From Struggling to Soaring : Rising Above Limiting Beliefs to Create Your Best Life with Joey Droshagen

Well, hello and welcome back, my friend, man, this week is unique. So you're going to hear at the end, Joey and I are talking about, you know, not doing the intro. Well, here's the intro after the outro. So this is the first and Joey is an amazing, amazing man to be flexible and just on this adventure with me.

So this week I've got Joey, uh, Joel Drolshagen, uh, Dude, he is a man. I just feel like I've known forever, like that guy that you, the friend you've had from childhood that you may not see for 10 years. And it's just like, boom, you pick right back up where you were. So, uh, Joey is absolutely stellar. He's doing coaching, helping people to detach from those beliefs that are, that are You know, subconscious ones that we just say, that's who I am.

We dismiss and he's making huge impact. And you're going to hear that in the story, how we talked about it today. You're going to hear a lot of story behind the scenes about stuff that Joey and I both went through that, how that played out in our lives. And I would invite you from that to then look at your life and see where are those things that just kind of happenstance occur that are happening Innocently, and we just dismiss them.

You may just be like, that's, that's no big deal. Look for those things. That's an opportunity to take action and to change what's going on in your life to pursue that dream, um, that you have and, and just maybe set aside. So, Joey, how are you doing today? My friend,

I'm doing great. Mike, it's awesome. First time this ever happened where our warmup talk ended up being the conversation raw and flowed.

And it's just, what a beautiful thing to get to be a part of.

Brother, you have just been absolutely amazing. I appreciate your flexibility. It was just, we hit the ground running. It was like, Hey, how, you know, I don't know how to describe it. Other than it was. Just off and running. And it was so comfortable and, um, easy.

I mean, it was almost like I hadn't seen you in like 10 years and knew you from childhood. And it was like, Hey, I knew about this. I knew about that. And just having that brother in arms, you know, that it was like, okay, Hey, let's start running. Well,

same way.

Yeah. Um, well, let's jump into Joey. What does it look like on the professional side of life for you today?

What does that look like?

Well, I mean, I, I do the coaching and such and helping companies grow and expand, you know, and, and, but also opening up their free time, you know, what I, probably the best way of saying this, Mike, is what I help people do is to realize in their everyday walk, unrealistic living, you know, with how quickly businesses can grow and having free time to enjoy the efforts of that business and, and truly Achieving dreams of when we, when we think of that business and what we want it to be and all we think it can be, and, and actually achieving that and stuff.

And then on the other side of it, as I, we were talking, as I've expanded into starting up my, my Life Ignited Institute, which is certifying other coaches now in the SMT method to, so that I can expand the footprint of the marks that, you know, my works have.

Perfect. And then on the, the personal side of life, what does that look like for you today?

It looks like this, man. I love, I love my life today for somebody who, who couldn't stand living life and didn't want to live to, you know, three decades, four decades later, whenever it's been is I, I love, I love this life. I love that I get to have an impact in other people's lives. I love, you know, seeing somebody get that breakthrough in that subconscious conditioning that's holding them limited and seeing how far they take that and stuff.

It's just absolutely incredible. It's like soaring. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, let's go ahead and jump into the story of the conversation. Oh,

my God. It's amazing, Mike. What, like the people that get to come across and what they've achieved and everything. Like, I love what I do and stuff, you know, I come across so many, like, just remarkable people.

That are, that are impacting the world with their life. I just, it's, it's, it's awesome. It just feeds each other, you know?

Yes. And, and that's the super cool thing. And I think as it's like, we have conversations, it's like men begin to see I'm not alone. And that was the thing for me, Joey, like, I thought I was the only one that was broken.

And I seriously thought I was broken because of childhood trauma and the physical violence that I went through as a kid and having dyslexia and ADHD. Dude, I didn't find out until I was 40 years old with four kids and my wife's homeschooling and like, yeah, you have dyslexia. Holy mackerel. That's why I felt like I was unique and not in a good way.

It was like what's wrong with me? Why can't I catch a break? And uh, dude, the best way I describe the way I grew up Joey was I was a cross between Eeyore And the Hulk, I felt like everything happened to me. Like I had that victim mindset, man. Like pervasive. But when your parents are telling you, yeah, you're a mistake.

We didn't, you know, we didn't want you. You just kind of happened. Oh dude, Joey, there's, there's tons of stuff. And I was angry because of the situation I was in anger. And victim mindset do not work well for a marriage, for raising children, for showing up at work, being the man you want to be and. Dude, Joey, when I finally started working on me to heal me, it, it played through my whole family.

Like my wife didn't have to worry about an insecure husband who was going to get volatile at her success so she could become who she was. I was raised up believing like if you fail, you're a failure. There's nothing further from the truth. That's how you get success.

But we don't know how to process those things as we're growing up and you know, even in a teenage and early twenties and things, we don't know when I was 20, Mike, if something happened easy for me, I thought I didn't earn it and I didn't deserve it.

Yeah. And you're waiting for the other shoe to fall. Like, okay, this good thing happened. What bad thing is going to happen?

I was at a point where if something good happened, I wouldn't share it with anybody because I thought it would ruin it.

I haven't heard anybody describe it that way. Those doubts and those fears, like they rule us and we don't realize it.

It's almost like being a marionette, but you don't realize you're Pinocchio and somebody's got the strings for you.

Yeah. And, and, and really it's, it's our own conditioning that holds those strings that hosts those strings and that movement and everything else. You know, this has been my mantra since I started learning this stuff and everything is everything always works out all the time.

When I broke it, everything always works out. We always have happiness. We always have joy. We always have, you know, like that fulfillment of feeling it's it's there all the time. It's just what we're focusing on. Our perception is what determined.

I love the way you described the relationship of my son is a blessing.

Like I'm so focused on him and you, you had shared like, yeah, Missing his first birthday because of misaligned priorities, right? Those, those beliefs that we have, um, dude, that was powerful. I got to tell you, man,

even, even you just saying that right now,

yeah.

Caused me to like, like that. I missed that event and I can never go back and make that up, you know, for everything that happened there for his first birthday and not be able to celebrate that.

And brother, I know, you know, this, Joey, you woke up on the first birthday, not the 16th. So that's a thing to be grateful for is like, Hey, you know what? It only took me one. And one was it because how many of us have continued to sleep and are. And so it's like, I, dude, I've got regret. I, I've, I, I'm still working through those man.

I'm like forgiving yourself. One of the hardest things I think I could, like, if you, yeah. Had been in my life. Let's say you're my uncle, right? Your uncle Joey. And you had hurt me through the years, dude, I could forgive you easier than I can forget myself. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's the case with most people is easier.

Like I should have defended. I should have meant anyway. So I'm preaching to the choir brother. Sorry. No,

no, no. I appreciate that. Cause you're absolutely right with that. And that one there, that, that one just hits me not so much blaming on myself or just that. My conditioning of my life allowed me to miss that moment that I'd never get back.

How many men do you know that are, because you're, you're doing coaching as well. How many men do you know that their, their kids are like 16 and they're not. Aware of that. And they're missing those baseball games. And the son is sitting there going, I'm not enough because my dad won't come to my games. Do you woke up first birthday, Joey, you were there for everything else.

And it's like, you were quick to wake up and catch on and take things. Take the appropriate action and belay that belief. So

even those, even like everyone, the guys that live like that and everything else, there's so much of that coming from our conditioning.

Yeah.

For me, it was that a man gets a job and supports a family.

And I had, you know, that's where I was supposed to be. It's not where I was supposed to be. But that conditioning told me it was, and you're absolutely right. I never really looked at it that way. So thank you. But people salute their children's entire life and miss the whole growing up as a child in that miracle, that all the stuff that happens, you know, one of the things I talked about with my son, one of the things I, I, it was bittersweet his whole life.

Now he's 27. He's done with college. He's got a good job. He's not, you know, he's got his own house on the lake. He's like, you know, he's, he's, he's living in his passion and stuff. And, uh, and, and one of the things with that is, is. It was bittersweet because every time he left the stage, there's so many stages kids go through and every time he left the stage, it'd be like a sadness of, of, oh man, that stage is over, but then there's the excitement over what the new stage is going to be, right?

Totally.

All the way up to teenage years. He was great until he got a license and a girlfriend and then everything just went to hell. No,

I mean, how many? I. Dude, I will count myself in that because it was like, man, it became an emotional time. But yeah, we'll get there. Yeah. And, and dude, I'm, I'm just super stoked to hear you caught on that soon because how many of us as men are still chasing that validation and that word

that I've never looked at it that way.

So Joey, growing up, My parents, you know, it was me, my brother, my mom and my dad. My dad was the only one working. We lived in a duplex. My parents put a chain with a lock around the fridge. So my brothers, even as teens could not get into the fridge. And what we had as meals at that point in time was like they would go through like six months of breakfast, lunch and dinner of toast, right?

We would make toast or we would have yeah. rice, like all three meals or macaroni puts, you know, boiled potatoes, whatever the case may be. So one, there's not a lot of variety, but you can imagine that is not nourishing, right? But with the chain, I carried this, this unconscious belief, Joey, that I needed food around me to be secure and, you know, just.

At peace. Joey, I filled up a six foot freezer standing freezer full of meat. Okay. So imagine you got steaks, you got roasts, you got pork chops, everything else in there. Joey, I let that stuff sit in there for five years. I don't know about you, but five year old steak that's freezer burned, not desirable in any way, shape or form.

But subconsciously I felt like I was In a secure place because that little kid in me was afraid of not having access to food and it wasn't until I healed other stuff that I was in a place to receive and see that to make a correction.

So you just reminded me of something I completely forgot about. So, you know, I, I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, very strugglesome family, blue collar, my both my parents exhausted themselves and just.

Beat the hell out of themselves, working, you know, massive hours, everything else and stuff like that, just to put a roof over us, five kids head, you know, there were times growing up, I didn't know it till later, but my parents would not eat. In order to feed us five kids and stuff like that, they would skip dinners and stuff like that, you know?

And, and, and so, man, so I remember in my thirties, after the thirties, forties must've been forties, even after the divorce and everything else and stuff like that, I was going out with this girl, we were dating and stuff like that, you know, and she was over the house one day and I forget how it happened, but she went up in my closet and she said.

You have two brand new packs of t shirts up in your closet, like not even open.

Hmm.

I go, yeah. She goes, the ones you're wearing are stained and they got holes like in under the arms and stuff like that. Like, why are you doing that? And it hit me. You know why I was doing that? Because as long as those two packages were up there, I knew that I would always have t shirts the moment I opened them.

I had that fear. Wow. This is. I can't believe we're touching on this, but that fear was that I may not have it again. Cause I went through a lot after the divorce was struggling and you know, like everything else financially. And, and it was up until that point, I understand completely what that frees are, why there was the need to do that.

And then even exactly the same thing in your situation, the need to accumulate, but not use it because then you're afraid of not being able to replenish.

Right. I mean, Joey, when I had My oldest daughter and my twin daughters, when they were like infants, my wife and I were at a point we couldn't afford the rent and the utilities.

And we were always in fear of something being shut off, man. It, it wasn't, but until like probably seven years ago that if I saw a utility, like a meter, Uh, meter reader coming around and taking the, the numbers, Joey, my stomach dropped. If I saw the truck, I ran to see where they were because it had been ingrained.

If there's a truck they're here for me, they're shutting off my power, my gas, my water, whatever.

In that fierce state, I would not get my mail out of the mailbox. It would take me three weeks to build up the courage to walk down to the curb from the house to get my mail, because I was so afraid, especially after the divorce of something else coming from the, you know, from the, from the court or something like that, or, or, or a bill coming that I wouldn't, it was like the, when I, after I went through the divorce, even though I had shifted that struggle and stuff like that, to some degree after the divorce, you know, With what I was paying out, like I didn't have enough money.

Like I would, I would get my son every other week, which was a whole nother year long battling courts to get that. And then I would, the weeks I didn't have him, I would make sure I traveled the entire week for work, but I traveled just so I'd have the per diem to be able to eat and then I'd have money to buy groceries the weeks I had him.

So. And, and I totally get that, man. Joey, that resonates so strong. Um, how is it that we can look at our actions and our emotions in the day to day things that are going on and see where those past events, those past experiences are still impacting us in our current situation, right? Like you talked about making sure you've got enough food and.

And the t shirts and I've shared about as far as the meat and the utility companies, right? How do you pick that stuff up when it's just almost like an, uh, a natural process, right? You just kind of looking at that's the way I am. How do you dismiss that and discover the truth behind

it? You know, it does take some effort, Mike.

That's a great question too. And it takes effort and it really comes into the core of all this stuff because you know, the SMT method. that I've developed, which is subconscious mindset training. That method is all about. We live by our patterns. We live by our experiences. We live by our belief systems, like all that's built into this motherboard and the subconscious, and that's what triggers a brain waves to the actions we take or don't take.

So that's why we have such a disconnect in our total mindset, because our conscious mind, we know what we want, but the subconscious is really what's one in the actions of the body to the actions we take or don't take, and it feels. normal to us to live through that conditioning, right? And we can have conditioning in this mic that we never even experienced firsthand, but somebody of authority, an adult, or somebody might've told us something as a child, and that's built into our subconscious, but we've never experienced it.

And it's working against us and it's causing limitations. So the very first thing we have to do, the very first thing I talk to people about is you gotta have an open mindset. You gotta be willing to look at, is there another possibility? To, to, to challenge my belief systems, to challenge my habits, to challenge my, you know, all of that stuff, patterns, paradigms, all of those things.

Once we have the open mindset, then it's about opening up awareness to is start noticing why I call it notice what we're noticing, you know, pay attention to the things we're doing, you know, pay attention to the thoughts we're having, you know, a lot of times I'll refer to this up here. My logical mind is, is the antichrist.

Because when I'm running through here, it's all based on that conditioning of the things. That's why we hear disaster stories and it's always put in the argument. It is when we want to do something new of why we shouldn't or what would hold us back or what, how it's going to fail. Or that was beautiful.

What you said about failure. I mean, that was absolutely beautiful because we do take failure as a personal defeat and that gets built into that subconscious. And then all of a sudden we want to do something and we never even take an action into it because we get beat up by that conditioning. So once we have the awareness of what we're doing and why we're doing it, then we can start taking different actions.

And that's the part that I found really, really hard to do on my own. Where a coach, somebody who had been through the process and you know, they could help me see things in my actions or see things in the way I was thinking. Do that conditioning that we're going with. That's working against what you want to achieve.

That's working into more struggle,

man. There's so many things, so many things to digest in that, um, like in how you were talking about what I had said about, uh, being a failure and failing. Right. Um, just to reiterate what that was. Um, I had been conditioned by my parents that if I failed, I was a failure and I already felt like a failure.

I, I'm trying to disprove it. Right. So, um, I don't take chances. I don't, I don't live life. Like you're talking about Joey. I played as small as possible to fail as small as possible. It's not healthy, but dude, when those beliefs Joey become ingrained and they become empowered almost right. It just grows and grows and grows.

It's almost like a monster being fed by electricity. You know, if you give it to the power plant, dude, you're going to have a beast on your hands. And that's exactly that emotion fed into it. That belief became stronger. And so I played smaller and smaller and smaller because of that belief. And we build those up like, you know, You're talking about there.

It's like those things just become almost like the bumper guards when we're playing bowling. Right. They kind of keep us in the lane. So you can't do anything outside.

Not the lane. We want to be in, but it's that lane of that comfort zone based on that conditioning kind of holding us. We're never held up.

You know, I work with a lot of business owners, realtors, things like that. It's it, you know, and then they'll come to me and go, I can't grow my business because of how much competition. Or because of the interest rates or because of market conditions or because our, our potential is never based on outside conditions.

And that's the reason why you can see business owners who make their greatest leaps in growth. in a down economy. And then there's other business owners who struggle even in a boom. It's the internal conditioning with that. And when, when you were talking about that, you know, I've never shared this publicly and stuff.

And, and, and, um, my parents did the very best job they could do for me. You know, that they're both passed away and stuff. My, I got to experience a great, I didn't even know it till later in life, but I experienced a great love story. They'd stayed married till death did impart. My dad passed away and then my mom just didn't want to be alive without it.

them. And a year later she passed away of pretty much natural causes, you know, and they were both in their later seventies and stuff. And, um, but I remember one time at eight years old that we had, we had, um, my mom was full of time. So we had the Italian basement and stuff with the kitchen and all that stuff there, you know, and I had to clean the bathroom and I cleaned the sink and I cleaned the shower and I was, I was getting ready to do the commode.

And my mom came in there and she goes, look how filthy that is. And I started yelling and stuff. And she said, she said the words to me, you're so lazy. You stink. Never. I didn't get to explain that. And she walked away from there. I took that information, Mike, and I literally thought I was lazy. And here's what we do with that conditioning of those false, any beliefs that we get is we try to overcome them.

So. In my twenties, I was working. I started out working in corporate America. I have my own construction company. I was doing, I was revamping houses and, and, and flipping them and things like that. I ended up, I was going to school to get my, my bachelor's degree. I, um, my son was born later in my twenties and stuff.

So I was a parent of a very young child. I decided I was going to build us a house and I'm, and I was traveling almost, I was traveling every week. For business. I would go from Michigan down to Hawesville, Kentucky, which I didn't even know there was a hospital Kentucky until I started traveling there.

And in my spare time with all of that, I decided I should get my pilot's license. And I did. And I constantly lived my life. Trying to prove that out that I'm not lazy and it was it wasn't what I wanted to do But it was kind of it was trying to overcome that belief the other side of it the stink part of it When I got into high school I would shower two and three times a day because I literally thought there was something about me that stank like you know how you believe something like that and then it's like Oh, I do stink it.

And I would constantly try and battle through that later. As I started being a student of the works I do today and moving into that, I start realizing first and foremost, there wasn't a stench about me. Burnout, exhaustion, fatigue led me to the point I couldn't keep doing all of those things. And that was like 12, 15 years later of living like that every day that my friends used to say, man, you burned the candles at all ends.

I don't know how you do it. You know, well, I would end up using alcohol. And abusing that is the offset. And in doing so, that put me in a point of having to ask for help there and stuff, but it got me on that track with all the other stuff I was doing. And later on, I realized we talk about forgiveness and things like that, but what I realized, It's my mom and dad were so stressed and so tired and so beat up of living that life.

They didn't have these tools readily available for them back then that there are now, which is part of the passion that I have in doing the works I do because I don't ever want to see people have to spend their life like my parents did for decades, you know, in that mode. So what I realized is I wasn't lazy and I didn't stink.

All that was happening really is my mom was so stressed and anxiety ridden and she's on medication and everything else was that she just vented at this poor little eight year old child that was never about me. I wasn't supposed to take that on as I started shifting that. And that's one of the things I help people do today is shift those perceptions of those things where we take it on as our story.

You

know, without even knowing your full story, the thing with the food and things like that with the, you know, the parents, it was never about you, but just as little kids, we don't know that. So we take that on about being about us. We take on the beliefs of other people that if, if, if something doesn't go the way we planned it to go, then we are a failure.

Right. And all it is, is something we experience is failure. And we can never get to that level of where we want to get to without experiencing those failures. Of course. There's a lot of clients who are just. Gone home on this business, but they will not take a single step into it because of something that happened.

And one of my clients, he had a car wash, he didn't really check it out. It seemed like a good location, everything else. So he bought it, invested into it, got it, you know, fixed up whatever he did to it. So it's like, and it didn't work out. I mean, he, it was in an area where there wasn't really enough traffic looking for that kind of a car wash, you know?

And so the whole thing, he ended up closing it and doing everything you do in that mode and stuff. I'm talking to him. 18, 18, 20 years later, and he's got this great business idea that he's had for four or five years and he's never taken a step into it and he couldn't figure out why. And so when we started working together, it went back to that carwash.

And so what we did is looked at that carwash as far as what did that teach you? What did that experience teach you? Cause it's never a failure. It's a life lesson. And he learned that he really needs to check into what he's doing and not just jump in. You know, feet first into it and things like that. And now the guy's a multimillionaire doing the wholesaling of property and different things he does and stuff like that because of shifting the perceptions on that.

Yeah. Sometimes we learn the wrong lesson. That's what comes to the top, right? Instead of paying attention.

Beautifully said, beautifully said.

Well, that's because I've I've done that many times.

I'd love to say I read that. And yeah, I mean, it's the experience, right? The experience that we've gone through leads to, like, we've been talking about what we do, what we think, and it's like, you know, um. It's just, it just ingrains. And I, I wish I had understood it before that. I have a choice instead of it's, it's my lot in life and I'm on this track and I can't ever get out of the rut.

The only thing I swore Joey, um, you know, as I got older, because I came from a childhood of trauma and abuse and. A bad situation, right? I said, I would never be like my parents, Joey. I ended up being a Xerox copy, you know, just like a clone of my parents in what they had told me, what they had imparted, how they behaved, everything like that.

I've seen that in the men I coach. I'm assuming you're nodding pretty, pretty, uh, you know, confidently there as well. Is that something you see as well is like, if we don't. Say this is what I want and we're working from a position of, this is what I don't want that we continue repeating what we say we don't want.

And we miss the mark on what we do actually desire,

unless we do something. I remember at nine years old, I told you struggle, you know, blue collar and stuff like that. I remember at nine years old, I went to a friend of mine's house and spent the weekend and his dad gave us 20. And he goes, why do you guys take your bikes?

Go up to Dairy Queens within a mile from where they live. And, and I, I was like baffled. Cause in my family, we had to save up to go to Dairy Queen, you know, it wasn't something where you just pull 20 out of your pocket and hand it over and stuff. And um, and, and I remember as a nine year old little kid going, when I went back home, I was like, man, this isn't right.

Even the energy in the house felt different at my friend Eddie's house than it did mine, you know? And, and, and I was like, man, this, this isn't right. And I was back home and I was like, man, I am, I don't know what you guys are doing, but I'm not going to live like you people. And I swore to myself as a nine year old kid.

And then I found myself in my twenties struggling financially, no matter how much money and businesses and revenue and everything else I had coming in. I found myself struggling in the same things with go, go, go 150 miles an hour. I found myself, I told you, I, I, you know, if something came easy to me or I didn't exhaust myself getting it, I thought I didn't deserve it or I didn't earn it, you know?

And so, yeah, those patterns will continue to play over. And unless we do something to interrupt that and shift that and change it. And I will tell you one thing in the works that i've done my son who's 27 years old now He didn't have to experience a lot of those things that I experienced I didn't do it for him The reason I did what I did and throughout my life and be a continuous student of this works Is because I so I was so miserable mike.

I didn't want to be alive. I didn't want to live anymore

Well, if you look at the statistics, Joey, I mean, the guys, we are lower than the women as far as depression. That doesn't mean we don't get depressed. We just don't go talk about it. We don't feel like we have a space to talk about it. Nobody will listen. Nobody will care. So instead, when you look at, you know, unaliving, we are four times higher, Joey, because we feel isolated and alone and we don't have that worth and we don't know what other options there, there are.

Oftentimes because we feel like, You know, I could be sitting here with my struggles and looking at you outside of this conversation, Joey, and just going, Joey's got it all together. The man is amazing. I wish I had his life and thinking I'm the only one struggling in the same breath. You're like, yeah, absolutely

worse than everyone else, you know?

And even with that, I mean, thank God when you see kids growing up today, I mean, you know, we're somewhat close in age, you know, we grew up when you're supposed to be John frickin Wayne. But you know, I tell people and I, when I talk to guys, I tell him he wasn't even John Wayne unless they had a camera on him.

That's not who he was, but we tried to mock that, you know, we're, we're raised with, with, you know, when boys were told that if you want to cry, I'll give you a reason to cry. You know, it wasn't

my gosh. Yeah, I did too. Oh my gosh, Joey.

Right now today. Kids are growing up and it's more okay for that than it's ever been and stuff.

So it is changing and stuff, but yeah, that, that whole side of thing. And that's the reason why, you know, like I, I've done groups. I had a group solely for men called struggle to soar. And it was for men who had gone through, and the reason I was doing that is because bring men together, you know, with it, but who had gone through divorce, you know, I still offer it now more of a one on one though.

Who had gone through divorce or they, you know, one of the people they got let go from a position because the company decided that they're going to bring cheaper labor or like all the many reasons why those things happen, you know, and they went through a major thing like that. They lost a spouse due to death or something.

And so it was to bring that together and really use that struggle. As a launching pad to soar into a life at impact and so beyond what they could have had without that struggle, I would not get, I get very few men that would be interested in it when I flipped it and offered it to women, I started filling up with people.

Because it was, it's more okay, people are aging and it's more okay for women. It's more okay for them to reach out and ask for help than it is. Men were conditioned that we got to figure it out and we got to know what to do. And if you listen to a lot of what I call. Not great coaching programs out there.

They talk about how, if you want something, you got to take massive actions. You got to be willing to trade off your life. You got that, you know, that, that, that thing with my son and his first birthday, that was the biggest trade off I've made in my life. And I will not do that anymore. I believe you, I can have the life I want and I don't have to trade off important things to have that life.

And because I first believed it, Mike. I can walk and experience that today.

Well, and let's, let's kind of jump back a little bit. I want to break this into two questions, Joey. One is how did you start down this path? Because I think it's important to understand you didn't just wake up one day. I'm Joey.

I'm at this place and oh my gosh, everything's transformed. It's like you're going through a learning and a growth process and, and detaching from previous beliefs. And then after we talk about that. I'd love to know, like, Hey, you're in a different place, Joey. I mean, we can look back and there's no, no question about that.

How do you continue to grow? Like where you're at today for the next year, five years. How are you setting yourself up for that?

Yeah, I, I, you know, for me, it goes back to that. Like I said, that nine year old child who saw that difference. And I think that was an indicator without me even knowing it that life doesn't have to be this way.

And I'm telling you, in my twenties, everything was such a hard struggle, you know, and, and, and

I heard a gentleman speak. His name was Jack Bolin up in Warren, Michigan. And I don't remember what he said, Mike, but I remember the impact it had on me. It just lit this thing up inside of me that I hadn't experienced prior that I wanted to speak. I wanted to spend my life inspiring, motivating, and leading people to live better lives.

That's what was the start charge for it. But yet I'm living the way I'm living. And so at that moment is how I became a student of the works that I do today. I've been a Guinea pig for everything that I coach people on. I've been, I've really have been like, I was, I was the Guinea pig for, you know, or, or the, the lab rat, you know, for it and stuff.

And, and as I started evolving and changing and things like that, which have been from time I was 22, it's been like, 37 years, 37 years of continuous working through that going into corporate America that I never wanted to be at and stuff and building a career up to a vice president of sales, building massive territories, helping companies in bankruptcy, get back to profitability.

Like all those things I did, they're not things I wanted to do today. I'm grateful for all of that. Today, I'm grateful for everything I've experienced because it's brought me to this moment right here and right now. And there's been every lesson I've needed to learn has come through one of those or multiple of those avenues.

So I started right away. I started, you know, one of the things that was a big thing, man, I can't, like I can feel the excitement I felt when the secret came out, remember that.

Yes.

And for months, I dove into that, man. I was probably the most positive person that I knew as far as my conscious mind, my thinking and stuff like that, but nothing changed.

And when you get something that big of a thing, like the way that came out and stuff like that, you know, and I had, I had the, the, the, the, the VHS, cause I'm that old. I had, I had a, of the book on it and I had, I found the study guide somewhere along the lines and I was really going through it and I was really applying it to the best of my ability, but nothing changed.

And when you talk about that failure and you talk about, God, there must be something wrong with me. And then I started getting into coaching programs as a student and I started going through them, you know, and I'd find a coach who had a hundred, 150 clients. I was like, man, that's the man right there. And I'd get with them not realizing I'm, I'm a small fish in a huge pond.

And so you don't get the attention. And I didn't get changed from that. And each time I went through something like that. It wasn't just like I'd go through it and go, okay, that didn't work. I'm going to, there was a lot of things that it took me back steps because I thought there was something wrong with me that they talk about all the, what people achieve through this and everything else and stuff like that.

And I, I didn't get those things. And then I ended up taking the coaching program that, that I did get some gain on and what I realized the difference between those two was is the one where I got the gains, they didn't have the ABC roadmap plan. That's going to get me to D they took me from where I was.

And started helping me learn what those shifts were. I need to make and everything. And that's the difference. And what I offer in programs today, every person I take through a program has a unique journey based on their uniqueness, based on their conditioning, based on that person and what their desires are, which is again, unique.

And so that, that was a part of it, but then I still went back into the other, cause I wasn't exactly sure. And so it's been a back and forth and, and I mean, what's taken me decades, my, my clients achieve in weeks now. So that's that part of it. Okay. And, and, and, and how that's kind of flowed and everything else.

And the way I take clients to it right now, and the way I help companies in bankruptcy, back the profitability, it's, it's all the same thing is I start by coming out of the gate. With roadmapping tools to help develop a dynamic vision of what is it that you truly want? Think about that with our conditioning is going to pop up, even as you're trying to define what it is.

You know, when I've worked with, you know, businesses and things like that, I helped a guy who was making 34, 000 a month and he all, and he was using in a line of credit to cover the gap between what his revenues were and what his costs were, you know, and he wanted to get to 50, 000 a month. That's all he wanted to do because then he could.

Chisel away little by little at the line of credit and he could cover his costs and everything.

Within three months, he hit revenue of 250, 000 and within 12 calendar months, we took his business from 300, 000 a year, roughly just over 3 million a year.

Well, let's pause there for a second. So he meets with you. His goal is 50, 000 a month, right? Okay. He's surpassed his vision. He reset his vision as he was going along and it was kind of like, Hey, I'm going to be, if I make 30, 000, 60, 000, I'm going to be rich.

And then it's like, he hits 60, 000. He's like, I still have more in the tank. And he readjusts the vision or like, how did that, uh, Blow it out of the water

and it took a little while, but I actually helped him grow his and again, it's all about conditioning, right? That's what set that 50, 000 and I had to help him identify ship that conditioning to open him up to about 125, 000.

So

was that before he jumped out of the gates?

His internal vision of, yeah, before, yeah, just in developing the vision, he was able, we were able to expand that 50, 000 potential for him to 125, 000. And then when we went forward, I kept talking to him about how, how much you think we can surpass this. And it's just, it's building that with somebody, that possibility, you know, and one of the great things I love about coaching is if you and I are working together.

I get to believe for you bigger than you can believe for yourself, which that helps you to expand beyond that when he hit two 50. So now we get to 3, 000, 000 over 3, 000, 000, right? He's off. He's doing a, he's rolling. He came back to me last fall. And he goes, I'm frustrated. And I go, why? He goes, I don't, cause I want to get to 5 million.

And it's just, and I go, and I started laughing and I go, you were struggling to get beyond, you know what I mean? You're struggling there. Look at how much your life has changed. And I understand it's because it's a human condition. Once we get the peak, we want the next peak. And that's. That that's great that we're like that and driven and everything else.

That's what, you know, that's what leads to more impact in the world when we were like that. So that's awesome. But I just had to laugh at that a little bit. Like you're at this level. You never thought you would have even been there and you're there now. And now it was great that now you're looking up here.

And you're seeing how now this is possible and now we're working together and bringing that about

what's funny about that story is it's like, even when we're sitting there going, I can't imagine anything bigger than this. This is my dream is we're still playing small, just just like how we're playing small life.

Our dreams are following the same pattern of playing small unless we've got somebody else to help us. Like, Elevate and see beyond what our limiting beliefs are still playing in subconsciously in our, in our dreams and our, in our, you know, desire to get to that. I'm just like, Joey, oh my gosh. So, so the second part of that, what do you do at this point?

Cause Joey, you're in a totally different place from having two packs of shirts in your closet to like, Now where you're at totally different, right? The, that insecurity, that fear, that kind of a comfort blanket, right? You've cut those ties. Now you're in a different place. How are you continuing to in your day to day look forward and go, Hey, this is still stuff that's holding me back.

And this is, this is what I want and casting that bigger vision.

that seems to be unfolding in: 2024

So now that that impact can spread and broaden. and go beyond my lifetime into the works that I brought to this world. And that's a huge, I mean that, God, that just. It's just such a, like this, you know, sometimes I'll think, man, this kid from Detroit, from this struggling family, that's like this, that's who I am today.

You know what I mean? Like that came from there and stuff and get to do that. So that's, that's like a huge thing is, is the Institute and, and, and, and I work with a coach, Mike, I do, because even now in, in doing that side of things, I know I'm going to bump into things that I'm going to. You know, that, that, that are going to cause me to, you know, like procrastinate even on doing it, cause I haven't done it before.

It's like, man, there's that, what if you do it wrong or what if this, or what if that, you know? And so, so I have somebody that's not, they're not telling me the steps to take and stuff like that. Nor do I tell clients that what I help them do is open up that avenue for the steps that feel good to them.

And then we take those steps. Developing systems of accelerating habits that lead to greater results. Like all of that stuff is built in there, but yeah, that's, it just keeps going. You know, The other things I do is, I think it was last year, is I've taken seven runs off of a 2, 000 foot mountaintop with me and a hang glider because I thought I was afraid of heights.

What I realized is I'm afraid of falling and I was willing to give, and this is exactly how all this stuff works. Is we build this dynamic vision. I've always, if you look at my tattoos or Eagles, you know, I love Eagles. I've always liked a lot of immense respect for them and things like that stuff. And I, um, I've always had that inner desire.

Like I want to soar like an Eagles do. Like I want to soar in all areas of my life. And so. Every person I work with in developing that dynamic vision, we build that vision big enough and exciting enough that it minimize the fear of doing it. So running off that mountain top the first time when I stood there and they gave me the all clear and I had four steps and I'm.

of being out there and being: 2000

And most times. When we experience what it is we're going for, what, what, what that vision is, it's beyond what we even think it's going to be, but building the excitement big enough. So those four steps put me in the air, it minimizes the fear enough to allow me to step into it.

I'm not there on the hang glider yet Joey.

I'm like, cold plunge. This, this is funny because you talk about getting over your fear through hang gliding growing up. In the duplex, we were in my parents. My mom was paranoid schizophrenic. We found out decades later. Um, she did not want the landlord to come in and repair the hot water heater. So, Joey, I grew up taking cold showers or, you know, warming water up in the sink and taking hot water.

You know, uh, like a sponge bath. Right. So you can imagine for me, I'm not, because of that experience, even as a teen, I was not keen on taking cold showers. Joey, it was funny. I could jump in a cold plunge easier than I could get in a cold shower at the same temp. And. A cold shower. I mean, your body is not covered by the cold water.

The cold plunge is pulling the heat off faster, but it was still easier because of that mental recall to that experience. And I'm just like, I'm not at the hang gliding part yet. Joey, when I am, I will call you. You can be on the cliff and, you know, Cheer me on as I jump and go, what am I doing, Joey? Um,

but you're right.

And that's not for everyone, but there are ways of stepping through our fears and fear is fear is probably the, the single most blocked living the life we want to live, even people who want to, you know, increase their business. You know, one of the things I run into a lot, so I told you about the one business I'll tell you, there was a realtor.

I worked with that 13 years in real estate or highest income year, 7. 5 million in sales. When we met, she was so busy. Her business was spiraling downward and she was so busy. She said, I don't think I even have time for a call every week. And so we ended up in there. That's even more so tells me then, then you really need this.

It's, you know, and, and so, so we did end up working together within 12 calendar months, her business went from a high of 13 years to 7. 5 million, where she was at almost toppling over 23 Now that's wild, right Mike?

Yeah, three times as much. That's amazing.

In that 12 calendar months was the only year of her adult life.

that she took five weeks of vacation within that same year. One of them was a two week trip to Israel that had been on our bucket list for decades.

So she starts out not knowing if she has enough time, maybe an hour, I'm assuming to meet with you. And then she's by the within 12 months, Joey, she's taking off five weeks.

That is a full,

yes. And she has maintained her business level. Over the last five years now, six years now, she's been up in that 20, you know, that 20, she's recognized every year is, is, is a leader at their, at their brokerage and everything else and stuff. Now, when I tell people that, Mike, they go, that's BS, that's unrealistic.

So it's BS. We all have unrealistic desires for our life, but we put them through the logical mind. And if it doesn't make sense to logic, then we just consider it BS and not possible for us. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm a high C on disc. I'm a, I'm a logical person. I'm, I'm, I'm an, I'm an it guy. Yeah. I mean, that was where like Joey, I was sleeping four hours a night because I was finding my worth by being needed, totally unhealthy.

Now I'm working to reclaim my health. But so when you have it all up in your head. And you're logically processing it, how do you move it from the head to like the heart or, or where does it need to go? Is it some, someplace other than the heart?

And it's so cool the way this works and the way it's set up.

Like, I almost feel like God worked through me to put this SMT method together, Mike, seriously, because even as we're developing the vision. The gentleman who wanted to get to 50, 000, it took shifting some of that conditioning patterns, beliefs, all that stuff on his side to allow him to believe bigger. So even right from the start, we started expanding that and opening that up.

And then once we get that vision, most of my clients I've worked with almost a thousand clients now over the past decade, most of them will tell you they exceeded what their vision was. And it's because when we start opening that up, when we have the goal set with this dynamic vision, we build the excitement around that all of a sudden it starts putting, helping us to go through our fears easier rather than them holding us up.

We go through the fears easier, which starts reducing those. We start building some successes. Into bringing that vision to fruition and it just opens a doorway for truly for people to literally launch their life.

That's amazing. Well, Joey, let's finish it up here really quick. If you were gonna say like, hey, these are two to three books or two to three resources that have been insurmountable, super valuable.

To you, what would you, you know, be rest listing out? Like, what would you recommend,

man, if I panned around my room here and you saw the books I have and I got a home library and stuff, but one of the ones that really changed things for me was Joseph Murphy, the unconscious law, because that opened up that connection piece.

When I understood there's things going on below the surface here. That I can't control, I can't control those thoughts that go through my head, tell me why I can't, why I'm not enough, why this, why that, why it has to be reasonable, you know, I was saying about unrealistic, you know, desires, but we want to go about it based on reason and things like that.

And that kind of helped me put, I'd already had a lot of the other pieces, but that helped me kind of put that link together with it and stuff. So that would be, that's one of my big books, um, you know, that. Refer to, but I mean, God, there's so many different ones, uh, spiritual dynamics, um, uh, becoming supernatural by Joe Dispenza.

I mean, there's just so many of them and stuff, but I mean, now here's the thing that though with a book, and this is the thing I found with books, like I did some of my early coaching

is it's great knowledge builder. But there's not a lot of application in them. So it was almost like I needed somebody to help me say, okay, this makes sense. But some, for some reason, I'm not able to, how do I apply it? That's where like the coaching really, really made a big difference for me. And as I did that, I could read almost anything.

I mean, the four agreements. And get a lot out of it, you know, with, when, when I have somebody helping me see my side and things like that with it and stuff.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely different. Having somebody help you see your blind spots and helping you see where there's opportunities and how to apply it.

Completely agree. Well, Joey. Dude, I got to say, thank you, man. This has been absolutely amazing. You and I were coming into this one backwards. So, I mean, we just started out of the gates talking. Um, I, I, I've not had that happen before, so I appreciate it, Joey. It gives me an opportunity to stretch and be flexible, dude, Joey.

It, it has been amazing just to see coming from Detroit, holding on to, you know, two packs of t shirts for that security. Um, you know, Looking and saying, Hey, I missed my son's first birthday because of these beliefs. But then being awake to pick up on those things that for so many of us, Joey, we end up 30 years down the road and aren't having that epiphany, that light bulb moment.

And so I love the awareness that you've had and then you've taken action to bring about that change. And uh, Joey, I just really appreciate, thank you my friend for joining me today and sharing all that you have been. I

feel exactly the same way, Mike, exactly. And, and, and one of the things as you, as I'm learning more about you and we're talking and stuff, and I'm thinking, man, if you really digest what you've done with your life is you broke that link.

Like, even though you said, you know, you find yourself living, you know, the same way and stuff like that, like you've just, you've broken that link to some degree. And that means you've changed every generation that will follow you. By doing that, that's huge. That's huge.

Thank you, Joey. Yeah, that's been my wife's and my heart is because we've both come from that traumatic, unhealthy, you know, upbringing.

Our parents did the best that they could. Don't get me wrong. We came to that understanding that realization, but we also discovered. Um, we couldn't keep blaming them. We were adults. It was our opportunity to take responsibility. And what did we want to set forward? So it's like, our kids are still working through stuff that it's like, man, I'm, I'm not proud of the experiences and what they went through, you know, but I'm proud of the fact that I did wake up and I did.

Did give a realization and said, Hey, can I apologize? I, you know, I took responsibility. I asked forgiveness and thank God they were open to reconciliation. Right. And we've worked to restore stuff, Joey. I thought I was going to be in a studio apartment, totally dark in a chair, isolated, alone, watching TV.

That was my. Path in life and to now be where I have three grandchildren, I'm involved in their life. My wife and I are empty nesters. You know, we're the second half of life is the best. You know, stage of life that we've gone through and I'm just like, Joey, I didn't ever think I deserved it. Didn't ever think I was going to experience it.

But like you're talking about, man, there's a different legacy and a heritage that because like you've made that shift, we've made that shift. Um, there isn't that same hurt and trauma passed along. That's not the legacy being inherited by our kids.

And one of the huge things you said there, Mike, is, is at some point.

If you don't like the life you're experiencing, it's not any more than it's somebody's fault. It doesn't matter what anybody died. It doesn't matter what your upbringing was, what's in your bank account, where you live, any of none of that matters. All that matters is that you have a desire to change it and that will start driving that change, you know, and things, the right things will show up and everything else and stuff.

So yeah. This is for me. This is the first time. This is the first time I've ever done a pre talk. That's been the interview. But this is like, this is incredible. Like we couldn't have planned this, Mike. You know, the last thing too, I'll just add to this. If anybody wants to talk about this more, anybody can reach out to me at coach with joey.

com and schedule a brief call with me, access my personal calendar, and we'll get on the phone and chat about this stuff. Like it's all about helping others is how I continue to grow in my life.

Perfect. You knew exactly where I was going, Joey, you're a rockstar brother. Well, Joey, again, thank you, my friend.

And, and we'll do the introduction here in just a minute.

All right. Thank you. Mike, this has been absolutely incredible.