From Resentment to Resilience A Story of Personal Transformation

When life unexpectedly threw me into the depths of despair, a simple quote sparked a monumental change in my approach to life's toughest battles. This episode is about that journey, taking you through the raw emotions following the loss of my father and the collapse of my fitness franchise, right to the heart of what it means to take 100% responsibility for personal growth. I discuss the moment resentment and anger gave way to empowerment, and how embracing accountability shifted my perspective to view every challenge as a hidden blessing. It’s a candid exploration of the power we all hold to transform our own lives, and a reminder that the keys to personal growth and balance lie in our willingness to own every part of our experience.

Discovering the law of simultaneous contrasts was like finding a hidden map to emotional equilibrium, and I’m sharing this treasure with you. This episode delves into how this natural law strives to maintain balance in our lives and how, by adjusting our perspectives to acknowledge both sides of every situation, we can achieve a personal state of harmony. The focus here is unwavering: to inspire you to take the helm of your thought process, and consequently, your life’s direction. I extend a heartfelt invitation to all listeners to reflect on areas in your own lives where empowerment is waiting to be claimed, and if this message resonates with you, to join in the journey by sharing and rating the podcast.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

One mindset shift that could save you years of pain and resentment. This was something that I personally learned a hard way, and I had to discover Way back in 2016, after the collapse of a fitness franchise, that I had began to grow. It was a challenging time for me. In the space of a couple of months, I had buried my father and I had lost two gym franchisees, and it was just when things actually seemed to be growing, when things were really beginning to take off. On one day, we had a meeting with one of the guys and then on the second day, we had the meeting with the other guy and the franchisees had reneged and it wasn't moving forward. Now, these were guys that I had worked for me before, so I kind of went on the business with them and built up a level of trust. But again, in hindsight, looking back, things don't work out that way, and I learned a lot of lessons. Now, at that time, I felt a lot of anger, a lot of resentment. The old how dare they do this to me? Popped up, and then it was the shame and everything else that kicked in, which was how could I let this happen to me? How could I let this happen and no scenarios went over and over my head.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Now, at the time, I was trying to process the death of my father, plus the realization of what had begun to be a grown franchise that year, all of a sudden seemed like a collapse. Now, I won't bore you with all the details, but here's what ultimately changed the course of my focus and my direction, and it came from a book that I was reading at that time and there was a quote in there by Jack Campfield and he said accept 100% responsibility for everything in your life. Now, when I read that at that time, I didn't really want to take that on board because I was the victim here. I was the one that was feeding off and playing the blame game and the per me and the victim mindset. And yeah, that's the truth. I played that victim card for months. Now, at that time I wasn't even realizing that this was just an unconscious thing and I was feeding off everybody else's energy and there was a lot of anger and resentment and all of these emotions that I was trying to deal with at that time. But I was playing that card, I was playing the per me card for months until I realized that hold on a minute. There's only one person getting damaged here, and that's yours truly. So I decided to stop it. Right there and right there. There's no such thing as an empowered victim. I heard that quote one time and I thought it was so, so true. So I had it on up to some hard truths. I had it on up to look at why these guys wouldn't go through with what I was proposing and what we had ultimately set out, and I began to see things from a different perspective. I began to realize why the franchise did the things that collapse, and I also look back and see it as a saving grace.

Speaker 1: 3:11

So here's what I want to get across to you in this short episode when can you accept 100% responsibility in your life? Now, this isn't for anybody else's benefit. This is for your benefit, and this is the act to help you free yourself. Free yourself from the thoughts or the anxieties or the stress or the worries or the resentment or the anger that a lot of times we hold against somebody else. And when you let go of that and accept responsibility for all of the things in our life, then we can learn to empower ourselves again and we can learn to create growth and empowerment, in whatever way or form, serves us best. Because so many times, just be honest, so many times we like to pass the buck, so many times we play the victim, and so we realize that this mindset serves absolutely nobody, especially you. So here's a fantastic quote and it says first we blame others, then we blame ourselves, then we realize there was nothing to blame and that was from Epictus. So then we realize there was nothing to blame. That means that everything serves. So how many times if you look back at a certain event maybe in your business, your life, your personal life and at that time it was really, really challenging, but maybe two years, three years, four years, maybe even six months later, you look back and you see that was a blessing. So wisdom is the instantaneous recognition, the crisis is a blessing. That means, when we're going through certain challenges in our lives, if we have the wisdom they look and find the benefit in it, then we don't create that level of resentment and anger. We don't create all of those emotions that can a lot of times drag us down.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Now, at that time back in 2016, I didn't have that awareness. I hadn't studied. A lot of what I've studied from that time forward. I haven't studied a lot of the stuff that I now know around human behavior and I hadn't studied a lot of the stuff around universal laws and how we can begin to shift and see things differently. I've looked back on all of those different events and there's been many more since then that have created a lot of challenges, but at that time there was also a lot of support. At that time the opposite was also there. But if we were only seeing one side, then that one side generally runs us and we can free ourselves from it. So if we polarize ourselves to seeing something as a negative, then what we ultimately do is we subconsciously store that and then that event runs us instead of us running it. So a simple way to shift and change your perspective is by taking back your control, by accepting some sort of responsibility, so that you can free yourself and empower your mind, so that you can move forward again. And that was what I did and it really really helped me get back on track again and get back to doing what I actually really loved, and I wanna share this.

Speaker 1: 6:16

This is a post that I actually shared in social media this morning and it ties into this perfectly, and you won't have someone criticizing you without someone praising you. You won't have someone challenging you without someone supporting you. You won't have a positive without a negative. So the next time that someone criticizes you, look and see at that exact moment who's also praising you.

Speaker 1: 6:40

It's always there, but so often we aren't willing to look because we've become attached to their story. It's called the law of simultaneous contrasts. These laws are always working for us and they're always working to keep us in balance Our brain, our bodies, our emotions, physically, psychologically. We're always looking to create some sort of balance, some sort of homeostasis, and when we begin to shift and change our perspective and change our perception and see things differently and look for the benefit and the challenge, look for the positive and the negative, then we can create that balance for ourselves, and it's always happened. These things are always going on, but, as I said a lot of times, we're either afraid to look, or we don't want to look, or we're too attached to the story.

Speaker 1: 7:32

So what I'd love to leave you with again is where can you accept that responsibility? Where can you take back control and empower your own mind and your own life so you can move forward again? Again, this isn't the free anybody else, but the free you from what it is that you're maybe feeling resentment for. And then again they leave you with quote. First we blame others, then we blame ourselves, then we realize that there's nothing to blame. Guys, if you're enjoying this podcast again, I would love you to rate the podcast on your Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever you listen to it on, and again share it on your social media. This really helps me know that I'm giving value to you and also it helps the podcast grow. Okay, guys, see you in the next one.