How did Anthony go from Horrific Childhood Trauma To Successful Entrepreneur - with Michael Anthony (Michael Unbroken)

SPEAKERS

Joy Nicholson, Michael Anthony

Joy Nicholson: 00:03

Hello everyone. Today I have a very exciting guest on my show. His name is Michael Anthony. Now I've been following Michael for quite a long time. And I've always found him quite inspirational. And I actually asked him to be on this, on the show, because I really think that you guys would find a lot of inspiration with him as well. So, Michael, he's actually started his first business when he was eight years old. I think that is incredibly impressive. I mean, I think I was climbing trees when I was eight years old. So, that's really cool. So, Michael is the founder of think unbroken. He's a serial entrepreneur. He is a best selling author. He's an award winning speaker. He is a podcast host. And by the way, his podcast is amazing. You have to listen to it. He is a business coach, and he's also an advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. So, Michael, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on my show. How you doing?

Michael Anthony: 00:51

My pleasure, my friend. Super excited to be here with you. I cannot wait.

Joy Nicholson: 00:54

Yes, thank you. And you know, like, I just, I just love your story. And can you tell the audience about you? And, you know, who is Michael?

Michael Anthony: 01:03

Yeah, yeah. I'll give you, like, three minute pitch here. So, four years old, my mother who was a drug addict and alcoholic, she actually cut off my right index finger. My stepdad was hyper abusive, the kind of guy he was, like, he is never your stepdad, never met my real father, spent the majority of my childhood homeless and I lived with 30 different families by the time I was 10 years old. I got high for the first time when I was 12, drunk at 13 and by 15 I was expelled from school for selling drugs. And I was breaking into houses, selling drugs, stealing cars, hurting people just trying to figure out life. Luckily, I got put into a last chance programme. And in that still did not graduate high school on time. And I found myself trying to figure out the solution for poverty, for trauma for homelessness, for abuse and I thought it was money. And so I said, okay, cool. I'm gonna make $100,000 a year legally, this was super important. My uncle is in prison for life. Today, my three childhood best friends have been murdered.

Joy Nicholson: 02:00

Wow.

Michael Anthony: 02:00

I knew that if I stayed down that path what was in store for me and so, I did the things I started learning skills. I became a general manager of a fast, assistant general manager of a fast food restaurant at 18 years old, had 52 people under me. At 20 years old, heading into 21, I landed a job with a fortune 10 company, no high school diploma, no college degree, making six figures. And of course, the thing happens to people when they get money, who've never had it and destroyed my life. I found myself at 350 pounds, smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, drinking myself to sleep. And that's when I put a gun in my mouth. I was just like, I was done. Money was supposed to fix everything, and it didn't. And then I decided when I looked in the mirror one day after laying in bed, watching the CrossFit Games while eating chocolate cake, literally the definition of a breakdown. I was like, okay, I'm not keeping the promise I made to myself when I was eight years old. And I asked myself, what was I willing to do to have the life I want to have? And the words no excuses, just results have been the precursor for everything in my life for the last 11 years that led me to this conversation with you today.

Joy Nicholson: 03:16

I think your story is incredibly, incredibly inspiring, interesting enough, I actually interviewed another Michael, and he's based in Connecticut. And he is literally helping children like yourself that went through, you know, that, that's like his thing. And stories like this, I find incredibly inspiring, because you do need a mentor and somebody that can help you through this and you found this programme. Do you think if you did not find the programme that you would have been where you are today.

Michael Anthony: 03:43

You know, I, I think that there's a lot of things that have happened in my life that have led me down this path. And, and the most important was I stopped negotiating with myself. I stopped being okay with making excuses. And so the biggest thing is I turn towards personal development. I turned towards therapy. I turned towards fitness and health and eating right and sleeping well and getting off of drugs and not smoking cigarettes. And so much of it just came because I recognise that the problem I was having with my life was that I was letting myself down. Because the only thing anyone ever told us is you're not good enough, you're not strong enough, you're not capable enough, you're not ever gonna matter. You're never gonna amount to anything. And I believe that, right? Because that's the story I was telling myself. And so, you know, I don't care what you do. You can read any book, you can listen to any podcast and go to any conference. Unless you start fixing your mindset and understand this, that what you think becomes what you speak, what you speak, become your action and your action become your reality. Until you fully understand the power of your own thoughts, all that other stuff isn't going to matter.

Joy Nicholson: 03:51

That's good. Yeah. And it's, it's finding your true identity, right, like identifying with your true identity that comes into mindset. Now, Michael, like it's, it's hard for people to get into getting that understanding first of all, right? Like I've spoken to so many people, I'm sure yourself as well. Where they are still in a rut, they're still in the wrong space in their life, but you want to make that change, like, you're gonna have to have to want it that change for it to actually happen. What was your realisation that you know, that you, this is the thing that you needed to do? You know, because it's hard to step over that, right?

Michael Anthony: 05:19

Yeah, well, look, I, I you know, I'm the kind of guy where I used to drive to the gym every day after work. And in the parking lot, there was a McDonald's and there was a bar, and I would go to the McDonald's and I would go to the bar, and I'd walk outside and go, I'll go to the gym tomorrow. And I did that for years.

Joy Nicholson: 05:35

Wow.

Michael Anthony: 05:35

And so the thing is, like, people are always waiting for something.

Joy Nicholson: 05:39

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 05:39

You want to figure out who you are. The only way you're going to do that is you're going to have to do hard things, you're gonna have to trust your intuition. You're going to have to learn and build and craft and grow who you are, through a series of trials and tribulations. With each one being more difficult in one previous, and in that you're going to learn about who you are, what you're capable of what you like, what you don't like and who you want to be. But it all starts with doing it. Like, this is the thing that people don't understand. They're like, I'm waiting for Disney moment. It ain't coming. Nobody's coming to rescue you. Because guess what, I'm sorry. Nobody cares. And that's the truth. Because we all have our own lives. We all have our own things that we're dealing with. And every single day that you play the victim, look, and I used to you don't get to 350 pounds a disaster of a life chasing money thinking that's the solution without playing the victim. I blamed everyone, your fault, community's fault, mom's fault, Grandma's fault, schools fault, neighbourhoods fault, government's fault. It's everybody's fault. And then I was like, wait a second, actually, it's my fault. So, why don't I get my shit together? And why don't I make my life what it is that I want it to be? Because the truth is at the end of the day, like, that's what it's about. If you don't look at your life unabashedly with honesty in a way that you never have. Nothing's going to be different. And you're going to keep sitting here blaming the world. Joy, it's your fault. My life sucks until I have the moment that I look in the mirror and I go, wait a second. Actually, it's my fault. Now, that doesn't mean I need to say this. That doesn't mean that you're culpable for the bad things that happened to you. It is not your fault. Those things are not your responsibility. The people who were supposed to take care of you, maybe they didn't. Maybe it was that teacher in third grade who told you you're dumb because you coloured the moon purple? Maybe it's the bullying, maybe it's we've all been through things and those things aren't your fault. But, guess what? Now you know that, now you can acknowledge that, now you can look at that. And now you're out of excuses and you have to start doing the work. Yes, gosh, that's inspiring. And this is why ladies and gentlemen, I have Michael on my show today to actually kick your butt to get your asses in gear and get things done in your life. This is amazing. Now, Michael, this show is called unleash your focus for a reason. Because I dive in behind the scenes to understand what makes people successful. You know, what is that thing that, that drives them and motivates them? Basically, what is their blueprint to success? So, what is your, in a nutshell, what is your thing from A to Z that actually gets you to your success? Yeah, it's focus, right? That's, you know, it says up behind you. And that's so true. I don't let anything. I don't let anything get in the way of what I want. And I've I've created a goal in my life that's so unbelievably big, so improbable, unfathomable, unfeasible, impossible, right? And that's to end generational trauma in my lifetime. And so a whole world is against me. But that doesn't mean I'm going to quit. So you can chase money. Money's easy, I go make money right now you can, you can spend 10 minutes on the internet and learn how to make money. But I want to make impact. Like, I want to make the world different. I want a legacy, I want something that when I die, people go, man, that dude did good things, because I did a lot of really bad things along the way. And so what happens is when you create a goal, also behind you, that is in alignment with the focus of the mission, right? Every single day, you move towards that. And so the question I asked myself every single day is what do I need to do to move where I want to go? Stagnation is death, right? And so every day, I sit down, I'll actually rewind it, let me go even further back. Every single morning when I put my feet on the ground, the moment I get out of the bed, I say I am in control of my life. That's how I start my day. Because then I'm out of excuses. And immediately go, you know, I drink water. I stretch I make my coffee. I read for 20 minutes. I journal. I meditate. I write my goals. I go to the gym, if it's a gym day, and then I work. And working for me, I'm not busy. I'm never busy. I'm only ever doing work. There's never anything in there that doesn't bring value to my life, to my career, to my community, to my people, to myself. And so I'm always learning. I'm always growing. I am always trying. I'm always practising. I'm always, like, in the business, understanding and learning and developing skills and talents. And so, so much of it people are always, like, I don't know what to do, right? Here's the thing. The question was what makes me successful? What are my systems? I learn. I spend probably four hours a day learning, business, I'm learning business. I'm not learning how to do things that don't matter. I am not learning how to knit or crochet. Like, that, That's not on my list. Like, I'm learning how you run systems. How do you understand hiring and firing and training and SOPs and KPIs and management and bringing the right people on your team and giving them tools and expansion and growth and understanding how to leverage social media content and understand digital marketing and advertisement? I, 10 years ago, I was getting pay per click on Google for like, 12 cents. I learned those systems, right? And then I carried them over and I apply them today. So, it's really about learning, creating a game plan and then executing against that game plan every single day.

Joy Nicholson: 11:00

Yeah, I love that. Now, let's talk a little bit about goals. How do you set your goal? What is your action or your, your, the steps that you take to actually setting your goal?

Michael Anthony: 11:10

Yeah, you know, it's, I just, this is gonna sound weird, okay.

Joy Nicholson: 11:13

No, go for it.

Michael Anthony: 11:14

Actually, it always sounds weird until people really understand this. I only do what I want and I never do what I don't want to do.

Joy Nicholson: 11:23

Okey.

Michael Anthony: 11:24

And so my goals are always in alignment with that. I'll give you a perfect example.

Joy Nicholson: 11:28

Okay.

Michael Anthony: 11:29

Seven years ago, seven, I wrote down, I want to be on the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. It's arguably the biggest podcast for entrepreneurs on planet Earth.

Joy Nicholson: 11:40

100%.

Michael Anthony: 11:42

Seven years later, I was on the podcast, right? What, what I want people to understand here is that goals should be about creating the life that you want to have and accomplishing the things that you want to accomplish. And understanding that on a long enough timeline by creating momentum, by doing little incremental, microscopic, granular changes to move you one degree into the direction that you want to go, every single day, on a long enough timeline that you can do anything, right? And so the goal people, even that's too small. Your Goals are too small. What you're trying to do is too small, you got to go so big. You got to make yourself uncomfortable, right? My goal, my ultimate thing where I'm like, I gotta do this is intergenerational trauma in my lifetime. Okay. So how do we do that? Joy. I reverse engineer, engineer that goal.

Joy Nicholson: 11:46

Awesome. Yep.

Michael Anthony: 12:10

All right. That's a big goal.

Joy Nicholson: 12:36

That's a massive goal.

Michael Anthony: 12:39

What's my thought on getting that goal. It's got to be education, right. Okay, cool. So how do I educate people? I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna write two books. Oh, okay, cool. I wrote two books. I'm working on three. Okay, great. What if I wrote a book every single year till I die? Okay, great goal. Now what I want to do, I'm gonna make a podcast, cool. I'm gonna start a podcast three years ago that nobody listened to that now has over 150,000 downloads. Okay, cool. Great. Let me do that for the rest of my life. All right, awesome. need to put content on social media so that where people's attention or they can go and learn from 32 second or 60 second videos, I put out every single day for five years. Okay, cool. Go do that for the rest of my life, right? You have to reverse engineer this stuff down to the very beginning to what's the first thing that I have to do. Alright, so in context, my goals intergenerational trauma in my lifetime. And I do all these micro goals along the way. But it comes first to a decision. I'm going to allow myself and give myself permission to go and do this thing, that people look at me and go, That's insane. And then I just moved towards that a little bit every day. It wasn't, I didn't write a book one day. I didn't watch a podcast one day. I didn't go speak on tour all over the world one day. I started with one sentence, one word, one website, one speaking event that nobody came to.

Joy Nicholson: 14:04

It just started.

Michael Anthony: 14:05

And I kept doing that again, and again and again and again and again. Focused only on the things that move me closer to my goals.

Joy Nicholson: 14:13

Yeah. And it's about just keep going, right? Because as entrepreneurs, it's, it's, let's be real. It's not an easy journey. It is, there comes a lot of you know, struggles with it. And a lot of times people just give up. So, what has been your drive to just keep going in this journey of yours and keep focusing on your goals and keep achieving your goals?

Michael Anthony: 14:32

Yeah, look, I mean, sometimes you're going to give up, right?

Joy Nicholson: 14:35

Of course, it happens.

Michael Anthony: 14:35

Again, like, I, I only do the things I want to do.

Joy Nicholson: 14:39

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 14:39

If I wake up one day, and I go, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not gonna do it. Because it's my life, it ain't your life. You know what I mean? And I think people have to be okay with that. And look, it is a, it's a struggle, but you have to accept that coming into this. And if you want to play it off that it's not then you're lying to yourself, and for full transparency. I have failed three businesses, right? Before I built a multi eight figure business and built a multi six figure business and built a multi $100 business, right? I failed those businesses, like, I made the mistakes. I did the things the wrong way, right? But here's, here's what's really incredible where people get to the window where they give up. It's because they haven't done two things. One, they haven't looked at the information from the mistakes that they've made as data. Instead, they beat themselves up. Like when my team makes a mistake. I don't beat them up. I go cool. Don't do it again, later. Because as you go forward, and you have to do different things. The first time you wrote a bike, you sucked. You crashed, you got scarred knees and then you came proficient.

Joy Nicholson: 14:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Anthony: 14:48

And it took you two years before you're took that off the little jump, right? And so, stop beating yourself up about failure, but instead go. Can I learn from this? Can I leverage this? Is this data? Does it help me better understand and facilitate the changes I want to have in my life?

Joy Nicholson: 16:03

Yeah.

Michael Anthony: 16:03

The other part and more important, I would argue, is people are not asking for help. They're out here trying to do this by themselves and it doesn't work. You're not going to do it alone. You got what, nobody? Zuckerberg hasn't done it. Musk hasn't done it. Tom Billhugh, hasn't done it. Grant Cardone hasn't done it. Marie Forleo hasn't done it. Bernie Brown hasn't done it. No, Oprah hasn't done it. Jay Z has, nobody does it alone. And you're over here trying to figure all this shit out by yourself on the internet, instead of trying to get in connection with the person who's just one step ahead of you. And going, hey, I saw you were able to do that. Can you help me? You'll be shocked how often people are willing to help you. But you're worried about judgement, because you ain't got it all figured out yet. That's nonsense. You're in your own damn way when you do that, because the truth about it is nobody's got it all figured out.

Joy Nicholson: 16:49

That's true.

Michael Anthony: 16:56

Everybody's looking at that one person one step ahead of them. Everyone I just named, you know, what they have in common? They all have mentors and coaches, every single one of them.

Joy Nicholson: 17:06

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 17:06

Right, every single one of them. I do too.

Joy Nicholson: 17:10

Yeah, me too.

Michael Anthony: 17:10

I have peope, I go, hey, man, Yo, I don't get this. Tell me about this. And they go, it's right here. You don't see it, because you're too close. And I go, that's why I pay you all this money, thank you. Right? And so the thing is, you sit here and you have to understand if you get into coaching and mentorship, you know, people are like, let me take you to coffee. I will never let you take me to coffee. I am too busy. What kind of value did you bring into my life, right? And people have to understand that if you want to get into mentorship and coaching with somebody, you have to invest.

Joy Nicholson: 17:12

Yip.

Michael Anthony: 17:16

You have to create value. And sometimes that investment is time, effort, energy or money - team. It's an acronym I created. Sometimes it's one most of the time it's all four.

Joy Nicholson: 17:53

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 17:53

Right? And so getting out here and asking for help. There might be somebody in your neighbourhood that can help you. But you're scared to ask because you're worried about people seeing you and going, you don't know it all? Nobody does.

Joy Nicholson: 18:08

And it's so true. I, I never really thought about why, what holds people back to actually start that step in getting a mentor. But it's so true what you say. I never thought of it like that, because it's true. People do, don't, they don't reach out to other people to ask for help. And it's interesting. I never could understand really why people do that. So, Michael, what, what advice would you have for somebody, if they sitting on the fence? And they're like, Oh, I just don't know if I can start this business? What advice would you have for somebody like that?

Michael Anthony: 18:36

Yeah, for sure. Don't quit your day job. Let me tell you this, the biggest mistake that I see entrepreneurs make, and I've, I've coached all kinds of entrepreneurs. And I've made this mistake. I quit my job before I should have, because the business wasn't making money to supplement the income that I was making. And that threw me into a spiral of stress and chaos. Now, I think that you have to really position it in a way where you have savings, right?

Joy Nicholson: 19:06

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 19:06

I think that's always nice, right? I'm all about going all in, trust me. I spend a lot of money in my business, on my team, on my mentorship. I'm all about going all in. But I got a security blanket, I'm good, things go downhill, I'm good, teams good. Don't have to worry about losing the business. I got six months in the bank ready to go, right? That's operating costs against net revenue on the PNL. So I'm never out of money. Well, I'm within six months, but I'm always scaling that so the bigger the business grows, the more I'll put away.

Joy Nicholson: 19:38

Yes.

Michael Anthony: 19:39

The other part about it is when you're thinking about and you're on the fence, the uncertainty is 99% of the time financial uncertainty, because two reasons. One, the real talk is you're not good enough yet. People aren't paying you. You're not good enough yet. Or, the product sucks because the market chooses. And two, you're trying to supplement income, but you haven't paid yourself one time in a business you've been running for two years. So, you're on the fence and you're terrified about money, because you're not doing it right. Don't quit your job, save up six months, make sure that you have a product that people want because you're solving a problem. Don't make, I saw the worst thing on Shark Tank in my entire life and I'm not picking on them. I just want to create context. Actually, I won't even say it, but it was the worst product I've ever seen in my life. The second I saw it, I was like, nobody's gonna buy that. And every one of the sharks looked at this person and they said, you don't have a product here. You're trying to solve a problem for something that's not a problem. Nobody is gonna want this. And so that's a hard realisation that you might come to, you may not be good enough yet, but you might just not have a good product.

Joy Nicholson: 20:52

Yeah, and the market doesn't want it. And, and this is the thing just to research and, you know, go behind the scenes and see. That's so true.

Michael Anthony: 20:59

Yah. And if, if you're on the fence about it, go out there and work it from 4pm to midnight,

Joy Nicholson: 21:06

Yeah.

Michael Anthony: 21:06

every single day, till you find out. Go find out. I mean, that's how you, that's how I built think unbroken. I worked every night, while I'm running the other company. Let me see what happens. You know what I mean? And so that's the thing about it, like you just, how bad do you want it? What do you want?

Joy Nicholson: 21:23

That's the magic question.

Michael Anthony: 21:24

Do you want it or not? Because if you don't, then shut up, don't complain. But if you want it get off of Netflix, Sunday's aren't allowed. You got to put in the hours, you got to put in the reps, you got to put in the work. I've worked myself to death trying to build this by my choice. Again, again, you know, there's a conversation about entrepreneurs working too hard. But it's because I see the vision.

Joy Nicholson: 21:46

That's it.

Michael Anthony: 21:46

I ask myself, what am I willing to die for? I'm literally willing to die for this.

Joy Nicholson: 21:50

Yes. Yeah. And, and that's exactly it. Because a lot of people, a lot of times people don't see the vision, right? They're just like, yeah, they focus here, they don't see the long term goal. Because I mean, we all work, I mean,I average easily 70, 70 hours a week in my business when I started out. And that's the reality, you know, if you want it, you're gonna go for it,

Michael Anthony: 22:08

But are, are, like my mentor says, well, are you complaining? Or are you bragging?

Joy Nicholson: 22:14

That's the thing. It's so true. As, as entrepreneurs, we struggle with relationships, with personal relationships, you know. It can be again, because you you throw yourself into your work, and as you don't do it on purpose, but you're just so inspired and driven. And you know, like, we talked about that vision, you see that you just want to keep going, and then the people closest to us suffer the most. How do you deal with that? Or how have you dealt with that in the past? If you, you know, close relationships around you, people that you potentially, like, family, friends, etc? How do you deal with keeping that relationships healthy, while actually building a good business?

Michael Anthony: 22:48

Yeah, I only surround myself with people who understand the mission.

Joy Nicholson: 22:52

Yeah.

Michael Anthony: 22:52

I don't, I don't surround myself with takers. I don't surround myself with you're working too hard. You're a workaholic. If someone tells me you're a workaholic, I don't want to hang out with them. I don't want to be their friend. I don't want to ever spend time with them, because they don't get it. They're comfortable in the nine to five, they want the retirement plan, they're going to have the, the three kids, the white picket fence, put the money in the 401k. That ain't my life, that's not what I signed up for. I signed up to work till the day I die to build an empire to create legacy and to change lives. Right? And so my friends, my partners, my family, my, my everybody, my future wife, my kids, everyone from this moment forward forever will have to get on the calendar if they want to hang out with me. Right? I literally scheduled time with my friends. I know entrepreneurs who schedule intimacy with their partners, and they're like, it makes my life better. Because it's dedicated time people look at this and they go you schedule time with your friends. Yeah, cuz that means I can actually hang out. You call me at Tuesday at four o'clock. I can't hang out with you. But again, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have

Joy Nicholson: 23:59

Yeah That's it.

Michael Anthony: 23:59

The people around you who look at this and go, you're insane? How dare you, what about work life balance. Don't be an entrepreneur if you want work life balance, just don't, just don't go do the nine to five. That's okay. Right? But I also think about this, if you every single day, you're waking up, you're doing the thing you love to do. Why do you need balance? Right? Ah, yeah, interesting question you have to ask yourself. So, let me, let me bring it down a little bit. If that's, that's hard. People need to be in this for a while before they adapt to that, okay. Let's. Let's take a look at the beginning? It's tough. Your girlfriend, your husband, your boyfriend, they're upset at you. Your friends are getting mad. They're like, you never come around anymore. You don't hang out. You need to get clear with them. The problem here is you. You have not established clarity. You have not stepped into this conversation with them and said, hey, I'm trying to build my dream. And I'm not pushing you away. But you have to understand I need to get focused for a little while, against my goals. I think that's fair.

Joy Nicholson: 24:31

Yes. Correct.

Michael Anthony: 25:04

And those that respect you, this is so important.

Joy Nicholson: 25:07

Yep.

Michael Anthony: 25:08

Those that respect, you will say, I understand, go do you. And those that don't, like, you changed, really, you think you're better than us. And those are not the people you want to have in your life anyway.

Joy Nicholson: 25:21

I got that so much. So yeah.

Michael Anthony: 25:23

Because the people who are gonna be there with you on the come up, are gonna be the ones who get it.

Joy Nicholson: 25:29

Yes. Correct.

Michael Anthony: 25:29

Who respect you and everybody else, those people are trying to bring you down. Trust me in seven years, they're still going to be bringing you down. The hard part about this. And this applies to everything in life. Whether you go through a healing journey, like I have, or you built a business, like, as you change people around you are going to notice. Jay Z has my favourite quote of all time. "People around you saying that you changed. Well, I didn't do all this work to stay the same."

Joy Nicholson: 25:58

That's it. That's a, that's gold. That's a really good quote. Yeah. 100%. Michael, what type of programmes do you have for people? You know, what is, what can the audience audience benefit out of your programmes, etc? What can you offer them?

Michael Anthony: 26:12

Yeah, tonne of my stuff is free. You can literally go to thinkunbroken.com, there's a tonne of free stuff there. I do group coaching. But you know, I've released for free courses I have, my book is free. You can literally go download it for free or buy it on Amazon for like $1. I made it as cheap as they let me, they won't let me give it for free. You can listen on my podcast, think unbroken podcast. And that's thinkunbrokenpodcast.com. It's, that podcast is everywhere. It's all about education. It's all there for you. Right? If you want to pay for stuff you can pay for stuff that's there too. But if you are like, man, I just need something today. It's there.

Joy Nicholson: 26:53

Yeah and we'll definitely drop all the links below for you guys, and I strongly recommend to go and listen to Michael's podcasts. It's, it's really good value. And especially if you in a situation where you can just do with inspiration alone. You know, Michael, another, another quick question for you. So, we've talked a little bit about, you know, challenges, etc. But I just want to, because a lot of the audience, well, I won't say a lot. But like there's definitely people that have reached out to me that listen to the podcast, that they really struggle with things in their life in general. And I think you're just such an inspiration. So, if, if something comes up in your life, and you struggle to get through this something, how do you, what is your action steps to just get through that, that block or that, that brick in your road?

Michael Anthony: 27:35

Yeah, step one is acknowledgement. Like, it's, step one is always acknowledgement. Because when you acknowledge it, you start to create accountability around it. And when you have accountability around it, you start to take action against it. When you take action against it, your life starts to change. Jordan Harbinger has a great quote, he says "action ends suffering". It's true. Your, your stock won't fucking move. I'm sorry, I cursed on your podcast, I got fired up, my bad. It's true, though. I'm sorry.

Joy Nicholson: 28:04

That's true. It's true.

Michael Anthony: 28:05

I said I wasn't gonna curse and I did, I apologise

Joy Nicholson: 28:07

That's fine.

Michael Anthony: 28:08

Look here, here's the truth. If you are stuck right now, oh my gosh and this is so hard for people to hear. It is your fault. It is your fault because you are not acknowledging it. And if you are acknowledging it then you are not accepting it. And if you are accepting it then you're not taking action. And if you're not taking action then you're stuck. Struggle is a part of the human experience, sure. Now look there is context, right? If somebody dies in your family, that is hard. If you get fired from the job you had for 20 years, that's hard. Your business goes under, that's hard, right? Perception is so much a part of this game. You have to sit with those feelings and I am not saying stuff that is stuck down. Feel it, cry, be emotional, journal about it, go to therapy. Take the time, however long that takes you, to heal. To get into what's next, to get to that moment. But that moment when you're laying in bed. Me at 25 years old watching the CrossFit games. You go, what are you gonna do? I mean at some point you're gonna have to ask yourself that question. And that's what is really hard about it, because people wanna be coddled through life and look, there is space for the love and for the happiness and for the compassion and for the joy and for the tenderness with yourself first. Self love is everything to me. People look at me and they go dude you are 6 foot four covered in tattoos. Self love that's my everything, right? And I operate through the scope of kindness. One of my values is kindness, but so is honesty, so is leadership, so is self actualisation, so is no excuses. In so, at some point when you're stuck and you're struggling and you're like, who-as me, that moment. Because you know that moment, you're like, I ate ice cream 37 days in a row, allright. Wow, it might be time to do something about that.

Joy Nicholson: 30:03

Yeah. I love it. Michael, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time. This has been really, really awesome. Thank you for being on the show. And we will definitely drop the links below. And I strongly recommend guys go and start following Michael, very inspirational and yeah, good content. Thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate you heaps.

Michael Anthony: 30:24

Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it as well.