Overcoming Depression | EP 013

In this episode, Phil shares his life journey, focusing on his battle with depression. He details his transition from a happy childhood to experiencing the ugly divorce of his parents, which triggered his descent into darkness. Phil speaks of his struggles with anger, self-harm, and substance abuse, highlighting a critical turning point when he joined the Marine Corps seeking purpose. Despite professional success, his inner battles persisted for years. Through military discipline and camaraderie, he began a slow recovery, learning to harness his darkness and turn it into a strength. Now a coach and mentor, Phil uses his story to help others, showing that even in the depths of despair, there's a path to healing and self-discovery. His journey illustrates the power of facing one's inner demons and the importance of connection and purpose in overcoming life's challenges.

Welcome to The Phil Bohol Show, hosted by USMC veteran, mindset coach, sales expert, self-made entrepreneur, husband, and father, Phil Bohol. On this podcast, we don't just offer strategies — we offer a war cry, a call to arms, a challenge to rise, to break free from the shackles of mediocrity. You’ll learn the raw truth on how to break your limitations, scale your business to 7-figures, and level up every area of your life. Together, we won't just face challenges. We will crush them. Relentlessly.

Timestamps:

(01:23) - Tackling Depression Beyond the Surface

(04:45) - The Journey from a Flickering Ember to a Roaring Flame

(06:00) - Phil's American Dream as a Kid

(11:10) - Phil's Descent into Darkness

(21:15) - Phil's Quest for Meaning in the Marines

(28:07) - Navigating the Silent Storm of Long-Term Depression

(33:41) - Sharing the Journey of Overcoming Inner Chaos

(37:00) - Finding Joy in Life's Simple Moments

(39:00) - Surviving the Dark to Shine the Light

(40:57) - A Call for Connection in the Midst of Darkness

Follow Phil Bohol’s Socials:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | TikTok

Transcription:

[00:00:00] Nobody ever taught me this sh*t.

Nobody ever taught me how to think, how to feel, how to process.

Everybody always told me to just f*cking smile.

Just try your best.

Ba ba ba.

Do the thing.

But nobody really understood.

And because of all the pain and the darkness I've ever experienced, I really do understand how my mess becomes my message.

[00:00:30] This is why people come to me now.

This is why I'm a coach.

This is why I'm a mentor.

I'm a guide to people.

This is why people's lives change with me.

Because I'm now a mirror that truly genuinely understands how dark the world can actually be.

[00:01:00] What's going on you guys, it's Phil Bohol and welcome to the Phil Bohol Show.

Where we have real talk about family, fitness, finance, and everything that would hold you back from leveling up in every area of your life.

And more importantly, how I personally got through them.

Everybody else in this world wants to bullsh*t you.

I'm here to give you the truth.

[00:01:30] Today we're gonna change it up a little bit and talk about My depression and overcoming depression.

Somebody inside of one of my other videos asked me if I could expand on it probably talked about it inside of the video and they're like, ‘Hey, Phil, can you kind of go a little bit deeper on, you know, your depression, how you overcame it, some of the things that you were going through and all that good stuff?’

If you guys have anything that I talk about where it would be helpful for you to have me expand on it and how I overcame some of the things in my life.

Because again, I've gone through quite a lot in my life.

[00:02:00] It's not just the business stuff that I'm good at.

I'm actually good at getting myself out of the pits of darkness.

So the thing about the word depression.

Okay, let me just make sure that this is super clear.

People who are really depressed, not just claiming depression, don't say ‘I'm depressed’.

When I was actually depressed, taking my life depressed, in my mind, I wasn't like, ‘I need to tell people I'm depressed.’

[00:02:30] I am depressed.

I didn't label the sh*t, because I was feeling this pit of f*cking darkness.

And that's not to say anything about anybody that says it.

I mean, f*ck, if, I mean, whatever, it's your life.

But from my experience, people who genuinely are, are not even aware of it.

The people that are in the darkest places, it f*cking doesn't even register.

Because you're so focused on this chaotic emotion that's like dark.

[00:03:00] You can't even understand what the emotion is.

Like you don't want to wake up.

It's not even that you want to snooze.

You just there's no life force in the morning.

At night, you're scared to go to sleep because you know that all that's waiting for you is darkness.

When you go through your day, you're like a f*cking zombie.

You don't even think about life.

You don't enjoy life.

You literally are just going through the motions.

[00:03:30] People tell you they love you, and it's just like, yeah, the sky's blue.

You try to be all happy and motivated, you make posts, you say things, and you try to smile.

And you're just like, ‘I'm a f*cking piece of sh*t, like, I don't even know why I'm doing this.’

The emotional rollercoasters of depression.

And when I say emotional rollercoasters, I'm talking about, like, in the depths of hell.

You're not going to happiness and coming back down to apathy.

No, no, no, no.

[00:04:00] You're in the darkest places of your f*cking life.

And the thing about depression, okay, if you're feeling bad about your life, please reach out to somebody.

I know it's the stupidest thing to f*cking say, it's the dumbest thing to say, because if you really are going through it, you don't want to.

There's no part of you that wants to.

It doesn't even register that you need to.

In your mind, you're like, you know, “I'm just going through a bad time. I'm just going through my day.I'm just whatever.”

[00:04:30] But that, ‘I'm just…’ led me to a marina one day, with a knife in my hand, ready to take my life.

Those days stack up negatively and some people lose that battle.

So before I start really explaining my story, I just want to give you some context that like depression is a real thing.

People go through things and it doesn't have to be this massive catastrophe.

People's spirits can break.

[00:05:00] The moment your spirit is broken, you open yourself up to the darkness, the void.

And to get out, it's different for different people.

But a lot of the time, it's understanding your purpose on this planet.

It's taking that small little ember that you have and learning how to slowly turn it back into a flame.

[00:05:30] That's why my literal brand logo for Underdog Uprising is an ember that I helped turn into a flame.

It literally embodies my journey.

Everything that I do, just so you guys understand, it's purposeful.

If you actually take the time to look at my brand, to take a look at the things that I do, the things that I talked about, it completely represents my life and all of the areas of my life I've had to develop over time.

Sh*t, it's even tattooed on my body.

[00:06:00] So here's what I want you to understand about my story, okay?

From the Philippines to the United States.

As a kid, you don't really think a lot about what that really means.

You're just moving to somewhere.

It doesn't really register fear.

You don't really feel fear because you don't really know how to feel about it.

You just know that you're moving somewhere.

[00:06:30] But I remember when I first touched down and we were doing the thing, we were doing life, moving into this really nice little house, Flower Street, whatever it is, in Phoenix, Arizona.

I'll always remember the street name because there was a lot of initial memories and after that I started blacking out because probably my subconscious was trying to emotionally protect me.

But during those times, man, I just remember it's like living a movie.

You know?

Not a problem in the world.

[00:07:00] The more I unpacked those years, though, I do realize that there's a lot of moments that started affecting my money mindset.

There was this one time, you know, a friend of mine that I met on Flower Street gave me this bag of shiny things to us.

It was just a bag of shiny things that he wanted to give to his friend, me.

To the adults of the world, it was a bag of 50 cent coins that was worth like 20.

But that was a lot of money back then to my father.

To my parents that was stealing.

[00:07:30] So what did that do?

That put it into my head that I'm not worthy of money.

I'm not worthy of receiving things.

I'm not worthy.

And it started this whole thing.

I'll do that in another video.

But anyway, from that time, right?

Five, six, probably seven, maybe years old.

It was like, it's like one of those movies, right?

It's like home alone, minus the bad parts.

Home alone, but the good parts.

You know?

[00:08:00] You got the family, you got the Christmas, you got the stuff, you got all that love.

It was the same for me.

In that beautiful little home.

I remember it had like this janky black and white tile in like the living room or the kitchen.

It was like this ugly ass brown, not stained wood trim everywhere.

Wood everywhere, like old school.

But I loved it.

It was the most beautiful house to me.

It was so homey.

[00:08:30] Like, the most homey house I've ever been in.

Probably the most homey house ever.

And you can imagine being a kid in this like, playful land that is your life.

You got the mom, you got the dad, you got the three sisters.

You know, on Christmases, you actually get to experience a Christmas, like, “What the f*ck is Christmas?”

You know?

Like, “What do you mean we get all these toys? What do you mean there's this dude with a beard that gives us all these things?”

It's like a Christmas miracle.

I used to really love Christmas.

[00:09:00] For a long time in my life, I hated Christmas because, you know, I'll get to it.

And then just recently, because I have kids, I love Christmas again.

It's a great time to give to my children.

But during that time I just remember like all of the most joyous memories.

And then we went from Phoenix to California.

We started in the Oakland area, bounced around a couple cities here and there, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, et cetera.

[00:09:30] And then, we started living the California life.

Started going to 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade.

I think 3rd grade was when 911 happened, and that was scary.

I didn't register it, and again, I was barely figuring out school and sh*t.

Like, I actually had a very thick accent when I was a kid.

[00:10:00] And so I was figuring out school, but I just saw all this craziness happening, you know?

It never even registered to me to ever enlist into the military, by the way.

It just - that happened because of the darkness.

Went through school.

And I realized in school I was like a weirdo, you know?

I was very like, I wouldn't say gullible kid, but I just believed in people, everybody, all the time.

I believed in the goodness of people because I was just so grateful of the life that I had here in the United States.

But people would treat me different.

I was too nice, you know?

[00:10:30] I was that guy that, you know, you'd be like, “The f*ck is that guy smiling for?”

You know?

I was a little bald head kid and sh*t.

And I didn't realize that it started affecting my confidence.

Because I started questioning, like, am I not supposed to be this way?

Am I not supposed to, like, you know, be happy and, like, trust people?

And, like, what the f*ck's going on here?

You know?

Like, as a kid, I was just like, “I'm just being me.”

I loved to read books.

[00:11:00] They used to have those big buses where, like, you can get books for, like, 50 cents, 75 cents.

You know?

They'll have a whole thing every year.

I was like that kid.

And then I'd be playing outside.

I was that kid.

I was the happy guy.

Smiling at people all the time.

And then they'd mug me.

I'd be like, ‘The f*ck's going on here?’

And, at some point, 10 years old, Christmas Eve, that's when my mom decided to gather all the kids around.

“Hey, I have a meeting.”

My mom did meetings with the kids all the time.

“Hey, I have a meeting. We have to do a meeting tonight.”

[00:11:30] And it's probably like 6-7 PM or so, and so, you know, I pop up in this lime green chair from f*cking IKEA, not a chair, it's a couch, probably a little two-three seater, depending on how big the kids were.

Me, my sister, I think it was my mom, sister, sister.

“I followed your dad and I found him with another woman.”

[00:12:00] To backtrack for a second, that morning is when I finished my Christmas homework, you know?

You get time off from school for Christmas.

But usually you'll get an assignment or something like that, not just a vacation.

You just get an assignment, you know, everybody had that teacher.

And the assignment was to write about your hero.

[00:12:30] And I remember putting my heart and soul into this letter, into this thing.

I was talking about my dad, about how my dad is like the anchor, he's like the hero, he's the guy.

He gave us all of this.

And I put my heart into that.

Everything I was was in that.

Everything I knew was in that letter.

So, to have written that in the morning, and to hear this at night, you can imagine that, like, my whole world shattered.

[00:13:00] Everything I thought I knew shattered.

It's like an accelerated movie that was happening backwards.

“Well, what the f*ck was all of this stuff that we just experienced? Was that all real? What was this life that we just lived? Was that real? All of the smiles, the happiness, the joyfulness that I felt during these Christmases. Was that all real? The family dinners every night, was that real?”

[00:13:30] Everything that brought me joy was questioned.

“Was any of that real? If this has been happening for years, what's real?”

Because apparently, if my hero doesn't exist, and my joy came from seeing my hero in action, and the happiness that I felt in my heart that set me free, was now being questioned if it was real.

Everything was taken.

[00:14:00] My belief in life was taken in that moment and all I could do as that boy is take that blanket, cover myself up, completely wrap myself and do nothing but fall over and cry.

I didn't want anybody to see me.

I didn't want to see anybody.

I just broke in that moment.

That moment changed the trajectory of my life.

[00:14:30] That's where my armor got hit and it cracked and it allowed darkness to come in.

That was the start of what turns into depression.

See, we have an identity that we have.

And when that identity shatters, we open ourselves up to all the darkness in the world.

[00:15:00] The questions, the doubts, the fears, the unknown, all of it.

10, 11, 12, 13, was when I understood wrath.

[00:15:30] When you go from happiness and joy to darkness, to apathy, to sadness, to grief, because you lost yourself, you lost everything that you thought was real, it's very easy to experience wrath.

It's tattooed here.

It was my deadliest sin.

I started punching holes in the walls in the house.

My face and my demeanor changed.

I used to have a very deer in the headlights look in my eyes.

I used to be so open as a kid.

As a boy, I remember it.

[00:16:00] And then I started feeling like I hated the world.

Not intentionally, I just f*cking hated the world.

The whole world was pointless to me.

And that's when it all started.

Didn't matter if I'd bust up.

My hands wouldn't matter if I started being, not a bully, very direct with people at school.

[00:16:30] Didn't matter if I shut down at school, didn't talk to nobody for no reason.

I would come home and had to wait for the parents.

I would set sh*t on fire in the backyard.

I'd break sh*t just to hear things break.

I was doing to life what I felt in my heart, which is brokenness.

I would find wood and just start punching the wood until I bled, just so I can watch the blood and see if I could feel something.

[00:17:00] Never felt anything.

I felt external pain.

I felt my body have pain, but I never felt anything in my heart.

It was dead.

It was cold.

[00:17:30] I think that, thinking about that now, I think that I never cut myself and stuff like that, but I do remember trying to break my skin with sharp objects just to see what it felt like.

And that's what I want you to understand about true depression.

You don't know where the mind takes you.

You're not in the seat, you're not driving the car, you're in the passenger seat.

And this darkness is driving.

[00:18:00] Even though I started my first online business at 13, bought my first car cash at about 14 or 13, like 13 and 11 months, or some sh*t like that.

I built my first business, bought that BMW cash.

I was so out of it, I was just like in hustle mode.

I started making money, started buying alcohol, started giving people that were older than me that could afford alcohol, or not afford, that had an ID, fake ID even, buy me some alcohol, let me get f*cked up.

[00:18:30] Started taking pills, molly, e, just probably sh*t cut up with other sh*t that I didn't know about.

Smoking.

Did that for years, just in the darkness.

I was in high school doing sh*t.

That's why I only made it through freshman and sophomore year.

Junior year I was basically a ghost.

Senior year I was a ghost.

But I was that cool guy.

[00:19:00] You know?

At least in my head.

Guy that never went to school.

F*ck it.

I just partied all the time.

I was with all these people that were like 5, 10, 15 years older than me.

Nobody gave a sh*t.

Great f*cking friends, right?

Some f*cking 14, 15, 16 year old kid f*cking around.

Nobody gave a sh*t.

They're just like, “Yeah, here, f*cking drink. So awesome that you drink. So awesome that you burn. So awesome that you're, you're popping pills and doing this sh*t with us. You're so cool, Phil.”

[00:19:30] And I was like, “Oh, this feels kind of nice. Some recognition, some attention. Not this emotional turmoil my family puts me through on a daily basis. Okay, I guess I'll do this. I guess this is me.”

And I did that leading up to, you know, 17 years old, 17 and a half.

And I started realizing what a sh*tbag I was becoming.

Saw pictures of myself.

[00:20:00] And I'm pretty sure the pivotal moment for me was, you know, I don't talk to my little sister anymore.

I think that I probably said something that really offended her deeply.

And it's been years since we've talked.

Before, she was the reason why I wanted to live this.

She was the reason why I wanted to do a lot of things and succeed to be a good brother.

[00:20:30] And so when I - I think that she made a comment where she was disappointed in the pictures, this party guy that she saw versus like this older brother that she could look up to.

I think that changed it for me.

She could always change me.

And that's when I was like, “Man, I don't know what the f*ck i'm doing with my life.”

[00:21:00] In that moment, that switch happened because I understood that even if I couldn't understand the meaning of life, there's somebody else that's looking at me, somebody else that's looking toward me, somebody else that is potentially going to emulate the sh*t that I'm doing.

And if I don't square myself away, I'm good with dying, I'm good with death, I'm good with being gone.

But what happens to this person?

And so what I want you to understand about purpose is when you start living for somebody else, not for them, but for them.

It kind of shakes you up from that darkness, and there's kind of a light again.

[00:21:30] It makes you want to do better, not for you, because you can fail you all day.

You can be in darkness all day if it's just you.

But for somebody else?

It shook me.

Enough to go to the recruiter for the Marine Corps.

Starting to figure out, “What can I do?”

Because if I feel this way, I don't think this is going to get fixed, I don't think this is going to get solved, I tried therapy back in the day.

Sh*t wasn't working.

[00:22:00] I was talking to some asshole who didn't really try to understand where I was coming from, I needed to feel heard, and they were just telling me what to feel, and I was like, “F*ck off.”

“But if I join the military, if I join the infantry, and I die, I'm not taking my life, but I'm dying for something good. And at least somebody can be proud of that.”

That was my mental game back then.

And it was like I was fighting this timeline to go to bootcamp.

[00:22:30] I was fighting this timeline of depression because that wanting to take my life, it was very near to me.

It's like, it was right there.

It's like the Marine Corps was like right here.

That darkness was also within reach.

And I already knew at that point while I was in that waiting game, I was already at that marina, I've already done that dance.

I already knew that I looked darkness in the eyes and I knew how easy it was to claim it.

And I had to go.

I was like, “If I don't go, bro, I'm dead.”

[00:23:00] And the f*cked up part about that is, even though logically I knew it, f*ck, I kept drinking, I kept popping pills, I kept smoking.

Jesus Christ.

I didn't care.

It was so hard to care about life.

So hard to care.

And then I got word that I wouldn't be able to actually leave for like a year.

[00:23:30] I wouldn't be able to leave until like 6 to 12 months later, and I was like, “No, f*ck bro. Like I need to go now. I'm gonna f*cking die if I don't go.”

And I remember this because those recruiters saved my life.

They knew I was on a dark path.

And so they did some things and they found me a contract where I could leave in like a week.

It wasn't the contract that I wanted.

It wasn't what I wanted.

[00:24:00] It was still in the infantry, but I couldn't go active duty, I had to go the reserve route.

But they told me I could augment and I can go active duty as soon as I became a marine.

I can do all of these things.

My mind was, “I need to just go to bootcamp. I just need to get f*cked. I just need to get like, kicked in the f*cking face.”

And if they're telling me I can do the same thing, I need to leave now.

[00:24:30] Because if I don't, I will die.

I will die here.

So I took the contract.

I went to bootcamp.

And bootcamp helped me see life different.

There's still that darkness, that void.

And boot camp was different before Mothers of America f*cked it up.

[00:25:00] Where like, you could actually have infantry Marines actually breeding you.

Mothers of America, because all the f*cking pansies in the world, joined the military because it sounded cool, but couldn't take the sh*t.

It changed.

But I was fortunate enough to have been bred by a machine gunner, by a sniper, by an infantryman.

They changed my life.

They brought me from the darkness.

[00:25:30] They taught me how to harness darkness, make it mean something, to live for the brother to the left and to the right of you.

Even throughout the military, I was still experiencing quite a lot of darkness, and this is just one layer, guys.

It's not like this whole thing that I've been talking about this entire is it?

No, there's so many different loops that happen throughout time, throughout the years, and the military just amplified a lot of it.

It made me not care about anything anymore.

[00:26:00] Literally, the mind was bred to think about death 24/7.

To save a life, to take a life.

I remember, we'd be in the rack, and my instructors would just talk about war.

Sergeant Brown talked about war being a machine gunner.

What it's like to prepare for all of that, to be that, to live that.

[00:26:30] Every night he'd tell us stories.

So you can imagine, as a young buck that was just looking for purpose, looking for something.

That programmed my mind.

I had full intent of going out there to die.

Because what he was talking about was glory.

And I was like on this war path to go die for something.

[00:27:00] Not for me, because if I died on my own, it'd be nothing.

It wouldn't be honorable.

If I died out there, the things that these guys are talking about, I could die for something like that.

But you can see like, it didn't leave me, the thoughts never left.

And even though there were some experiences where I started feeling camaraderie, I started feeling what it was like to have a brotherhood.

[00:27:30] People that cared about you, that understood death, that were like disgruntled motherf*ckers, they were the black sheep too.

That's where I found home.

What I found in that home was a lot of brokenness.

A lot of us, the boys, broken.

That's what bonded us.

We were all so broken, and that's why we arrived in the infantry.

To do something with our lives.

To make our lives mean something.

[00:28:00] And this started the process of me understanding what my purpose is in life.

Because depression didn't leave my body until just a couple years ago.

I'm 30 years old at the time of recording.

[00:28:30] Till I was about 26.

I felt depressed for 16 years straight, whether I knew it or not.

I can talk about this sh*t forever, non stop, but this has been a long video, and I honestly don't know if this heals anybody, knowing that th*s sh*t happened the way that it did.

[00:29:00] I didn't even get as deep as I want to, or probably need to on some of these things.

Because there's, again, there's so many different facets to this.

It's like I just gave you the high level of just like, understanding it, but in every chapter, there's so much depth, there's so much darkness, there's so many thoughts, there's so many things.

They just stack and stack and stack and stack.

And that's why you never know you're depressed.

You never know you're actually experiencing depression because it's so cold, it's so dark.

[00:29:30] You can't see. The lens isn't clear.

Nothing's clear.

The heart is black.

The soul is black.

The world is dark.

The mind is dark.

There's nothing.

[00:30:00] And when you're in that space, the whole world can be around you, and you feel so alone.

It feels like there's silence, just like deafening silence.

Because there's nothing happening in your heart.

There's nothing happening in the mind.

It's like the spirit's dead.

There's not even any whispers,

[00:30:30] It's just quiet.

And it's like you try to hear and you try to listen for something, a sound, a feeling, an emotion, something.

And one day you wake up and it's years later.

This is why I blacked out and I jumped from timeline to timeline to timeline.

[00:31:00] Because just like this look that you see as I think and feel through those years, that's exactly how I looked during those years.

I couldn't look up.

I couldn't look people in the eye.

I could only look down because I can just see the pit of despair and I was trying to find something in that darkness.

I was trying to find me.

I was trying to find something.

I was trying to find God.

I was trying to find anything to prove to myself that I should be alive right now.

[00:31:30] And time passes.

You don't really understand time at that point.

You're like just living to breathe.

And then just to do that all over again the next day.

And just, life passes you by.

You're not present.

You're not anywhere.

You're like in the ether.

You're just out there.

Your spirit's out there.

It's gone.

And it's a lot.

And people don't get it.

[00:32:00] Which is why it's bullsh*t when people just claim depression.

But you can't talk about it like that until you've gone through it.

And you've healed through it.

The thing about depression though, no matter how happy you get, no matter how much you've healed those cracks and the brokenness, there's always gonna be a crack.

[00:32:30] There's always gonna be a sliver of a hole.

And if you listen close enough, it's like a gaping wound.

It's like air, bleeding out.

It's like a whisper calling to you.

And some days, where you're the happiest, it's just so faint.

Most days, most weeks, most months, you don't even realize that it's there, it's present.

[00:33:00] But if you listen, and you've been there, the dangerous part about this is, that crack will always be there.

As a reminder, to learn how to appreciate the moments, to learn how to be grateful for the life that you live, to be grateful for every breath that you're able to take, for every morning you're able to wake up, for every smile you get to see on your family's face, for every obstacle you experience in your life, through every hardship, to be grateful for it all.

[00:33:30] Because to experience life and to feel life, the good, the bad, the ugly, every moment is worth more than that silence, that pit of despair.

And so as we go through this journey of life together, this human experience,

I don't know if these talks are helpful.

And the only way I'm able to know is if you tell me.

[00:34:00] To talk about it more, if it heals you.

Because man, the emotion of just wanting it to be done.

It's so loud.

It's so chaotic.

It's like its own animal.

[00:34:30] Sometimes it's really hard to not just believe it.

That there's no way past it, through it.

There's no healing.

There's no nothing. It's just so loud.

But I think the more that people understand that there is a way, there is a way through, and it's the hardest path.

[00:35:00] It's to talk about it.

Even if nobody's listening.

Even if nobody listens to this, in this past half hour, even though I felt it again, it's healing.

To acknowledge the animal calms it.

[00:35:30] So what I invite you to do, if you've made it this far, is to write about it, to talk about it with somebody else, to share it, to use that energy to heal yourself and to heal others.

[00:36:00] Because when you realize that the thing that's gonna interrupt the patterns of thoughts and depths of darkness is when you decide to live for somebody else, not just yourself,

it's enough for now.

And as you go through this journey of life, you can spend the rest of your life learning how to love yourself again.

[00:36:30] You can spend the rest of your life learning how to find that desire to live again.

To enjoy every breath that you take.

Every groggy morning you wake up, every tired day at the gym, every meditation that grounds you, every prayer that grounds you, the simple things in life save you.

[00:37:00] And through your journey, once that interrupt happens, you begin healing.

But it's second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year.

It's not a race.

It's learning to reprogram the body, mind, and spirit in a way that heals you.

So every day to stay away from that darkness, I stay on a path.

I do the hard things.

I force myself to wake up early.

[00:37:30] I force myself to the gym, especially on the days where I don't want to.

I force myself to do what I need to do.

I force myself to be present.

I force myself to do all of it because in these fleeting moments is where I appreciate life the most.

And most people think that you're supposed to feel that way 24/7.

For me, it's those moments, those pockets, those windows of time where I'm having a crazy ass day with the family, the girls, they won't settle down.

[00:38:00] And finally at the end of the night, when we get those 2-3 minutes, right before they rack out, just peace.

“I love you daddy.”

All of that's worth it.

The hustle and the grind at the gym.

When one day you go to the gym, and you're just going to the gym to go to the gym.

And you just find peace there.

And you smile just cause you're there.

Makes it worth it.

[00:38:30] When instead of driving a car and thinking about crashing and burning, you drive a car because it's just fun to just drive.

It makes it worth it.

Feels like I've spent 20 years and of my life hurting so I can learn to appreciate the moments again.

And I think there's something to be said about that.

And I believe that that's how life should be.

[00:39:00] Nobody ever taught me this sh*t.

Nobody ever taught me how to think, how to feel, how to process.

Everybody always told me to just f*cking smile.

Just try your best, blah, blah, blah, do the thing.

But nobody really understood.

[00:39:30] And because of all the pain and the darkness I've ever experienced, I really do understand how my mess becomes my message.

This is why people come to me now.

This is why I'm a coach.

This is why I'm a mentor.

I'm a guide to people.

This is why people's lives change with me.

Because I'm now a mirror that truly genuinely understands how dark the world can actually be.

To help you move through things just like I did.

[00:40:00] And I teach and I guide on the things that I struggle with most.

So every day for me, it's a battle to be won.

Every day I win the battle is another day I inspire that one person that was going to give up just like I was.

To not to see that people like us can win.

People like us that can still feel that gaping hole, the sound, the air coming through.

Knowing that it's never gonna heal.

[00:40:30] People like us can win.

We can survive.

We can thrive in this life.

Even if that darkness is present.

But you just gotta know how to reach out.

You gotta start and talk about it.

Cause once you feel that emotional connection with somebody outside of you again, that's where the healing begins.

[00:41:00] So, that's all I got for now.

Again, this is like layer one.

Of a million layers deep.

But just like what inspired this video, I won't know if this helps you.

I won't know if you want me to dig deeper in other subject matters.

I don't know until you tell me.

So tell me, what story, what part of my life, my journey, my hurt, my pain, do I need to talk about to help you start healing?

[00:41:30] That's exactly what I'm talking about.

You have to reach out.

You have to say it.

Even if every letter that you type is the hardest, because it's you learning how to connect and reach back into life, I invite you to do it.

It's the only way you can heal, is to connect.

[00:42:00] Humans are designed to connect.

We're pack animals.

We weren't meant to do life alone.

So whether you have a pack, whether you have a tribe, wherever you're from, or not, I'm here.

[00:42:30] But the only way we can connect is if you reach out and you tell me what is the next thing I need to train on, teach on, guide on, expand on, or just share a story to help you heal.

Because that's my purpose now.

I'm going to take all the hurt and the pain I've ever experienced in my life and put it out to be judged in the world, to heal the one person that needed to hear that message.

If you have darkness, this was a great first step.

Acknowledge that it's present.

Don't try to hide.

Don't try to turn off the lights.

[00:43:00] Don't try to close your eyes.

You have to look at your demons in the eyes.

You have to acknowledge that they're there.

And when you do that, the next step will illuminate on your path of purpose.

I'll see you guys next time.

That's the show.

Don't just listen to everything I just f*cking said and do nothing with it.

Take everything you learned, go out and execute.