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160: The Best Steps to Turn Pain Into Purpose · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:24
  How to Live Nation, welcome back. It's your boy, Kelly Siegel, and today we're cutting through the noise and getting real. I really appreciate all y'all being here. I put a lot of work into these. You can be anywhere right now, but you're taking 15, 20 minutes out of your day to learn from me, and hopefully learn from my mistakes. All right, today's episode is about adversity to authentic power. Here's the truth, life isn't fair. You're going to get hit, you're gonna get knocked down. It's hard. It's hard.
• 0:53
  But adversity, you've heard me say it a thousand times. It's here, it's on its way, or it just left. It's not your enemy. It's your birthplace. It is the portal of your authentic power. It is what separates the winners from everybody else. The people you admire, the legends. They don't have it easy.
• 1:16
  They had it brutal and they turned pain into purpose, wounds into wisdom, and setbacks into stepping stones. Viktor Frankl said it best, when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. I got to tell you, literally for 25 years, I tried changing every situation and then finally just looked in the mirror and said, this is me.
• 1:43
  And that's why I'm here today on the Heart of the Life podcast talking to you. I'm also going to hand you the exact blueprint to weaponize your adversity like I did. And use it to build peace, clarity, and freedom. Let's turn your pain into the power. Are you guys ready? Everyone faces adversity. But not everybody rises. Some collapse. Some blame. Some stay stuck. But the elite...
• 2:13
  You folks listening, the Harder Than Life Nation, we rise, we optimize, and we conquer. Your adversity can either define you or it refines you. The choice is yours. Here's what adversity gives you. The pain reveals what comfort hides.
• 2:31
  Adversity strips down illusions and expose what's real. It forces reinvention when your old identity breaks. And don't forget, it exposes the part of you that still needs healing. Y'all remember that Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills defensive back who collapsed on the NFL field, literally died on the field. The whole world stopped.
• 2:56
  came back grateful, stronger, more authentic, and better than ever. We all have the same opportunity, although we don't have to die to seize it. Here's how I turn pain into power and how you can too. There are five steps. I'm gonna give you one at a time. Number one, acknowledge and name the pain.
• 3:19
  You can't heal what you deny. Remember, denial is not a river in the Amazon. So when you're feeling left out, you're feeling unlovable, you're feeling less than, you're feeling betrayed, just name it.
• 3:37
  And then pro tip is to ask yourself, where is it coming from? But number one, acknowledge and name the pain. Number two, own the response. Victimhood delays healing. Ownership accelerates it. This is your pain. It is your trigger. It is your responsibility to address it.
• 3:57
  Nobody else is causing it. It is nobody else's job to fix it. Number three, reframe the story. You can't change the event, but you can change the meaning. For years, I thought I was unlovable because my parents didn't show love. They loved me. They just didn't know how to show it.
• 4:17
  So I reframed it and said they were making me tough and resilient so I could handle anything in life. They were preparing me for the adversity that I'm talking to you about today. Number four, channel the energy. Pain creates fuel, energy.
• 4:36
  Misuse, it burns focused. It builds empires. Woo, did I use this for years. I took all of my anger. And I would say, you've heard me say this, most won't, I will. Or they say, it can't be done. Another one I use is impossible, only describes a degree of difficulty.
• 4:56
  The harder things are, the harder I get. Hence, it's harder than life. So channel that, all that negativity into something positive. Watch how that pushes you. Woo, I actually feel that I'm healed now.
• 5:13
  that I lose that edge. Also a thought that is a magical lie, people. Back to the list. Number five is serve from the scar, not the wound. When you heal, your story becomes someone else's survival guide. Literally is why I'm here talking to you today.
• 5:33
  pouring my life into you and absolutely being authentic and vulnerable. You guys have read in the Heartland Life book, I lost custody of my daughter temporarily, got sued and lost our biggest client at National Technology Management during the beginning of the pandemic, literally all at once on the same day. That could have destroyed me, but instead it forged me.
• 5:57
  I literally looked over at my scotch and said, I could have one, but then I would know and I would have gone the wrong path. So you are going to be served a fork in the road. You got to decide which way. Pain is inevitable. Growth is optional. But not if you're listening to this podcast.
• 6:18
  We must grow together. I literally say instead of let's go, let's grow. That's the heart of life mantra. It is a core value of national technology management, continuous improvement, AKA growth. So here's the heart of life blueprint for building real, authentic, long-lasting, staying power. Daily physical mastery. Move your body forward.
• 6:44
  Win your mind. Now remember, I post this every single day. I'm in the middle. I'm not even in the middle yet. By the time this airs, I'll be darn near the middle of doing 500 workouts in...
• 6:56
  calendar year 2025. I don't know what I was thinking, but I also believe that you look good, you feel good, you do good. So the foundation is physical fitness. If you don't have your health, you have nothing. They say on an airplane, put your mask on before you help anybody else because you're no good to anybody's death. So get your physical health in order. The second thing is radical ownership. Own it all, no blaming.
• 7:25
  There's nobody else's fault. It is all on you. You look, there's one finger pointing away, three are pointing right back at you. You want to fix things, go look in the mirror. Journal for clarity. Dump your chaos on paper and sort it out. This, I literally, I've never said this before.
• 7:47
  but I was embarrassed to put everything on paper. I was afraid somebody would find it. And frankly, I was afraid that my ex-wife would get it and use it against me. But truthfully, they'd see a flawed human going through a healing process, trying to figure out life. Now, it's an absolute must for me. It just gets me out of my mental spiral loop.
• 8:11
  So I journal just to get everything out. Pro tip, star certain days, especially the days you feel good so you can repeat those days. I take a daily emotional inventory. Feel it all, but don't react to it all.
• 8:28
  Today, as I'm recording this, I'm feeling some kind of something and I will work through it before the end of today and let it go. But I sit here powering through several podcasts. So I take an inventory. How do I feel today? Most of it is I woke up too early this morning and I made this silly mistake of grabbing my phone.
• 8:47
  When I grabbed my phone, I saw things that irritated me right off the jump, and I just was off to the races. So, guys, I've told you my daily mastery to not grab your phone within the first hour. I made that mistake, and I am off to the races. And I'm still searching for how I feel today. It is literally a comparison. I'm comparing myself to other people that are further along and wondering what's wrong. And I don't know what that's all about, but I'll unpack it later on.
• 9:15
  So we talked about this earlier, build a scar based Michigan, use your story to serve others.
• 9:21
  I was physically and emotionally beaten by my parents. And I don't say this because I'm asking for sympathy. I want you to understand that no matter what your story was, we can fix it, we can heal it, but leverage it to positivity for good. Mike Tyson once said, discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it. Man, that's about how I feel with my workouts right now. Discipline is doing what you hate to do,
• 9:51
  but doing it like you love it. Pain transmuted into discipline becomes destiny. That word transmuted keeps showing up. I was on a podcast in St. Louis last week, and the word transmuted kept coming up. I read the last book, transmuted was in there. So guys, look that up. It's actually a really cool word. Like I told you earlier, I grabbed my phone this morning and started looking at headlines.
• 10:15
  We see Biden's diagnosis of prostate cancer. We see Schumer blaming Trump for the ship hitting the Brooklyn Bridge. We see Ukraine and Russia still fighting. But through that, you see Trump staying strong. You see the Ukrainian leadership staying strong through all the chaos. You see Vladimir Putin staying strong. Leaders...
• 10:45
  Stay strong in tough times. There's also a bunch of tech founders reinventing their companies after mass layoffs. Just look at Google. Ooh, obviously you can look at Twitter or X, whatever they call it. Athletes sharing their struggles publicly because authenticity is the new advantage. Man, is that, you hear the Simone Biles story, we've all heard it. Man, we are all, the moral of the story is we are in this together. You are not alone.
• 11:15
  You throw a stone and find somebody feeling exactly the same way you are today. So fake strength is out. Transparent strength is in asking for help and receiving help. That's my biggest thing. I will ask for help and then I'll push it away.
• 11:30
  fully receive it. Growing up, there was nobody to help me. So I did everything myself. So that's my default. I'm working on that. Winston Churchill once said, and actually he said it best. And I've read all of it. A lot of his biographies are good. Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is
• 11:54
  Love that. Winston Churchill was one of the most fearless leaders during World War II. He literally would be watching the bombs bomb all over the city, and he would stand there and smoke and lead fireside chats and talk to people. And he is the definition of leadership you want.
• 12:11
  to know more about that, read any of his biographies. So that courage, his courage he was talking about, was forged in complete adversity. Guy was a tough dude. But here's what not to do with pain. I want you to avoid these. I don't want you to numb it. I don't want you to live in victimhood. Don't quit. What I want you to do is feel it, face it, and heal it. The time it takes to numb, whether it be through cannabis or,
• 12:39
  through alcohol, through diversion, you can literally feel your way through it. A feeling lasts about 60 seconds, an emotion lasts 60 seconds. How long does it take to take a sip of alcohol and actually feel it? Probably 15 to 20 minutes. So guys, numbing it, it's no longer cool. It's just kicking the can down the road. We all know my stance on numbing, numbing and numbing. The victimhood stuff, it's just a no-no for me.
• 13:08
  The world owes you nothing. What I want you to do is rewrite your story from the victor's perspective. There's a little cheat sheet where people go in and they say, what's life gonna look like for you in 10 years? I've done it. I'm sitting poolside with the love of my life.
• 13:24
  My daughter's grown up. Life is good. And I literally write that out. And it makes me feel gratitude. And it makes me feel like the victor and not a victim. Because I could sit back and play victim with the best of them. Like, woe is me. Why didn't my parents love me? Why did they abandon me? Why did my dad die so young? I can go with the best of them, but I don't.
• 13:45
  Because it doesn't serve you. It doesn't move you forward. And then the final one was that quitting. Progress hides in plain sight, man. Trust the invisible growth. Faith over feelings. Faith over fear. Faith and fear both believe in something in the future. Why not believe in the positive, which is faith?
• 14:12
  Man, oh man, believing in invisible progress is...
• 14:16
  Sounds so simple, but it is not easy. Believe in invisible progress. You are batting 1,000. You've overcome everything that God, universe, source, that the world has sent you. Keep going, do not quit. Pain isn't a prison, it's a forge. It's what's gonna make you harder than life. Step through it and come out the other side, more powerful, more authentic,
• 14:44
  larger than life. Here's a challenge for you guys. For the next 30 days, pick one adversity you've been avoiding. Write the real raw story, full ownership, no blame. Decide what that story means to your future. Take one action daily to transform that pain into power and then document your journey. You're not meant to play small. Playing small is canceled. So let me go back and say that.
• 15:12
  One adversity you've been avoiding, mine right now.
• 15:15
  full disclosure, has been surrendering and allowing. So I write the real raw story. The reason why I don't like to surrender and I don't allow it because I like to, the illusion of control because I had zero control when I was a small child being beaten, abused. I was scared to death all the time. So what did I do? I built this body, I fought back, I got a paper route, I started feeding myself, I took control.
• 15:43
  And that is my default mechanism all the way to 49 years old. And what it means to me is it meant survival. So what do I do? Take one action daily is to surrender and allow. Today, there was supposed to be a podcast posting. The team missed it, something happened. There was a technical glitch. And instead of losing my mind and texting everybody and calling everybody at five o'clock in the morning when it didn't post,
• 16:09
  I let my team do it and I surrendered. And what happened? We got closer about it and they caught it. So playing small is cancel. My thing I'm working on, the adversity that I'm trying to overcome, stop trying to control everything. Had a buddy call it helicopter leadership.
• 16:31
  So you were born to be awesome. You were born to overcome, to rise, to lead. Pain was your birthplace. Power is your destiny. That hits right home. Email me at kelly at harderthanlife.com. Tell me what adversity you're turning into a weapon and I'll send you a digital copy of the Harder Than Life book. We got book number two coming out very soon, Happier Than Life.
• 17:00
  So I'm giving away all the harder than life books. And if you're ready to forge your best self into the fire, join on the inside, the Harden Life Coaching membership. It's available. All you gotta do is coaching.hardenlife.com. Around here, we don't just survive. We rise with power. We're harder than life, eventually being happier than life. Let's go.
• 17:23
  Hopefully you got something out of this. Please share it with somebody, anybody that you would think this would benefit. I really appreciate you tuning into this today. I pour my heart and soul into these things. They come from literally all the pain and suffering that I've had. And I just want to keep all you guys from having that same thing. Again, I love you all. Be awesome. Be kind. Be harder than life.
• 17:48
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.