An Uncomfortable Question

 

Today’s episode may ruffle your feathers, so to speak. Why? Because April asks a question that many will find uncomfortable to hear. But she’s willing to accept that risk because answering this question honestly and courageously can help you have a more amazing life! This promises to be a show you do not want to miss!

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An Uncomfortable Question

In this episode, I have a game-changing question for you. I might ruffle your feathers but I am okay with that if it helps you have an amazing life. In your life, in most scenarios, are you the victor or the victim? What does that even mean? If you have the mindset of a victor, you believe that you’re in control of your life. Even when a challenge comes, you welcome it. You know you’re going to find solutions. You feel confident and empowered in most situations.

If you have a victim mindset, you think life is unfair. You have more than your fair share of troubles and other people have advantages you don’t have. When things don’t go your way, it’s not your fault. There are lots of reasons that it can be so tempting to have a victim mentality or a victim mindset in situations because frankly, lots of people are born with many fewer advantages than other people. I could argue that I was one of them. It can be tempting to say, “I’m starting from so far behind. I have so many things that are working against me.” When you have a mindset like that, it is immediately true.

However, you also have a choice, and that choice that you make and the lens that you choose to view life through can make a tremendous difference. It’s not just going to make a difference in how you feel but it will make a difference in the way people respond to you. What do I mean by that? Think about the situation that we’ve had with Russia invading Ukraine and the way that the Ukraine president handled everything that happened. I can’t think of many situations where somebody would more be understandably in a victim mentality than if somebody invaded your country for no reason and was hurting your people.

However, the way that he showed up to everything that was happening was as empowered and solution-focused like, “I’m going to make this work out for everyone as possible.” What happened all around him because of it? The entire world rallied beside and behind him. Life works very much like that. When you choose to have a victor mindset, you will be surprised at how many people come to your aid and how many ways you can figure out how to make things happen. That’s not just luck. That’s also science. That is your subconscious mind bringing you more of what you focus on.

 

When you’re stuck in that victim mindset and you’re thinking that everything’s unfair, everything bad happens to you, and bad things happen in threes, “I can’t get a break,” you’re going to see more of that. You have programmed your mind to look for it. The worse it gets, the worse it gets. When you make that choice that you’re going to be the hero in your story, you start to feel empowered and as if you could handle anything, and then you get more solutions. You start to see more opportunities and people will rally around you.

Let’s go to another example. I’m going to give one from a movie. This is an old-school movie. If you’ve seen The Karate Kid, right towards the end when Daniel and Johnny are doing their big battle, Johnny sweeps Daniel’s leg and gives him a serious injury that could get him kicked out of the tournament if Daniel had not come back and fought. No one would’ve thought a thing about it because it was that serious of an injury. At that moment, while they don’t delve into Daniel’s mindset, he decides that he’s going to be the hero in his story. He says to himself, “I’m not going to go out that way. I’m going to give this one more shot.”

A few interesting things happened. 1) Even if Daniel had lost, and spoiler alert, he did not lose, he still showed up for himself in a way that would allow him to walk out of that situation with his head held high, seeing the world as something that he could impact and that he was empowered to live in a real way. 2) When you’re down and out and decide to be your hero, you are never more powerful. Johnny was underestimating what he was going to come back with. He didn’t see that kick coming. He does this crane kick and wins.

When you're down and out and you decide to be your own hero, you are never more powerful. Share on X

If you watch the Netflix follow-up, which was twenty years later, you see what happens with Daniel’s life. He has a lot of car dealerships and a wonderful family. He’s known as that comeback kid. There’s no coincidence that he was someone who chose to be the hero in his story instead of being a victim when he was bullied or the other player cheated. In any of those opportunities, he had to say, “My life is too hard.” He chose to show up for himself and then he had this amazing life.

Conversely, if you saw the show, Johnny, who then lost that match and decided that he was going to play the victim of, “I had a terrible coach. That’s why I lost because I listened to him,” instead of taking ownership and maybe apologizing or handling that a different way, you see in the Netflix show that his life plays out exactly how you think it would if he were a victim of life. In that show, life is living Johnny instead of Johnny living life.

That is what happens to any of us when we choose to see ourselves as a victim. There’s some science behind that. When you talk about mindset, the subconscious mind, and the way that it works, there’s a part of our brain called the critical factor. If I’m going to say it in layman’s terms, it’s a BS detector. When anyone tells you anything, you have to go through the critical factor in your brain and decide whether or not you believe it based on your values, your beliefs, and what you know to be true about the world. Anything I’m telling you has to go through your critical factor.

There’s one thing and one voice that doesn’t have to, and that’s your own. Think about that. Being the victim can be sexy sometimes because then, you don’t have to take the blame. You can say it is someone else’s fault. You don’t have to show up for yourself in a big way, which can be scary. When you do that, you are constantly telling yourself that’s the way your life is. When you choose instead to be the hero of your story, you’re telling yourself that you can do anything and that you can make things happen for yourself. It is huge. It is a game-changer.

 

For folks that I’ve shared my story with before, I come from very humble means. I had lots of times in my life where I could have chosen to be the victim or the victor. That choice is what has made all the difference not just in seeing opportunities but in drawing in the right mentors who made the right difference in my life, the people who want to help. People love the story of someone who’s not going to let things get them down.

I’ve got one more and this one is huge. I saw the movie American Underdog right around Christmas. Warning, if you haven’t seen it, it’s a tear-jerker. It will make you cry, man or woman. It doesn’t matter. It’s a very moving story. It’s amazing to watch how Kurt Warner goes through these different situations from being kicked off of a pro football team, being told that he was too old, buying groceries at the store with food stamps while stocking shelves, and not having enough money to live in a place on his own while still doing all the workouts for sports.

These were all these different things that could have derailed him from eventually playing professional football. Yet, he chose in every one of those situations to look for solutions and be his hero. It got to the point that that story, at least for me, is the most moving sports story I’ve ever seen. I watched someone defy all the odds, be given an amazing chance, and have this phenomenal season all because he decided to be the hero of his story.

 

Here’s the great thing. If you have in the past played the “Why Me” game or thought that it was everyone else’s fault that you didn’t have what you wanted, you can decide right in this moment that you’re going to be that hero for yourself. You’re going to be the victor from this point forward. After that decision, you will start to see more solutions.

You will understand that this is a turning point for you and things will get easier. Instead of seeming impossible, they will seem like challenges. They are challenges that you can overcome until you feel better about yourself and realize there is nothing that can happen to you in life that can get you down. Things are happening for you, not to you. That’s all about that mindset. What I would love for you to do is look for every opportunity to take ownership of being your hero and the victor in your story because I want you to win and win big. Here’s to your success.