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Why I Declared War On Myself And What Happened Next · 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. Hey, HDL Nation, it's your boy, Kelly Siegel, back with the Harder Than Life podcast, where we don't just talk about success, we live it, breathe it, and fight through adversity to claim it.
• 0:33
  Remember what I always say, adversity is here, it just left or it's on its way. So there's no avoiding it. Guys remember too, a little housekeeping. These Thursday episodes are one-on-one, me coaching you a lesson. Tuesdays are the interviews. We got an amazing amount of cool, awesome people coming to talk about adversity and the hero's journey and overcoming and how they won.
• 1:02
  Without further ado, listen up fam. Today's episode is not just another motivational talk. This is about your legacy. Not something you leave behind when you die, but something you're creating every single day. Your legacy isn't some future thing, it's right now. It's the choices you make today. And today you have a choice. Will you choose comfort or will you choose growth?
• 1:31
  Will you choose excuses or will you choose action? Will you choose scarcity or will you choose abundance? I've made these choices every day and trust me, some days are harder than others. I want you to know right from the jump, I'm with you. You're not alone in this fight.
• 1:51
  I am sitting in the trenches, all dirty, all nasty, and battling the same exact demons. That's why I'm able to hear and tell you. I know you guys see on social media, it seems like I got everything figured. I don't.
• 2:05
  I sat this last Saturday in my feelings. Feeling is healing. And I sat in my shit all day Saturday processing how to become better, how to grow. We're going to talk about that. That was a choice. So let me break it down for you. Legacy isn't about the money in your bank account or the cars in your garage. I've had it all. The houses, the cars, the status. And you know what?
• 2:31
  It left me empty. I hated the person in the mirror. I wasn't proud of him and I was empty. Legacy is about how you make people feel. It's about the lives you touch, the impact you leave, and the story you tell you through your actions every single day. As we've talked about many, many times, I grew up in the pseudo ghetto in South Warren, Michigan, just off of 8 Mile and Van Dyke, where survival was the daily goal.
• 2:59
  Most people from my neighborhood either ended up dead or in jail. That's real. And I got to tell you a funny off story. Just went to dinner with some friends, ended up running into somebody I knew from high school. He looked at, at everybody we were with. He's like, yeah, I knew Kelly in high school. We're the only, one of the only two left that are not dead or in jail. I was like, you can't make that up. Wow. So,
• 3:24
  Taught me one powerful lesson though. The choices you make today shape your tomorrow. I could have run amok, ended up in jail, which I did, by the way. I did make some poor choices and ended up in jail. Luckily, God had bigger plans for me, but I could have ended up dead. And yes, I've been shot at. Yes, I've been stabbed. Yes, I've been run over by a car.
• 3:48
  Those were stupid choices, but that's how I know that I'm here for a bigger reason because God kept looking out for me and kept allowing me and giving me the energy to come forward. I could have made any of those choices, could have ended my life, but they didn't. When I look back at the legacy my stepfather left me, it's one of anger, pain, and regret.
• 4:15
  He's in hospice right now alone. That's his legacy. I chose different. I choose to use his example to build a legacy of love, empowerment, and authentic power. You have that choice too. Notice I started with love. I'm the one that broke the chain of abuse. As our friend, I admire that says, be the one you can too. And it starts with a choice.
• 4:41
  Again, your legacy is your daily habits and rituals. It's your morning routine, the way you speak to your spouse, your kids, your employees, your friends, how you look at life. And every action is either adding or taking away from your legacy. You're building it right now.
• 5:00
  every single day as a fresh chance to build something that matters. I'm gonna get real vulnerable, building the legacy through adversity. This is literally all about the harder than life. So again, to be real vulnerable during the pandemic, when the world shut down, again, I'm in Michigan, so we're one of the three worst states in the union that took the pandemic very seriously.
• 5:29
  I had a moment alone looking in the mirror. I didn't like what I saw. On paper, I had it all. Success, money, status, but inside I was still carrying the broken kid from South Warren who never felt good enough, whose stepfather told him he wasn't good enough, he never amounted to nothing, could never get anything right, who was beat, who was starved. Ugh.
• 5:57
  I had to face myself head on, no distractions, no running. I declared war on myself, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. I built systems of radical discipline, meditation, journaling, intense physical training every single day without fail.
• 6:16
  That's how I started rewriting my legacy. And guys, friends, remember, all the gyms were closed. So I ordered a home gym and assembled it. There were no excuses. I could have made every excuse in the book. In the month that it took me to get the gym, I did push-ups and sit-ups and ran around my neighborhood. People thought I was training to be the next Rocky. So think about your own life. What battles are you running from? If you face those fears, you will.
• 6:45
  Elevate. So again, what are you running from? Is it addiction? Is it fear? Is it trauma? Or the belief you're not good enough like me? These battles are your portal to a better legacy. They are a portal. They are the pathway to living a better life, to improving every aspect of your life. Every painful experience is a puzzle piece. Don't run from it.
• 7:10
  lean into it. You guys have heard me about the story, tell you the story about the Buffalo, be the Buffalo that the storm comes, Buffalo goes straight into it because the storm is coming at it. You end up staying in the storm in the proverbial messy middle, a lot less. And as opposed to if you turn around and run, the storm is kind of following you and chasing you and you end up staying in that messy middle longer. So here's a powerful statistic. Nearly 70% of executives
• 7:40
  experience burnout, anxiety, or depression. I was one of them. I self-medicated with alcohol, women, drugs, tried to numb myself from the emptiness. I kept a full bar at home thinking that was normal. But when life threw its hardest punches, like losing temporary custody of my daughter or nearly losing everything financially, I had a choice.
• 8:05
  And I chose sobriety, I chose clarity, and that decision changed my legacy forever. What decision are you avoiding right now that could change your legacy forever? I wanna remind you guys, for those of you that haven't read the Heart of Life book,
• 8:22
  I was literally at a fork in the road. I could have picked up a bottle of liquor and drank and gone down the wrong path. Instead, I picked up a cigar, I went for a long drive, cleared my head, and chose to take my power back. You can too.
• 8:40
  There's another way to build a legacy and it's through being authentic. And this word is thrown around a lot lately, but authenticity means so much and it is your superpower. It took me decades to learn this. For years, I chased validation, wearing masks to impress others. I was the life of the party. Everybody loved
• 9:07
  Drinking Kelly, he was a blast. But the mask got heavy, real heavy. Eventually, you got to take it off or it'll suffocate you. When I launched the Heart of the Life brand, it was built on transparency and radical authenticity. Guess what? People connected deeply.
• 9:24
  They felt seen, they realized they weren't alone. That's legacy. Impacting lives by simply being who you truly are. Here's three steps to building your legacy throughout the authenticity. First and foremost, I resisted this one, so that's why I put it first. Document your journey.
• 9:43
  You don't have to create some polished, perfect content. Share your real life stories, share the struggles and the victories. Document, don't create. That's your legacy in action. I do this very simply every single day through my stories on Instagram and Facebook. Just open the thing up, say what you're feeling, be real, raw, and make it relevant. Number two, keep your promises.
• 10:11
  Talked about it many, many times. One of the four agreements. Be impeccable with your word. Integrity is your brand. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Every promise kept is a building block of your legacy. And keep in mind, it builds confidence. People will learn to trust you. Number three, lead with your heart. You ever see me walking around? No.
• 10:36
  Tap in my heart because I'm feeling a little out of alignment. So I go around and I tap it and it reminds me to get back in alignment. So I used to lead with my ego, my pride. I used to joke around and say, all the ladies want to be with me and all the guys want to be like me. Oh, God.
• 10:53
  Now, I'll leave it with my heart, I ask, does this help others? Is it true, is it kind? The simple questions guide every decision I make now. The next portion of this is I wanna talk about legacy through action, what you actually do, and there's three powerful examples. And let me get specific about these three examples because you can implement them today and they're very simple. Example number one is your physical foundation. I committed to 500 workouts this year. I know it's crazy, but every workout is a choice,
• 11:23
  Choice to live healthier, longer, and stronger for my daughter Ari, for my family, for myself. And keeping the word I made to myself. I do not negotiate with myself. So one of the days that I don't feel like getting up and doing it, I do it anyways. You can start today. You don't have to do 500 workouts. Just commit to walking around the box.
• 11:46
  Go to the gym, do something, but every workout is not only a legacy builder, but it's a confidence builder in that you honor your word to yourself. Example two is emotional mastery. You're hearing me talk about this EQ a lot, mental fitness and physical mastery. You're gonna hear me throwing these around because it's everything. I used to react, I used to snap, I used to bark at people.
• 12:14
  Now I take the sacred pause for three seconds before responding. Guys, try it today. When I'm triggered, I take three breaths and watch how your legacy shifts from reactive to powerful and watch how your relationships get better and better and closer and people trust you. Nobody wants to deal with a hothead. An example three, and you're going to hear this over and over and over is a radical accountability.
• 12:41
  When something goes wrong at National Technology Management, my IT cybersecurity firm, we own it. No excuses. If a customer isn't happy, we fix it immediately. Radical accountability builds trust, respect, and a legacy of excellence, and people know what to expect out of you. What do they used to say? My parents used to say that it wasn't all bad. They'd give me some good one-liners, and it was,
• 13:04
  The devil you know versus the devil you don't. And you can, what that means is you know how people are going to react. You can make decisions based on that. So I'm going real easy with this stuff because I want you guys to resonate with it, to understand. I live this stuff crazy. And these choices that you make every day, you show me your choices and I'll show you your life. So your legacy starts now.
• 13:31
  You, the heart of the life nation, your legacy isn't something you leave when you die. It's what you're building right now. It's your daily choices, your habits, and your mindset. So today, I challenge you. Make one choice towards a better legacy. It could be, I'm gonna stop scrolling. I'm gonna get off social media. I'm gonna do less Netflix chill. Don't do that, do the chilling.
• 13:59
  Less Netflix. In fact, I barely watch TV. It could be, I'm going to read more. Just anything. Take one action towards better your physical health. Commit to three to five workouts a week. And it could be anything. Walking, walking on a treadmill, jogging, swimming. Again, for me, it's hitting those weights hard.
• 14:23
  Have one difficult conversation you've been avoiding. Guys, they're only called difficult conversations. I mean, they're only difficult conversations because we label them difficult. Truthfully, if you just go in and ask, be more curious, seek to understand rather than be understood, oh, it brings you guys closer together. And then commit to one habit of radical discipline. That could be, don't eat sugar for a month. Could be, I'm going to the gym every single day this month.
• 14:52
  Could be I'm not going to drink any alcohol this month. Anything that gives radical discipline. And that stuff's not easy, guys. I make it look easy because it's just a part of my life. I've been doing this for six and a half years. It's just a habit now. So share this episode with someone who needs it. Tag me on social media and let me know what choice you made today. Let's inspire others together. Remember what I say. Together we rise.
• 15:19
  I'm not special. I'm just discipline. If I can rewrite my legacy, you can too. Your legacy starts today, right now. Choose wisely. I'm gonna end it with thank you for being here today. I'm Kelly Siegel reminding you that living harder than life is choosing every day to build a legacy of love, integrity, and powerful impact.
• 15:43
  Don't forget intentionality. Be intentional about everything you do. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode. And remember, at NTM, we deliver peace of mind with technology every day, keeping you secure, simple, and protected. Check us out at TrustNTM.com. And until next time, stay harder than life.
• 16:05
  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.