From Hoping for a Better Life to Actively Creating It with Brian McAlister

Mike Forrester: 00:00:02

Well, hello and welcome back, my friend.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:04

Man, today I'm joined by Brian McAlister and Brian has just an amazing story of

Mike Forrester: 00:00:11

transformation showing us that where we're at is not where we're stuck.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:17

That's not what we're relegated to.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:20

Instead, you're going to hear from Brian's story that he went from

Mike Forrester: 00:00:22

addiction to transformation, helping other people to find the freedom that

Mike Forrester: 00:00:26

he's experiencing in his own life.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:29

So that is available to each of us.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:31

And I hope from Brian's story today that you're going to see that.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:34

Hey, yeah, that path is there for you as well, and it's a matter of plugging

Mike Forrester: 00:00:39

in, taking that step and not giving up.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:42

Brian's got resiliency in a story, finding self worth, his identity and,

Mike Forrester: 00:00:47

and obviously his purpose, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:00:50

Because he's investing in other people at this point now that he has found that

Mike Forrester: 00:00:55

healthy path and the practice for himself.

Mike Forrester: 00:00:58

So Brian, how are you doing today?

Mike Forrester: 00:01:00

My friend?

Brian McAlister: 00:01:00

I'm doing excellent.

Brian McAlister: 00:01:02

Excellent.

Brian McAlister: 00:01:02

Thanks for having me on Mike.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:04

Absolutely.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:05

It's a pleasure.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:06

And I'm just from our, our conversation that we've had before.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:09

And you and I see a lot of the similarities and, and love giving

Mike Forrester: 00:01:15

to encourage others that it's like, you know, You're not stuck

Mike Forrester: 00:01:19

and that there is more out there.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:21

It's a matter of putting in the work and that, you know, continuing that work.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:25

Right.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:26

So I appreciate it, my friend.

Mike Forrester: 00:01:29

Let's, let's jump in and start on like, what does life look like for you today

Mike Forrester: 00:01:33

on the professional side of things?

Brian McAlister: 00:01:36

Uh, professionally, I'm the CEO of, uh, uh, of a, uh,

Brian McAlister: 00:01:41

Software company that develops mental health software for people with trauma,

Brian McAlister: 00:01:47

anxiety, PTSD, and substance use disorder.

Brian McAlister: 00:01:52

I'm the founder and CEO of the Full Recovery Wellness Center, which was, uh, I

Brian McAlister: 00:01:58

closed it maybe, Maybe six months ago, it was open for about 15 years and it was a

Brian McAlister: 00:02:06

licensed treatment facility in New Jersey.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:09

And they really dealt mostly with, uh, first responders.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:13

There's a lot of first responders, you know, they get injured on the job, they

Brian McAlister: 00:02:16

get exposed to medication and things like that, and they wind up with the

Brian McAlister: 00:02:20

same problems as everybody else does.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:22

Um, and then, uh, prior to that, I was the, uh, leader of, of, of, uh,

Brian McAlister: 00:02:27

One of the top people in a fortune, not 100 fortune 10 company that,

Brian McAlister: 00:02:32

uh, I ran 110 stores for one of the biggest retailers in the country.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:37

I started as a, uh, unloading trucks for them.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:41

And I wound up in that position after a relatively short period of time.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:46

And like right now, my professional life is good.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:48

I have choices, you know, I'm, I'm not dealing with financial scarcity.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:52

I'm not dealing with, uh, personal challenges with my family, with my spouse.

Brian McAlister: 00:02:58

And, um, I'm, I'm, I'm in a good place.

Brian McAlister: 00:03:00

I'm in a good place.

Brian McAlister: 00:03:01

And my whole goal is to, uh, To give back and show people how, how I pulled

Brian McAlister: 00:03:06

it off, how a guy like me was, if I can do it, anybody can do it just takes

Brian McAlister: 00:03:10

time, effort, plan, action, and the work, you said it in the beginning.

Brian McAlister: 00:03:14

A lot of hard work.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:16

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:17

It's that hard work and like a cumulative amount of hard work.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:21

I mean, I, at this point, Brian, I'm like, , we're, we're still, you know, in process.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:28

Yep.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:28

And, uh, still making end roads, you know.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:32

It's almost like things unfold as more and more work, you

Mike Forrester: 00:03:36

know, that that is put into it.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:38

New things surface that I couldn't see before.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:41

Um, and so it's like those layers are always there to be worked on.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:46

But man, the benefits from the work, um, do this.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:49

It's just unbelievable.

Mike Forrester: 00:03:51

And I can't imagine going back and I'm sure that's the same for you, Brian.

Brian McAlister: 00:03:55

No, you know, and what's lucky is I have, I look at it like I

Brian McAlister: 00:03:58

have two lives for the price of one.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:00

I know that whole dark side of myself.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:02

I know the whole struggle, the, the feeling less than the, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:04:07

the limited vision of the future.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:09

And I know this side, you know, so I, I know I feel that's a blessing.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:13

So now we'll add hard living.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:15

I did, I could put to good use.

Mike Forrester: 00:04:17

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:04:18

exactly.

Mike Forrester: 00:04:19

All the, all the knocks that we got on the way, uh, to where we are now,

Mike Forrester: 00:04:23

. Brian McAlister: Exactly.

Mike Forrester: 00:04:25

Well, let's jump over to the personal side.

Mike Forrester: 00:04:27

What does life look like personally?

Brian McAlister: 00:04:30

Um, personally, I'm, I'm married to the same woman

Brian McAlister: 00:04:34

for 47 years, you know, like, uh, she's the love of my life.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:38

Uh, we got married.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:39

Teenagers and, uh, you know, we took off.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:42

I told her when I married her, I was going to take her on

Brian McAlister: 00:04:44

the adventure of a lifetime.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:46

I guarantee I filled that bill.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:48

You know, we, uh, we lived all over the country.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:51

We jumped out of Harley and took off.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:53

You know, we lived that type of lifestyle, lived in a tent.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:56

Camped out and all that.

Brian McAlister: 00:04:57

And, you know, she's the love of my life and I'm, I'm blessed.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:00

I have a son who, uh, lives in Manhattan.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:03

He's, uh, runs his own business.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:05

You know, he's doing very well for himself.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:08

Uh, my personal life is I, I do still belong to a 12 step program, which is,

Brian McAlister: 00:05:14

uh, something that keeps me grounded and allows me to, to, uh, contribute

Brian McAlister: 00:05:19

beyond business, contributing beyond, uh, the things I do for a living.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:23

And it involves really just giving back.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:27

If somebody wasn't there when I crawled into the 12 step rooms way

Brian McAlister: 00:05:31

back when I wouldn't be sitting here.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:33

So I, I owe, I owe a debt.

Brian McAlister: 00:05:34

I can never repay.

Mike Forrester: 00:05:37

Yeah, I think it's keeping that perspective and not losing

Mike Forrester: 00:05:41

sight of like our origins kind of keeps us humble, but also gives us like that,

Mike Forrester: 00:05:48

resiliency and perspective, right.

Mike Forrester: 00:05:50

To continue on without, um, you know, sliding back into.

Mike Forrester: 00:05:56

Old habits, old beliefs, and, uh, getting back into those ruts that,

Mike Forrester: 00:06:02

that were comfortable at one time.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:03

And they're there.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:04

You know, I've been, I've been, uh, away from drugs and alcohol for 33 years.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:09

I'm sober.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:10

August 2nd, if I don't get high and I don't die, I'll have 34 years

Brian McAlister: 00:06:15

and, uh, you know, life happens.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:18

I mean, I've lost all types of people.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:20

My dad's got severe dementia.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:22

He's 91 years old.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:24

You know, so like all these things happen, but the thing is, because I got better,

Brian McAlister: 00:06:29

I'm able to deal with them, you know, I'm able to deal with life on life's

Brian McAlister: 00:06:32

terms and that's really the gift, you know, and everybody can get this gift.

Brian McAlister: 00:06:36

It's out there.

Mike Forrester: 00:06:39

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:06:39

And that is such like a powerful perspective, Brian, like.

Mike Forrester: 00:06:45

I look at things that are going on right now and have for like the last five years

Mike Forrester: 00:06:49

with, you know, parents and, and family.

Mike Forrester: 00:06:52

And just like you're talking about dementia with your dad, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:06:55

Man, Brian, before I would have run for the hills.

Mike Forrester: 00:06:58

I would have medicated.

Mike Forrester: 00:07:00

I would have.

Mike Forrester: 00:07:02

Avoided or just tried to act ignorant of the whole situation to cope with it.

Mike Forrester: 00:07:08

Whereas now it's like I can walk through it.

Mike Forrester: 00:07:12

I can address it and help being part of the solution to the situation

Mike Forrester: 00:07:17

instead of Almost adding like napalm.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:21

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:21

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:21

Like it's where NATO going through everybody's life, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:07:25

Bouncing off the bumpers of life.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:26

That's kind of what I did for many years.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:29

And, uh, you know, it, it, it is really true.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:31

I'm sure you heard that acronym for fear, you know, false evidence appears real.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:37

You know, I like the one that says face everything and recover, you know, so

Brian McAlister: 00:07:40

you stand up, you man up, you do the right thing, you take the right action.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:45

And when you do, that's all you can do.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:47

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:07:48

You know, you can't, you know, I, I can't change life or everybody

Brian McAlister: 00:07:52

around me, but I can't change how I react to all these situations, you

Brian McAlister: 00:07:57

know, and I'd rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:02

A hundred percent.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:03

And I think it was almost like you're talking about not being

Mike Forrester: 00:08:06

able to change people around you.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:08

And I think that was like an excuse or a way out was trying

Mike Forrester: 00:08:12

to change the people around me.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:15

And making my changes contingent upon their changes.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:18

Like when my wife does this, then I'll do that.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:24

No surprise that stuff never happened.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:28

So I never changed.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:29

And it wasn't until I took that responsibility that then

Mike Forrester: 00:08:32

things began to change for me.

Mike Forrester: 00:08:34

It was, is that something like you've experienced and seen as well?

Brian McAlister: 00:08:37

And you know, like if I, you know, if I have enough money, you

Brian McAlister: 00:08:41

know, if I have enough, you know, uh, success, if I have whatever, whatever

Brian McAlister: 00:08:45

I was looking for in the future, you know, people are always hoping life

Brian McAlister: 00:08:48

will get better, but most people aren't living the life they're hoping for.

Brian McAlister: 00:08:51

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:08:52

You've got to take action, intelligent, daily, constructive action.

Brian McAlister: 00:08:57

Like for me, you know, I realized once I put the plug in the jug and

Brian McAlister: 00:09:01

stopped doing drugs and all these other things that my life was a mess.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:05

I had spent two decades, uh, literally tearing it up.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:08

And, you know, I decided then that, you know, I'm an adult.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:12

I can have, I used to blame my family.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:14

There was a lot of alcoholism and a lot of different things in my, in my

Brian McAlister: 00:09:18

past that, uh, you know, I, I could use as excuses as to why I had not

Brian McAlister: 00:09:22

been successful up to that point.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:25

I didn't have an education.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:26

I didn't go to college, you know, and I, I just had to throw that stuff away.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:30

I realized I'm a man, I'm an adult.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:33

I can choose how I want to respond to life.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:35

I can choose what I want to do and take daily action.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:39

It's just daily steps.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:41

To get to where I want to be consistent, but, you know, I also had to ask myself

Brian McAlister: 00:09:45

better questions, you know, like, instead of like, why is this happening to me?

Brian McAlister: 00:09:49

How come I never get a break?

Brian McAlister: 00:09:50

All those weak minded questions.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:52

I used to live on and, and, and justify, you know, today

Brian McAlister: 00:09:56

I ask myself better questions.

Brian McAlister: 00:09:58

Like instead of someday I'll fall in love, someday I'll have more money.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:01

So today is someday.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:03

You know, what am I waiting for?

Brian McAlister: 00:10:04

Yeah, this, this isn't a dress rehearsal.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:07

This is the one life I get.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:08

So I had to make some decisions and take responsibility from that, uh,

Brian McAlister: 00:10:13

grew an incredible life and, and the thing is, it didn't happen overnight.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:17

It happened over an extended period of time, uh, making

Brian McAlister: 00:10:21

adjustments along the way.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:23

And, uh, it's really been, been exciting.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:25

One thing I did have though, I did have the ability to take action.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:30

A lot of people get stuck in the fear.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:32

Like a lot of times procrastination is really masking fear.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:35

You know, they're not moving forward because deep down somewhere hidden

Brian McAlister: 00:10:39

in their psyche, they're, they're afraid that they're not going to

Brian McAlister: 00:10:41

be able to pull it off, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:10:43

So I started looking at things like, uh, Like the scientist looks at an

Brian McAlister: 00:10:47

experiment, I'm just getting a result.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:49

Either I'm getting the result I want, or I'm getting another result.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:53

But if I learn something, how can I look at it?

Brian McAlister: 00:10:55

Like I was a failure.

Brian McAlister: 00:10:56

And if I looked at things that I wasn't a failure, it

Brian McAlister: 00:10:59

encouraged me to take more action.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:01

So like just little, little things like that, the way I looked at life

Brian McAlister: 00:11:04

really made a major, major difference.

Mike Forrester: 00:11:08

Do you think like we all have the ability to take action or

Mike Forrester: 00:11:12

most like the permission to take action, but we're just making the wrong choice

Mike Forrester: 00:11:17

or the repeated choice that we've made in the past that still gives us the

Mike Forrester: 00:11:21

same unhealthy or undesired results.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:25

I, I do, you know, and I'll, I'll, I'll go with this.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:28

Like I'm, I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, you know, so that, that was

Brian McAlister: 00:11:32

my MO when things were good, I ran to that when things were bad, I ran to that.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:37

That was my excuse.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:38

And I used that as an excuse why I had not been able to really have a quality

Brian McAlister: 00:11:42

life, you know, up to that point.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:45

And, you know, for me.

Brian McAlister: 00:11:47

The same skillset that I used to keep myself down, the same skillset that I

Brian McAlister: 00:11:53

used to drive myself into the gutter when repurposed is what pushed me up to the

Brian McAlister: 00:11:58

mountaintop and I'll give you an example.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:00

When I wanted drugs, I knew what commitment was.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:03

I risked my health, my life, my family, my money, my freedom, anything, and

Brian McAlister: 00:12:07

I was going to get what I wanted.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:09

That is really, uh, a commitment that most people cannot muster, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:12:14

So I took that skillset and I combined it with the moral and ethical standards

Brian McAlister: 00:12:19

needed to stay alcohol and drug free.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:23

And I made a decision.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:24

I wrote out what my dreams were, what my goals were, what, what I wanted to have

Brian McAlister: 00:12:28

to do, to own, to be in life, you know, and, and then rather than this, Every

Brian McAlister: 00:12:35

time I said, how am I gonna do this?

Brian McAlister: 00:12:36

I have no education, I would get depressed.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:39

So instead, I gave myself reasons why I was gonna do it.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:42

'cause I owed it to my, my family for the crappy life I had given them.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:46

Because I didn't wanna drop dead, not fulfill my purpose.

Brian McAlister: 00:12:49

I just made a long list of stuff and the reasons why gave me the stamina

Brian McAlister: 00:12:54

to keep pushing forward when, when things got tough, because I'm gonna

Brian McAlister: 00:12:57

tell everybody, they will get tough.

Brian McAlister: 00:13:00

But it's certainly worth it.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:01

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:03

Now, when you've come from a place of, you know, like low self worth,

Mike Forrester: 00:13:08

the doubt, everything like negative.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:12

That your perspective and view is, is in that same vein, how do

Mike Forrester: 00:13:18

you step into dreaming, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:13:20

If somebody came up to you and said, Brian, this is where my

Mike Forrester: 00:13:25

life is at, you know, I don't know how I'm going to change.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:28

You talked about, you know, having, having that dream, that vision to kind of carry

Mike Forrester: 00:13:33

you through the challenge and the struggle that you faced and keep you on track.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:38

How do you help somebody to be able to dream when.

Mike Forrester: 00:13:42

They haven't dreamt in a while and those dreams have been just kind of cast aside

Mike Forrester: 00:13:48

by the experiences and the, the addiction, the life that has been lived, so to speak.

Brian McAlister: 00:13:55

Well, you know, first thing is you have to make a decision

Brian McAlister: 00:13:58

and not a promise, not a meandering.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:01

Oh yeah, I'd like to, it's gotta be decision.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:03

And, you know, the root word.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:05

Of, uh, decision is a Latin word and it means to cut away.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:10

I had a cut away from my past.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:12

100 percent half measures get you nothing.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:15

You know, I had to be all in, like I said, if I needed to cop and I needed

Brian McAlister: 00:14:19

something like that, I was all in, you know, I took that same deal and, and

Brian McAlister: 00:14:23

I, I decided, and I made my, my dreams and my goal big enough to be inspiring.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:28

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:14:29

Like, I know there was steps along the way that had to, to take place,

Brian McAlister: 00:14:33

but I, you know, getting a job, making minimum wage certainly wasn't

Brian McAlister: 00:14:37

going to get my, my juices flowing.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:39

I'll speak for myself again.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:40

I'm an addict.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:40

I like more.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:41

I'm addicted to more, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:14:43

So how can I use it?

Brian McAlister: 00:14:44

So I made some really huge, huge goals, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:14:47

And then, um, I got my, I got that behind me and, you know, I started writing

Brian McAlister: 00:14:51

things out like really simple stuff.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:53

A You know, I, I'll tell you nothing as, as an, as an addict alcoholic.

Brian McAlister: 00:14:59

I thought I was an atheist, you know, I had a lot of bad experiences as, as

Brian McAlister: 00:15:02

a child with, with organized religion.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:05

So, you know, I realized that, you know, there's a spiritual component

Brian McAlister: 00:15:09

to this world we're living in.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:10

And I, I had to, I had to figure out something that works for me.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:14

So when I wrote out my, my affirmations and what I, what I

Brian McAlister: 00:15:17

was going to do to change every day, I put them on my fingertips.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:20

I used the word God.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:22

That's just what I used because I needed to get into the flow.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:25

I needed all the help I could get.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:27

I said, God wants me sober.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:29

God wants me happy.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:31

God wants me abundantly wealthy.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:33

God wants me spiritually fit and God wants me to help others.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:36

Then I go boom.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:37

And that was my, that was my anchor.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:39

And I just got into it over and over, you know, I figure I convinced myself

Brian McAlister: 00:15:43

that ruining my life was, was a party.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:45

I called it partying, you know, and, uh, if I can convince myself of that, I

Brian McAlister: 00:15:50

figured I had to rewrite this software in my head, so I started that simple.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:54

And, uh, that's where, that's where I began.

Brian McAlister: 00:15:57

I got, I got a job working for minimum wage.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:00

Unloading trucks on the dock of a retailer, you know, when I first got

Brian McAlister: 00:16:03

sober, and it's funny, I was there doing this and like, I was raised with a, a

Brian McAlister: 00:16:08

limited view of self, like, you know, if you can get a good, a good job and

Brian McAlister: 00:16:11

hang on to it, you know, you know, maybe a union job or something, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:16:15

don't ever leave, you know, that's it.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:16

I'm thinking like.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:18

You know, I want more than that.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:19

And, uh, and that's what I did.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:21

So I looked around on that dock and I seen guys telling me what hours I was going

Brian McAlister: 00:16:25

to work, how much money I was going to make, how my family was going to live.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:28

I'm thinking I should have these guys in my back pocket.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:31

They're really not that bright, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:16:33

So I started looking at it like that.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:35

And, uh, and I started taking action on a daily basis to see how I can improve

Brian McAlister: 00:16:41

my life and the life of my family.

Mike Forrester: 00:16:43

You took personal action.

Mike Forrester: 00:16:45

You didn't wait to receive something from somebody else, you figured out what you

Mike Forrester: 00:16:49

wanted and then started taking action and took like personal accountability

Mike Forrester: 00:16:54

and responsibility for things, right?

Brian McAlister: 00:16:56

Exactly.

Brian McAlister: 00:16:57

Most people try to undermine somebody in authority or their boss or this, I did

Brian McAlister: 00:17:01

just the opposite, you know, I, I went to the guy who was the lead man on the

Brian McAlister: 00:17:04

dock, you know, and I said, I'm probably sober six months, you know, I said,

Brian McAlister: 00:17:09

you seem to know what's going on here.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:10

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:17:11

I said, how do you get ahead in this company?

Brian McAlister: 00:17:13

And he, he told me, I said, well, I'll make you a deal.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:15

I said, you, you teach me what you know.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:19

I said, and I delegate as much of this work to me as you can.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:23

And then do the same thing with your boss.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:25

And what happened was he started getting promoted as I made him look good.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:29

And then he would pull me up behind him.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:31

And he would get promoted and he pulled me up behind him.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:33

I made a deal with him.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:35

And then he hit the point where he was no longer comfortable,

Brian McAlister: 00:17:38

which happens to a lot of us.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:40

All of a sudden things are going good.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:41

We still start self sabotaging.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:43

I'm capable of that too.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:45

Like I've never been this successful for it.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:47

And I'm doing subconsciously.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:48

I start making decisions that turn people and situations against me.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:53

I'm not really comfortable with all that success.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:55

So this man did that and I went right past him.

Brian McAlister: 00:17:58

You know, I mean, like I said, and I wound up having an incredible career

Brian McAlister: 00:18:01

with this company, which changed my life.

Brian McAlister: 00:18:03

The further up I went, the more people I was exposed to, who can mentor me

Brian McAlister: 00:18:08

and show me things I didn't know.

Brian McAlister: 00:18:09

People who think and act differently than I, people who were already

Brian McAlister: 00:18:14

achieving the results I was trying to get is the easiest way to get there.

Mike Forrester: 00:18:19

So what was different when you look at the, the gentleman that

Mike Forrester: 00:18:22

was your supervisor in the beginning, what's the difference between his journey

Mike Forrester: 00:18:27

and how he was acting versus, you know, like your journey and how you were

Mike Forrester: 00:18:33

acting and thinking, what was different between the two of you that caused you?

Mike Forrester: 00:18:37

Him to, you know, self sabotage and remove himself from the ladder

Mike Forrester: 00:18:42

or the way he was climbing it.

Mike Forrester: 00:18:43

And you kept going

Brian McAlister: 00:18:45

Again, like, you know, we all have experiences we

Brian McAlister: 00:18:47

can draw mine was I'm an addict.

Brian McAlister: 00:18:50

I'm an alcoholic So it's really a disease of you know, too much is never enough.

Brian McAlister: 00:18:55

You know, I It's a disease of more so I use that God given

Brian McAlister: 00:19:00

trait to, to move me forward.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:02

He hit a point where it was enough.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:04

You know, he's working good hours.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:06

He was making decent money.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:07

He didn't want to go too high where he, his responsibilities

Brian McAlister: 00:19:11

were uncomfortable for him.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:13

For me, I, like I told you, I really, I looked at it like I couldn't fail.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:17

I could just get a result.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:18

So as I kept going up the ladder, I started meeting people.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:21

I mean, That were like spectacularly successful billionaires, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:19:25

who own these companies and stuff.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:28

And it's funny because when I, you know, when I left that company, you

Brian McAlister: 00:19:31

know, I, I opened a couple of my own businesses and I became an entrepreneur

Brian McAlister: 00:19:36

because I'd done very well built a beautiful home, all the things.

Brian McAlister: 00:19:39

You know that, you know, I lived in a tent with my wife one time for about

Brian McAlister: 00:19:42

six months, I have wandered into the Salvation Army when I was younger and

Brian McAlister: 00:19:47

had a hot dog, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:19:49

So like I have all these experiences um, and You know, when, when I, I,

Brian McAlister: 00:19:54

I got to the point where my life was looking great and my, my sister

Brian McAlister: 00:19:59

passed away from a drug overdose.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:01

And you know, when that happened, you know, it really made me

Brian McAlister: 00:20:04

step back and look at my life.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:06

Like I got sober, I changed, I changed everything.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:10

An old man told me when I got sober, Brian, you got to change one thing.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:13

I said, what's that?

Brian McAlister: 00:20:14

He said, everything.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:15

He goes, whatever you're thinking, you should probably do just the opposite.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:18

You're pretty screwed up.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:19

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:20:20

So I did that, you know, and it made me reflect on a lot of things.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:23

And that's when, uh, the economy was tanking right after like 2005, 2006.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:29

And you know, like everybody else, I lost a lot of my money

Brian McAlister: 00:20:32

and I didn't drink it away.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:33

I didn't drug it away.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:34

I didn't gamble it away.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:35

I just lost it.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:35

It was the economy tank.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:37

So I didn't have control over that, but I did have control of how I react.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:41

So I took all the experiences, my sister passing.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:45

Uh, all the, the, the heartache in the economy, all the things I saw,

Brian McAlister: 00:20:49

and I started laughing at one and watching the TV, watching my stocks

Brian McAlister: 00:20:52

go like this, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:20:53

Down.

Brian McAlister: 00:20:54

I started laughing, whoever thought I'd have stock, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:20:56

Who, who, whoever thought I'd, I'd all, lend me all this

Brian McAlister: 00:20:59

money, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:00

To buy all these houses and stuff.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:02

So, uh, I decided, you know, what if it was me instead of my

Brian McAlister: 00:21:07

sister who passed away that day?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:09

And what, what, what would I regret taking into eternity that I didn't do?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:13

And I came up with write a book, you know, I came up with telling somebody else how

Brian McAlister: 00:21:18

I pulled this off, how a guy like me, you know, went from, from a biker drug

Brian McAlister: 00:21:24

addict to, you know, uh, a corporate.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:27

You know, success and, uh, and then I, of course, the first thing that popped

Brian McAlister: 00:21:31

in my head is I can't write a book.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:33

You know, I barely get out of high school, you know, like

Brian McAlister: 00:21:35

who, who are you to do that?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:37

Then I realized, you know, who am I not to do that?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:40

Other people have done it.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:42

If other people have accomplished this, why can't I?

Brian McAlister: 00:21:45

And I told you that action thing.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:46

So that day I took an action.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:48

I took a pad and a paper, and I wrote one line on that pad and paper.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:52

From that, Came, uh, my best selling book, Full Recovery, and, you

Brian McAlister: 00:21:57

know, it's amazing how that works.

Brian McAlister: 00:21:59

And, you know, the more people told me, I, you know, you'll let, you

Brian McAlister: 00:22:02

know, it's like when I got sober, you'll be drinking in a week.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:05

Like my friends would tell me like, wrong guy.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:07

I stayed sober out of spite.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:09

You know, I hate to be told.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:10

I can't do something, you know, so the more they told me I wouldn't do good

Brian McAlister: 00:22:13

with the book, the more I pushed it.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:16

From there came a halfway house and there came a treatment

Brian McAlister: 00:22:19

center, licensed facility.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:21

I had a medical facility and all the doctors are working for me.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:24

It's crazy how life works, but the difference with me and the guy who

Brian McAlister: 00:22:28

stopped going up the ladder on, on the shipping dock for that company

Brian McAlister: 00:22:32

was I, I see where life is going.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:35

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:36

I asked the right questions.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:37

Is this something that's that I'm really interested in?

Brian McAlister: 00:22:40

Is this something that motivates me?

Brian McAlister: 00:22:41

Is this something that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning?

Brian McAlister: 00:22:44

And if I come up with the right answers then I start taking action.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:48

And from there, now we have a software company doing mental health software,

Brian McAlister: 00:22:52

you know, so like who the hell knows where life's going to take you.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:55

Don't be afraid.

Brian McAlister: 00:22:56

Don't limit yourself.

Mike Forrester: 00:22:58

So when those thoughts, I mean, Bill, we've all had them where

Mike Forrester: 00:23:03

it's like, I, you know, writing the book.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:06

You looked at it and said, I can't do it because of we've all had

Mike Forrester: 00:23:11

those for different things that have come up opportunities, you

Mike Forrester: 00:23:14

know, a challenge that we're facing.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:16

And it's like, We disqualify ourselves, you know, right out of the gates.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:22

Yep.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:22

What are you doing to strengthen yourself to have that occur less?

Mike Forrester: 00:23:28

Cause you've talked about being intentional about how

Mike Forrester: 00:23:30

you see it and taking action.

Mike Forrester: 00:23:32

Does that stuff in and of itself kind of set you up for success in, um,

Mike Forrester: 00:23:38

not having those, you know, thoughts and beliefs pop up or is there

Mike Forrester: 00:23:44

something else that you do as well?

Brian McAlister: 00:23:46

The world's libraries are just full of mentors

Brian McAlister: 00:23:49

who are more than had success.

Brian McAlister: 00:23:51

You know, always leaves clues on what they did, how they did it.

Brian McAlister: 00:23:55

And, you know, I, I need inspiration.

Brian McAlister: 00:23:57

You know, I, I can do it as much as I can myself, but the idea is I need to pump

Brian McAlister: 00:24:03

good stuff in my head because naturally I go there, I was raised with limitation.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:08

It's very deep in my subconscious, you know, I'm not good enough,

Brian McAlister: 00:24:12

smart enough, talented enough.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:13

You know, I'm an alcoholic, I'm an addict.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:15

You don't have the education.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:16

I can go on and on and on and on.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:18

Before you know it, I'm circling the drain.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:20

I'm going down, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:24:22

And I, I got to interrupt that thinking pattern.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:25

That's why I put those little affirmations on my fingertips just

Brian McAlister: 00:24:28

to interrupt that, you know, I'm sober, I'm happy, I'm wealthy.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:32

I'm, you know, I mean, all these good things.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:33

I want to help other people.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:35

And most of us have average intelligence, you know, like it's just what we do

Brian McAlister: 00:24:40

with that, it's how we react to life's challenges, not, uh, that we can't do it.

Brian McAlister: 00:24:46

I found too, that people will always help you, not always, some people are

Brian McAlister: 00:24:50

rotten, they want to see you stay down, you know, that's the people I avoid,

Brian McAlister: 00:24:53

I jealously guard what I allow in my head, I jealously guard who I associate

Brian McAlister: 00:24:59

with, you know, I want to be around people, if I'm the smartest guy in

Brian McAlister: 00:25:02

the room, I better get another room.

Brian McAlister: 00:25:04

I want people to tell me, tell me what, you know, how did you do it?

Brian McAlister: 00:25:07

And most people when asked sincerely, will, help you.

Brian McAlister: 00:25:11

You look what you're doing, Mike, you know, same thing out there, you

Brian McAlister: 00:25:14

know, like I want to see somebody else have all the joy and abundance that

Brian McAlister: 00:25:18

I've been able to manage in my life.

Mike Forrester: 00:25:20

Yeah, I think passing along that belief that it's available

Mike Forrester: 00:25:23

and possible for somebody else is, is like the biggest first step, right?

Mike Forrester: 00:25:28

Yes.

Mike Forrester: 00:25:28

And in what we're doing, because once that belief is there and we can see

Mike Forrester: 00:25:33

that from, from your journey is you got the belief you held onto it, you took

Mike Forrester: 00:25:38

action and that creates the momentum, uh, to do To continue building the

Mike Forrester: 00:25:43

confidence, the energy, the belief, um, doesn't mean it's going to be perfect,

Mike Forrester: 00:25:48

you know, I think of like the whole thing of progress, not perfection.

Mike Forrester: 00:25:52

We're not, we're not searching for perfection.

Mike Forrester: 00:25:55

We're just looking for improvement along the way.

Mike Forrester: 00:25:59

This is an ongoing journey and the weight of trying to be perfect isn't there.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:05

It's removed because none of us are perfect.

Mike Forrester: 00:26:07

So we're all equally qualified for the journey.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:12

And, you know, like advising me to have Rolling

Brian McAlister: 00:26:14

Stones song, they'll never make a saying to me, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:26:17

That's the way it goes, you know, like be yourself.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:20

Everybody else is taken.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:21

And what I mean by that is, you know, we all have gifts and talents and

Brian McAlister: 00:26:26

abilities that are natural to us.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:28

Things, things that make us feel good about being us.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:32

And that's where you should go like I, I worked with a guy,

Brian McAlister: 00:26:34

uh, when I say work with him, he was a client of mine and he was.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:39

You know, he, he came from a very wealthy background and yeah, I mean, extraordinary

Brian McAlister: 00:26:44

trust fund, big super wealth.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:46

And his father was a self made man, so to speak, who was in the financial arena.

Brian McAlister: 00:26:53

And to the father, everything, anything that didn't really stick

Brian McAlister: 00:26:57

with the financial realm, like you were in a wall street guy, if you

Brian McAlister: 00:27:00

weren't a banker, you were a failure, you had to make lots of money.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:03

So this gentleman, his, his background or his, His, his gifts would,

Brian McAlister: 00:27:11

would, would make him feel good.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:13

He liked sports, he liked writing, he liked, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:27:17

creativity, things like this.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:19

And his father belittled him to the point where he was always going to

Brian McAlister: 00:27:22

be a loser if he went after that.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:25

And he wound up becoming a heroin addict at like 23.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:29

And he was 52 when I met him, I said, you're the longest living heroin addict

Brian McAlister: 00:27:34

in America next to Keith Richards.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:35

You know, you, you got this thing.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:37

So no, you know, but we, we went through the deal and I asked him

Brian McAlister: 00:27:41

like, what would you do for free?

Brian McAlister: 00:27:43

Like, what do you like to do?

Brian McAlister: 00:27:45

Like most of us never asked those questions and you know, he

Brian McAlister: 00:27:48

talked about sports and racing.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:49

Well, I'd like what you do if you knew you couldn't fail.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:53

You know, he says, well, I like to be shortstop on the Yankees.

Brian McAlister: 00:27:55

I said, well, you're 52 year, a heroin addict, and you probably

Brian McAlister: 00:27:58

couldn't play ball when you're a kid, but that gives you a clue.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:01

You like, you like sports.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:03

You like talking about sports.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:04

How can we use that?

Brian McAlister: 00:28:05

You know, what would he, I asked him, he said, well, you know, I

Brian McAlister: 00:28:09

said, well, why sports, uh, you could coach a little league team.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:13

You could be a sports writer.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:15

You could, you know, the, you know, You could sell sports memorabilia,

Brian McAlister: 00:28:20

something that you enjoy doing that makes you feel good about being you.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:23

I read a thing about Kenny Rogers, you know, the musician years ago.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:27

And somebody asked him, you know, your family must've been an interviewer

Brian McAlister: 00:28:30

really surprised at your success.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:31

And he says, no, he goes, well, what do you mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:28:33

He goes, well, when I was a kid talking about what I wanted to

Brian McAlister: 00:28:36

be, when I grow up, my, my mother asked me, what do you want to do?

Brian McAlister: 00:28:39

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:28:40

I said, I don't know.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:40

She goes, what do you enjoy doing?

Brian McAlister: 00:28:42

Well, I enjoy playing guitar and singing.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:44

She says, well, that's what you should do for a living.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:46

You'll never have to work a day in your life.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:49

And I was thinking, boy, how, how much wisdom is that instead of being told

Brian McAlister: 00:28:53

to do something that isn't in you.

Brian McAlister: 00:28:55

We all have gifts, like the software I developed, for example, that all, it's

Brian McAlister: 00:28:59

all about asking the right questions.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:01

Everybody's answers are different, but it gets you to the core of who you are.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:05

You know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:29:06

And what you want to do, Socrates said it, right?

Brian McAlister: 00:29:09

You know, man know thyself and you'll know the universe and the gods, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:29:12

but he'll know what makes you feel good.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:15

And that's really the key.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:16

And unfortunately, most of us are going through life pretending to

Brian McAlister: 00:29:19

be something we're really not.

Mike Forrester: 00:29:21

How do you build that?

Mike Forrester: 00:29:23

Success around him.

Mike Forrester: 00:29:24

Are you putting him in a community where it like helps him to keep that vision

Mike Forrester: 00:29:30

in front of him and encourage him?

Mike Forrester: 00:29:31

Because sometimes the family and friends that we have around us aren't healthy

Mike Forrester: 00:29:38

themselves and their guidance and advice.

Mike Forrester: 00:29:42

Can put us on the wrong path.

Mike Forrester: 00:29:45

How are you setting that guy up for like success with the sports?

Brian McAlister: 00:29:48

Well, that's, that's really what my books and, and what

Brian McAlister: 00:29:50

the software is all about doing.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:52

And it's something that it get, we give people permission.

Brian McAlister: 00:29:57

To be themselves, we give them permission to, to, uh, explore beyond

Brian McAlister: 00:30:02

their, their present limited status.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:04

And that's really what it's all about.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:06

And I'll, I'll share some personal experience.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:08

Like I'm from a long line of Irish Catholic alcoholics, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:30:12

birds, flies, fish, swim, we drank, you know, that's what we did.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:15

You know, I never thought anything about it.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:17

It just kind of the way things were.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:19

And, you know, like, I was given a lot of advice by a lot of people

Brian McAlister: 00:30:24

and it was all limitation advice.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:26

Like I said earlier, like, you know, with the type of work I was going to

Brian McAlister: 00:30:29

do, the type of job I could have, the type of life I could live, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:30:33

and even the way I acted and reacted to life, you know, and I realize now

Brian McAlister: 00:30:38

that a lot of it was bad advice and I accepted it along the way because, you

Brian McAlister: 00:30:42

know, it was given by people who love me.

Brian McAlister: 00:30:45

And the thing is, it wasn't good advice and I had to have the courage

Brian McAlister: 00:30:48

and I mean that to break out when I got sober, my, my dad and me, we

Brian McAlister: 00:30:52

used to drink, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:30:54

And he, he, uh, he was not real thrilled, you know, he was kind of ashamed that I

Brian McAlister: 00:30:58

went and, you know, I had to go into a detox and all this other stuff and he's

Brian McAlister: 00:31:02

like shaking his head at me, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:31:04

It's funny though, the way things work, I went on my own, I went my

Brian McAlister: 00:31:08

own way and I did my own thing and had all these incredible experiences.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:12

And when he was 66, the age I am right now, he called me one

Brian McAlister: 00:31:16

day and he says he was dying, he was drinking himself to death.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:20

And I was like, then I was probably in my forties and he said,

Brian McAlister: 00:31:24

uh, you seem relatively happy.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:26

What are you doing?

Brian McAlister: 00:31:27

And I told him what I was doing.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:28

He's 91 now.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:30

He is, he's got a problem with dementia, but until he was in his late

Brian McAlister: 00:31:33

eighties, he got another 25 years of life because he did the same thing

Brian McAlister: 00:31:38

I did and he got the same result.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:40

I'll give you another example.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:41

I had a guy I worked with, he was, he was arrested and he was put

Brian McAlister: 00:31:45

in the psych ward and he, uh, he had all kinds of kinds of issues.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:49

And when he got out, you know, he, we got him sober and I see him,

Brian McAlister: 00:31:54

he's reading like a book a day.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:55

I've never seen anybody read like this.

Brian McAlister: 00:31:57

I said to him, I said, what's your story?

Brian McAlister: 00:31:59

Like, you seem, seem pretty bright.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:00

He says, I should be bright.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:02

I've got a.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:03

A master's from the London School of Economics.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:05

I'm like, really?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:06

Well, what are you doing?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:07

You know, what are you doing in the psych ward?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:09

We started talking.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:10

So, uh, you know, he started telling me, I said, well, what

Brian McAlister: 00:32:13

would you do if you could succeed?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:14

What do you want from life?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:15

He says, well, I want, uh, uh, a spouse.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:19

Somebody of a real, a real loving relationship.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:23

I said, that's great.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:23

What's your track record?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:24

He's already been, he's like 30, he's been divorced twice.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:27

I said, well, you know, who do you talk to about that?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:30

He said, my mother, my mother loves me.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:32

She always has my best interest at heart.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:34

I said, what's her deal?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:36

She's divorced four times.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:37

I said, okay.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:38

So, you know, this is where you're getting advice from like your dopey

Brian McAlister: 00:32:41

friend, your mother, whatever.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:42

So then I said, well, what about, what about work?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:44

You know, I know you're like this financial whiz, you're working on

Brian McAlister: 00:32:47

wall street and all this stuff.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:48

You know, you're in the nut house.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:50

He says, uh, he says, I said, what do you like about your job?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:53

He says, nothing.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:54

I hate it.

Brian McAlister: 00:32:55

I said, well, what are you doing?

Brian McAlister: 00:32:57

He goes, well, you know, I was brought up that you have to be on

Brian McAlister: 00:33:00

wall street to make all this money.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:02

I said, well, who do you talk to about that?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:04

Guess who?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:05

My mother, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:07

My mother loves me and she wants my best.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:08

And so finally I said, again, well, what's, what's your mother's history?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:12

What does she do?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:13

She's a landscaper.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:15

It's like, okay.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:17

I said, I see a little pattern going here.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:19

Like you're asking advice from somebody who's not getting the results.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:23

You want, I said, your mother, you know, if you want to be a landscaper and be

Brian McAlister: 00:33:26

divorced four times, keep talking to her, but if you want to talk, doesn't mean

Brian McAlister: 00:33:30

you don't have to, you still love her.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:31

She's still your mother, but you might want to find somebody else to

Brian McAlister: 00:33:34

emulate who's already achieved in the result and save a lot of steps.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:38

I can choose.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:40

What actions I'm going to take doesn't mean I have to cut loose.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:42

My family doesn't mean I have to, you know, disavow all my friends.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:46

It just means if they're not getting the results I want, why am I asking?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:50

It's like trying to get sober for me, but a guy who's still

Brian McAlister: 00:33:53

drinking, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:33:54

It wouldn't have worked out.

Brian McAlister: 00:33:55

Well, I'd be buying me a beer

Mike Forrester: 00:33:57

yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:33:57

The people that we take advice from, it's like, Um, we really need to be

Mike Forrester: 00:34:02

intentional and cognizant of where they're at and, uh, use that as the track

Mike Forrester: 00:34:09

record for, you know, if we can listen to the advice, but taking action on their

Mike Forrester: 00:34:15

advice is a completely different thing.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:18

Like you were talking about the mom being divorced, you know, four times,

Mike Forrester: 00:34:23

there's something missing there or, you know, a hurt that, uh, is just causing.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:30

Same pattern to repeat.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:32

And uh, it can be the same thing like with finances or, you know, health

Mike Forrester: 00:34:38

habits, whatever the case may be.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:40

Career.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:41

Yep.

Mike Forrester: 00:34:42

Um, you know, like you said, look for somebody that, uh, is, is in

Mike Forrester: 00:34:47

the place you want to be and take advice from the right people.

Brian McAlister: 00:34:51

Exactly.

Brian McAlister: 00:34:52

And

Mike Forrester: 00:34:52

I had to learn that lesson the hard way as well, Brian.

Brian McAlister: 00:34:55

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:34:55

We all have, you know, but the thing is, you know, do what they

Brian McAlister: 00:34:59

did and you'll get what they got.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:01

You know, as the old saying, and that's the deal, like, you're not, if you don't

Brian McAlister: 00:35:04

like what they're getting, you know, why, why are you taking their advice?

Brian McAlister: 00:35:08

Doesn't mean, like I said, you don't have a relationship, you don't love them,

Brian McAlister: 00:35:12

but you know, it's not fitting into what you're trying to accomplish, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:35:17

So I still do that.

Mike Forrester: 00:35:20

With the software that you've designed, Brian, um, like how it's

Mike Forrester: 00:35:24

helping people to, you know, change and get the results and stay on that path.

Mike Forrester: 00:35:30

How does the software, um, work alongside of me and, and how do I, you know, put

Mike Forrester: 00:35:37

in my goals or, you know, kind of give it the, the target that I'm going for.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:43

It's pretty incredible stuff.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:45

It's a, it's video driven.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:47

So, you know, and it's completely searchable.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:50

It's got goal setting workshops.

Brian McAlister: 00:35:53

It's got all types of, uh, content, you know, on life, on finances, on

Brian McAlister: 00:35:58

love, on relationships, on you name it, on sobriety, on recovery, on, you

Brian McAlister: 00:36:03

know, uh, depression, you, you name it.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:05

It's, it's really, there's nothing like it.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:07

And I'm pretty proud of it, as you can tell.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:10

And the deal is it asks the right questions.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:13

Ask better questions, you'll get better answers, you know, so the, everybody's

Brian McAlister: 00:36:17

answers are going to be different and the idea is like, if you read a lot

Brian McAlister: 00:36:20

of self help books, you know, you put it down, you liked it, it was good.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:23

Now, everything that you do in this every day is, it's

Brian McAlister: 00:36:28

actionable, you know what I mean?

Brian McAlister: 00:36:30

It's not, it's not just giving you the answers, it's making you come up with what

Brian McAlister: 00:36:34

fits for your needs and it's actionable.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:36

It gives you the next step, you know, for me, for example, you know, when I, when I

Brian McAlister: 00:36:41

came out of treatment, I was unemployable.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:43

I really was, I was.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:44

I didn't work for a long time.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:45

I was banged up.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:46

I couldn't think.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:47

I couldn't read.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:50

I was so banged up that the words would just move around the paper.

Brian McAlister: 00:36:55

So, you know, I, I wound up, uh, I wound up getting a job at this place because I,

Brian McAlister: 00:37:01

I used to look at it like a drug addict.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:03

I wouldn't leave till I got what I wanted.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:05

I kept going down there.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:06

You know, I wrote a resume, something so silly for like a little

Brian McAlister: 00:37:10

minimum wage job on loading trucks.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:12

And they almost fell over like nobody's ever handed a resume

Brian McAlister: 00:37:15

or something like this before.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:16

But I wanted to separate myself from, from the pack.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:20

I wanted to stand out.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:22

I wanted to, uh, able to show that I had initiative, you know, so like

Brian McAlister: 00:37:28

simple things like that, you know, and, and we give you all these,

Brian McAlister: 00:37:32

all these ways of getting, figuring out what you want, what you're good

Brian McAlister: 00:37:38

at, what's been holding you back.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:40

We give you the whys, and then we give you steps you could take to move it forward.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:44

It's almost Question, answer, question, answer.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:47

And then it all goes into your, your full recovery action plan.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:51

So you have step by step, you'll have a full year's worth of action steps to

Brian McAlister: 00:37:56

move you towards whatever your goals are.

Brian McAlister: 00:37:58

Our goal is you should have at least one life altering project by the time

Brian McAlister: 00:38:02

you're done going through this process.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:05

And you can do it over and over again.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:06

Like, look at me.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:07

I went from, from a retail You know, business to, you know, to writing books.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:14

I had a real estate investment company that I ran for years.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:17

I started a construction.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:19

I was a licensed builder, you know, all these things boost.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:22

Like when I get bored, like all of a sudden I reached my goal, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:38:25

like rather than it stick with it forever, I just met set a bigger goal.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:29

You know, and I, and I started getting excited because I know I'm going to

Brian McAlister: 00:38:32

learn something new, like I know nothing about software yet I own a software

Brian McAlister: 00:38:36

company, you know, so it's, it's kind of interesting the way life works and

Brian McAlister: 00:38:41

we all have that in us, every one of us.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:44

And, you know, it's just having the courage.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:47

To, to just take that step.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:49

You know, they, they say fail forward fast.

Brian McAlister: 00:38:51

If you fail, who cares?

Brian McAlister: 00:38:52

Just keep moving ahead.

Mike Forrester: 00:38:55

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:38:55

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:38:56

It's, it's not about, like we talked about earlier, being perfect.

Mike Forrester: 00:38:59

It's about continuing to challenge and, and move forward and Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:39:03

Keep at it being consistent.

Mike Forrester: 00:39:05

It's, I, I think we give too much credit to it being like a

Mike Forrester: 00:39:10

big event when it's the small.

Mike Forrester: 00:39:13

Micro decisions and actions that we take on a daily basis that

Mike Forrester: 00:39:17

really kind of create that compound effect in the life that in, in

Mike Forrester: 00:39:22

our life that we're looking for.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:23

Sure.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:24

If you improve 1 percent a day at the end of the year, how many thousands

Brian McAlister: 00:39:27

of percent would you improve?

Brian McAlister: 00:39:29

You know, and the thing is not even improving, you know, if it's

Brian McAlister: 00:39:33

not fun, if you, if life isn't fun, you're not doing it right.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:38

You know, you really not, it should be a game.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:40

You can win and enjoy.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:42

And, and it, you know, I have so much to be blessed and

Brian McAlister: 00:39:47

thankful for and grateful for.

Brian McAlister: 00:39:49

I can't even put it into words, you know, I spent, you know, I, I totaled

Brian McAlister: 00:39:54

my Harley one time and it took the helicopter ride in and you know, I,

Brian McAlister: 00:39:58

I, I had plates and screws and pins.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:01

I broke my back.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:01

It took me years to get off of crutches.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:03

I had to learn how to walk, traumatic brain injury, the

Brian McAlister: 00:40:06

whole night, you name it.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:07

I broke it.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:08

Evil can evil type accident.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:10

And, uh, the first thing I did was.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:13

Get out of my hospital bed, throw my crutches over the railing, hop down the,

Brian McAlister: 00:40:18

uh, the stairs and walk a mile to the bar in 110 degree Phoenix heat to get a drink.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:23

You know, it wasn't the, it wasn't the alcohol or drug that did it.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:26

It was just a bad break that could happen to anybody, you know?

Brian McAlister: 00:40:29

So like I had to make sure that I changed, like the guy told me one thing.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:34

Everything, the way I looked at life had to change.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:37

And the first thing was finding people who got the results I wanted

Brian McAlister: 00:40:41

and asking them how they did it.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:43

And people who weren't in that wheelhouse, I had a friendly, no, no

Brian McAlister: 00:40:49

problem, just, but I can't go there.

Brian McAlister: 00:40:51

I have limited time at 24 hours in a day and how I use that time

Brian McAlister: 00:40:55

to a great extent will affect the type of life I'm going to live.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:00

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:01

And I think in that story, you've shown how much strength and power and

Mike Forrester: 00:41:04

resiliency we have just in who we are.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:08

I mean, if you're like sitting there, Hey, I'm broken up, but yet I'm, I'm able to

Mike Forrester: 00:41:11

go to the bar to get something I want.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:14

It's the power of what you're talking After right, that goal,

Mike Forrester: 00:41:19

because it could be anything else that moves you to do that as well.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:24

It's just in that situation was the alcohol, um, you know, pulling you there.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:29

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:29

So you talked about books, like being mentors, libraries being full of mentors.

Mike Forrester: 00:41:37

When you look back, who are like, You know, two or three of those mentors,

Mike Forrester: 00:41:43

you know, that, that wrote out, um, you know, their thoughts in, in books

Mike Forrester: 00:41:49

that helped you the most along the way.

Brian McAlister: 00:41:51

You know, I read a lot of biographies like, like Henry

Brian McAlister: 00:41:54

Ford, uh, was, was pretty interesting.

Brian McAlister: 00:41:58

And Henry Ford had one, one situation where he was expanding

Brian McAlister: 00:42:01

his company and he failed.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:03

A bunch of times, you know that, right?

Brian McAlister: 00:42:04

He didn't just start out banging out the assembly line.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:07

He actually went under a few times trying to get this thing going.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:10

So like, instead of looking at the failure, he rewrote it and

Brian McAlister: 00:42:13

went back to the drawing board.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:14

So I'll try something else.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:16

That's really the key to it.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:17

He had a deal where it, you know, he was going to expand

Brian McAlister: 00:42:20

his plan for the first time.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:22

So he didn't know where to get people.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:23

This was a new industry.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:24

Nobody ever did it.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:25

So he, he asked his, uh, you The managers give, send me up a hundred people from the

Brian McAlister: 00:42:30

floor who are the best workers we have.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:32

So he made the offer to, to, you know, uh, if you want to take some

Brian McAlister: 00:42:37

classes at night, we're not going to pay you, but if you want to take,

Brian McAlister: 00:42:40

we're going to put you in management.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:41

You'll be able to make more money, a better hour.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:43

He went through the whole deal.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:44

I'll give you 24 hours to make your mind up.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:47

So he figured he'd let them go home and talk to their, to their spouses.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:50

The next day he was shocked.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:52

Only a handful of guys took it.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:54

Everybody else didn't take it.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:56

They were afraid to move forward.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:57

They had a decent job.

Brian McAlister: 00:42:59

The third day, you know, so the 24 hours were up the third day, half of them

Brian McAlister: 00:43:03

came back, says, well, I rethought it and, uh, I, I, maybe I'll take that job.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:09

And none of them would he take, he says, I found people that when given all

Brian McAlister: 00:43:13

the right information, they can't make commitments, you know, and that, and

Brian McAlister: 00:43:17

they, they're afraid to move forward.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:19

When the going gets tough, they'll be the first to run,

Brian McAlister: 00:43:21

go back to the assembly line.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:24

Success leaves clues, you know, uh, you know, of course, you know, think and

Brian McAlister: 00:43:27

grow rich and some of the classics like that from Napoleon Hill are really good.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:33

You read my book, full recovery, you know, and same deal.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:37

It's that type of, that type of a book.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:39

And I, uh, I believe, I believe that everybody with, with

Brian McAlister: 00:43:46

this average intelligence and the ability to take action.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:50

And follows the step by step stuff that I, I lay out.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:54

There's no way you can't improve your life.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:56

You can get what you want.

Brian McAlister: 00:43:57

You know, another thing is a lot of people, they say they want something

Brian McAlister: 00:44:02

and they really don't want it at all.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:04

Like, you know, like you say, like, well, I wanted to be in business for myself.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:07

You got to ask yourself the question, why?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:09

So it's, do I think I'm going to get prestige?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:12

Do, do I want to, you know, I think I can get more money.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:15

You know, what, what, why do you want it?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:17

I want to have children.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:18

Well, why do you want kids?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:19

You want love?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:19

Do you want to give it to your friends?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:21

Have kids.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:21

Do you want to continue on your legacy, your, your bloodline?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:25

Why?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:26

Because a lot of times we say we want something, but we

Brian McAlister: 00:44:29

really don't want it at all.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:30

Somebody else told us like the guy in the finance, that's what we should have.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:35

You know?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:35

So the part of the process is getting down to it.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:38

Yeah.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:38

What do you want?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:39

Why do you want it?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:40

How are you going to lay out your game playing to get it?

Brian McAlister: 00:44:42

And then just start taking daily small steps towards achieving your goal.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:47

Eventually they'll get there.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:48

I know it.

Brian McAlister: 00:44:49

I do it all the time.

Mike Forrester: 00:44:51

Yeah.

Mike Forrester: 00:44:52

I love the fact, Brian, that there's that common thread again of a commitment,

Mike Forrester: 00:44:57

you know, that you've talked about, man, it was a commitment that I.

Mike Forrester: 00:45:01

I made and I stuck with it and got the change that I was looking for, um,

Mike Forrester: 00:45:07

especially over the long haul, um, you know, seeing where things have gone

Mike Forrester: 00:45:11

from where they were to where they are now, Brian, how can guys reach out to

Mike Forrester: 00:45:16

you and connect outside of his podcast?

Brian McAlister: 00:45:18

Um, you can reach out to me at either.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:24

VRS for virtual recovery system.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:26

That's our thing.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:27

Uh, freedom three 65.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:30

com

Brian McAlister: 00:45:31

we started a little nonprofit, it's the same type of stuff that we talked about.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:36

Plus it's got some post traumatic stress stuff was a lot of our

Brian McAlister: 00:45:38

veterans are struggling and you could download it for free.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:41

If you got a couple of bucks, throw it in there because it

Brian McAlister: 00:45:44

allows us to keep giving it away.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:45

It's a nonprofit and it's tax deductible, but you go to my mental health.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:49

org and you can reach me there.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:52

And if not, you could also go to, uh, mentalhealth.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:56

org.

Brian McAlister: 00:45:56

I'll give you my email, put it out there.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:01

Email me.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:01

My, my email is, uh, B McAlister, M C A L I S T E R at full F U L L.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:11

Then the hyphen.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:13

Recovery.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:14

com, bMcAlister at full dash recovery.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:17

com.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:18

And you know, give me some time.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:19

I promise I will get back to you and I wish everybody out there, you know,

Brian McAlister: 00:46:26

I wish you success, whatever that vision of success is, whether it's just

Brian McAlister: 00:46:30

being a better father, whether it's just being a better parent, whether

Brian McAlister: 00:46:33

it's being ahead of IBM, whatever that thing is for you, go for it.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:38

Like I said, this is not a dress rehearsal.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:40

This is it.

Brian McAlister: 00:46:41

This is your life.

Mike Forrester: 00:46:44

Brian, I so appreciate it.

Mike Forrester: 00:46:45

Thank you for sharing your story and just that, you know, it's about the

Mike Forrester: 00:46:50

commitment and keeping that daily, you know, investment there, taking the

Mike Forrester: 00:46:56

action and Brian, I really appreciate you providing your email address.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:00

I'll put that in the show notes.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:02

That's huge.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:02

So thank you again, my friend.

Mike Forrester: 00:47:04

I appreciate it.

Brian McAlister: 00:47:04

Thank you.