Resilience And The Right Mindset: Driving Change And Peak Performance With Tommy Walker

 

Adversity is the proving ground of success, as long as you have the right mindset. You can drive change and resilience as long as you try and don’t give up. These and other life lessons are tackled in this episode as our host, Rodney Flowers, sits down for a chat with mindset coach, Tommy Walker. Tommy shares his story, talking about his childhood, his attempts at business success, and his realization that his mindset was holding him back.  Learn how to rise from adversity in this must-catch episode.

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Resilience And The Right Mindset: Driving Change And Peak Performance With Tommy Walker

As always, I’m excited about our show. I have The Mind Engineer with me. He is Tommy Walker. He’s been an entrepreneur for over 21 years. He’s had his expected ups and downs. He’s had many struggles. He’s here with us as a mindset coach to share his story of transformation and being able to overcome what he felt was a devastating and profound moment in his life. It was profound that he wanted to share it with people so he started his own business. He’s here with us to share that experience with us. Without further ado, let’s welcome Tommy Walker to the show. Welcome to the show, Tommy.

Thank you, Rodney. I’m happy to be here and learning from you. You have gone through difficult things. To prove to people that when adversity comes your way, there’s always a learning experience and you can become a greater version of yourself. That’s what you went through and look at where you are. This is what we’ve been doing for some years now. Also, sharing with people that they can become whatever they want to become if they feel it deep down and they get rid of the garbage in their heads.

It does take some mental work. It sounds like you’ve experienced some of that. You have some philosophies and strategies to share. Yes, that’s what we do here on the show. It’s your mentality around the game that you’re playing. We’re all in the field of adversity. We all have a story and we all have experiences. It’s not our talents, money and not our background but it’s the mentality out there on the field that determines your level of success. If you can win in the mind, you can win in the game. That’s my philosophy. It has worked for me on many occasions. It continues to be the lighthouse and beacon in my life.

Whenever I feel that I’m stuck, I feel that I’m not winning or I can’t score, I go to the mind and I’m like, “Who am I? What am I thinking? What is the learning process? Who do I need to become? What changes do I need to make? Where am I falling short?” Taking that ownership for me is the game-changer. Now the perception has shifted. I’m not blaming. I’m not pointing the finger at something else in the space as the reason why I’m not winning. If I do that, I essentially give my power away. I take ownership of the situation because mentally and emotionally, I have power and I can do something about it. That’s the space that I come from. Tell me a little bit about you and the mind engineering space that you are coming from.

When I was a kid, I had a big operation on my heart when I was 3 or 3.5 years old. That brought a bunch of things to my mind. When we’re kids, we learn from our environment. We create the belief system around what’s going on. Back then, going through that, my mom giving me to a doctor and my doctor is taking me in and putting me to sleep. Waking up, I had received this “aggressiveness” towards myself because they had opened my chest from the top-down. They took my heart out and had the surgery. I started creating these beliefs that I thought I had to get hurt to be able to get mom and dad’s attention.

Throughout my life, I got hurt a lot. I felt like the black sheep of the family. I was the bullied kid at school. It was hard. When I was a kid, my cousins went to live in another country and I want to go and live with them. I wanted to change school. I struggled a lot along the way. I went into a marriage that failed badly. After many years of struggling over and over again, I met an amazing mentor coach that said exactly what you said. That small speech you said was exactly what she said, “We are in power. We are the only ones creating our reality.” If you feel alone with somebody, you shouldn’t be with that person. You’re giving power to somebody else.

Don’t get me wrong, you might not need to be with that person but you need to learn something from that situation. Gaining the power back, that’s how I was able to reflow my business. My business started doing well after working with her for several years. My mindset started shifting to more positive and to learning growth. Rodney, we fall into negativity sometimes. We’re in a dark place. I teach people that life is giving you the dark place as an opportunity to get rid of more garbage that’s in your head. This is a journey that I’m going through and it’s not going to end until the day I die. The garbage in my head has been collected for years.

When adversity comes your way, there's always a learning experience and you can become a greater version of yourself. Click To Tweet

We have been programmed so much since we were kids around money and relationships. People say, “Love is hard. Making money is hard. Making money is difficult.” Making money is making money. You then can add more things to it depending on the past experiences. Those are the things that have been holding you back and struggling now because you have put together that love is difficult. You get into a relationship where you make it difficult because that’s what you think it should be. That’s what “makes you feel comfortable and safe.” As you start shifting your perceptions, your mindset, your belief system, it’s when things start happening.

Ninety percent of the doctor said that you weren’t going to work again and you said, “This is not going to happen.” You went against all odds. That’s what I want to share with the people I work with. We got to go against all odds. People thought I wasn’t going to ever make it as an entrepreneur. Nobody in my family is an entrepreneur. My dad worked 35 years for Ford Motor Company. My mom worked for 22 years for a school. They worked from 9:00 to 5:00. That’s okay if you want to do that. What if you don’t?

People around you are going to tell you that you’re not going to be able to do it. “Rodney, you’re not going to be able to walk. You’re not going to be able to do this. You’re not going to be able to do that.” What if I try? You’ll never know what’s going to happen. Change your belief system around what people have told you as the truth and create your own truth. Maybe you go down a road and you say, “They were right. This is not the right road. I’m going to try another thing.” At least you tried. Most people, as you know, Rodney, stay stuck. They say, “They’ve told me not to go down that road. I’m not supposed to go there.”

I believe in challenging those beliefs that have been adopted. I use that word deliberately, challenging those beliefs. Since you brought up the story, one of the things that I had to challenge as a belief in my experience was the doctor’s diagnosis. The prognosis was X, Y and Z, “You’re going to be paralyzed for the rest of your life.” Honestly, we accepted that as the reality because we don’t have anything else to replace that with. The doctor said, “That’s the prognosis. That’s what you need to prepare for.” For a while, that’s what we did.

What I mean by challenging that belief is that I believed that for a minute but then I got to a point where I was willing to believe something else. I was crazy enough to believe something else because what I was currently believing was painful. It was unreal. It was unacceptable on many fronts. I created something else for the sake of helping me feel better and that was a vision of being independent in a wheelchair. Finally, some sense of independence, even if it’s washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting my shirt on, getting dressed and getting out of bed by myself. What would that look like? What would that feel like? Could I experience some sense of normalcy in completing those activities? That led to what if? I started asking what-if questions. “If I could do that then what if I did this?”

At the end of the day, I knew walking was a far stretch. I said, “What if I walked? If I walked then maybe I could write a book. Maybe I can become a speaker. What would that look like?” You talked about trying. Even though it was a far stretch, the attempt to do that was inspiring. To try to do that even though I could potentially fail, to attempt would do something for me because it was something I could reach for. If I had something to reach for on a day-to-day basis, that made me feel better about who I am and what I’m doing. It gave me a reason to get up and try. That became my lighthouse, my beacon, my drive. I knew that if I did that, it would have an effect on other people. Essentially, that changed the game. That’s when I realized, “As bad as it is, this is an opportunity to do something great, bigger and better than what football could have ever given me.”

 

Now, I’m the underdog. If I come out on top, that’s impactful, positive and inspirational. People will look at that and they will say, “Wow.” Most people won’t ever go through something like that. When they see that, they’ll say, “Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could do that.” Honestly, I wanted to be that guy. I started on that journey and that perception of what had happened shifted. I wanted to take full advantage of that opportunity. My goal was to squeeze everything that I could.

I didn’t want not experiencing the full potential of that opportunity to be my fault because I didn’t put forth the effort. I wanted to give it everything that I had. In the book, I talk about giving yourself the opportunity of possibility. A lot of times, we don’t start and we don’t try because of the beliefs, lack of vision or what we see as difficulty and struggle. Now you’ve taken away the opportunity to be something great. You’ve taken away that possibility because you’re not taking advantage of the opportunity.

You got to get willpower. Against all odds, you decided, “This is not going to be me. I’m going to try something more.” As you said, try. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to fail. It doesn’t mean that you fell over, tried again, stood up and tried over and over again. That’s what I tell people, “You got to try. What’s the worst thing?” Sometimes the belief system is hard. It’s programmed in their mind, “I’m a failure.” They’re scared of confirming that they’re a failure. They would rather stay where they are failing in a way but going down the path that most people are going, “I’m not going against what the rest of people are doing. That makes me feel a bit safer instead of going out there and trying something out. That might make me happy but I don’t want to do it because it’s different from the rest.”

For me, Tommy, when you’re in a space, you don’t have anything to lose but everything to gain. That decision becomes easy. The space that I was in was seemingly rock bottom. To try and to fail was a step up from where I was. Now I got the ability to try. I can try to wash my face. I want to get people to see this. This is a game-changing mentality. To try meant that it was possible. I didn’t say that I was going to do it but to try means it’s possible, even if it’s only 8%. In my case, it was a 92% chance of staying the same, expressing that diagnosis. I’m going to try because you didn’t say it wasn’t possible. You said there’s an 8% chance. That’s small but there’s still a chance and because there is a chance, therefore, I’m going to try. We need to approach everything like that. Maybe it is a small possibility for you to make it but you still try.

There’s not much to lose if they try. The fear of trying and not getting it is big that they don’t take action.

What’s the alternative?

I know what you mean. Do you know how many people out there are stuck in their life? Wherever they are, they have more to lose than if they try. In their mind, trying makes this negative picture of what could happen wrong. The mind is protecting you so it makes all these negative pictures, “What could go wrong? Everything.” They’d rather stay in their cocoon and say, “I’m safe here.” It’s amazing. There are not so many people that could get 92%. That 8% will push you to try and change it. Not all people go for that.

There are so many people who have money, who have external success, but internally they're dying. They don't feel happy. Click To Tweet

What is your recommendation for that?

My recommendation is to start limiting the negative beliefs that are holding you back. For me, that is the most important thing. Try to understand where you come from. When we’re kids, we start gathering information from our surroundings. If our parents weren’t loving, were fighting, got a divorce, if mom wasn’t around because she was working, whatever it is that’s happening, as kids, we believe we’re the center of the universe. If mom and dad are treating me bad, if they don’t treat themselves well, if they’re struggling with money or whatever is going on, I start drawing conclusions that nobody gives me any information.

It happened to me. My dad slapped me. I thought there was something wrong with me because my dad was slapping me. I didn’t think, “Dad is having a bad day. That’s why he was slapping me.” I started drawing conclusions that I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I’m inadequate, I’m not lovable and all of that. When I started going out into the world, I started my own business and it failed. I started another business and it failed. I kept going. I started going but barely making it. I started going on in a relationship and it wasn’t going well. I was screwing up my life because I had to believe that I was a screwup.

At school, I was bullied. In my family, I was the different one. Different meaning in a wrong way, the black sheep. My belief was I’m a screwup so I got to go out and screw up my life subconsciously. Rodney, I’m not doing it on purpose but I used to do that. I screw up my relationships, my businesses, friendships and things like that because I thought I was a “screw up.” When I started questioning and challenging my belief system, what do I think about myself? First, it’s understanding the subconscious mind, those little voices in the back of your head. Rodney, you know that people say, “I don’t care what people say. I don’t care about this. I’m successful.” It’s their ego covering up their belief system.

The idea is to bring the belief system out and start looking at it from different perspectives, different angles and say, “What do I believe around money? What do I believe in success? What do I believe around failure?” You try and you fail many times. Many people try, fail and stop trying. That’s how the world is now. I don’t know what the numbers are but many people are depressed, even medicated and having lots of mental problems because they try something that didn’t work and they stay there complaining, “Life sucks. I cannot change this. There’s nothing I can do. I don’t have the power to do this.”

You went out there and did it and that’s amazing. You challenged your belief system and this is what I teach a lot. You need to first identify your belief system and then challenge it. Most of the time, we don’t even know what our belief system is. I’m talking to a guy who’s struggling with his business so I asked him, “What do you think about money?” “I love money. I want to be a millionaire. I want to have a lot of money.”

 

When we start going to the subconscious mind, suddenly it comes out, “Dad was a screw up with the money. He went away. He left the family and took all his money with him.” When he was deep in his subconscious mind, he said, “I don’t want money. I don’t want to be like my dad.” He was screwing up his business because he didn’t want to be like his dad. He was nothing like his dad but he had that belief in the back of his head that was screwing him up in gaining more money. He was stuck without moving forward. That’s how the belief systems hold people back most of the time.

How did you decode that belief system? How did you get to that space where we could identify what the limiting belief was?

What I teach is that we have a habit, a reaction, how we act around a specific situation. That is the byproduct, the end result. Before that, you have an emotion. Before the emotion that triggers the cascade that produces these habits and reactions are the beliefs. We have a belief that if it’s a negative belief it’s going to be triggering a negative emotion. The negative emotion is going to bring procrastination, overwhelm, stress and anxiety. That’s the end result.

What I do is I help people by asking them. I’m going to give you a short example. “I had a fight with my wife.” “How did she make you feel?” “Lonely, not loving and not good enough.” I tell them to close their eyes and this is the weird part. Our subconscious has everything stored as movies that happened in our past. It’s stored in the back of our heads. Our subconscious mind has all our timelines with all our events. I guide people going through the subconscious mind to bring back this film from when they were kids. There’s something that happened that is making them feel like now.

I was working with a woman and she felt a fraud at work. She has gone high in the company but she’s afraid that somebody is going to come ahead and try to take her job and do it for her and start proving that she’s a fraud and that she shouldn’t be there. I told her to close her eyes and start feeling that fraud that she felt, not good enough, all these things that she was feeling today. I want you to imagine that you’re seeing a movie where you see a little version of yourself, a little Rodney in front of you or a situation in your childhood where you felt the same way.

We went back to school and she started explaining, “Tommy, I don’t know what’s going on but I see an image. This memory popped up in my head. I was at school. I was seven years old. I didn’t study for a dictation.” She had lots of problems with her mom. Mom wasn’t much around. She didn’t care for her so she didn’t study. She had gone to school for a dictation without studying. The nun there got crazy angry at her. She started screaming at her and told her that she’s not supposed to come to school if she didn’t study and broke all the paper that she was writing down the dictation. When we asked this little girl how she was feeling, she was feeling the same as she was feeling now.

This is the weird part, Rodney but it’s amazing. We started having a conversation with that young part of her, a memory from her past. How did she feel? What was going on? After understanding all the situation and the false beliefs she had created, we started changing that into, “The nun has issues. She’s not supposed to scream at you like that. If you didn’t study, it was mom’s problem because she’s not taking care of you. You’re a little girl. You’re perfect. You’re amazing. There’s nothing wrong with not studying. You’re not supposed to be treated like that.” This person became her guardian in everything in her mind. She stood up there for the little girl, told the nun to leave and that she wasn’t allowed to treat her like that. She sat there beside her in school. She started being better. This is not a quick pill like that. She slowly started feeling better.

We need to understand that adversity is not something bad. Click To Tweet

I had another session. I spoke to her and she’s like, “Tommy, I’m feeling good. When I close my eyes, I can see that little girl with me sitting beside her. She’s not scared. She doesn’t feel like a fraud. She’s feeling much better.” That’s how we reprogram the subconscious mind by going into the past and finding these events that are still stuck. As you went through trauma, they got stuck there. We go find them and talk to those little Rodney’s, little Tommy’s and this little woman’s versions and we found the problem. We change the perception of the problem.

My dad slapped me. Did I do something wrong? Yes, I did something wrong. Did I deserve a slap? No. I deserve maybe to be punished in another way, no TV or whatever. Talk to me. Don’t come and slap me because I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t understand and I take it personally, “I’m a screwup.” What did I do with myself? I go back and explain to little Tommy, “Dad had a bad day. He’s going at you because of him and not because of you. You didn’t behave and that’s not good but you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

As we change the perception, the subconscious mind changes those images, those memories and the person starts solving. It takes some time. You got to keep reinforcing and not going back and visiting your younger self. As you change your path, Rodney, your current circumstances start changing. It’s amazing this work I’ve seen from this mentor coach that taught me years ago. I have changed. The people who are working on this, I’ve seen amazing changes.

What I find is when we change our beliefs, we change our identity. We take on a lot of things that are present in our subconscious mind that has been there from the past experiences that we’ve experienced. We take on that as an identity. Your identity dictates your behavior. Your beliefs drive your identity. That has a lot to do with how you behave. It has a lot to do with what you think, which then drives how you behave. Your behavior produces a result. You have to go all the way back and decode all of these things. You want to take on different identities.

We’re talking about identity again. In every show that I’ve done, we’ve talked about identity. What you’re describing are identities that we’ve taken on. We walk around with it and that limits us. It’s how we think about ourselves based on what we’ve been through and where we are now. Where you are now is the accumulation of your experiences and your thought patterns. That’s what has developed and made you into who you are. If you want to go to a different place or who you’re going to be tomorrow, it’s going to be based on what you’re thinking now, the experiences, self-talk and the identities that you choose.

That’s the thing. You can choose the identity that you want to take. You can choose the belief. It doesn’t mean that things that have happened to you are negated or ignored. It’s how you choose to manage them. There’s a linebacker on the field. There’s an elephant in the room, no doubt. What are you going to do since the elephant is in the room? What are you going to do now that linebacker is on the field and he’s trying to eat you, he’s trying to attack you? That’s where I go back to who are you going to be? It goes back to what we talked about in the beginning, being able to take your power back.

 

When you realize you have the power of choice to choose regardless of what you’re going through, you’re going to choose power, positivity, progress and forward-thinking. You’re not going to continue to give your power away to the experience. You’re going to choose to be an overcomer and then you get to see what that looks like. You get to try it at home because it’s different for everyone. There are some common themes.

The conversation of people that are in the stands watching a game is different than the conversation of two people that are playing the game. When you choose to say, “I’m going to play.” Now your narrative is different. Your viewpoint is different. Your perception changes and shifts because it has to. Now that you’re having a different conversation, other things can come up conducive to you progressing down the field and meeting the objectives of the game.

You could talk all day long. You’re not only in the game but in the stands. Other than self-edification and being able to kick it, if you will, with your friends and shoot the breeze and have that level of entertainment, there is no use for that conversation because it doesn’t add any value to the game. It’s your thoughts and opinions, which you are entitled to. If you’re in the stand watching the game, you can say whatever you want but it has no bearing, no impact on the game.

When you are in the game and you’re choosing to be in the game, everything that you’re talking about for the most part especially while the game is being played, has an impact on the game. If you’re choosing to be a player despite the opposition on the field, the conversation is different and that can bring up things for you that need to be addressed or are going to help you progress down the field. That’s what you want. It all comes back to you, however, making that decision.

It’s not only deciding to play but deciding on what type of player you’re going to be in the game. There are different levels to this. There are different positions that you can play and it’s finding out what feels good for you. Try the one that will help you win. Either way, there’s going to be a story. Either way, there’s going to be a narrative. If there’s going to be a story, create a story that’s going to help you win and not when it’s going to support your loss, your detriment, your defeat. You want to win. Tell yourself a good story.

You said something important, Rodney, that I want to bring up a little bit. As a football player, how do you know where you want to play? Does it come down from the sky where you want to play? What do you do? Do you know where you want to play? Which spot is better for you?

Here’s what you do. There are many ways of winning. The story I told myself was, “I can be impactful, inspirational and feel better about myself.” That is going to lead to some level of success. It can create something that I can live with. I couldn’t live with myself not doing anything, giving up and accepting the doctors. That’s the game that I chose to play. That came out of asking myself a series of questions, “What do I want? Who do I need to be to get it?” That is where you create your identity profile, if you will, which is part of my system. The game-changing mentality system is creating an identity profile.

People can become whatever they want to become if they feed it deep down and get rid of the garbage in their head. Click To Tweet

Your identity profile is built based on, “Who do I need to be to accomplish X?” If you don’t know what X is, you don’t know what equipment you need to put on. If you want to be a hockey player, there’s certain equipment you got to have to be a hockey player. You got to know what you want. You got to know where you want to go. Where you want to go is going to dictate your uniform. It’s going to dictate your outfit. That requires vision because you got to be able to look past the opposition to see something that is worthwhile for you and part of that is understanding your current skillset in the situation that you’re in and recognizing the opportunity.

What’s good about this? What’s something that could flip this on its head and make it something wonderful for you, something that you will be grateful for? When you ask yourself this series of questions, things come up that dictate an opportunity and a possibility. I call it the creative opportunity. What’s the creative opportunity in this? Now we say, “I see my goal line. I see the opposition. I see the resistance but I see my goal line.” Now that I see my goal line, who do I need to be to get to that goal line? That’s when we start talking about who am I? Who am I going to be? What identity am I going to take moment to moment? It can shift. It doesn’t have to stay the same.

As we become more aware and as we realize the opportunity even more, we gain more clarity about what’s available and what’s possible for us. We raise our awareness. As we raise our awareness, more opportunity is identified. We now may see other avenues that become possibilities in this. We still ask, “Who do I need to be to do that?” It’s these personas that we take on. That’s how we replace, in my opinion, the limiting beliefs. That’s how we replace the narratives. That’s how we change the narratives.

Now we say, “That happened for me. Now, what I’m doing is I’m using that as leverage.” It wasn’t to my detriment. It’s not something that is holding me back. I understand and I got clarity around it. I’m choosing to believe that this thing that happened to me, I’m going to use that for my goal. Now that this happened, it made that possible. Now I can go do C, D and E. I’m grateful for this because now I can go do that. Now the narrative has changed.

There’s no pity and there’s no limitation around what happened to you and your past. You’re liberated at that point and you’re empowered. When you’re empowered and liberated, you can move mountains. That’s the recipe for passion, grit and determination. When you have that, if you’re waking up every day with that level of energy, you’re unstoppable. There will be a positive result. There’s going to be some type of positive outcome. We can’t guarantee you that you’re going to get to your goal. What I can guarantee you is there will be some level of progress. Be it mentally, physically, spiritually or emotionally, something good is going to happen.

Thank you for sharing that. That’s nice. I like that. It’s understanding your belief system and what I see is developing your true self. You call it building your identity and see who you want to become. That’s what I believe. You mentioned spirituality, too. Our true selves and who we need to become are inside of us. We need to meet our true self to be able to achieve those next levels in life that we’re going to achieve these successes and changes that we’re looking for.

 

Sometimes the ego is so focused on itself that it doesn’t allow you to meet your true self until that ego humbled down to a certain standard that allows you to see your true self. I’m not saying that everyone should go through challenges, obstacles and all of that. What I’m saying is when they come, sometimes they serve as humbling experiences that allow us to experience the best version of ourselves. Why nature works that way, I don’t know. I can’t explain that. That’s how it is at times. Sometimes there needs to be humbling so you can get to know yourself.

It’s like what happened with COVID, a lot of people were humbled. A lot of people are understanding their truth. People are pivoting all over the place. They’re realizing, “What I was currently doing, I asked for it anyway. Now I can go and do this and I feel better.” There’s a level of graciousness and gratitude towards those types of experiences. Imagine if it didn’t happen, I would love to get up and go play football right now. I’m grateful that it happened because there’s so much awareness, intellect, inspiration, expansion, development and growth that has come out of that situation. Would I have experienced that had it not happened? I can’t say it would’ve.

The path that I’ve been on has provided those things. I don’t know if I was on a different path, those trees of fruit would have been valuable to me that I could pluck them off and enjoy them. I would have been on a different path with different fruit that produced a different result. I’m happy with this result because of the fruit that I’ve been able to experience. I don’t know if I would be happy even if I would have made it. Many people make it on that path that I was going on and they’re not happy, fulfilled and impactful. They’re not all of those things but yet they’re in the spot that I wanted to go to.

Did the universe do me a favor? Did the gods help me out? Did God provide more abundance for me than what I could see at the time? Do I have a different definition of what abundance is now? These are questions we can ask ourselves. What are we after? What does it mean? How am I going to feel when I get that? Is that the thing that I want? Are we going to take a deep look? Sometimes the things that we shoot for are based on what society has put in front of us as success. Is it truly meaningful to you? Is it worth fighting for? Is it worth getting up every day? When the newness of money wears off, what’s left?

That’s why a lot of people are with some high levels of stress because they’re pursuing something that it’s not what they want, it’s not happening or it’s happening but they’re not happy and that’s when it spikes. It’s not all the time but many people are stressed out because they’re trying to control things externally to make them feel good internally. When it doesn’t happen, they know it spikes those stress levels of anxiety and all these problems. It’s the fight between where they want to be and where they think they got to be according to society, parents or whatever it is. Some people think that success is having money, happiness is money.

Unfortunately, there are many people out there that have the money, have external success. Internally, they’re dying, they don’t feel happy, they don’t feel successful. They keep running after more and more success. Looking on the outside to feel good on the inside is never going to be enough. It has to start from within. I got to feel good about myself and know who I am and discover this true self. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still knowing who I am. I’m not done with that. That’s a journey but I get to higher levels of achievements and things because inside I feel good enough and feel better. From there, I go out into the world. The more I work inside, the things externally start aligning with my inside. Rodney, that’s what’s you’re saying, too.

My philosophy is you live in here and not out there. A lot of time, we live from out there but we never can satisfy what’s in here because we’re living based on the outside world. We’re driven by the outside world. We wake up every day and we go because of the demands of the outside world. When you live from within, now you’re coming from a different space. I tell people to see with their hearts and not with their eyes. Close your eyes and see. Now you’re not distracted by things that society puts in front of us that they call success. You can look within and have your true deep understanding of what success is. That’s another gift for me as I think about that even further.

Whenever we're struggling, it's a moment where we can reflect and understand who we're holding on to. Click To Tweet

Being on a bed and not able to move, you’re cut off, if you will, at a certain point. Your sensation is gone. Your connection to inner space is heightened because your physical connection is lessened. Since that inner connection is heightened, you’re more present with that space. You can communicate, gain clarity and understanding the energy that’s happening and percolating within that space. You can create and innovate from that space versus innovating and creating or coming from a space outside the heart.

When you can connect with that inner space and come from that place, that’s the true God-like side of you. That’s the purposeful and the God-like intention side. You have a deeper understanding of who you are as it relates to your spiritual nature, your spiritual being if you will and that’s powerful. When you’re coming from that space, there’s a knowing and a level of certainty that you have. We talked about fear at the beginning of the show. You may be afraid coming from that outside space because we already know what the stats are as it relates to reaching for those types of things.

Those are like carats. When you come from that inner space, that’s the diamond that we’re after. That’s the true nature of who you are, the essence of your DNA because you’re still connected, aligned and in tune with who you are. When you get that level of certainty about a thing, a vision or a goal, you know that your being and everything about you is aligned and connected with that. You have a spiritual support system backing you up that you believe in because of being in that experience and you don’t need anyone to tell you about it because you’ve experienced it for yourself. At that point, it doesn’t matter anymore what you’ve gone through or what you’re going through because you’ve experienced this and you’ve gained that level of connection.

A level of clarity and trust comes with that, at least it is for me. When you have that level of trust, you’re willing to step out and take that step wherever it leads you, wherever you go because you know it’s purposeful. It’s your level of contribution and gifts to the world because of your existence. When you can give that, that in and of itself is rewarding but you can do it without getting paid. You feel a calling to go and do it. It’s almost equal to the same level of energy that causes the grass and trees to grow. That’s the best way that I can describe it.

That’s the idea. At least that’s what I believe in. We’re here to serve. First, we need to serve ourselves. Start getting rid of who we are not and we start getting to know who we are. I love what you said. Getting that step forward and believing that whatever it is, this step is going to get me closer to where I need to go. Most people say, “If I take this step and it doesn’t go my way, I’m a failure. I’m not good enough.” They start beating themselves up. They stay in their comfort zone. They take that step and they start saying, “This step brought me closer to something although it wasn’t a good step like I pictured it. For the universe or where I need to go, it was a perfect step.

When people tune to that perfection in our life, negative things are still perfection. We’re learning and we’re growing. We’re getting closer to who we’re supposed to become. That’s when you feel much more driven to say, “I’m going to do this. Whatever happens, happens. There’s a reason behind it.” A lot of people don’t trust anything, they don’t know what’s going on and they’re not worried about taking that step because they’re afraid it might go wrong. They don’t know that there’s no wrong. There’s learning, growing, expanding and becoming your true self. Rodney, thank you.

Tommy, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more about you?

 

I have a website, UnleashingYourMindset.com. They can find me as Tommy Walker (The Mind Engineer) on Facebook. They can look me up there and they can find a little more information. I have a lot of free value there, video and training. I love serving people. I have tons of material there that people can start seeing on how to reprogram the mind, how to identify these limiting and negative beliefs. That’s the idea.

Thank you for that, Tommy. If there was one thing that you would leave with us that would allow us to bounce back from adversity, dominate our challenges and consistently win at the game of life, what would that be?

We spoke a lot about it. I want to do a small summary. You’ve seen Rodney through the adversity he went through. You don’t know me and my adversity. I cannot compare myself with different people. That’s another problem. We compare ourselves with others. Each of us goes through our own adversity. Adversity is chopping off who we are not. Identifying our false selves, our false identity, takes a lot to let go of. Some people need harder bangs from the universe to let go of that false identity and become this true identity that we are. We need to understand that adversity is not something bad. A challenge is not bad. In a way, darkness is part of resigning our false self and becoming a little more our true self.

If you’re struggling, it all has to do with letting go of who we’re not and becoming a little more of who we are. There’s no negative adversity, although many people see it. Many people out there have lost their jobs and started their businesses and they’re happy. Others change companies. They were at home with their kids sharing with their wives things that they never did before maybe. Maybe they’re running around going to the gym, going out with friends. They’re doing nothing because they don’t want to be home. It’s like, “Why am I doing this?” We fill our schedule with many external things that we’re not looking at what’s happening within. Whenever we’re struggling, when we’re going in a dark place, it’s a moment we can reflect, understand who we are holding on to that we’re not anymore and become a greater version of ourselves.

Tommy Walker, The Mind Engineer, on the show. Thank you, Tommy, for coming on the show and sharing your story with us. We appreciate you. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Rodney. This was an amazing talk. I love the things you said. Connecting and talking like this was amazing. Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s amazing.

Thank you. There you have it, another successful episode of the show. Tommy said, “Adversity is not a bad thing.” Perception is everything. How are you perceiving your adversity? If you perceive it as bad, it will be bad. Sometimes we have to put on a different lens. We can put on the lens of defeat or we can put on the lens of a champion. Until next time, peace and love.

Important Links:

• Tommy Walker
• Tommy Walker (The Mind Engineer) – Facebook
• https://TinyURL.com/yytc8s9y
• Is Life Knocking You Down? Read Rodney’s inspiring story – Get Up! I Can’t. I Will. I Did… Here’s How!
• Recognize Your Positive Potential – Essential Assertions by Rodney Flowers
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/get-up-book/
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• https://RodneyFlowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Tommy Walker

Tommy was staring at disaster, he was at breaking point and about to close down his business. He had poured his heart and soul into making it a success but for some reason just couldn’t seem to get that break he so desperately needed. His business had been trading for several years but for some reason seemed to be faced with setback after setback and yet he just couldn’t put his finger on why. The end of the road seemed inevitable.

His friend suggested he tried a mindset coach and by this stage he was willing to try anything. What he discovered over the next 6 months changed his life forever. All the problems the business faced were routed in his mind. His previous experiences in life had caused him to form a set of beliefs that were negatively affecting his future.

These beliefs were now limiting his achievements, the way he reacted to opportunity, how he felt about money, even how he felt about success itself. This sudden self-awareness enabled Tommy to start taking back control.

His business started to flourish and once he recognized the true power of the subconscious he dedicated the rest of his life to helping others realize the same. He started a coaching business that specializes in helping people with their mindset, resilience, stress management, and removing negative, limiting, and false beliefs.

Fast forward over 10 years and his six-figure coaching business has helped more than 15,000 people by being part of his seminars, courses, workshops, and 1 on 1 coaching. He has had a dramatic impact on many lives with some huge and often remarkable transformations. Many people are aware there is something in the way of their success but Tommy’s methods provide clarity and unpack what is really going on at a subconscious level. He helps people to understand what effect that is having on people’s conscious day-to-day lives.

He has been the founder of Fundación EASPA for over 20 years. Since those earlier years of struggle, the business is now well into seven figures and is focused on helping front-line responders such as firefighters be more aware of what leads them to addictions, depression, PTSD, and suicide.