Hello and welcome back to Authentic One Air with Bruce Alexander. I am your host, Bruce Alexander. Today is a special day because it's today and I'm here. So welcome. Let's do a quick catch up. That's what I'm gonna start out with from here on out every week. I'm just gonna catch you up with what's going on because that's part of this whole process. It's kind of a documentary of an entrepreneur. slash father slash husband slash ADHD adult. I'm doing all the things that I coach people on.
And I think it's important to capture the wins, but also to share the losses because I'm human. And so we'll talk a little bit about that today, but the topic of today's show is going to be your value, my value, your value, how you perceive your own self -worth. So I think it's a really interesting topic and kind of like builds off of last week's, um, like the self perception idea. So first off, quick catch up. Um, the fitness thing is happening. It is a slow, slow, slow, painful journey.
I walk every single day. I've been doing that for a while. I've been moving my body every single day for over two, like I think close to two and a half months, maybe. since I started like actively tracking it. But since before that it might be up to three months or more. And the process is driving me so crazy because of how slow it's happening.
But where I am at now physically, although like I'm, you know, the weight is not coming off like I want to, I have to remember my, what my desired result was, was to be more active again. Is to have a body that allows me to physically move around. without being an extreme pain. It is not there yet, but I'm closer to that now than I was when I started this.
So it's a really dangerous thing to allow your destination to move like accidentally or just not pay attention to where you're trying to get and start getting distracted by new goals that you aren't actively setting. So it's really easy for me to start looking at my body again and saying like, you're still fat. My goal is not to not be fat. My goal is to be fit. So being fit is not just losing fat. It is being more flexible. It is having better mobility.
There are better, more than one facet to this process. So I have to understand that for one, it can all happen at the same time. It's not all gonna happen quickly. But if I'm moving forward in one of those areas and I'm not moving backward in any of them, then that's a pretty big win. And so I am winning in that. It's just the progress is not happening as quickly visibly as I would like. And I had a little mini meltdown about it earlier this week.
Very, you know, a little tantrum of like, I'm ready for this weight to be off. I'm ready to be able to do the things I used to be able to do. I want to go back to lifting heavy. I got very whiny and I was I was irritating to myself, but I have to give myself grace be patient with myself be patient with the process and even in that moment of getting frustrated keep showing up and that is That's a new process.
So I'm that it's happening and it is going not gonna say it's going super well, but it's not going poorly so As far as mentally Emotionally, my being, I'm stacking every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, and it is working really well for me to be present in my perspective. That doesn't mean that I'm never mad, I'm never anxious, it doesn't mean that I'm never not any of the bad emotions.
The difference is, is I'm present when I'm there and I'm dealing with these things as they happen, and I'm seeing a lot of success and being able to reframe my perspective to... to be a powerful version of myself wherever I'm at. And that is really, that's a big step up from where I was at in which my emotions would kind of carry me away. Now, that being said, I did have a total meltdown with my wife. Like we got into it, there was a little bit of a fight.
I don't even remember what it was about. I reacted poorly. Like I yelled, I cussed, my kids heard. It was really like my oldest daughter had to come out and tell us to stop. Like she said, you need to stop. And the positive was I took that and I stopped. The negative was I was still foaming at the mouth angry.
And that is that led to like a stack that was, you know, I learned a lot about myself and where I'm at in my process and that I'm I'm still working through some stuff, but that anger carried on to guilt. and shame in the morning, which is not something I want to operate out of. It's something that I'm trying to leave behind, trying to learn from, not be guilty of and feel shame for my actions. And so that was a interesting dynamic.
And from that, I took the lessons that I've learned and I applied it to, okay, well, what would I say to a client? And I would say, well, the first thing you need to do is clear your conscience and to do that, you apologize. you take responsibility for your actions and you apologize so then you can free up that mental space to see how you can improve. And so that's what I did first thing in the morning.
It was like in my daily notes to my kids, which are working and my wife, my daily notes of gratitude, appreciation and honor. I apologized for them having to be to be witness to that and that I'm working on myself and I'm trying to get better. And I think that being vulnerable in front of your kids is something that is, it's undervalued. I don't think that people talk about it enough. I don't think that, like, I don't see it enough amongst my friends and other people I've seen raising kids.
There is a lot of like, do what I say and very little do what I do whenever it comes to processing and talking through your emotions. So I am very much trying to be open and vulnerable about the fact that I struggle sometimes and here's me working through it. And I'm sorry that you got sucked into it, but I apologize. And here's what I'm going to do next. And they, you know, they're kids, like they, their, their memories are short if they need to be.
They, if you are proactively working on yourself and you are taking responsibility for your actions, they respond very, very well. Like they'll just still erase, you know, they'll erase the board and give you a fresh start if you keep trying.
So just keep working hard at doing that and keep trying to connect with your kids because it is become, it has become a very, a very important source of power for me to help me show up as the person I want to show up as is to be able to have that deep connection with my kids. It feeds back into me and gives me the energy that I need to keep going. to keep showing up, to keep showing up with the fitness every day, to keep showing up with the business and doing the things I need to do there.
All those things take a lot of energy, but I'm doing it for myself and for them. So pouring into them and then receiving an energy exchange back helps me go back into it. It's like a renewable energy source that if you pour into them will be there for you. Whenever you go to connect with them, you'll just, you will start to feel more.
risk like more restoration from that relationship than stress Whenever you you stop running from that relationship and start taking ownership in it That's what I found and like, you know If you listen to me before you know that taking ownership was not something I was great at doing So it's new for me and then taking that ownership being vulnerable putting that all together is allowing for there to be a deep connection between myself and my kids myself and my wife and
that energy exchange is happening more and more frequently. So that's that on the business note. Yeah, I like I'm ADHD. Like this is was a very clear reminder that I am ADHD and that there's a reason why I have systems in place. There's a reason why I have checks and balances and I have a system that allows me to constantly reframe my perspective, not just in my personal life and in my emotional life and my being.
but also my business because if I'm not constantly looking at what I'm doing and how it serves my purpose, it is easy to see something that sounds good and think it just sounds good so I should do it. And then I'll get some ways down the road and figure out like this does not serve my purpose because I'm actively engaging in and reviewing those processes. And this was something that I'd been working on for a couple of weeks and then I... I asked myself, like, why am I struggling with this?
And I worked through it and it was like, because this is not who you're supposed to serve. Like I had gotten to where I built a webinar and it was looking pretty good, but I wasn't, I wasn't getting conversions. I was even putting money behind paid ads in a way I'd never done before. And I wasn't seeing anybody opt into the webinar. And then I realized like I got to where I was trying to serve everybody again, because I'm like, I think I'm afraid that I won't be able to get anybody to.
to just opt into the webinar. Like I know that I'm a great presenter. I know I can like create a lot of value for people inside of these courses and inside of this webinar. But then I get scared and I just start like to broaden the messaging as you know, it starts out as something that's fairly specific towards ADHD parents. And by the end it's like, you don't need to be ADHD. This can help anybody. And before you know it, I'm talking to everybody. And so it doesn't feel personal to anyone.
And... I don't want that. I know that my purpose is to serve ADHD parents. It is the pain that I've strived through and survived through, and I know that that is what I have to offer to other people. My best clients are ADHD parents. They're the people that I connect the best with, that I feel myself really in a great position to help because I have the answers to their questions. I've been through it. I've got experience on it, and I've learned techniques to handle it.
Whenever you're neurotypical or you don't have kids, like that's the real thing. If you don't have kids, you haven't been married. You don't have those, those dependent relationships. Your mentality is way fucking different than mine. And that's fine. That's fine for you. But whenever you ask me a question, like, what should I do? I tried to, like, I tried to help my neighbor out in this way. He is not, he doesn't have kids. He's not married.
And whenever like we had a, you know, consultation, The energy exchange was very, very flat because what I would say to an ADHD parent that I would say to him, it just, it fell on deaf ears. Like it didn't make sense because there isn't that, that added sense of urgency to, to be what your family needs, to be what you're supposed to be for your family, to be what you entered into whenever you entered into that marriage contract or wherever you had your, had your child.
Like that's a responsibility that other people don't understand. And I don't know, it's it's really important that I make sure that I'm checking in with my purpose often and seeing how does this serve my purpose? How does this get me closer to helping and impacting more ADHD, more ADHD parents? And if it's not, why am I doing it? Because if it's about making money, then I'm fucking up. Like making money is the byproduct impacting and changing ADHD parents lives. That is the goal.
I want to help ADHD parents. That's what I'm put on this earth to do. I'm sure of it. And so whenever I get distracted by something that sounds like it could help everybody or that I can make a lot of money, then that's wrong. But it doesn't mean that I'm not attracted to that. It means that it's a learning experience, learning how to say like, that's not what I'm here for. I am here to serve. That is new. I have been very selfish my entire life, but I am here to serve.
here to serve God first, that I am here to serve my family, then I am here to serve ADHD people, like our ADHD parents, like that's who I'm here to serve. And yeah, if I haven't helped you, and because I haven't been able to get the message to you, I'm sorry for that. I am refocusing. I'm trying to stay relevant to what my desires are, and that is to help ADHD parents. And so I've got a new webinar I'm building.
I scrapped the other one because it was for everybody and I think it will be a good backend offering like to ADHD parents who've already been in my, like been through my processes and they're like, Hey, this is something I'm struggling with also. And that's connecting with relationships that have gone stale. I think that is a problem that happens with a lot of ADHD parents. Like as their kids get older, there are a lot of those relationships that struggle.
Um, like I, my relationship, my parents has been a massive struggle because my parents are ADHD and autistic and they don't. want to come to the table in a in a non toxic way. So these are the things I've struggled with. And I think that can help people with that down the road. But right now the focus is how can I help ADHD parents show up in a way that allows them to claim the power that they have that they've that they've been taught to suppress.
And so like that is through connection with the inner voice. And that's what my new webinar is about. Anyway, so that's a lot. the next thing I want to just jump into is I just just jump right into the meat of the episode because I've already gone 15 minutes talking about all the other exciting stuff that's going on in life because every day is exciting. Like every day I realize is like the journey is happening. So but this this battle is also happening.
This war is being waged that I wasn't aware of for my I don't know. 37 38 years of my life almost 40 now that I Do not believe I'm worthy sometimes before I didn't believe I was worthy a lot of the time and I didn't realize that I was making decisions based off of that worthiness that I didn't believe I had every single day so like you know, but I what I'm talking about is like choosing a Like making decisions based on a future you think you do or don't deserve.
I showed up to the fire department. Let's let's back up first. Like my value story goes pretty far back. There's been several iterations of how I valued myself, but it's never been based on me. It was always in relation to something else. And that started out early, like in my early high school years, it was very, achievement and reward based.
It was if I am getting awards, if I am hitting the grades, if I am getting positions, if I am in clubs, if I'm getting pats on the back, if I'm getting accolades, then I'm valuable because that is what my parents told me. They told me if you get A's, we'll give you money. If you do well in school, you will get freedom. You will get to do whatever you want. You'll get to be out and blah, blah, blah. If you. perform well in sports, then you will get more attention.
You will get more hugs and love and adoration. Like that's, that is, those were the exchanges we had. So that is what I thought my value was based in. And that last, that lasted until I left high school. And then I got out from under that regime of being parented by people who were transacting in accolades. once I was able to leave that, it was just like a value void. Like I just didn't, I didn't really think about it.
It was just like, I was just, you know, enamored with this exciting new experience of not having that pressure. And then I like for the first time I had to start struggling at school and wasn't automatically great at things. So I wasn't getting those accolades. So I guess, I guess it was just that I didn't get the value positives. It was just the value negative. of like feeling like, man, am I supposed to be here? And what am I doing here?
But then I started to, at that time, carry over something that had happened a little bit in high school was like transactional relationships. It's like, how many different people can I get to like me? Like, you know, friendships, romantic relationships, whatever it's like, I would just try to jump into all these relationships and get people to engage with me in a way that said like, you're important. Like we like to have you around.
And that is like, that is how I started to derive my value as I got into college and I started to like hang out with sorority girls because there was, you know, those were the cool kids on campus. And then I started to hang out with fraternity because like those guys, like, you know, they knew how to get friends. And once again, like I didn't care about any of this stuff personally. I just wanted to be, wanted to feel valued. I wanted to feel like some sort of sense of self -worth and.
I thought if I had the more friends I had, even though I was never really good at caring friendships over long periods of time, unless it was with like total narcissists who were using me for something, but those, those transactional relationships, it's like, if I could just get more of them, if I could just stack the number of people who knew me and liked me, then that means I'm valuable, right? Well, that didn't really like, that didn't give me any sort of fulfillment whatsoever.
And also, People will disappoint you like 100 % of the time if you don't have a solid foundation for yourself. Because what you want from them will constantly change because what you want in life will constantly change. And so they're gonna be trying to hit a moving target if they care. Like if they care, why would they even care? Because you're not a solid human being. Like you don't know what you want in life, you're a flake. Like that's what I was. So. That didn't work out either.
And then so I moved on to that transactional relationship thing for a while, like finding value in that. And then I got kicked out of school and my house got raided for drugs and you know, all of that stuff happens because I dealt drugs as part of that. Like this will make me more valuable as a person to hang around with because I've got the drugs, right? I mean, it may be more popular, but it doesn't make you more valuable. I still hadn't learned that yet.
So getting out of that part, I just went into kind of another value vacuum in which I was just like, I am not worth shit. Like, because I now I don't have any of the accolades, I've been kicked out of school, all my friends have disappeared because they were there for the drugs and for the parties and for the, you know, the popularity contest and I'm not in it anymore, not in the contest anymore. So none of those people are around. And so I have nobody and I have nothing. So I'm worthless.
And that was, that was the value of what I walked around with for, I don't know, a few years, like my, my early to mid twenties was like a value vacuum. And I met my wife and she was able to care about me and show me that I was worth something, even though I had nothing. She used to care for me anyways, and showed me that I did have some value. Still don't know why. Still trying to figure that out, but. That was kind of the end of the value vacuum at that time.
And then, you know, there was probably a couple of other things, but I haven't figured out what drove those value -based decisions back then until I get back to about 10 years ago, whenever I am trying to attach my value to fatherhood. It's like, I'm providing for my family. I'm a father. I'm a father. Like, I'm bringing in money. Like, I was enough. And then we had another kid. And the third one was coming and was like, oh crap, I'm not providing enough anymore.
So like, I'm not valuable as a father. So then I went to the fire department. It was like, this will give me value. Being a firefighter will make me a valuable human being because I'm doing something that is valuable. So if I make this valuable thing that I do, my identity, then I will be valuable. That is a logical argument, right? ipso facto value equals value. But whenever that's not an actual internal belief, I never actually really believe that I was a firefighter.
I didn't ever actually really believe that what I was doing had anything to do with anything besides survival. I took the job because I needed to provide for my family. Like it was like my lives, those hierarchy of needs, like I I wanted to keep food and shelter over my family's head. And it was just like grunting and reacting across the finish line to get through the academy.
And as I struggled through that identity of firefighter and I kept being told that I was not one of them, you were not here for the right reasons. You're not one of us. Don't, don't. come to our events outside of work like we understand we have to work with you but you're not one of us.
Those specific words were not said but I was made fun of and I was chastised unlike anybody else and I was singled out and I was isolated and every other thing that made sure that I knew that I was not one of them even though that's what my value was tied to. So obviously like this was worse than the value vacuum this is a massive value deficit. I was... I was feeling pretty fucked up.
And so in that situation is like the perception of others was able to control my value because they said I wasn't one of them and being one of them is what I thought may be valuable. So their, their, their disagreement with that made me feel not valuable. So I don't think that's the way to go either.
To wrap it up, because that was three failed ways of me trying to find value, like try to find my own self -worth, is externally through accolades and achievements, externally through transactional relationships, externally through career and job identity. Now, what has changed is that, yeah, I still identify as a father. It's definitely part of... who I am, but my value is serving a purpose. It's not about me anymore. It's not about like how much I'm worth. It's about what I can give.
It's kind of hard still for me to wrap my mind around because I'm still like I'm still exploring this new thing. Like I said earlier, service is pretty new to me. But like true service, like I did. I was a firefighter for 10 years, so I served, but really believing in trying to give back to a population that I care deeply about and doing it with all of my heart and all of my being like that's pretty new and.
Because of that it doesn't matter what anybody else says like this is about me giving Value like the value isn't is what I give it's not about what is what is what is placed on me and giving that like serving has provided like a an inner confidence and an inner value that I didn't think was gonna ever be available for me. And that also has spread to, I don't know if it's spread to my family or my family spread to my purpose.
I don't know either way like I serve my family now and it is very different. I'm still not perfect at it. There's still you know ways I wish I could serve my family better. I wish I would. And that's why I'm, you know, trying to be more physically fit. So it's easier for me to serve my family without the complaints of pain. But there's still like that laziness in me that is still, that I'm still breaking. You know, I'm stuck.
That is part of why it is so important that I show up for my daily routine every single day, that I go for my walk every single day, unless something extraordinary happens, that I show up and I do these boring things to break the laziness.
because like the laziness is like it's just an addiction to comfort and that comfort is the obstacle sorry that comfort is the barrier to my dreams and my dreams is to serve thousands and thousands of people and help them find their purpose and engage in their lives in the way that i get to and that is so valuable to me now because nobody can take that away from me. As long as I keep trying to serve, I am living out my purpose. How does someone take that?
Like I own all my channels, like you can, I guess you could shut down my internet, but I still have a hotspot. So I don't know. I don't know how somebody could take it away from me. I'm sure there's a way, but. I don't know. The biggest lesson to take from this is whether you see your value or not, you have it. You may not have found it yet. You may have not learned how to express what it is about you that's valuable, but you have it.
And a secondary part of my value and purpose is that I also have inherent value as one of God's children. Like by just being born, we are all valuable. We are all worth something special. And that is what I'm giving back. Like that value is what was given to me. Like from the beginning that was always there, was always inside of me. I just didn't know that.
And once I understood that I was already valuable, then I was able to start giving it back and start pouring it into others and try to give it to whoever will take it. And that's my purpose. I hope this is all making some kind of sense to you, but I feel like it's a good place to wrap it up.
If you are in this place where you are not seeing your own self -worth, if you're not able to pinpoint your value, know that number one, it is there because you were created in God's image and you are valuable. And two, there is something greater there for you. There is an impulsive view that exists that has been suppressed and told that you're broken and it's okay. It's okay to have believed that lie, but it's time to wake up.
It's time to let go of all the stories and limiting the limiting doubts and self beliefs that you have and start living the impulsive view because there is so much more out there for you. If you can start to live within a framework that allows you to live impulsive. to trust your urges and to do the things that matter to you, not to society.
There's something very, very important there, but you have to learn how to let go of the guilt, shame and regret first, clear your mind and learn to work within the framework that allows you to guide your impulses like a missile to destroy the obstacles to your dreams. And that's what I help people do. And if you are curious about more, please go to www .impulsive .life forward slash consult instead of a free consultation with me, because I would love to talk to you more.
And in that consultation, I am guaranteeing you, I am going to give you at least three techniques that are going to help provide relief for you today. As soon as you start to apply them, you are going to see a change in your life. But you have to make the decision first. You have to decide that you want to change. that you want to see your value, that you want to live a life of purpose. You have to be willing to let go of the comfort.
It was really hard for me, so I know it's hard for somebody else. But if you can be willing to let go of that comfort and start to reach for something greater, then I can help you. And I hope that you'll give me a call. I'll talk to you guys next week on Authentic On Air. That is it for this episode. And I think it's been pretty fun. Yeah, I hope you guys are learning to value yourselves like I am. and grow in that value and give it back. I'll talk to you guys next week.