change your life.
Whenever clients come to me, whether we're in our group programs or one-on-one, and they say to me, I'm stuck. My first conversation with them always begins with this question. Why?
Why are you stuck? Why is your life not working? Why are you not doing the thing that you know you're supposed to be doing?
And then we walk down the rabbit hole of the whys because deep down inside of you somewhere in your psyche, in your soul, in your heart is the answer to why shit is not working for you. But you have to be able to acknowledge that answer and then do something with it.
Because I know for some of you who are watching this right now or listening, you know that there's some thing in your life that you need to be doing. And if you don't make that decision, what's going to happen is you're going to end up on your death bed.
And the last thought you have before you die is regret. And so when I was 26, I'm going to give you the truncated version of the story.
But when I was 26 and at rock bottom and put a gun in my mouth, the thing that pulled me out of it was me making decisions every single day that were different than the decisions that I had been making.
It was eating different. It was going to therapy and telling the truth. It was working out and going to hot yoga. I was showing up and waking up on time every single day and not hitting snooze.
And in fact, one time I heard this amazing quote. I wish this was mine and I'm going to steal it because I don't know who to attribute it to. But every single time that you hit snooze, you're hitting snooze on your dreams.
The Path to Fulfillment
And so those kind of ideas started populating in my head because I came from this background of having no parents, of having no community support, of having to figure out so much of life on my own.
And as you do that, the thing that you're actually doing is reparenting another conversation for another day. But I want you to think about this question. If you want your life to be different, what is the thing that you can do that is responsible?
Because it is your responsibility to become the greatest version of you. And I'm not saying that's fame and fortunes and riches. Who cares about that shit?
That stuff does not matter. Trust me. I have flown on first class and I've eaten at the best restaurants in the world. And I would trade so much of that for amazing conversations and dinners with friends at fucking Waffle House.
And that's not a joke, right? So the desires that we have do not carry as much weight as the need we have for fulfillment. So I want to encourage you to walk that path and find out what it means for you to be fulfilled.
That said, you can go check out [michaelunbroken.com](https://www.michaelunbroken.com). You'll have access to a ton of free resources that I put together. Then you can also learn more about what I do and helping people just like you create an amazing transformation in their life.
That said, my friend, thank you so much for being here. Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and until tomorrow, be unbroken. I'll see ya.
