Episode 249: The Cure to Your Insecurities with Dr. Sean Stephenson

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Hal: Hey, goal achievers, welcome to another episode of the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is Hal Elrod. I am actually recording this short introduction here at the San Diego airport with my family sitting right next to me. We just finished the Best Year Ever Blueprint Live Experience, a three-day event that we’ve got 500 people here in San Diego. When I say we, me, Jon Berghoff, our team and 500 extraordinary individuals, mostly members of The Miracle Morning Community, yes, listeners of the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. In today’s episode, I am bringing you something I’m really excited about. In fact, we have so many great speakers this year and they were legendary. That was our standard we decided as they’ve got to be not just good speakers or great speakers. They have to be legendary or these people that the attendees of the event and ourselves will talk about for years to come. We wanted to make sure each speaker was legendary. All of them were. I’d say just about everybody if not all of them exceeding my expectations, but no offense to other speakers, the one that you’re about to hear from is the one that I was the most excited at the event. In fact, it was the one speaker, he was the only speaker that my wife and my children, I told them, “You’ve got to be in the room for this.” I invited my in-laws, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law that I said, “Anyone that can come,” your is going to be better as a result of listening to this,” and he did not disappoint. In fact, again, he over-delivered.

 

Dr. Sean Stephenson, his message is ridding the world of insecurities and it’s powerful. I don’t need to say much more. You’re going to hear this for yourself. Follow Sean on Instagram. I highly recommend. If you want daily doses of inspiration, you can follow him at 3footgiant I believe is the Instagram handle. Follow him on Instagram for daily doses of inspiration. Do that real quick. Pause this episode if you need to. And by the way, Sean is such an inspiration. Give me your feedback. Let me know underneath this episode. Leave a comment. Would you like me to interview Sean in the podcast? Because I’m already thinking that that is what I’m probably going to do. So, in the meantime, you’re going to get a sneak peek though in front of the scenes of the keynote message that Sean delivered at the Best Year Ever Blueprint Experience. And not only was it inspirational, I would say the humor rivals the inspiration. I literally fell out of my chair two or three times laughing. Sean is so funny, he’s so smart, he’s such a professional. So, enjoy this, goal achievers, and I will talk to you next week.

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal: The man that you’re about to hear from I am a huge fan of. We become friends. He’s one of the most inspiring people that I’ve ever met. He is one of the best speakers that I’ve ever seen speak. In fact, so much so that a few minutes ago I called my wife and kids. He’s the one speaker, no offense to all other speakers, you’re great, but he’s the one speaker that I told my wife, I said, “You and Sophie and Halston,” and my mother-in-law, my family is here as well. They’re all here to see Sean speak. He’s featured in The Miracle Morning Movie and it’s truly an honor. Now, Sean trains people in public speaking to do what he does and I’m actually going to invite his student, John, up on stage to officially introduce my good friend, Sean Stephenson. John, welcome.

 

John: Raise your hand if you ever had a situation or a decision that needed to be made even with the relationship where your mind and your head are pulling you in one direction and your heart and your intuition are pulling you in other. Raise your hand if you have that. Yeah. That’s a fairly common human experience that we have. I was 25 years old and I had just gotten a job, corporate job, and I was so excited about it because I was going to get a paycheck and I was going to get benefits and I was going to get status. Although my heart and my head were a little bit at odds at the situation, I went with my head because I thought that was the right thing to do, but all the time that I was getting the buildup to get into that job, my voice and my heart were saying no, “No, this is not for you.” And as the time clicked away right before I was ready to go into that job, the voice in my heart got so loud that it overtook what was in my head and I decided that I’d rather go down the pathway of entrepreneurial. I was going to take the harder road, the more difficult road, the riskier road and I did it. How many of you out here are entrepreneurs? How many of you have been faced with that situation? It’s a tough, tough way to move. Very scary.

 

So, what I did was as an entrepreneur, I decided that I really like real estate. Actually, I had a degree in construction engineering and I got involved in real estate, not so much on real estate sales side but also in the construction, land development, and I built the company where we had apartments and townhouses, property management, and I even was involved in building a winery and for those of you in California, yes, we do have wineries in New York. Believe it or not. And our claim to fame in New York is ice wine and so probably right now if we’re looking at back home, it’s probably 20 degrees out in those vineyards and the wine is getting ready, is being iced up for harvest but that’s a whole another story. What I learned through my years as an entrepreneur is that you had to have discipline in what you do and I believe a lot of what you’re talking about today and through this whole event is about the ritual, the discipline, and what you do on a daily basis every morning or every evening, whatever is the best time for you. And I’ll share with you some of the things that I’ve done to help me become successful.

 

The first order of the day is to check in with my heart, to make sure that the voices coming out of my heart is what’s going to guide me through the day. The second thing I do is make sure I don’t have any regrets. How many of you had a situation where you might have had the voice in your heart but you didn’t pay attention to it and how did that work out for you? So, I find myself occasionally maybe more often than I want to admit that I ignore what’s going on in my heart and I moved to my head I have to recover from that. We’re all human. It’s going to happen. One of the third things I do is I check in with my mentors and I don’t mean going on Facebook and talking on the phone and that type of thing, but each of all of you here today, I know you’re here because evidenced that you are interested in improving yourselves and just as I am, I’m involved in so many programs, a strategic coach. I’m a certified Colby consultant, Abundance 360, and it goes on with industry issues as well that I’m involved in on a national and regional level and I have volumes of information, notes, and workbooks and binders that I’ve taken over the years. And this little technique it might sound a little quirky but we’ve got them all lined up on a bookshelf, a couple of bookshelves actually, and I just walk up to one of them on a daily basis and I just randomly pop it out. It’s almost like an intuition thing, just pop it out, open it up and read what I wrote maybe a year ago or five years ago or 10 years ago because our natural tendency is to come to these events and then we shelve the information but I’m encouraging you to reach out, pull that book out, and what I found is that when I grabbed that book or that journal that I wrote in, the message that was there is the message I needed to hear that day and put me in a place where I needed to be.

 

Now, speaking about mentors. I was drawn to a mentor by the name of Dr. Sean Stephenson who you’ll meet soon and that whole relationship was based on intuition and what was in my heart. Just like you are going to listen to him today, you’ll feel compelled. The first time I heard Sean was actually on a podcast and it was three days before one of his live events and I dropped everything because, in my heart, I said I needed to meet this man and I needed to be mentored by him. So, I got out, went to Phoenix, jumped on a plane, and three years have gone by and I’ve been working with Sean. We’ve traveled all over the world and he’s given me great insight and great messages. People always ask me, “Well, what do you get out of Sean? What is it that you’re learning?” Because I will tell you. He’s mysterious. What I learned from Sean is that I always thought I knew what my heart was. I always thought I understood what intuition was but really what it was, was just feelings and the feelings that I have were only feelings. Those were the signal or the sign that said that something was going on in your heart. You say, “Oh, I have a feeling I shouldn’t go down that dark alley or I have a feeling that I shouldn’t do this,” and I have a feeling.

 

What Sean helps you do is to go deeper, much deeper, to have a conversation with your heart and for someone like me, that was pretty tough, and Sean was able to help me with that. We have a group that’s called interestingly enough all of my people in the group, I call them my heart mentors. And one of our main groups Sean has, it’s not really called the mastermind group. I think he’s coined this word and maybe he should trademark it. It’s called the masterheart group because that’s truly what we do is we look at our hearts. So, without any further ado, we think we’re going to cue up a video about Sean and then as soon as that video is done, we’re going to get him up on stage and I know he’s going to amaze you all. Thank you.

 

Voice prompt (video): Dr. Sean Stephenson is predicted to not survive at birth because of a rare bone disorder that stunted his growth and caused his bones to be extremely fragile. Despite the odds, Sean persevered and his drive took him all the way to the White House where he worked as a young man. He went onto college and eventually earned his doctorate. The Biography Channel produced an hour-long feature on his life called the Three Foot Giant. His journey has inspired millions of people around the world. Count among his fans, Sir Richard Branson, President Bill Clinton, and his holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. Sean has appeared on everything from Oprah to Jimmy Kimmel in addition to online videos with tens of millions of views. Over the past 22 years, Sean’s powerful message has been heard at live events at nearly all 50 states and in 15 countries around the world. His latest book, Get Off Your But, has been translated in ten different languages. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Sean Stephenson.

 

Sean: All right. Get down. You don’t even know if I’m good yet. Raise your hand if you’d spend $10,000 to rub me down in oil. No, no, no. It’s for a good cause though. Okay. That played out well in my head before I got up here. I was like, “I’m going with it.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever been happy. You don’t have to be happy now. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been sad. Raise your hand if you think you’re sexy. I have some bad news for some of you. The bad news is you look around for approval on that one like, “Am I sexy?” “I don’t know.” Every human being shares one thing in common. We all have emotion and I want you to realize that if you can learn how to master and influence your own emotions and then influence and master other people’s emotions, you can do whatever you want on this planet. You have to be willing to master emotions. I’ll give you two examples of human beings that mastered emotions and I’m going to show you there’s s spectrum. Okay. Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Martin Luther King. Did he master emotion? Did he mobilize emotion? Raise your hand if you ever heard of Adolf Hitler? He mastered emotion. I want you to know that human beings are drawn to what lights them up, positive or negative. When you hear people on these radio programs that are shock jocks and everybody is just listening in, “I can’t believe he said that. I can’t believe she talked about that,” and people are listening in.

 

Did you know in a two-hour radio program of a shock jock, the first hour are the followers that listen to the program and the person that listens to both hours are the person that hates the DJ. It’s interesting how it’s emotion that lights us up, positive or negative, and if you can learn hopefully in this group, we can all agree to use the positive and empowering emotions to get people drawn to our causes, drawn to our products, drawn to our services. And I can tell you, in all the years that I’ve done what I’ve done, I mean, I started off on this planet the doctors told my parents that I would be dead within the first 24 hours of my life. I’m happy to report that 39 years later, all those doctors are dead. And that goes over really well everywhere but in hospitals. Doctors are like, “Yeah! Wait. What?” You have to get very clear in your mind what kind of life do you want? Because it’s so easy isn’t it to just kind of think that someday you’re going to get your life together like right now I’m just kind of like posting. Right now, I’m just kind of figuring myself out and study new things and I’m going to get around to working on me. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in the trap of, I’m going to get around to working on me? Yes. Liars.  

 

Now, you are working on you. That’s why you are here. You know that there’s something bigger for you. You know you’re probably playing small and there is nothing that will eat a human being up than playing small. We don’t like to admit to ourselves that we’re doing it but we can feel it. Very few people are willing to get so radically outside of their comfort zone that they’re willing to play so big because it’s scary. It is scary to not know what’s going to happen next but that’s where all the good stuff is. If you know every single thing that’s going to happen in your life in detail, every minute-by-minute in advance for years, it tells me you’re playing so small. You need to be so excited by your visions. When people meet me, they think that like I started off super confident like I came out of the womb like, “Hey, Sean Stephenson.” No. I had to work at this. I want to take you back in time where I really got my first vision of my life. So, I was 12 years old and I was in my living room in my family’s home and I was watching the television and this song came on the television. Maybe you’ve heard it before. It goes [humming to the tune of “Hail to the Chief”]. Anybody know what that is? Hail to the Chief. And when do they play Hail to the Chief? When the President of the United States comes out. Now, I’m 12 years old. I’m watching this man on the television and he comes out on the stage and everybody just jumps to their feet and starts applauding and I’m thinking, “I got to have that job.” I got to be the President of the United States.

 

So, I went to school the next day and I told all my teachers I’m going to be the future President of the United States of America. Now, what happens when we tell people our lofty goals? You think my teachers were like, “Yes, you are.” Did they do that? Yes or no? No. When we tell people our lofty goals they go, “Oh, sweetie.” But I don’t care because at that age and at this age, I don’t have time for my doubters. I don’t have time for my haters. I wouldn’t be alive if I believe negative predictions. Listen closely, this is a tweetable moment, alright? Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you. Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you and you’re going to get a lot of predictions on you in your life. You’re going to get a lot of labels. People are going to be like, “You can’t do this. You can’t have that. That’s not in the cards for you.” I’m 12 years old. I’m telling all my teachers I’m going to be President of the United States, well, there’s a couple things I didn’t know at that young age. First of all, you got to be 35 to be president. I was 12. I had some time, right? Second is you got to understand things like economics and geography and you got to know how to pay people off to be President of United States. So, as the years went by, I kept this vision clear in my mind but have you ever wanted to do something and you told other people about it but it took you like a long time to like maybe get any traction on that goal? Raise your hand if it’s ever taken you time to get traction on your goal. Okay. We’re going to prove this right now.

 

Now, this is not meant to shame you but you’re going to feel shame, okay? I’m warning the nervous system. This is a warning. Raise your hand if you ever wanted to write a book. Raise it up high. Raise it up high. Now put your hands down, if you never wrote it. We’re losing hands at a fast alarming rate. Okay. Put your hands down. So, what happens when we tell people, “Oh, I’m going to do this,” and you haven’t made a ton of traction? People start to doubt you. And you know what the hardest part about our doubters is, is when we start to agree with them. When you look in the mirror and you think, “Maybe they’re right.” And have you ever noticed that there’s kind of like a cycle. There’s a cycle up like, “I can do this. I’m unstoppable. I’m amazing,” right? Raise your hand if you ever been in that cycle? And then there’s this other cycle down and it’s like, “No, you can’t. You can’t do this. That was all pumped up motivational rah-rah. They’re right. This isn’t in the card for you. Maybe you’re not as good as you thought.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in that cycle? Yeah. So, I’m spending these years telling people I’m going to be President of the United States. Finally, I get to college and while in college, I thought, you know, I’m tired of people telling me this isn’t going to happen for you. So, I decided if I’m going to go live at the White House someday, maybe I need to go check out the decorating. See if I even like the place, right? So, if you’re going to go live at the White House why don’t you first go work at the White House?

 

So, I applied to work in the White House. I’m in college and I remember the day the envelope came in the mail to tell me whether or not I’ve been selected. My heart was pounding out of my chest. Raise your hand if you ever got a piece of mail, an email, or phone call that the information would change your life, right? You’re holding that envelope and you’re thinking, “I’m not the father. I’m not the father. I’m not the father.” And I hold this white envelope with blue lettering in the corner. When you get a letter from the President, it just literally is blue lettering, The White House. And I held it up to my nose. This envelope as if my nose was going to tell me the truth and I’m like, “Sssssft, oh yeah.” And I opened it up and it said, “Congratulations, Sean Stephenson. You have been selected to work alongside the President of the United States. You’ll be reporting for duty in three months.” Now my heart is pounding out of my chest. I’m so excited. I’m a single man at the time, right? And what do you think I did with that letter? I went to my college campus. I went up to all the ladies and I was like, “Hey, what are you doing this summer? Are you doing this? Bam.” Showed them the letter. It didn’t work. It didn’t work.

 

But I remember my first day on the job and I was going up and down the halls just thinking about all the history, the legislation that has been passed there, signed in the law. I was thinking about all the incredible conversations that had been had with world leaders and feelers that had come to really make a difference and musicians and actor, all the people that have been through that house. And there was something I absolutely love about working at the White House and that was watching the president come home from work. See, when the President would come home from being overseas, he wouldn’t just show up in an SUV or in a minivan. He would land Air Force One, a giant 747 at Andrews Air Force Base. And then to get from the Air Force Base to the White House, he would show up in a helicopter and it’s a massive helicopter. It’s the size of a school bus and it’s dark green. It’s got big bright white stripe at the top and an American flag painted on the side and rotors you can hear coming from miles. And I’m thinking, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if you were in the backyard when the president lands his helicopter and you greeted the president as he came home from work. I mean, a little man in a wheelchair while a helicopter is landing overhead. What could go wrong?” Don’t get ahead of me, okay?

 

Finally, the day came when I knew I could be in the right place at the right time. You see, but I wasn’t supposed to be on the south lawn, so I had to make it look like I was on official business. So, I took an envelope that was completely empty, I shoved it on my armpit and I put on my busy face. You guys know what your busy face looks like? It looks like a mixture of you might have constipation or you might have diarrhea. It could go either way, right? And when people see your busy face, what do they do? Why do they back up? Because they don’t want to be busy so they leave you alone. So, I put my busy face on and I headed out to the south lawn entrance. I could see out the window the helicopter was now hovering about 20 feet off the ground, but the doors were closed. And there weren’t those handicap accessible buttons. You guys know what those handicap accessible buttons are, right? You’re carrying lots of pizza and you’re like, “Oh how convenient,” and you hit it with your butt. Not for you. And if I could digress for a moment, you know the larger stall in the bathroom? It’s not your dressing room. It’s not your dressing room, all right, folks? And I know who you are. I’ve sat outside a stall just to shame you. It’s fun. So, there I am. I’m the one in the wheelchair. You’ve got the problem. Okay. Here we go.

 

So, south lawn, the doors are closed. No one’s around and I’m thinking I got to get outside. Now, there’s like a 12-year-old boy still living inside me even though I’m in college. He’s like, “You got to get outside. You got to get to the president,” and I’m thinking what am I going to do? How am I going to get through doors? Then I remembered something this thing called physics. If I could get enough running room, I could slam 88 miles per hour through those doors. So, I start thinking that there are like linebackers and I’m a running back and I started like pumping myself up. I’m like, “You got nothing, son. You got nothing.” And I took off. Wham. Wham. Wham. Bam. These doors fly open but what I didn’t expect happened next. A giant wall of wind slapped me in the face and blew me back into the White House and I was like, “Ah, no!” And now I am huffing and I am puffing and I get outside and I’m like, “That wasn’t too bad.” And now I see off in the distance, I see a tree and it is waving at a different speed than all the other trees. So, I investigate a little closer. I see 12 men in all black military fatigue. They’re climbing down ropes and running at me with submachine guns. And I looked down at my chest and I see little red laser dots. Well, I’m glad you think that’s funny. Now, I don’t know how perceptually slow you are but I don’t run.

 

These guards are the emergency response team. If you get past the secret service with the sunglasses and the earpieces, these guys shoot you on site. They don’t know that I know the president. They are now bearing down on me and I have one thought, “I got to get to the chopper,” and I am racing towards the helicopter, “Aaah! Aaah!” The presidential door to the helicopter swings open. The president steps out and he looks at me and that’s when I realize you better have a vision for your life. You better have a really clear picture for where are you going. What do you want? Who do you want to become? You know, I’ve been studying now in the personal growth industry. I’m just curious for my own ego validation. Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen me speak live or seen one of my videos. Okay. That just warms my heart. Everybody else, you guys are sheltered. Okay. Now, here it is. I have spent my career building out this image of helping the planet realize their gifts and I can tell you that it is so easy with every distraction out there to start to veer a little bit off your goals, a little bit away from your purpose, just a little bit further down somebody else’s dream. Raise your hands if you know what I’m talking about. And then you wake up several years down the road thinking, “Where am I and how did I get here?”

 

I got to tell you, that is a human experience right there. Where am I and how did I get here? It creeps up on all of us and that’s why we need to continue to surround ourselves in events like this, to have mentors, to be a part of something so that we are nudged back on course. I’m going to share with you today a very simple formula that I have built out over the last few years of my life to truly help people who feel like they’re a little bit off course or maybe radically off course. This is what I call The Unstoppable Formula. So, you’re going to write down: The Unstoppable Formula. I’ve been a professional speaker for 24 years but that’s not where I’m most proud. I’m most proud of the last 18 years where I’ve been a professional listener as a therapist. You see, when I started my speaking career, I spoke primarily to elementary, junior high, high school, and college. Speaking to kids, and let me tell you, if you can hold a thousand kindergartners’ attention, you’re stronger than a Navy Seal. That is not easy to do. And I can tell you I have seen as a professional listener. I have a very unique therapy practice where I work with a client once for 12 hours in a row one-on-one. Because I find traditional therapy is wonderful. I recommend it if it works for you.

 

But for me, I work with high-level entrepreneurs who have a lot going on with their lives and they don’t want to spend months or years working on a problem. They want to drill down into it right now. And I’ve been reverse engineering, working with the clients on what causes them to come out of my office unstoppable, and what happens when they let go of this formula? And I’m going to tell you, before I share the formula with you, I’m going to teach you first how to be miserable. Some of you are experts. So, let’s talk about this and as you’re listening, I want you to be clear that this isn’t just for your ears. I want you to help me and memorize what I’m telling you here because I want you to share with your children. Raise your hands if you have kids. Yeah. Your kids need this. You need this. Your spouse needs this, your coworkers and employees need this, your customers need this. You need to understand why some days you’re miserable and why other days you feel on top of the world. And if I see emotion and I see behavior as math, I see it as mathematical formulas. For a long while, I didn’t think I was that smart. When I was growing up, I missed a lot of days of school because of different injuries and I felt like, “Oh man, I’m struggling so much in school. Am I really that smart?” And then as I got older and became a therapist, I realized my genius is in understanding human emotion. It’s in understanding how is it that some people have so much love to give and do amazing things and other people have so much love to give and burnout and disappear off our planet early. What happens?

 

Well, here is how I found people show up miserable in their life. Number one, people who are focused on what they don’t want are miserable. We call it fear. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want to screw up. I don’t want to be fat. I don’t want to be broke. I don’t want to get divorced. And what happens when you put all your time and attention on what you don’t want? What happens? You get what you don’t want. You know why? Because your mind is amazing. You are genius at screwing up. All of us are. And it’s because you set the crosshairs. You set the coordinates. I don’t want this, but the brain only hears, “Go to this,” and it puts all of your attention, all your focus on that. It’s like walking backwards into your future. You make mistakes, you bump into things, you trip, you fall, you get hurt because all you’re doing is you’re looking at what you don’t want. When you’re afraid, you are miserable. Number two, second way to become miserable is you focus on what you don’t have. We call that envy. When you go through your life and you focus on what everybody else has that you don’t, you’re miserable. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been miserable looking at what other people have that you don’t have. Yeah. Welcome to Facebook.

 

No, no, no. Oh, so now just pass out and knocked me out from some satellite somewhere. Zuckerberg, come to the stage. When you focus on what you don’t have, you’re miserable. I don’t have her body. I don’t have his height. I don’t have their money. I don’t drive their car. I don’t live in their town. I don’t have their skin color. I don’t have their sexuality. I don’t have their family. I don’t have their lover. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. I see this so much just make people so miserable. When you focus on what you don’t have, you will feel so much envy and will take away all of your energy. The third thing that you do to be miserable is you focus on what you don’t like. Also known as complaining. Many of you, and you know who you are because you’re sitting in your seat are master complainers. Now, there are the complainers that we often see coming. The complainers we all see coming are probably not in this room because complainers we see coming would not like this type of event. They’d be like, “This is bullshit. What’s with all these speakers and the flowers and why did they have to swear? This chair is uncomfortable and it’s cold. Now it’s hot. Why are they auctioning? I don’t get this.” These people don’t last long in this type of group, right? So, this group is filled with silent complainers. You know it’s you. You’re just like, “When are they going to go to break? I have to pee. I fucking hate this. Why am I still here? Why do I drink so much water to stay hydrated and they don’t give us break time and what is this stuff?” It’s not such a miracle now, right?

 

They raise money for charity to equal it all out, okay? Just relax but the silent complaining. Raise your hand if you know someone sitting in your chair that’s a silent complainer. Ah, silent complaining is the best and you know when you meet somebody that’s like happy, happy, joy, joy all the time, they’re the biggest silent complainers. You are just taking bets from when they’re going to snap, right? You’re just like, “Wait for it. No one’s going to swipe right on her. I know it.” Look, when you focus on your complaints, you get more of what you don’t like. In my life, the reason why I have so much fun and the reason why I laugh and surround myself with such amazing people and I have incredible experiences and get to travel the world and helping amazing people like yourself is because I flipped this formula upside down. I have turned upside down when I’ve seen my clients going through. Eighteen years I have seen people at their wit’s end. So, let’s talk about how to be amazing, how to feel great. So, I’m going to flip this formula upside down and then I’m going to teach you how to be unstoppable and keep that formula always sustainable.

 

So, it’s very simple. You got to focus on what you do want. Those are your goals, your visions, what do you want? Anytime you’re dealing with the depression and sadness and anger and upset, just pull out a journal and a pen and start writing down what do you want. You don’t need to know how you’re going to get it. You don’t need to know when it’s going to happen. And guess what? This is what’s going to really be spooky. It doesn’t even matter if it happens because I’m going to tell you something that most entrepreneurs and successful motivational gurus will not say to you because they think it doesn’t make them look good but I’m going to tell you because I don’t care what you think. I care what you feel. And that is if you are focused on what you want and you have that goal, it doesn’t even matter if it happens because it’s more important to have a goal than to achieve a goal. That’s the dirty little secret of personal growth. Nobody is saying it. Bring it on Tony Robbins. I know you ain’t saying it. All of a sudden, the room is like, “What? You said Tony Robbins.” It’s more important that you have a goal than you achieve it and here’s why. Because achievements are about the past. When you have a goal, you have something to head toward.

 

You know when they deal with people, they have a goal to live for something, they often times live longer because they’re heading towards something. You need to know what do you want? And I got to tell you, every morning I reread my goals and some of them are so lofty, they make me uncomfortable. I’m like, “How are you ever going to do that, Sean?” and I hear another voice say, “It doesn’t matter. Keep heading in the right direction.” Keep heading in the direction of what you want. The second thing to being amazing is focus on what you have. We call that our gratitude. We call that appreciations. I’ve never in my 18 years of being a therapist had somebody come to my office and say, “Sean, I’m so grateful that I got to spend the night helping people in soup kitchens, and then this morning I was knitting sweaters for the homeless, and I gave my children these hugs this morning and we laughed and then I help these people get their house back together. They were falling apart. And I just want to kill myself, Sean.” I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen somebody who has a ton of appreciation, a ton of gratitude focusing on what they have that’s miserable. Because here’s what happens. In order to be miserable, you have to stop focusing on what you want and have.  

 

The next thing is, just flip it upside down, you got to focus on what you like. We call that your preferences. What do you like to do? You like reading a good book? Raise your hand if you love curling up with a good book? Yeah. Raise your hand if you love taking hot baths. Yeah. That one’s so underrated. Oh my God. Most people don’t even need to come see me as a therapist if they just took more hot baths. It’s just hot baths cure to half of the problems. Do you like spending time in nature? Do you like spending time around kids and listening to their laughter? Do you like hanging out with like-minded people? Do you like coming to events and laughing and learning and meeting new people? You need to do more of what you like to do and that’s how you’ll feel amazing. So, now you know how to be miserable. Now you know how to be amazing. Now I’m going to teach you how to sustain that amazing by being unstoppable. Is this a value? Is this landing on you, guys?

 

Audience: Yes!

 

Sean: So, this is a three-part formula as well. To be unstoppable first and foremost, you have to rid yourself of your insecurities and that sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Like, raise your hand if you know somebody with insecurities. We all deal with these insecurities and an insecurity is anytime we feel inside like we’re not enough, pretty enough, rich enough, important enough, thin enough, talented enough, connected enough. Anytime you feel like you’re not enough, your insecurities will just slither up your spine and jacking to your brain stem and just stay, “I told you. You’re never going to do that.” You’re like, “Where is that coming from?” I’m telling you where it’s coming from. It’s coming from the fact that you’re not doing enough self-care because the cure to insecurity is self-care. Write that down. The cure to insecurity is self-care. When people take immaculate self-care and they are impeccable at their self-care, their insecurities lay dormant because I believe, again, dirty little secret in the personal growth industry, I believe the insecurities never go away. Never. I believe they’re actually a part of the hardware from millions of years ago to keep us alive, to keep us playing with the tribe, to keep us away from straying too far and getting eaten and freezing to death. I think our insecurities are old outdated programming. I do believe that.

 

And so, therefore in order to live your life unstoppable, you have to allow them to be dormant. You have to put them to sleep. And I found that the way I put my insecurities asleep is by self-care and this is why I believe so much in Hal’s books and all the Miracle Morning Community because that is self-care, is it not? Yeah. It’s about getting up and starting your day with a focus on your self-care, doing the exercise, doing the meditation, doing the reading, doing all the rituals that is your self-care list. Here’s what I call it. I call it my When Life Works list. Go back in your mind if you’re struggling right now in any area of your life and just think about a time in your life when you weren’t struggling maybe in that area. What were you doing then? You’re probably not doing that now. Go back to it. Make a list. So, is it having that green drink in the morning? Is it stretching for 20 minutes? Is it spending time with your children before they go to school talking about what they’re grateful for? Get back to your self-care and your self-care list is going to be different than everybody else’s and that’s okay. It’s what’s going to keep your insecurities far away from your dreams.

 

The second part of being unstoppable, this is what’s going to give you the energy, to sustain crazy hours. Raise your hand if you have sometimes to deal with crazy hours and you don’t know what’s going happen next and you’re putting out fires and you want all this energy. Here’s how you get it. Connect with your life purpose. Connect to your life purpose. And here’s how you can find your life purpose. It’s a daunting question. One of my mentors asks me many years ago. I flew down his office. I was sitting with him and he said, “Sean, why were you born?” and I said, “Because my mom and dad did it.” “Sean, why were you born?” and I had to drop out of my head. What John was saying earlier, “Get out of your head and go into your heart.” And in my heart I heard a voice say, “Sean, you were born to rid this world of insecurity,” and when I said that to my mentor, he said he could feel the hairs on the back of his head and the back of his neck stand up and he said, “That’s right, Sean, you were because if there was any human being that would get out in front of the masses and talk about how we do not have to be insecure and that we would all listen to, it would come in a package like yours. You have this mission. Now, go spend the rest of your life dedicating to that mission.”

 

You see, I want you to know none of you should feel sorry for me being in his wheelchair. Not one of you and here’s why. Because my mission is based on my condition. I needed this body so you could hear me because if I look like you, you couldn’t hear me. Is that clear? You see, I have a belief that deep down inside we choose our bodies. We choose what happens to us. We choose the pain and the challenges and the biggest struggle is when we forget that. The biggest tearing apart moments when people show up in my office and they want to do horrible things to themselves or others, they want to quit, they want to give it all up because they forgot the spiritual piece to the puzzle that all of this is called into your expansion. And I don’t care if you believe in God, don’t believe in God. It doesn’t matter. I got to tell you that’s a far more empowering reality to live into, to believe that things happen for you and not to you gives you God’s caffeine, it gives you power to get out of bed unstoppable for why you were born.

 

The third part of being unstoppable is you need to surround yourself with an empowering environment. If you want to be unstoppable, you need an empowering environment every day of your life. You need to be putting yourself into an empowering environment. Now, you will be tested and this is the hardest part. This is why I say this is the last piece because people don’t like this one. This is where people start to squirm because I’m telling you, the people you surround yourself with is who you become. “Sean, but no, we have a long-standing history.” I know but that history might suck and I’m going to say another little dirty secret of the personal growth industry. Sometimes you need to divorce yourself from your past, so much so that you put people on timeout or you cut them permanently from your team. It doesn’t matter if you were friends. It doesn’t matter if you are in a relationship with them. It doesn’t matter if you’re family. Now, I’m not telling you to flip out your phone right now, “We’re through. Little man said we’re done. It’s been real. I want my CD collection back.” Isn’t it funny when we say goodbye to people how we kind of go through a list of the shit they have of ours and we’re like, “Maybe I should stay with them because I’m going listening to that CD again?” No, you’re not. Let them go, okay?

 

You need to be in an empowering environment at all times, and here’s why. Because one negative person can derail your destiny. One negative person, one person who is up to malice and no good can destroy your marriage. One negative person, one person that is lost and confused and gets power from tearing other people down can destroy your business. Listen to me clearly, you are not selfish by pruning the garden of who you hang out with. You’re being smart. You are being powerful by saying, “Hey, look, I want to be treated the way I’m treating you. If you can’t handle it, you’re going to get benched,” and once you’re benched if you can’t handle being on the bench then maybe you need to be off the team. And I’m telling you, it is hard to let people go, isn’t it? Raise your hand if it’s ever hurt to let somebody go. I think it’s one of the hardest things in the human mind to deal with is saying goodbye. The mind does not really like to fathom goodbyes. But if you want to be unstoppable, you need to hold a high standard for how you’re going to be treated. Look, we teach people how to treat us. Do you know that? If you feel like, “People don’t listen to me. People don’t respect me. Why doesn’t anybody hire me?” Look at you. That’s why. Your energy sucks.

 

When I was younger, I would go to the clubs and I would be dancing and I would get these concentric seriously in San Diego. What’s that main street marketplace or whatever? I would go down to the gas lamp district and I would go to the club this place called Aubergine I think it was called and I’d go to these clubs and I have all these women dancing around me and one day one of my friends came up to me and he was like, “Sean, Sean, Sean, I get it.” And I was like, “What do you get?” He goes, “I get why all these women love to dance with you. I get why you have like all this confidence,” and I say, “Why is that?” He said, “Because these women feel sorry for you.” Now, spoiler alert. We’re not friends anymore. Okay. This friend says, “They feel sorry for you, that’s why,” and I’m like, “Okay, because you’re saying that when these young ladies here at the club were younger and they were being raised by their parents, their parents said, “Hey, someday you’re going to go to dance club and you’re going to see a little man in a wheelchair and you’re going to grind on him. That’s what you’re going to do.” You’re telling me that’s how they were raised?” He was like, “Something like that, Sean. Something like that.” So, then I was like, “Okay. Timeout. We’re going to do a little scientific experiment. I’m not going to act like Sean. I’m going to go back out of my dance floor and I’m going to act like a three-foot-tall man in a wheelchair and let’s see what happens.”

 

So, I’m wheeling back to the dance floor and I’m thinking, “Shit, how does a three-foot tall man in a wheelchair act?” And I was thinking to myself like, “Oh man, okay, I can do this.” And so, I get on the dance floor and I thought well, first of all, I have to bring my energy in, right? I have to act small. So, I brought my energy down and I thought, “Well, I’m probably so insecure I wouldn’t make any eye contact and I probably wouldn’t have much vocal projection.” And so, then the women just started kind of walking around me like I was furniture and I was like, “Hey, want to dance, huh? Call me, huh?” And they just kept walking by me. And my buddy, he comes running up to me. He goes, “Sean, Sean, Sean, I get it, I get it, I get it.” I’m like, “What do you get?” He goes, “You bring the party. You attract the fun. You teach these individuals around you that you’re going to make their life fun even if it’s just for one song. Now, can you please go get the girls back?” And so, I’m reminding you right now, you bring the party. You teach people how to treat you. If you don’t like how you’re being treated in any area of your life, you can change that. You can say, “Look, this is how I will be spoken to. This is how I will be touched. This is how I will not be touched. This is how I will be paid. This is how I will be worked with. This is how I will be respected.”

 

And you know what, if you bring that same level of energy and respect back to the conversation, amazing things will happen because if you rise up energetically here’s what magically happens. The people around you will either rise up with you or they’ll disappear. I don’t know why that works or how it works but it just does. Raise your hand if you’ve noticed that. When you rise up, people rise up with you or they disappear. You cannot force high vibrations with low vibrations in the same space at the same time. It doesn’t work. You need to have an empowering environment, but I know you’re still going to be stressed. Stress is a part of life. In fact, stress is not always a bad thing. It’s how you respond to your stress. I’m going to teach you a little technique on how to deal with your stress. Raise your hand if you like to learn how to deal with your stress. Okay. So, it’s a simple question you’re going to ask yourself. Write this down. What’s funny about this? Write it down, what’s funny about this? I learned the power of this question when I was working on Capitol Hill. I worked for a congressman. If you want to laugh a lot, go work for Congress, okay?

 

So, one morning I got into work early. Raise your hand if you love to come to meetings early. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a meeting early. Now, I see why they have a countdown timer for you, guys. So, I got to my office early. I had my hot tea, my newspaper, and I thought I was going to get about 45 minutes to just stretch out, prepare myself for the day. But no, I heard my Congressman, he was already in work. He was in the back office. He goes, “Sean, Sean, get in here.” I go, “Yes, Mr. Congressman?” He goes, “Sean, I need you to run a message to the other side of the Capitol. Nobody else is here yet. Can you do this?” “Yes, Mr. Congressman.” Took the note, my hot tea, and my newspaper. I headed out. He was right. I went to a part of the Capitol I’ve never been to before and I got to the elevator. When I got to the elevator, I noticed I couldn’t reach the elevator button so I travel with a handy-dandy elevator stick also known as a back scratcher. I pressed the button. The doors open. I roll inside. I go ahead and I find my floor. I pressed the button except nothing happened. And I’m thinking, “Oh, that’s so weird. Let me try it again.” I pressed a little bit harder. Nothing happened. And then I realized something. On the outside of the elevator bank, the buttons were pressure sensitive that’s why the stick work, but on the inside, they were heat sensitive and my elevator stick wasn’t hot enough.

 

So, I thought to myself, what would MacGyver do? If I had like a pack of chewing gum and a tampon, I could make a bomb. So, then I remember, okay, I can keep this thing up on my own. Nothing. Now, I’m getting frustrated. Now, I’m thinking, “This is ridiculous.” Have you ever had an adult temper tantrum? Do you know what an adult temper tantrum is? It’s a temper tantrum adults have, right? And where you talk to yourself, you usually do this when you’re in the car by yourself. “What is with this traffic? It’s a Sunday.” And I’m starting to have this tempered tantrum. I can’t believe they’re trapping people with disabilities and I’m getting frustrated. So, then I think, “Okay. All right. My mom’s smart. She taught me.” “Sean, be creative. What if this was a thermometer? You just put it under your armpit, right?” So, then I got my juices on there, right? I’m getting going. Press the button. Nothing happened. So, then I did something I’m not too proud of. Can I be honest with you, guys? I decided to sit on my elevator stick. So, I sit on my elevator stick and I’m grinding my elevator stick. I’m like, “Who’s your daddy?” I pressed the button. What do you think happened? Nothing. I asked myself a question. What question did I ask?

 

Audience: What’s funny about this?

 

Sean: The answer, nothing. Nothing was funny about that. But then as I was grinding on my elevator stick, I noticed a little security camera and I was thinking about all the security guards watching the back of elevators, pulling out their phone going, “Oh, this shit’s going on YouTube.” Do you like to laugh?

 

Audience: Yes.

 

Sean: I’m going to tell you clinically and medically why. When you laugh you raise your T-cell count. You actually boost your immune system. When you laugh, you’re actually releasing your body anti-inflammatories that help with swelling and pain. When you laugh, you actually get over 200 muscle groups exercised. That is not a core workout but it’s close, okay? Laughter is so amazing because you were all holding on so much stress and tension and fear and anxiety, all this, oh, what I don’t want, what I don’t have, what I don’t like. And when you finally come across something that tickles you, you release it. And animals in wild nature they do this as well. When animals are being chased like monkeys are being chased and then finally there is one predator grabs one of them and starts eating it, all the others scurry up to a tree and they point and they laugh. And I’m thinking, “Monkeys are sick.” But if you ever paid to go to a movie theater to watch somebody tumble around like a Jim Carrey and be the goof, you’re no different than those animals. I can tell you I’ve been around this world and I’ve gone into neighborhoods where crack cocaine is soothing them and I have gone into neighborhoods where expensive pure cocaine is soothing them. And I’ve gone into neighborhoods where people are just trying to figure out this one thing all human beings want one thing and that’s to feel good.

 

But what are you doing to feel good? Because that is charting the course of your destiny. The decisions that you are making to feel good will change your life, depending on what decisions they are. When I go into places and I counsel people who after school shootings, the schools are devastated. I’ve helped parents whose children were killed in drunk driving accidents. I’ve talked to people who have gone through heartache and pain. I have cried with them but do you know when I can tell the healing has begun? When I can start hearing their laughter again. We have to laugh. We have to be looking at what’s funny. Because most of the things that are just tearing you apart are not the big things. Look, when Hal Elrod gets cancer, we surround them. The Front Row Foundation, all the surrounding people with the big challenges but it’s the little ones that are tearing us all apart. It’s the little things. It’s worrying about things that may never happen. It’s about stressing out about looking good and trying to have it all together for everybody to believe that you’re perfect. Why? Let it go. You need to laugh.

 

I’m curious. Who would like to see one of my morning rituals right here on the stage? In a minute if you’re good, I’m going to do a tiny bit of my workout. Okay. We’re going to bring a table up here in a moment. They’re going to put me on the table and I’m going to exercise and the amount of shame in the room, warning you, is going to be high. Everyone’s going to be like, “I didn’t work out this morning and he just did.” So, how many people would like to see a little bit of my workout? All right. We’re going to do that in a moment but there I am, south lawn, President’s helicopter door swings open. The President of the United States steps out and he looks at me and he says, “Sean. Sean, good to see you, buddy.” He says, “Sean, would you like me to push into the White House today?” And I’m thinking, “Oh my God, this is such an honor.” Now, what I didn’t tell you is the whole time I was on the south lawn, my boss, my superior at the White House was in the top floor of the White House banging on the window going, “Sean, no!” I go, “Mr. President, that’s my boss.” He went, “Oh, hey, buddy.” Now, the President of United States is pushing me back into the White House and those south lawn doors opened as if by magic and I hear [humming in the tune of “Hail to the Chief”].

 

All right. So, we can go ahead and bring that table up here and we’re going to put me up there. I’m going to have you all pull out your phones. This is an Instagram moment. Okay. And I’m going to tell you my Instagram handle so you can all follow me. If you’re not on Instagram, you’re showing you’re old. So, get on Instagram. My Instagram handle is – is it up on the screen? Yep. 3footgiant and you’re going to want to film this and then you’re going want to put on your social media, show your children, show your spouse. Anybody in your life that’s not working out and if they’re there in your chair, just watch this video over and over. It will serve as a good example. All right. So, let’s do this. Go ahead and put me on the table. All right. And if we could put my workout on, my workout song. All right. Let’s create some noise here. All right. You want to take this.

 

It’s a demo because I already did my workout in the gym this morning. Raise your hand if you saw me at the gym this morning. It’s my boys right there and, listen, you have an incredible body. I don’t care what size it is. I don’t care if sometimes you shake and it keeps shaking and you’re like, “Aww, I don’t like this jiggle.” Let it go. You chose your body for your mission and your body is beautiful and amazing, but that’s not an excuse to avoid the gym. It’s not an excuse to avoid taking care of what’s most precious, your health. It has been such a privilege and an honor spending this morning with you. I love you. Thank you so very much.

 

[END]