Hello and welcome back to Authentic On Air with Bruce Alexander. I am your host, Bruce Alexander. And today we're gonna be talking about the warped mirror in which we view ourselves. It's kind of a deep subject, but I'm not gonna get into it quite yet. First, let's just give a quick update by let's, I mean me, I'm gonna give a quick update about what's going on in my life right now. So first off, Against conventional wisdom, I am growing out of mustache.
If you're watching this on the video, you can see that it's starting to come a little bit. You know, I don't look too porn stashy yet, but you know, one can only hope. I've been keeping up with my workouts, I've lost a couple of pounds, things are going in the right direction. It is, the back spasms are happening less and less. Still happening, still sucks.
It's still hard to get through workouts without the lower back tightening up really bad, but I'm doing the things I have to do to get this taken care of because I want to be around for my kids for a long, long time. I want to be able to take care of myself. And that is the result that I have in mind is to be there for my grandkids. And in order to do that, I got to take care of me right now. So that result is driving me forward and it is going pretty well.
If you have not heard me, on social media talking a lot recently, if you haven't been following closely, you will start to see much more of me talking about God. It has been quite a whirlwind romance. Me and God have gotten real close, real quick. Some might say we're moving too fast, but honestly, you can go eat a bag of tacos. It has been really good for me. I had been resisting my relationship and my calling from God for... a very, very long period of my life.
And it has been really good to open up that conversation again and to really feel like I'm being guided by something greater than myself. So you're welcome for that gift of sharing in my business. I don't know if I talked about this last episode because I think it happened, but I don't know if I actually mentioned it, but I got my first big, big client and it's going great. It is more of a VIP.
boutique service for this client, they're getting more access to me than I've given before, but the price tag was worth it. It was, and also I like working with this person that makes whenever you feel like you're helping somebody, they appreciate the help they're willing to pay for and value to do the thing. And then you also enjoy working with them. It's kind of hard to say no to access. to a certain degree. Like obviously I still have my boundaries in place.
There are certain times that, you know, I'm off the clock. I don't work. I try to be available for my family during homeschool hours. Like that's a non -negotiable. But outside of that, we text every now and then whenever she's working through stuff and I'm trying to help her because I'm helping her through several different aspects of trying to be an ADHD parent. And some of those things are difficult from day to day. She's trying to launch a business.
She's trying to, uh, trying to re -engage in some of the relationships that she has forsaken in the past, which, you know, I don't know if you guys have seen this as an ADHD adult or parent. I feel like it is kind of like everything else for us. Sometimes if it's not like urgent priority, it kind of gets left by the wayside and we forget to maintain the relationships that are important to us and we get in the hole. And then we have to dig our way out.
And that's actually something that I've built a... A webinar based on is like how to engage in the relationships that we've let go cold. And I'll be talking about that later on, but doing working with this client has been really great for me. And I'm just really, it's been nice to have some financial runaway to start working on other things, trying to figure out how I'm going to scale my business, how I'm going to actually run ads and do the big things that businesses do.
It is, it's scary, but good problems to have. And things are all working. in the right direction and things with my kids are literally out of this world. Living the Warriors way do you like sticking to the system I've been sticking to doing the things I teach my clients to do has living the life that I'm that I'm coaching has really, really, really been beneficial for me. My kids and I are closer than we've ever been.
They. are a constant source of energy and love and kindness for me versus it being this responsibility I have to shoulder. And that is a really big difference. I spent the majority of my first 13, almost 14 years of parenting running from the responsibility of parenting because I didn't know how to do it. I was scared.
And in learning how to live in truth and be vulnerable, it was... pretty easy to find out that once you're able to like stop being so toxic to yourself and you show up and you are open with your children, they start to mirror that back. They start to be open and vulnerable and they want you in their lives. Even if you are not providing everything that you think that they deserve, they just want you to show up. And I have seen great results from being there and I just...
I'm really happy to share that in my life it has been going really great. Things have also been going really well with my wife. If you listen to my show, which I hope you do, I really hope you do, then you know that there has been some pretty messed up stuff that I've done throughout our history together. And so it is easy for me to say that everything is great and wonderful now, and it is, but there has been a lot of back and forth with that.
There's been a lot of, you know, gaining momentum and then losing and falling back because of the things that I've done in the past that keep rearing their ugly heads. And the biggest part of that that has changed is I really like before it was taking accountability, but not learning the lesson. And that is what I mean by that is like, I would say I'm really sorry that I cheated on you and I, and I, I really don't want to ever do that again.
But in that, in that affair, there was a lesson that I didn't learn. It wasn't, don't cheat. Like that's, that's obvious. There was something deeper there that I'm now learning how to like take these, these events that have been really painful for my wife, painful for me, like all these different things I've been through and how to actually actively learn from them because there is a lesson in every one of these triggers that we, that we face in our life.
But most of the time we're too afraid to look too deeply at it because we get too angry or too guilty or too scared or whatever it is. And then we don't actually find the lesson that was hidden inside of that event. And that has been really, really essential to me growing as a man much quicker and showing up in a way that is consistently surprising my wife. She keeps waiting for the old me to show up, but the old me, he died.
He died because like I had to, in order for me to be the next version of myself, I had to let go all of those stories of what I was before and had to start rewriting who I was going to be. And in order to do that, I had to learn those lessons through the events that happened to me. And as they continue to happen, as I continue to get angry or irritated or anxious or scared, I take those lessons.
and I'm able to stack them and learn from them and show up in a consistent way every day that she gets to see an unshakable foundation of truth that allows her to trust me again. And that's big, it's major. So if you have ever struggled with that trust issue of you've done something and how do you trust again, it is finding the ability to be unconditional.
unconditional and unshakable that is brought that trust back into our relationships, into our relationship, because she is going to have all of the feelings and she is allowed to have those and I validate them and they are absolutely, she is worthy of all of those things. But my responsibility and my accountability stays the same. I have to live with the things I've done, apologize and own those things and take control of that story and say, here's all the things I did wrong.
But in taking all of the blame for that story, I also have the power to rewrite that story in which in the end I grow from it versus being stuck in that place. So that's all of that. Like things are going well. things like across all of my core for body being balanced business, things are all moving in the right direction.
And I feel like as we are actually really leaving this physical state, we are also leaving this state of scarcity where I was struggling across body being balanced business, like all of these things I was wanting for so much more in all those areas. And now we are seeing that. All of those things are starting to happen like I just described and we're also leaving this state of Oklahoma. We are putting the final pieces together to get the fuck out of here. And it has been hanging out for so long.
Like when is this going to happen? When is this going to happen? And we had been trying to find a specific place and it just hasn't happened. And as I'm stepping into this journey of being a warrior trainer, learning how to life coach and also help. people find deeper connection in their, with their inner self, there's been a lot of just step out on faith.
Like me getting a message from, from God, like from a higher source that it is, that this is direction you need to move, but that's all you get. You just need to trust and step out on faith. And as I've done that with my business, things have gone really well. I've found success. I have found, Things I didn't find the year before and as soon as I trusted God that he had my back, I saw returns within days. Literally doing it by myself for a year, struggling within days of trusting God.
Financial success. Not like I'm not done, but like in the immediate term, like room, like runway, all of these things, like objective success for the moment. And so now we're seeing that maybe that is like that's the way that it's time to face this physical journey out of Oklahoma is we just have to trust that God has got our back. It's time to go. We have done all that we are supposed to do here for now, at least. And it's time for us to go out of Oklahoma and find something new.
And I am a little scared, but I'm mostly really excited. Like the the signs I've seen in my life that if I trust. the journey and I just take the step that things will start to reveal themselves has got me really excited about what this next phase looks like. So that's what all is happening there. The reason why I wanted to talk about this warped mirror of self perception is because it was something that came up in one of my stacks today or yesterday is that there's.
As an ADHD person, adult, parent, we have this person inside of us who was told that they were wrong and that they were imperfect and that they were not, they're not normal. They're not the way they're supposed to be. And in that moment, we were told to stop trusting who we are. We were trained to be somebody different that did not jive with who we were actually supposed to be. And a dissonance was created.
there was never again going to be the same person as you felt on the inside when you looked in the mirror looking back at you. And I found through the years that that distance grew farther and farther apart as I tried to figure out what life meant. And I got told more and more that the way I was was not right.
That I was too loud or I was too unfiltered or I should have more shame or I you know, just a lot of things that were just kind of who I was I needed to hide and bury not learn how to manage better, but just like change completely and Nobody tells you that you don't have to listen to those things you you just do it because that's what I have like a lot of people are telling you that so you think that it's true and
as you as the dissonance grows and grows like you that mirror becomes more and more warped. And so when you look, look at yourself, there are parts of you that are bigger than they're supposed to be. They're bigger than they actually are in real life when there's other parts that are smaller. And that's for me, that was both physical and metaphorical. Like I literally could not look at myself and my body and see what was there at the moment. Like I can look at pictures and look back.
and always see how I physically was at the time and want for that constantly. Like I'm never OK with how I am right now. I'm always looking back at the physical version of when I was. And that is that's really hard to have that dissonance there, a disconnect.
And it also happens a lot in, you know, delusions of grandeur or that negative inner dialogue that that I think exists in, if not all, most ADHD people is that you, you're always telling yourself that you can handle this thing and that you can do it all by yourself, or you can never do this thing and you're going to fail every time.
Whenever the truth is often somewhere in the middle, or you're better at the thing that you think that you're weak at and you're worse at the thing that you're strong at. Here's an example of this for me was, Back in around 2005 to 2008 somewhere, I used to work at Whole Foods. I was the, I was an early morning guy. I'd either work in the meat department or the fish counter and I would set up the case. And I thought for about two to three months, I was the bee's knees at this job.
Because whenever I set up the case, it was literally the best looking case in the state. Not in this state, and like in the entire region. We had been told that our case was that good looking. One day that I'd set it up. So I knew that what I did looked amazing. And that was like a result that really mattered to me. It was like I wanted to be beautiful.
Well, after that three months and I got my review and I was told that like they were thinking of trading me out of the department because I was so slow. I was really, really shocked. I really thought that the work that I did, I was like a Picasso of setting up this case, that it was so important to have beauty in this fish that I would be getting not only a raise, but they would want me to take over the whole department.
And this was like one of the most obvious situations where I had a little bit of a delusion of grandeur because I thought that the beauty was the most important thing. in setting up this case. When you look at what's important to you, try to ask yourself this question. Are the people I work with or the people in my family, whoever is in the situation, are their priorities the same as my priorities? And whenever I asked that question finally, I realized that their priority was speed.
They wanted it set up quickly. And I always thought it's like, well, I mean, I'm set up like 15 minutes before anybody ever shows up to buy anything. So I always thought I was good. But what I see now, 10, 15 years later is that there was other stuff that also needed to be done after open. It's like, once you open, then you were supposed to do these things. And I was always 30 to 45 minutes behind all day because I set up such a beautiful case and.
everybody else was on the page of speed and efficiency, and I was on the page of beauty. So as much as I it was objectively beautiful, I thought that what I was doing was more important than it actually was. And that is something that you can apply it to your life. If you like, if you just take away the fish counterpart and just like, think what am I what do I think I'm crushing it at? Like, what do I just think I'm just nailing? And then ask?
What what is a priority to me a priority to everybody else in this situation?
And then once you've asked yourself if you are working in a co -working type situation if you were not an entrepreneur Then you need to actually ask this question of your boss your manager your co -workers say hey This is what I find to be really important in this thing that we're doing Is this something that you prioritize as well and you will be surprised at how often the answer is no like you think Me working in the fire department in the public at off like pub at office.
I thought getting new presentations done finished quality built up Getting better at these gaining new skills. That was what I need to be focused on but Being part of the team was what everybody else prioritized So I was constantly on the outs and I couldn't understand why because they were busy building relationships and I was busy building presentations so That is a lesson that I promise you, you can apply and you will see instant results in your business.
I've used it, like I've talked to a client about this and I was just like, I just want you to have this conversation with a couple of your coworkers and then reframe your mentality. And within 30 days, he had gotten a raise and had started to see them talking to him about becoming part of leadership. Because generally as ADHD people, we are, if we are in the workplace and we have not gotten fired, we're pretty damn good at whatever it is we're doing.
We just need to be redirected a little bit to be on the same page as everybody else. And if you can take the time to ask those questions, you will see a massive amount of growth because you are good at what you do. You understand it better than other people. You can adapt and grow when other people get stuck, but you have to care. and you have to ask the question. So another place where like this warped mirror affected me, it was actually for this podcast, not this specific episode.
But when I was recording for season one of this podcast, I had a friend on who, her name is Larissa, it's episode, I don't know, somewhere episode 12 or so, Larissa Port, and she is an amazing friend of mine, really, really beautiful soul. But I was terrified of this woman for like the first, I don't know, five, six times we met. And even as we became friends, I often still think that she doesn't like me.
Like, you know, she's got a very, just a quiet face, beautiful smile, but she just doesn't talk that much. So I often would think I'm doing something wrong. Like just in the silence of her face, I would just assume that for some reason she hated. And in doing this interview, she told me something that really shocked me because I had considered myself kind of the, I don't know, the annoying friend of our friend group.
Like, I'm, you know, I'm the one who was like, Hey, you guys want to do anything? You guys want to hang out? Like I was the, like, I don't know, the, just the annoying kid, like the book reading kid in the back of the class. It was just like, Oh, him again. That's how I felt.
And In the episode, she told me that I was the the glue to our friend group because we were talking about moving and she gave me the gift of knowing that if one that when we left that Things would never be the same because it was me who brought us all together That is never how I considered myself. I still struggle with it to this day is like what? me because I always thought that me trying to bring everybody together was annoying. Like it was a selfish thing.
It was like, I want to see my people. So come to me people, come to my house. I'll make you food. But come to me. And it was a shock to the system to realize that my reaching out to them meant something to them. They want they wanted to be part of what I was offering that community that I was trying to build for me. It was a, you know, a selfish motivation for me and my family. It's not totally selfish. Like I want my kids to see their friends.
I want my wife to have, you know, somebody to talk to besides me all the time because I get I get to be a lot. But in her saying that I had to I had to pause and I had like the lesson I learned from that was like you are something important. to somebody that you don't see. Like that blew my mind. And when we had our initial going away party, like four months ago, which we still haven't left and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, because we're going soon.
But we had our going away party and she gave me a bottle of glue and told me, thank you for being the glue in front of everybody. And I cried like a little baby because it really meant so much to me. to not only hear her say it out loud, but to have our other friends confirm that that's it, that's true. Because this is something I didn't consider of myself. So once again, this is just another version of that mirror in which you perceive yourself being warped. You can't really trust it.
You have to do... Objective analysis before you can trust what you see in the mirror. You can't just trust the vision on its own You need more and another example of that is this I did a for the warrior Method training like I had to do a critical feedback assessment. So I had to ask People that didn't who know me either. They worked with me or they they're friends with me family mentors, whatever I had to ask them like what my strengths and weaknesses are, what my X factor is.
And once again, the thing I thought I was gonna be great at was, you know, like, it's like talking to people, like, you know, it's like, oh, he's just like a friendly guy and. I'm not going to say that was completely wrong, but it was it was actually like pretty overwhelming that the answer I got is what am I strong at is having hard conversations is that I'm the person who is going to talk about the thing that is hard for other people to talk about.
And it's not that I didn't think that that's an important thing or a good thing. It's just not something I'd ever considered as being a strength of mine, because it's just natural for me to talk about hard shit. I just come in and I just start, you know, I just. I come in hot and that's something that is natural to me and. As you start to do the work on yourself and you start to like actually pull away the layers of what is natural to you versus what is a strength.
If you look at it, you think that the things that come naturally to you are probably actually your strengths because you do it so often and they're so commonplace to you that you do it well without thinking about it. And that is me and hard conversations. And that comes largely from the fact that I fucked up all the time and I was constantly having hard conversations in order to. try to put back together the mess that I made. And like I said, I built a webinar off of it.
That is the connect method is me trying to teach people how to have the hard conversations to re -engage with the relationships that they have left on coal. Like pretty simple. And the lesson I want you to take from that is your biggest strengths and your biggest weaknesses often feel commonplace. So the things that you are actually weak at as well. often feel commonplace to you. Because for me, once again, the commonplace weakness was I come in a little, not unfiltered, a little brash.
It can be like I have the hard conversations, which is fed by that brashness, but I also don't back off super easy because I'm brash. And that is feedback I got from multiple people. So I have to take this gift.
And I have to mold it to where I'm able to use it appropriately because like hearing that from my friends is like, oh man, that sucks to hear that I'm kind of an overwhelming person, like not overwhelming, I'm coming on strong whenever it comes to things that could use a little more nuance or tact. So I thought it was fairly nuanced, but apparently I'm not. brief peek in from my wife. I don't know what she wanted, but hopefully it's for tacos because I'm starving.
So yeah, that is another really interesting thing about the the warped mirror that we perceive ourselves through. And the reason why I'm telling these stories is because I want you to look at yourself in a way that says like, what stories am I telling myself that are not substantiated by facts. Because when you start living the warrior's way, when you start living in truth, you stop caring about like, how you feel about everything and you start to look at what is actually true? What can I prove?
What can I prove about this thing? And then how do I feel about that? You still need to feel things, you still need to have emotion, but you don't just like, for example, there are a lot of times whenever you perceive that somebody feels a certain way about you or about something you've done, but you've done nothing to actually substantiate that fact. Like sometimes, you know, me thinking my wife is mad at me. I'm like, why did you like, why is she looking at me like that?
Fuck, what have I done? Like, you know, something that there's this whole spin out that happens. And like now I don't like, I just stopped that and I just say, okay, either I need to let that go because there's nothing proving that she's mad at me or I need to go ask the question and just have a conversation. Hey, babe, is there anything going on? Like, are we good? Do we need to talk about anything? And more often than not, it's like, oh no, I'm just working and my head hurts.
Like, oh, those faces are not for me. Because those of you who have not done your research yet, it is often difficult for us neurodivergent folk to read social cues properly.
And then if you're married to a neurodivergent folk, it is often, she's giving, not incorrect or improper, like different, Signals then you are expecting like they don't always mean what they should mean So it's easier just to have the conversation and find out the truth and then work from the facts and then also Deal with the facts if it does turn out you did something fucked up like deal with it and just you know handle that shit right there
so the last story I want to tell is my My neighbor it's been a really you know been a great friend while I've been here and Has had me over several times.
We've drank lots of nice whiskey and he's taught me a lot about the different kinds of whiskey and bourbon and I Probably won't remember whenever I move and that's sad because I feel kind of Fonse whenever I'm drinking whiskey with them on the porch and you know using the fancy glasses and not just getting hammered but actually learning about the complexities of this alcohol, but So learning about those complexities and as I'm sitting with him and we're starting
to, you know, do as I do and have the hard conversations and talk about the deep stuff, he talks about how he wishes he could get big like me. Like right now, like this was not that this is like a month or two ago. Like I am objectively obese. Like this is not, this is not like me feeling bad about myself. It was like I am 347 pounds. and I'm 5 '11". Like objectively on the scale, I am obese and every like every chart that you look at, I feel obese. I feel very uncomfortable.
It's hard for me to feel like I can sit up. And this guy to me looks like a beach volleyball player. I'm like, what in the fuck are you talking about? And his story for him is that he's never been able to put on muscle or weight like he wanted to. And so me looking at him and thinking, Not that I wish like I've become comfortable enough in my skin to where I just want to get this body healthy again.
I don't want to look like anybody else, but I wish that I had the problem that he has of being like not having not being able to put the weight on. I've always had so much trouble getting it off and like I guess the the real point here is like I understand the facts of my body. I understand that my body is. unhealthy right now and I'm doing like all the things to deal with the Unhealthiness like if my muscles are tight so I stretch and foam roll my you know, my cardio sucks So I walk daily.
I want my you know muscles to Help burn up my fat again. So I'm lifting, you know multiple times a week for him He Just wants to get bigger and he's not actually looking at the facts of what does that function actually mean for him? And like that's that's what I I guess I would say learn to deal with the facts in your body yourself and how to like process those because the opinion of others will never accurately tell you anything and your opinion will never accurately tell you anything.
However, your function can accurately tell you something. Your actually your actual, you know, health readings can tell you something and what you actually want for your body to do. It's like, I want to be able to, you know, play with my kids. I cannot do that for a sustained period of time. So that is my body is not fit to do what I want it to do. I don't know what it is that he wants his body to do that can't do.
And that is going to like for me, that is a dangerous game to play because how do you find confidence in yourself in that place? So anyways. The point of this episode is this, like don't make decisions based on how you feel. After looking in that warped mirror, like do the work, figure out the facts first, then decide how you feel about those facts, then define a result that matters to you and use those feelings to drive you to that result.
stop being controlled by the emotion that you feel in the moment and start living for a greater goal that guides you to the purpose and passion in your life that makes you feel alive in life. I just used my brother's old business name. So anyways, here's the thing I can tell you is if you live by a code and you learn to tell the truth about your situations and deal with what you can. prove to be true. You can prove to be true.
Then you define a desired result and address the facts in a way that gets you the result that you want. You will start to find true passion and purpose in your life. And if you're wanting to stop letting life happen to you and you want to start making those decisions on your own, we should have a conversation.
At Impulsive, we stop the guilt, fear and shame that is conditioned into us by all of society and we learn to do kind of how I just described before, live by a code and deal in the currency of truth and in the facts. And from there, we teach you how to trust your impulses, to use them to guide you to a future full of passion and purpose that is only for you. Nobody else can get it. You're special. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. The impulse of you needs to be uncovered.
And in that there is a lot of power. So if you're interested in having a conversation, go to www .impulsive .life forward slash console. And if you like my content and you like the way I teach, then you will love my webinar. It is on the connect method, which I talked about some earlier. If you're an ADHD parent, I can almost guarantee you there is at least one relationship that you have left or let get cold because it is in our nature to get overwhelmed and to check out of something.
Hopefully it is not your kids or your spouse, but if it is, it's okay. There is a path back. The connect method teaches you how to connect with who matters most in a way that will engage in deep and truly authentic connection in a way that you've never seen before. But it is not easy. It is simple, but it is not easy. In my course, I will tell you everything that you need to know to get started down the path, to have deep conversations, even if you have been estranged from.
this person from years, if there was ever love there, there is a path back through the connect method. And you can sign up for that right now by going to www .impulsivelife, or sorry, impulsive .life forward slash connect. And they'll be teaching that class Thursdays at 3 .30pm. Please go check it out. It is completely free.
I promise you if you are struggling to connect with Anybody that you love any important relationship in your life if you are struggling to connect at a level that is deep enough or struggling to connect at all This method will help you get back on track and get deeper results than you've ever had before That is it for today. I thank you so much for joining me on authentic on air I love doing this random and crazy show and I hope you guys will come back next week to authentic on air.
Thank you guys, that's it. Have a great night. I will see you next week and yeah, be impulsive. Some pretty cool stuff over here. Good night.