Keys for Confidence, Self-Worth, and Porn Addiction Recovery
- Jake Kastleman
- Jun 12, 2024
- 26 min read
Updated: Aug 26, 2024
If you're battling with pornography addiction, you're not alone, and there's a way out. I've been there, and I've come through the other side. Let's talk about how you can break free from porn addiction and reclaim your life.
In today’s episode, I speak with Mark Collins, a Coach and Mentor who helps men uncover their true identity so they can build confidence, self-worth, and a life of deep meaning.
Through my years of addiction, I often wondered what was driving this destructive behavior. For a long time, I thought it was simply sexual urges and desires; that I had a high libido and a need that had to be filled.
How wrong I was.
What Mark and I discussed can make a major difference for you in your path to overcome porn addiction. Read on to find out more.
My Story: The Struggle with Porn Addiction
For years, I grappled with pornography addiction. It started innocently enough, but before I knew it, it had a strong hold on me. It affected my relationships, my self-esteem, my overall sense of self-worth, and even my sex drive and ability to get an erection. The guilt and shame were overwhelming, and I felt trapped in a cycle I couldn't break.
I reached a point where I knew I had to make a change. I couldn't keep living a double life, pretending everything was fine on the outside while I was crumbling inside. So, I decided it was time to quit porn and take back my life.
Finding My True Identity
One of the biggest breakthroughs in overcoming porn addiction was understanding my true identity. I realized that my addiction wasn't just about the porn itself; it was a symptom of a deeper issue. I was using porn as a way to medicate and escape from the realities I didn't want to face. I felt inadequate, unworthy, and like I wasn't living up to my potential.
In his book Life Mastery, Mark Collins shares some fundamental keys for stepping into this identity. He shares that through our faith and personal journey, we can discover that we are created for more. We begin to see ourselves not through the lens of our failures and addictions, but through the lens of who we are meant to be. This shift in perspective is crucial.
We remember that our identity isn't defined by our past or our mistakes, but by our inherent worth and potential. We aren’t perfect at keeping this perspective, but we practice it by building new mental habits over time.
The Power of Thoughts, Words, and Actions
Quitting porn required a fundamental shift in how I thought about myself. Mark Collins references a powerful scripture in the Bible that speaks directly to this point.
"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." - Proverbs 23:7
I realized that my negative thoughts about myself were keeping me stuck. As Mark puts it, in order to develop a new identity we need to change our thoughts, words, and actions to align with our true identity.
Thoughts: We start consciously replacing negative thoughts with positive affirmations about who we are and who we want to be. This isn’t easy, and it takes time, but gradually, our mindset will shift.
Words: We pay attention to the words we speak about ourselves. Instead of speaking defeat and negativity, we start declaring positive truths. We speak about our goals, our potential, and our progress. Instead of “I can’t…”, “I’m not…”, or “I’ll never…”, we say “I’m working on…”, “I want to…”, and “I’m practicing…”
Actions: Changing our thoughts and words contributes to changes in our actions. We make a conscious effort to engage in activities that are in line with our true identity and goals. This includes seeking support from friends and mentors and doing things that add responsibility, meaning, and make a difference.
Overcoming Obstacles
Breaking free from porn addiction wasn't without its challenges. The world around us is full of triggers and temptations. Social media, TV, and even everyday interactions can make it difficult to stay on track. But I learned that I didn't have to live in reaction to these things. Instead, I could be proactive.
One of the key strategies was surrounding myself with a supportive community. I sought out people who understood my struggle and could offer encouragement and accountability. This made a huge difference. Knowing I wasn't alone and having people who believed in me gave me the strength to keep going.
A New Path Forward
As I worked through my addiction, I realized that simply stopping wasn't enough. I had to start doing something else. I needed to build new, healthy habits to replace the old ones. This involved finding new hobbies, interests, and passions that aligned with my values and goals. It also involved turning from useless means of entertaining myself during my free time, to doing things that helped me connect with and serve others.
As someone who has struggled with perfectionism, I’ve also had to learn how to forgive myself for mistakes. Holding on to guilt and shame only kept me stuck. Forgiveness allowed me to move forward with a clean slate and a renewed sense of purpose.
A Life Free from Porn Addiction
What have you tried so far to quit porn? There's internet filters, accountability buddies, talk therapy, church or religious programs…so many different options out there to navigate. And many of these have merit, but they are often missing key elements for long-lasting sobriety.
Listen, it isn't enough to just “stop watching porn”. Addiction is a symptom of deeper underlying challenges. And the No More Desire Intensive Recovery Program addresses these challenges by guiding you through each step you need to take to build a recovery mindset and a recovery lifestyle.
This is done using hands-on daily exercises that retrain your brain and forge new habits that will last you a lifetime. And once this recovery mindset and lifestyle are established, the desire for porn naturally fades.
If you want to take the next step to overcome your porn addiction for good, check out my Free Workshop: The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. I will give you a practical and applied roadmap for recovery, including…
The REAL root causes of porn addiction.
How to stop porn cravings before they start.
The 5 Levels of Cognition that influence addiction.
The 4 Unconscious Drivers of porn cravings.
How sexual shame fuels pornography addiction.
1 simple daily practice to get out of the addiction funnel
And a whole lot more
You can also check out my Free eBook: The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings, which gives you 10 quick mental techniques that you can use anytime, anywhere to redirect your mind and replace porn cravings with new thought patterns and mental habits.
So, head to nomoredesire.com to watch the Free Workshop or pick up the Free eBook and get going on the next steps of your recovery journey.
BUILD THE NO MORE PORN LIFESTYLE
MARK COLLINS: FREEDOM FOR LIFE
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Transcription: Episode 56 - Mark Collins | Keys for Confidence, Self-Worth, and Porn Addiction Recovery
Well, welcome to the show, Mark. It's so, so awesome to have you here. Why don't you introduce yourself and just kind of talk about what you do as a coach, as a mentor, what you're teaching people, because I think it's really special and really powerful what you have to offer.
Absolutely, Jake. And first off, thank you for allowing me to be on the podcast and have a conversation with you in front of your community. The introduction I tend to tell people is, first off, I'm a husband, a father, but I'm also a pastor and a coach.
And it's something that I've been doing for quite a few years. And as I talked to Jake previous to the conversation we're having now, I let him know that the things that I teach and try and impart in people and help them to have in their own lives are things that I actually needed in my own. I have a ministry and a coaching program called Life Mastery.
And it came from an understanding that I had, or at least early on a struggle I had in really being able to master my life, to be able to overcome the issues and the challenges, the shortcomings, those times when you fall short of who you think you can be, but for some reason that same old you shows up. Well, that was kind of my life early on in my marriage and even before that as a young single man, but there was something inside of me that had told me at the time and continued to speak to me and tell me that there was more for my life and more that I could be than what I was living. But the unfortunate thing was because I couldn't find the roadmap there, I really didn't know how to move forward, but to make a long story short, I am a Christian and in my Christian walk, I continue to pursue those things and frankly continue to fall short at times and not be stepping up into the fullness of who I was supposed to be as a husband, father, and as a friend.
But through a journey of really trying to unpack the scripture, the Bible as instruction, not philosophy, I started to see that there were those attributes, those things that God gave us in his word that I was able to apply in my own life and walk into the things that I was called to. Because I believe, for me, the primary conversations I have are with Christian men, but really it's anybody, anywhere, because I think the story is still the same and the story is this, it's that you're meant for more than where you're at, whether you are super successful or somewhere in between or just starting out in your life, whether you're 12 or you're 72, that there's a call on your life that I don't think God creates people differently, but he creates us the same. And it's the same in this, that in you is a unique and specific identity that you have.
And as you understand who you are, not your past, not your pain, not the things that people have said you were, but as you understand truly who you are, you start to walk towards the place where you can live out the life that you're created for. So my journey to make a long story short is to do those two things, really trying to ignite a fire in people that you have an identity, you're unique and specific, and it's not your failures, your past or your pain, it's actually something that's pretty miraculous. And as you continue to unpack that, you're gonna walk into a life that you couldn't have imagined, not one that's just successful, but one that's fulfilling.
And for me, the definition of fulfillment is simply that you feel like you're living at exactly who you were created to be in every area of your life. So that's been my journey. For me, it came from a need and a desire to see it in my own life.
And then, you know, like having a good meal or a good movie or a great experience, when you do those things and you walk through it, you're like, oh man, I need to tell everybody about it. Well, this is that thing that I felt called to tell everybody about and help them get there as much as I can. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And so tell us more about, tell people more about this kind of identity or maybe how you understand this of who we really are and where that identity comes from. And then maybe what gets in the way of us feeling that? Because I think we all have, and this is talked about in many philosophies in many religions, we have this big self or this child of God or our spirit, our consciousness that's eternal. It's powerful, right? It extends far beyond this physical body.
What gets in the way of that? And what is that for you? What does it mean to you? Well, it's interesting. And thanks for the question. That's a really good one.
I always tell everybody that knows me and I tell them, you know, I don't have any tattoos, but if I was going to have a tattoo, my tattoo would say identity is everything. Yeah. Because what I find in my own life and in the life of other people, apart from knowing who you are and living that out, you find all these substitutes in the world, whether they're bad substitutes, like, you know, the marquee ones, drugs, sex, money, power, all those things that we use in really honestly, if you're not living from your identity, there's substitutes for it.
And what I believe as you alluded to in a lot of religions and specifically Christianity for me is understanding that you're created uniquely and specifically that God created you from the, it says from the foundations of the earth, he knew you. And in that place, there's this unique creation to who you are. There's no people that are exactly alike who are all a one of a kind creation, all a masterpiece.
It's from the Bible. It's not me making it up. It's actually what he says.
And what I believe as you alluded to, and you understand probably in your own life as well, is that there's for all of us who are Christians, there's a spirit, there's the true you, the you that was created from the beginning, right? And there's the person that we live out. And so identity is simply this. It's me living innately from who I'm created to be in all aspects of my life, spiritually, relationally, in my job, my business, whatever, in my interactions and the people around me.
So that's the life that we're shooting for, right? It's the life of freedom that Jesus talks about. What stands in the way? Well, your past, your pains and the things that are said about you. So as we grow up, everybody has the same story in that there's things that we were encouraged in, things that we were applauded for, hopefully.
I mean, sometimes your journey and your past and your childhood wasn't like that. And I'm so disappointed on your behalf because of that. But for many of us, it's kind of some of both.
There's those things that encouraged us and those things that people saw in us and spoke life into. And then there's the other parts. There's the words that were said over us that from your childhood or mine, I can name a specific person who said something negative about me, who put me down and had a less than low expectation on my ability to do something in my life.
I remember him by name. And that was when I was a child. And as you can tell by the gray hair, I'm a little bit older.
But we all have that journey. We all have that place where we've grown up and the life that we've lived, the experiences that we've walked through, right? The failures that we've had. As a child, your failure is everything.
And for me growing up, I have those moments in my life where the things that I didn't do well at, I felt proved that I wasn't as good as other people around me. And gosh, you know, in school, I'm not sure how your schooling was, but back in the day when I was in school, believe it or not, not every kid you walked around with at school was kind to you. And in fact, some of them said negative things and said things about you and they put you down and they set you aside and they proclaim things about you that weren't true.
And then unfortunately, sometimes it's the same in our families. So in this mixed bag of our life growing up, we don't understand that there's a unique calling, that there's a specific identity. We expect the people around us to affirm it.
We expect our activities to show it. And when we don't, we feel like we're a failure or we feel like we're less than or we feel like we don't, you know, the things that everybody else gets to have, I don't get to have. And so that's how all of us are.
And so what's the response? Well, the response is, how can I succeed? How can I prove everybody wrong? Or how can I medicate myself against the life I'm living? And sometimes it's a mixture of both. And so we grow up with what we consider to be our identity, but really it's our interpretation of our life. And so when we grow up and our parents are divorced, you know, many of us say, well, if I would have been better, my parents would have stayed married, right? It's my fault.
That's an identity statement. When we grow up and we struggle in school, we say, well, you know, all those nasty words, I'm dumb, I'm this, I'm that, I'm not as good as everybody else. And well, that's an identity statement.
And the problem is when you believe something about yourself, right? Scripture says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. As you believe those things about yourself, believe it or not, how God made our brain, which is super amazing, it will prove you right. The things that, and I tell people this in my course all the time, I say this, what you think about yourself, you'll become.
Who you believe you'll be, you will become in your life because we are created that way. So the things that are standing in the way are really the life we've lived, the things we've walked through, our experience, our pains, our hurts, our past, and the people that have said things about us. If I could ask the second question off of that, then how do you change that? Well, so I have a three, what I call a three-step transformational strategy in my course, but really it comes down to this.
And I'll give you the bullet points and we won't be able to flesh it out completely in our conversation, but it comes down to this. The three steps to a transformation are changing your thoughts, your words, and your actions. Or in the context of what I teach people is mastering your thoughts, your words, your actions.
Come to find out scripture was true. When he said in Proverbs 23, seven, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. It wasn't just a description of a man, it was an instruction on how to live.
So that was a light bulb moment in mine. And as I developed the course and really kind of studied and found the tools that really changed my life forever, I understood this about it. So if my thoughts brought me to where I'm at right now, what I believe about myself, my level of success, those fears of failure that made me not step into things that I could have, right? Those times where anger came up because my life wasn't how I thought it was supposed to be, not realizing that I could change that, right? So instead of doing those things and living out my life in a response to the life that's happening, what if, as in my, I have a book called Life Mastery and I say, life mastery is living life by design, not by default.
God's created us to live a life by design, by mastering my thoughts, by actually proactively giving myself the correct thoughts that align with my alignment and who God says I am. They actually change who I believe I am, so they actually change my words, they change my actions and they change my life. Absolutely.
Yeah, I love what you're saying about that. And I wanna actually touch on something that you said earlier, which was that kind of the ways that we deal with some of our identity crises or the ways that we define ourselves. I forget, the first was to succeed, to prove our worth, right? And then the second one that you said was to, we medicate, right? Against the life that we lead, that we kind of wanna escape or deny or we're judging ourselves for.
Right. I think in a lot of ways, we're trying to control that life through using these medications, quote unquote, right? And when we last talked, we kind of discussed addiction. How do you see addiction? What causes it? Where it comes from? Yeah.
Yeah. I know there's lots of philosophies and trainings and I'm not saying that what I believe is any better than what other people are doing and how they're trying to help people manage and overcome those, what we'll call addictions in their life. But again, using the scripture as the basis for everything I teach and I train, I believe that your addiction is really just that.
It's just the medication against the life that you're living. Addiction isn't a substance issue. It's an identity issue.
And so the things that we've used to medicate ourselves, whether it's the things that you can name from your life or I could name from mine, we both probably had them because literally there's no person I know who if they're not walking in what I say is freedom, that following the scripture, he who the son sets free is free indeed. It's not just a salvation promise. It's a lifestyle promise.
So if anybody's not living in that lifestyle, then they're using something as a substitute because I believe that the inside, the spirit on the inside of us cries out and screams out that you're meant for more. And if you don't know how to get there, then a lot of times you'll, like you'd said, which was very profound, you'll use something to control it. Well, at least I can be happy for a moment or at least I can feel good for a moment.
There's none of them that weren't taken because you're trying to alter your state. That's in a lot of personal developments. But what I believe is it's an identity issue because there's things I don't do now, right? In my life, I don't, you know, whatever the thing is, right? I'm not a big sports fan.
I'm not a this or that, but there's things that I am. So, you know, those kind of family things, those things you inherit, there's a reason why I'm not a smoker. And it's not because I'm not addicted to it or because I haven't tried it.
It's because it's not who I believe I am. And because of that, I don't go to the store and buy cigarettes. I don't try them out.
I don't have them at a bar or a restaurant or in the backyard or one of those things. It doesn't matter what the thing is. I'm not saying that's horrible and you're a horrible person for having it, so please don't hear that.
But what I'm saying is, if you let me stay around you long enough, I'll know who you think you are because it'll come out in your habits and the things that you do. And so for me, an addiction is just a habit of trying to, again, insulate myself, control myself, as you said, against the life I'm living because I don't believe, this may be controversial, but I don't believe God has ever made an addict because if God is perfect and his creation is perfect, then it doesn't mean I don't mess up and make mistakes. We could get into theology of it, but I don't wanna bore you with that or excite you if you're that kind of theologian.
But at the end of the day, it comes down to this. If God made me as a perfect son or daughter, then anything I do that's apart from that is my response to my life. So how do you overcome it? Well, what we do in the longterm is first off, take it for what it is, understand that this is me controlling, I'll use your word because I think it's very true.
This is me controlling my emotions, my environment and my feelings. And the second thing is this, okay, but who are you really? There's interesting, there's a neuroscientist, her name's Caroline Leaf. I've read some of her materials, studied some of her stuff.
She believes in God and she's also a scientist. So she sees a correlation between the two. And what she found was that you can change every habit over a period of time.
People have said it was, what is it? 30 days, 29 days, but come to find out that it's a longer process. But at the end of the day, the truth is you can change not just your habits, but you can change the structure of your brain. Neuroplastic structures are what we have in our brain.
And what those do is they're what I call shortcuts to decision-making. And so what is an addiction or anything that you reach out to? I'm angry, I reach out to this. I'm sad, I reach out to that.
That continual habit is actually your automated response to the life you're living. So how do you change the automated response? Well, come to find out how do you change those structures in your brain by your repetitive thoughts. Let me say it better, repetitive thoughts, words and actions.
Scientists have shown that they actually change the structure of your brain. So to me, addiction isn't, it isn't something you're born with in a gene. It's something that you mastered over time that's hurting you.
My invitation to people is can we master something that actually is unleashing us? Yeah, well, and my program is lose the desire for porn by building a recovery mindset and lifestyle. So right aligned with what you're saying, these habit pathways, if you will, right? These synapses that are connected in our brain that I like to say, and I'm not, I didn't make this up, but the more and more we repeat something, the more deeply entrenched that habit becomes until it becomes very, very difficult to climb about of that trench. But nonetheless, you can by digging another trench, another direction and slowly, right? Building another pathway.
I also, I like to say, you can't just stop doing something. You need to start doing something else. It's very much true that we have to choose a new way a new path.
And so I wondered what you might have to say about some of the obstacles that are facing people today, because I think there's a lot of obstacles keeping us from both recognizing our identity and also from making these choices that would help us become more. What do you see in our current world that are some of those biggest obstacles for people? There's a great theologian who said, there's only three things wrong with humanity and standing in your way. It's the flesh, the world and the devil.
But, and I know there's truth in that, but the thing that I see is that there's either a outside in sort of life where the world is dictating to me. And it's so easy to do, right? Because we have news media or you have your social circles or your community, right? It doesn't matter what it is, but they say that you're the sum total of the five people you associate with or associate most closely with. And there's truth in that, but it's in all of that, right? It's for you and I, we're doing this on what would be considered a social media platform.
And there's good and there's bad in that. And there's TV and media in general and there's good and there's bad. And it's the same in relationships with people.
So there's always all of these things. And so what I tell people is that you can live one of two ways. You can live in response to the life that happens, right? Things happen and it's easy to do.
I get a flat tire on the way home. You know, what am I gonna do? I'm upset, I'm angry, whatever, right? Whatever emotions you use and action you take after that. Something happens, you know, at a building I was at, there was some smoke, right? It was yesterday and we had to evacuate the building.
And, you know, there's people rushing around wondering what's going on and everything was fine. And the building wasn't, you know, ruined and we weren't hurt either. But, you know, there's, life just happens.
Happens all the time to everybody. It happens to all of us equally and some of it's good and some of it's bad. So there's always all of these things that are happening.
But the truth is that, again, like Maspere, some of the things you're doing, right? It's taking action towards, right? I can either react to what's happening or I can be the reaction. What I tell people is that you can either react to the world that's happening or you can be the response to it, the things that are happening to you. And that's a life by default, right? We all do that.
It's natural, it happens every day. But there's a mindset shift to use your term. There's a thought shift and there's a mastery shift to use my term where I'm not responding to the life that happens.
I am the response to the life that happens. What I tell people, and I believe this to be true and it's whether it's Jake or Mark or anybody else who's listening, that you are where you're at because you're the answer to the circumstances and the things that you're going through. And so it's a mind shift of, I need my life to be better so that I can succeed, flourish, have a better marriage, whatever.
Or like you said, and changing some of your habits, the things that you do in yourself, it's saying that, hey, I am the response to the life that happened. It's fascinating to me in the Bible that God never invited a leader within the word of God into a situation and equipped him afterwards. He equipped that man or woman before they walked into it.
So what we don't realize is we're not walking into anything and saying those prayers, whatever form of conversation you have with a higher being saying, hey, help me to have, right? Help me to have peace, help me to have answers, help me to have those things. I believe that the word of God shows that you already have them walking in. You already equipped.
The only problem is you don't believe it. And because you don't believe it, you don't access it. So I try, again, mindset shift.
I thought that was really good what you said there because it really is that. It's really looking at all of your life from a different perspective, not the things that are coming against me, but how I'm the answer to those conversations, those situations, those challenges that I'm walking in because it's in that place, right? Who you think you are, you'll become. Again, it's profound in multiple ways because if I believe I'm the answer, then I'll more readily find answers.
If I'm believed that I'm the answer to the situation I'm walking in, it's not arrogance. It's saying, hey, what resources do I have, right? What things are on the inside of me that I can access so that the answers happen, so that the situations are resolved, so that I can move forward in those things that I have in my life. Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Janine Gardner from Circles of Grace.
She's a brilliant, brilliant therapist there. We talked a bit about internal family systems, which is a psychological modality. Basically, the concept is we all have these parts of ourselves.
I think most of us intuitively understand that and we're like, oh yeah, I have lots of parts of me, right? But we all have these different parts. And the thing that one of the pieces that's profound about IFS, there's a couple things. One is some of these parts can take the lead in our lives that weren't meant to, right? Maybe we have an anger problem, or maybe we have an addiction of some sort, or maybe we've learned kind of a victim mentality or to really a learned helplessness.
And that is a particular part of us that is ultimately trying to help us, right? It's trying to do something good, but it's doing it in a way that's destructive or it's creating problems in our lives. And so we need to find compassion for this part. There's a whole process to that.
It's very beautiful. We don't need to try to stuff the part away. We need to find compassion for it and actually express compassion for that part of ourselves and recognize how hard it's been working to help us.
That's good. And then over time, we need to be able to bring out our true self, right? That you're referring to. I love that you say we already came with the peace.
We already came with the love, the curiosity, the creativity, right? All of this stuff. And we're here learning and growing and having new experiences, but we came with all those innate abilities. And so when we can bring these parts of ourselves into alignment through expressing compassion for them, through having conversations with them and through really helping them kind of become a team with us, then our true self can take the lead.
I like to call it, what I call it is the light of God within, right? We all have this light of God within us. That's our spirit, I believe. And if that takes the lead with the other parts kind of supporting, then we have the answers.
It's often in therapy, they talk about, the answer's already in you. You just need someone to kind of facilitate the process of discovering it, understanding it, coming to grips with what it is that you need to change or how it is that you're shifting habits or what pain is getting in the way of you being able to make changes. And so I think you're absolutely right that these powers are already there within us.
Yeah, absolutely. That's really good. Yeah, so I am curious what your thoughts are on this because this is often debated.
Do you think that this self-worth, this true sense of self-worth, do you think that we need to find that before? Do you think that needs to come as a precursor to positive actions or the positive actions are really what kind of facilitate us feeling that self-worth? Yeah, and it's an interesting question. Another great question, by the way, thank you. So it's interesting, right? Because you and I can name off the top of our head people who are very successful.
And so we just talked about social media and media in general and all of the things that are out there. So you get to learn about people's lives maybe more than you want to. Well, you find out that you can find somebody who's at this level in their life, they're whatever, an athlete or they're a actor or they're a musician, whatever it is, a business leader.
And they're amazing. And then you find that there's other areas of their life that are a disaster. See, what I tell people is this, that what we desire to do in my course and how I try and help people is say that, I'm not trying to make you successful, I'm trying to make you fulfilled.
And we mentioned that earlier, right? What I say is this, anybody can be successful. Look at, I mean, name them. There's a bunch of people out there that you can see that are amazing at what they do because success is really just you working hard enough, long enough so that you overcome the odds, learn the tasks and do the thing, whatever that is.
Elon Musk, LeBron James, whoever, there's people out there that you could name. But the difference, there's a difference between that and fulfillment because that's just a skill that you're given. But fulfillment is me literally living from who I'm created to be in every area of my life.
And the difference is this, when I'm doing successfully things in my life, what I'm really doing in a lot of places is I'm trying to prove myself and my worth, or I'm just living out a skill. But the problem with that is, if you're being a disaster in your other areas of life, then you're truly not living from who you're created to be. You're just living successfully in one area.
So I can work and I do work with people that are very successful, or people who are trying to figure it out. And it doesn't really matter where you're at on the journey, but what does matter is saying, hey, who am I created to be? The difference between what I try and give and maybe yourself as well, I'm sure, and other programs is what we talk about in identity isn't me having this idealized version of who I want to be, right? I want to be Elon Musk. I want to have lots of money and go around the world and have great and creative ideas, right? Well, the problem is there's already one of those.
And I could try and imitate somebody, and that's kind of some programs that are out there. Hey, fake it till you make it, imitate the person till you become them. And the truth is you won't, because you're going to have something on the inside tell you, hey, I'm not, I'm not Elon Musk.
And frankly, I don't need to be, because my feeling of joy and worth and value isn't going to be because I start the second Tesla. It's going to be because the things that I invest my time, my energy, and my life into bring me alive. See, there's a difference between succeeding and feeling like a failure or feeling empty inside.
And we know all of those stories. It's unfortunate in their lives. So you're going to come to a point where you're going to realize that the things you're doing aren't satisfying you.
And it doesn't mean you shouldn't have done them to begin with, but what you do are doing the right things for the wrong reasons. And they're a horrible substitute for identity. They're a great addition when you know who you're created to be.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, you know, I think this is interesting, you talking about what brings us to life, you know, because throughout my life, I've debated on what's meant to be or who am I innately, right, and finding that.
And for me in my life now, I have the belief that we all kind of came here with certain individual gifts, personal gifts that we have that are unique to us. And we are called, if you will, in my beliefs, we've been called previous to this life to do something. And I don't know whether that's how specific that is.
Maybe it's more general. For me, I've, I mean, honestly, from the time that I was a young teenager, I always knew I wanted to help people improve. I didn't know that that was addiction recovery.
That came later on, kind of close to my early twenties, my late teens, where I understood, you know, I really, really want to help people with addiction. And I knew I wanted to speak to people, right? I wanted to talk, I wanted to write. And these are things...
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