How to Rebuild After Trauma (with Adam Lucero, “Superhuman”)

[Dana] (00:01)
Welcome to Phoenix in Flame. I’m Dana, and this is my podcast on pushing through and transforming, even when you feel like a pile of ash. Well, we have a very exciting guest with us today. As I’ve told you guys before, I absolutely adore doing podcasting because I get access to some amazing people that have amazing stories, and I get to help share those stories with you so we can all kind of come together, learn together, and get strengthened together. One of the reasons I’m so interested in today’s guest is because of what’s been going on in the media lately. It seems like every time you turn on the television, there’s some kind of violent act being perpetrated on innocent victims, and we’re left standing there watching the TV wondering, how were they feeling, how were they doing, what was that like, how did they recover? And we never really know, because the media moves on to the next thing, and the next thing. Well, today we have a guest, his name is Adam Lucero. In 2016, he was innocently watching a movie in a movie theater, and he was stabbed in the throat, arm, and chest.

[Dana] (01:26)
and the blade drove down in his arm, almost out the other side, and punctured his lung. I want to take a moment first to say, Adam, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry that happened, but really, once we hear your whole story, it’s going to definitely be a Phoenix movement, a Phoenix motion. So Adam, welcome to Phoenix in Flame.

[Adam] (01:42)
Appreciate you having me on.

[Dana] (01:49)
Awesome, so really take us there if you would, and help us understand from the very beginning, what was that like for you, what happened exactly, what was going on, and then just sort of tell us your story.

[Adam] (02:01)
It was just the classic go-to-the-movies-and-get-stabbed-in-the-throat scenario, you know, just the classic one. So basically, I graduated college and accepted a sales job in San Francisco. Two weeks before the job started, I didn’t have housing, so I thought, all right, let’s go up there and find something. I stayed at my aunt’s place, and she told me, Adam, you have to be out of the house for eight hours, I have clients coming over. I said, okay. I knew one person in the area, hung out with him for about four hours, then he had to go. So I thought, what am I going to do in an area where I know no one and I have four hours to kill? I’ll go to a movie by myself. So I go in, it’s a Wednesday, like 2 p.m., not many people in the theater, maybe 15, 20. The movie starts and I’m just watching like anyone would. But all of a sudden I feel a hard hit to my throat, and my initial reaction was, this guy hit me hard. So I stood up and said, dude, what the hell? And then I felt another punch to my arm and chest. So I turned around and pushed him, and as I pushed him I felt a cut on my wrist and ear, and instantly I knew I got stabbed. Most people only have the experience of slicing or cutting themselves, and that’s a very distinct feeling, but it turns out it’s actually much different, which is why I thought I got hit. But once I realized I got stabbed, the lights turned on, he started running away, and I took off my shirt, wrapped it on my neck, holding the blood in. Then these two older women came running up, saying, what should we do? And I told them, just put pressure on my neck, hold the blood in. Then I heard someone say, should we call 911? And as I’m bleeding out on the floor, I yell, yeah, you should call 911, if you don’t call them in this situation, when would you? I was full of rage, I was like, this is what 911 is designed for.

[Adam] (03:56)
And I should never have been so pissed off, but I was. My perception of time was distorted, bleeding out, adrenaline, whatever it may be, but I’d say about five to ten minutes passed before paramedics came. Then they started asking me all these questions, what year is it, what’s your mom’s name, who’s president, and I know they’re making sure I’m conscious and staying with them, but my only emotion was pure rage, like, shut up and save me, I’m bleeding out. So they said, all right, let’s get you up on the stretcher, and I felt all my wounds worse than the initial stabbing, because I don’t have the adrenaline in me anymore, and it was so painful. They had one person on the front right, one on the front left, one on the back right, one on the back left of the stretcher, and as they stepped over a row of chairs, I felt all my wounds worse than the initial stabbing again.

[Adam] (04:51)
And for every row of seats there was, it felt like I got stabbed in my throat, arm, and chest all over again. I remember just looking at the ceiling, literally trying not to scream my guts out, like screaming so hard internally, it was so painful, excruciating. So they get me into the ambulance, and I remember thinking, okay, the paramedics caught me, I can start to relax. And as soon as I had that thought, I got a cold rush through my entire body, like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was like, oh, that’s, I lost a lot of blood, I could die right now, because before I didn’t even have that thought, I was just in survive, survive, survive mode. Then they grabbed an oxygen mask and put it over my face, and I remember thinking, do not fall asleep, you’re not supposed to fall asleep in this situation. Five seconds later, I’m knocked out.

[Adam] (05:49)
So I wake up seven days later from a coma, living off tubes, if you unplug those tubes, you unplug my life. And while I was grateful to be alive, I felt a total loss of sense of who I was. Every ounce of muscle I had from years of weightlifting was gone, I was six foot, 130 pounds, I couldn’t walk anymore, my legs forgot how to work, and I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t talk. I was so broken.

[Adam] (06:17)
The worst part was what happened to me mentally. I was full of self-doubt and real fears, I started questioning, do I really have what it takes to run a successful business anymore, is my potential in life going to rot away with my ambitions?

[Dana] (06:29)
Well, Adam, let me pause you for just a moment, because I want the listeners and myself to just, I think this deserves a moment of attention. You were in a coma for seven days, then you woke up with tubes coming out of you right and left, and if the machines around you had been flicked off, you would die. You got to the point where you were

[Dana] (06:57)
basically six feet and 130 pounds. I mean, not to be facetious, but I’m 5’3″, I’d love to weigh 130. So I can imagine, if you were six feet and 130 pounds, you must have been just a skeleton. And what you said that I really caught onto when I was reading your bio was that you lost all sense of who you were.

[Dana] (07:26)
Who even am I? These things you used to have about yourself and your life that gave you identity, that gave you value, purpose, and a reason for being, were essentially stripped away, and you were alive but a shell, having lost all sense of who you were.

[Adam] (07:30)
Totally. And it changes your perspective. When you feel that weak, that helpless, you start to question everything you’ve ever wanted in your life. You start to think it’s too far out of reach. If you didn’t already think that before, now it definitely is, because now you’re just the weakest version of yourself.

[Dana] (08:06)
So I’m wondering, when you were right there, because I know we’ve got this wonderful ashes-to-Phoenix story coming, but I really think it’s important to honor and respect the difficulty you had to face, and what it felt like to be in that moment, when here you were basically a scarecrow of a man

[Dana] (08:36)
who’d lost all sense of who you were, the life you knew you couldn’t do anymore in that moment, what were some thoughts you had, some feelings along the way that you felt were beginning to be transformative for you as you look back?

[Adam] (08:41)
So you’re looking for hardship moments, or things when things started to pivot?

[Dana] (08:58)
Both, because I think they’re related.

[Adam] (08:59)
So in terms of the hardships, you really question if you’re good enough, if you can accomplish your goals anymore. For me, I was pissed off, like, why did this happen to me, of course this happened to me, and it’s just a lot of negative self-talk. But it was at that point when I discovered my legs don’t work anymore that things kind of shifted. I was like, all right, now I’m just pissed off, I used to be a Division One track and cross country athlete, now I can’t even stand up. I had so much anger in that moment, I told myself, in one year I’m going to be faster, I’m going to be stronger, and I’m just going to be happier than I was before, because before I got stabbed, I was in such a great place, such a high on life. So I told myself in one year I’d be faster, be stronger, be happier. Within one year I ran a 4:59 mile, close to that pace I’d had before, and I was in a pretty great place. I think first of all, having that goal, all right, I know where I’m at, it sucks, but this is where I want to go, that shorter-term one-year goal gave me direction. I was like, if I actually want to achieve this, something needs to switch, because how I’m operating right now isn’t empowering me, being a victim and blaming my circumstances, what happened, cool, that makes me feel better about myself, but it doesn’t progress my life the way it needs to go. So it was at this point I was like, all right, I can give up on my potential or I can accept what happened and move forward with that. So I just fully accepted it.

[Dana] (10:37)
I’m sorry, I need to pause you there, because I think you’re covering some really important things and I want to hover over those and go a little bit slower. A lot of people I’ve talked to before, both as patients and as podcast guests, have struggled to find a way beyond the question of why, why me,

[Dana] (11:00)
why did this horrible thing happen to me, especially if people felt like they were trying to live a good life, make good choices, be good people. And then something really awful happened that they didn’t see as a natural consequence of any choice of their own. Some people have a hard time getting to that point of acceptance you’re talking about. How were you able to, because you had that anger and then the question of why.

[Adam] (11:07)
I think it’s just a matter of perspective. You have to realize, how is you not accepting responsibility for what happened benefiting your life? Oftentimes you can’t give an answer, because it’s not, it’s literally just holding you back. Once I realized this, it gave me the power to just switch it. It’s a victim mentality, which is totally reasonable, by the way, I could have been a victim for the rest of my life and no one would have questioned it, but you have to realize it’s not benefiting your life in any way. Is it helping you get past your issues so you progress in life and feel better about yourself, or is it keeping you stuck in this vicious cycle where you don’t feel good about yourself? Ultimately it’s a choice you have to make, and it’s more of a mental choice. And I guess that just comes through the awareness and the perspective change I had, where I was like, it’s not serving me, I’m not gonna do this anymore if it’s not serving me. And once I fully accepted it, that’s when everything changed for me. I was like, all right, I’m stepping into my power, this happened, this is what I’ve got to do to get better. So we had physical therapy, speech therapy, I had nerve damage in my tongue, couldn’t speak, I had to go to speech therapy. I had metal plates in my jaw, had to go see specialists. I had all these different appointments, but on top of that it wasn’t just five or six appointments, I had to go through all the daily activities on top of it. My energy was so low that getting up to go to the bathroom felt like a marathon. I would be eating a meal and fall asleep on my plate because I was tired, eating exerted so much energy I had to nap. I literally napped every time I ate a meal. I didn’t have the energy to eat. And I couldn’t think clearly, if you asked me what 11 times 11 is, I couldn’t solve it.

[Dana] (13:05)
Wow. Just eating made you so tired.

[Adam] (13:23)
This is where it comes into a lot of the self-doubt, I was like, I am so weak and pathetic right now. So not only did I have to do all this physical therapy, speech therapy, all these different appointments and exercises, but I had to learn how the human body and brain works, how can we boost our energy levels, how can we boost our mental alertness so we can perform at a higher level and accomplish more in a day. So it was step by step, day by day, I just started to continually do things that would improve my life, and it eventually picked up momentum.

[Dana] (13:53)
Well, and we’re absolutely going to get to some really wonderful things, because I’m excited about that part too. But I did want to point out that you said at one point you had the cognitive function comparable to a four-year-old. And I want to say, if we’re really stopping and hovering over and unpacking what you’re saying, truly absorbing it, you had every reason to really pull on that victim cloak

[Dana] (14:21)
and just wear it for the rest of your life. If anybody had a reason, you had multiple reasons, very concrete reasons, different things you were having to struggle with that were significant. You could have just said, poor me, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, other people can do those things and I can’t, and everybody should feel

[Dana] (14:48)
sorry for me, I’m just kind of pathetic, they should feel sorry for me, I can’t do this. And you could have just curled up into a fetal position and played a victim. I want to say, for people out there listening, if you’re struggling with that mentality, if you’re going through something like that, that is an option, but it doesn’t turn out well. I think that’s something you’re sharing with us, and you’re going to share more about how you said it didn’t serve you.

[Dana] (15:16)
Wrapping up in that victim cloak did not serve you, how you wanted your life to turn out. So listeners, if you’re struggling with that kind of desire, that compulsion to want to be a victim, because it’s hard to turn away from that, some people have every reason, a hundred reasons, why they could absolutely just put on that victim cloak for decades to come. But the question is, is that going to serve you?

[Dana] (15:42)
And also, since I’m called the queen of boundaries, I want to say that if you’re in a relationship with someone who’s wrapping themselves in the victim cloak and wants you to feel sorry for them, wants you to play into that role with them, you do not have to do that. And that does not make you a mean, hateful, or bad person. It’s just saying you’re not going to participate. You’re wanting them to step into their power, and you can’t make them do that.

[Adam] (15:42)
It’s you stepping into your power.

[Dana] (16:11)
And if they refuse to do that, you can decide whether you’re going to participate in that whole victim dynamic with them or not, because it might be you dealing with the victim mentality, or it might be someone you know. So it’s just understanding that isn’t healthy for anybody.

[Adam] (16:20)
And the other thing is, for people struggling to make that mental switch from victim to full responsibility or acceptance, you also have to think, if you’re already not happy with what your life looks like, how are you going to feel in two more years on this same path? Every single day, all your problems get worse, how you feel about yourself continues to get worse and worse. And is that the parent you want to be, the brother, the daughter, whatever role you are, is that who you want to be for the ones you love in your life? So that’s something you have to start to think about: what is your life going to look like in two, five, or ten years if you stay on the same path?

[Dana] (17:05)
Yeah, that’s an excellent way to look at that, and whether it’s your own path or someone you know, whether it’s a close relative or friend struggling with that, you have the right to either encourage them and participate in a healthy way, or participate with their dysfunction, but it’s your choice.

[Adam] (17:07)
Exactly. Their actions are their actions, your actions are your actions.

[Dana] (17:31)
And I want to toss this out, and then get to all the stuff you learned, which I’m so excited about: sometimes when you have someone close to you who’s intent on being a victim, for whatever reason, people have lots of different reasons for clinging to that victim mentality, and if you don’t go along with that,

[Dana] (17:48)
and you don’t participate in that with them, they frequently will turn on you and call you names, say you’re hateful, unforgiving, unkind, all this kind of stuff, because you’re not going, oh, bless your heart, that’s so awful, I’m so sorry for you. So I’m just telling you guys, when you start practicing healthy boundaries, if you happen to be in a relationship with someone who won’t let go of the victim mentality,

[Dana] (18:11)
they might do these things, that doesn’t mean you’re unkind, it doesn’t mean you’re unforgiving, it doesn’t mean you’re hateful, it means you’re walking a healthy path and you’re not going to enable them to participate in something dysfunctional, and they’re not going to like that. So setting boundaries is sometimes helpful but not easy.

[Adam] (18:13)
Oh, it’s definitely helpful, 100% helpful.

[Dana] (18:37)
All right, so Adam, you’re in this place where you’re getting stronger, going to therapies day by day, week by week, and you keep going to therapy, getting a little stronger, your brain getting better, able to think better, speak better, walk better. Tell us what happens.

[Adam] (18:52)
Yeah, so eventually I got to a point where I started to feel like a functional human being again, after lots and lots of time and putting in the work. My job that I was up there for, they actually held the position for me and helped me financially, they were great through the whole thing, they said, your job’s ready for you whenever you’re ready. So I went and started working for them, and things were great, I was only working 25 or 30 hours a week at a full-time job, and they had me on track for a promotion about twice as fast as most people. That was a pretty high-paying job, things were going fantastic, but something inside of me just didn’t feel right. I started to walk into the office and just wasn’t excited, it felt like my soul was being sucked out of me. And as I started reflecting on my life, I realized I’d never held a job longer than two or three months, because I just, I can’t do it, it literally kills me, I don’t feel like a human being when I’m in there. So I realized: I can’t work for someone else, like, this is the best job I could probably get, working 25, 30 hours, good money, freedom, everything, and I still hate it, I still hate this. So then I called up my brother, who runs a marketing business, and asked if I could help him grow his business, go more the entrepreneur route, which is kind of what I’ve done growing up. I worked with him for about a year, gained a lot of skills, and then eventually started my own business. I asked myself, what am I most passionate about, and it kind of dawned on me: friends would call me up and tell me they wanted help with their energy, mental alertness, or trying to achieve more, and I’d be on the phone with them for 90 minutes, two hours, and I would feel energized, like those speakers on stage who just seem full of energy, charismatic. I was that version of myself when I was speaking to them, and it kind of dawned on me: I love helping people become more powerful, achieve more in life, and feel better about themselves, because when you don’t achieve much, you feel bad about yourself, like a shadow of the person you should be. So that’s where I really discovered, I like helping people be empowered, whatever it is, their perspective, their physical performance, I like helping people reach their full potential. And since then, that’s what I’ve been doing, typically working with entrepreneurs or really driven people, and now I run a business around it.

[Dana] (21:36)
And I’m so excited to figure out what your business entails and how you’re helping people. I want to take a moment, though, and hover over that phase where you went into a job that you tried, like, every kind of average person goes and works for the man, or works for whoever, and for some people that’s great, they enjoy it, they enjoy going into the office or their cubicle,

[Dana] (22:06)
but you noticed you couldn’t stay in a position like that longer than two to three months before you felt like your soul was being sucked out of you. I think it’s so important that you were able to acknowledge that, instead of repeatedly going in, and one of the reasons I’m pointing that out is because I talk to people who don’t recognize and honor that, and they keep doing it, and then they end up depressed,

[Dana] (22:35)
they end up on antidepressant medication, which is fine, a lot of people take that, but sometimes they also end up drinking too much, or on drugs, because they’re trying to medicate this soul-sucking feeling. And instead of thinking, what else can I do, they just keep beating their head against that same wall. I really like your story in that you acknowledged how that made you feel on the inside, you kept trying, A for effort.

[Adam] (23:05)
Yeah, it’s just a Band-Aid solution.

[Dana] (23:08)
But then it keeps happening, it’s not just that job, not just those people, not just that company, it’s me, I feel this inside of me no matter what situation I go to. So there’s a pattern here, and you acknowledged that, and said, okay, I’ve got to reach out, I’ve got to get something else going on. And then you noticed what really made you feel energized and jazzed and excited, and you followed that. That’s really amazing.

[Adam] (23:59)
Appreciate it. And to your point, a lot of people focus on the Band-Aid solution, alcohol, drugs, antidepressants, to minimize the effect, but then you’re going to be on this cycle for the rest of your life unless you fix the actual root cause of the problem. Really spending time in the silence, disconnecting from all these electronics, and taking time to reflect on your life, can do wonders for that.

[Dana] (24:06)
Okay, you said something I can’t pass by, you said spending time in the silence. That’s huge, and I talk to my patients about this, I’ve discovered from talking to countless people that many times the reason people do not want to spend time in the silence is because of the thoughts and feelings waiting for them there, thoughts they don’t want to think, feelings they don’t want to feel.

[Dana] (24:26)
And so they spend their life in this frenetic pursuit of activity, which is basically an avoidance tactic to keep from thinking their thoughts and feeling their feelings, because it makes them uncomfortable and they don’t want to do that. So when you talk about spending time in the silence, that’s huge, it’s daunting for a lot of people, but it’s a really big deal.

[Adam] (24:34)
No matter what you’re trying to achieve in life, that’s the key to growth and success. The way I think about it is, what’s happening when you’re in silence, is you first have to realize your mind is a separate entity than you, you are not your thoughts, they just come in there, your mind is literally a separate animal that actually causes depression, anxiety. And I say this with confidence because I’ve seen it in my own experience: every single time in my life where I felt truly at peace and joy and bliss, there was no mind activity, I was very in the moment for whatever reason. This is often why people drink, because it gets them to a state where their thoughts are gone and they’re fully present in the moment, and they enjoy life a lot more. Through my experiences, and also reading on this topic, once you silence your mind, anxiety, depression, any internal turmoil will vanish from your life the instant you’re actually fully present in the moment. Now, that’s easier said than done, but the other thing is, when you’re in silence and you’re not using your thinking mind or conscious mind, you’re tapping into your subconscious mind, which is far more powerful, connected to your higher consciousness, and brings you breakthroughs. If you look at some of the most revolutionary people in the world, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, they all talk about their biggest breakthroughs coming when they stop thinking about the problem: eight hours thinking about it, unable to solve it, go for a walk, observe nature, and boom, the idea flows in, a eureka moment. Einstein said the same thing about his sleep, he’d go to sleep when your thinking mind is least active and your subconscious is most active, and he’d get lots of breakthroughs, wake up, take notes, or go to work. So the more time you spend in the silence, the more you start to actually discover yourself, more breakthroughs, more reflection, more growth. It might be uncomfortable, but you have to realize how much suffering comes when the mind is very active, and once you disconnect yourself and realize your mind is not you, it’s actually trying to control you, then you have the power to shift, to focus your attention more gently on the present moment. You might be thinking, Adam, it’s hard to be present, and yeah, it is, don’t get me wrong, it’s tons of training and awareness and reflection and observation. But one thing I like to do is focus on the energy inside your body, have that mind-body connection: okay, I’m feeling my left big toe right now, and now the next toe, and try to really feel your body. The more you can connect to how you feel and have that mind-body connection, the more present you’ll be by nature.

[Dana] (27:59)
Awesome, very good mindfulness techniques, just being in the moment. So you said that once you started getting your energy back, getting your flow back, finding your space and your groove, you started researching secrets of evolution, biology, epigenetics. Tell me a little bit about that.

[Adam] (28:02)
Yeah, so ultimately it’s how can you use food and nutrition to really change how your genes are expressed, that’s ultimately the way I look at it. Whenever you do anything, it’s affecting how your genes are expressed. I know you’re probably thinking, you’re born with genes that are good or bad, and to an extent you’re right, some people are born with better genes that pack on muscle easier, whatever it may be, but it’s your actions that affect how those genes are expressed and ultimately how your body performs. So you can send signals to your body to make it perform better. Not rocket science, we all know this: stop eating garbage food, processed foods, vegetable oils, cut out that stuff, you’re going to feel a lot better. Besides that, what I found that works a lot for my energy levels, when I’m in a higher state of performance, is cutting out more of the carbs and getting my metabolic state to use fat for energy. This helps with energy levels for a few reasons, I like using an analogy here: imagine you’re camping and want to build a fire that lasts the night, you could go grab a bunch of twigs and build a roaring flame, that’s going to be huge real quick but then dwindle out, that’s kind of what carbs or glycogen are for energy, that’s why when people eat carbs, a few hours later they typically crash and get tired, it’s the blood sugar, your energy goes up and down. But if you use fats for energy, it’s like building a fire with a bunch of big logs, much more stable and consistent, it’s going to last throughout the entire night. By building the metabolic state to use fat for energy, you get to a point where there have been times I don’t eat for nine or ten hours and don’t even notice, I’m just grinding, doing my daily activities, and then something will feel a little off, and I’ll realize, oh, I haven’t eaten in ten hours. Whereas if I was using carbs for energy, after two or three hours I’d get grumpy, angry, irritable. So that’s one of the things that’s really helped with energy levels. Besides that, there are different types of workouts you can do to increase your mitochondria, deliver more oxygen to your brain so you think more clearly. So there are different things you can do, and ultimately we call it superhuman performance, it’s really everything you can do to optimize your health so you perform at a higher level day in and day out.

[Dana] (30:49)
That sounds fantastic. Now, there were some questions we said earlier you kind of listed on PodMatch that you could answer, and I picked out a few. I thought, oh, these are good ones. Regarding everything you just said, I think people hear things like that and think, oh, that sounds good, but, and the question is, how do you kill procrastination? Because I can imagine being a listener,

[Dana] (31:16)
listening to you say these things and thinking, oh, that’s good, that’s good, I think those are good ideas, and then I’m going to click off the podcast and go about my business and put it off, and put it off until I forget about it. So how do you kill the procrastination so we can put into motion these things we hear that are going to help us, so we don’t keep putting it off until other things in life press in and we forget?

[Adam] (31:23)
Try it. So there are different ways to tackle procrastination, but this is funny that you asked, because that’s literally the first pillar of my program: what you need to do is link your two minds together. You might be thinking, what are you talking about? You have your conscious mind and your subconscious mind, and contrary to popular belief, your subconscious mind actually controls the vast majority of your actions, 95% of your actions in a day are made subconsciously.

[Adam] (32:10)
When you woke up, did you think about which hand you’re going to use to lift the sheets off your body, which foot you’re going to land on first, where you’re going to step next? No. So how did those decisions get made, subconsciously, through your habits. This is also why you’ve likely had times where you’re driving, you zone out, and then all of a sudden you zone back in and you’re at your destination, how the heck did I get here, you have no conscious recall, again your subconscious mind took over. Lots of times when people try changing their actions, say they’re going to go on this new diet or workout, they’re using their conscious mind, declaring to themselves they’re going to do X, Y, and Z, and we all know what happens, that commitment doesn’t even last ten days if they’re lucky before they’re back into their old patterns. So what we do is mind linking: when you get your two minds working together instead of battling each other, when you tell yourself you’re going to do something, you actually do it and feel motivated to do it. There are a few ways to link your minds together, but in order to kill procrastination, there’s also a perspective switch that has the power to instantly kill it: you have to operate from commitment. I want you to look back at any area of your life where you achieved excellence, whether it’s school, a sports team, your job, your career, whatever, and look at those times you exceeded and achieved your goals, you were committed to the outcome you wanted, you didn’t care how you felt on a given day, you simply pushed through. Again, this is opening up your awareness, look back at your life, look at the times you crushed it and realize you were committed, you didn’t let your emotions dictate your actions, you operated from a much more powerful place. And then look back at the times you failed, or didn’t get the outcome you wanted, you’ll realize you weren’t committed, you let your emotions dictate your actions. So look at all the highest-performing people on this planet, do you think Elon Musk always feels good and energized, he gets three hours of sleep, no, but he always pushes through because he’s committed to the change he wants to have in this world. So you have to operate from commitment, no matter what area of life, if you actually want to achieve excellence and hit your goals. And what we do for this is get them to reflect on the times they stayed committed, and then get them committed to this process of linking their two minds together. Does that make sense?

[Dana] (34:38)
It does, it does make sense. I’ve actually talked to my patients about this before, because I do a lot of trauma work, and we talk about the amygdala and hippocampus, the emotional part of our brain, and how much stronger and faster it is than the neocortex, which has the reasoning and logic. So I understand exactly what you’re saying, and it’s absolutely spot on about how powerful that part of our brain is in the background. Before we get our listeners

[Dana] (35:07)
channeled over to where they can get more access to you, I just want to take a moment to hover over the fact of how far you came, what happened to you, and how far you progressed. You went from being brutally stabbed, almost dying in a movie theater because people didn’t even know if they should call 911,

[Dana] (35:32)
and then you were in a coma for seven days, you basically were a scarecrow of a young man who could barely walk, couldn’t hardly think, had the cognitive ability of a four-year-old, to come all this way to do what you’re doing now, I just think is amazing, and it’s worth taking a moment to just acknowledge that. That is huge, because I know when you’ve done it and you’ve been living it,

[Dana] (35:58)
sometimes we just have to stop and go, let’s just be mindful for two seconds, and go, wow, that’s freaking amazing, and how wonderful. And now you’re here, committed, doing something you love that isn’t soul-sucking, but you found what gives you passion and fills you up with joy to be able to reach out and help other people. I definitely wanted my listeners, who’ve heard your story and are thinking, oh my gosh, I’ve got to hear more about what Adam has to say, to

[Dana] (36:27)
really kind of join along with him, and maybe he can help me go farther down my own path, because I’m having trouble myself. So what I have here is superhumanceo.com, is that the website you’d like my listeners to go to?

[Adam] (36:31)
Yeah, so basically it’s going to kind of recap my story, give you more background, client results, and stuff, and if you’re interested, like, hey, I like what this guy has to talk about, maybe he can help me, there’s a link on there to book a call, speak either with me or my team, and we’ll see if it’s a good fit.

[Dana] (37:04)
That’s wonderful, thank you, thank you, Adam, for spending your time and your energy and bringing and sharing your story with me and my listeners. Thank you.

[Adam] (37:08)
Appreciate you having me, and thanks for having me on.

[Dana] (37:18)
Okay guys, so like I said, and I’ll put this in the show notes, go to superhumanceo.com to find more information about Adam and how he can possibly help you get to the next level of where you need to go in your life. And like I said before, being the queen of boundaries, if you want to know more about that, you can go to my website at danaskaggs.com, take the quiz, sign up for a course, it’s just amazing. So this podcast, I know you’ve heard something today that has been amazing to you, and also, like I always say, if you have a friend, if you have a family member, if you have a coworker that you’re thinking, oh my gosh, I know the exact person who needs to hear this, it’s spot on exactly what they need, send it to them, copy and paste the link in a text and email, put it on your favorite social media platforms. Let’s get the word out, let’s open and spread and grow our Phoenix and Flame community. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day, I hope the rest of your day goes great. This is Dana on Phoenix in Flame.