Making Choices And Taking Responsibility

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the show.

So today,

We kind of,

This is kind of a special episode.

It's an inspired episode.

We're talking about choices.

Yes.

So the,

So the premise of this episode came from an interview that we did,

Which is available,

Excuse me,

Which is available as a bonus episode on the Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter feed,

And you can find it on glennabrose.

Com.

But we had the opportunity to speak to Patriots legend,

Running back,

Tony Collins,

Who's also a motivational speaker,

And the founder of the Tony Collins Foundation.

And he just has an incredible story.

But something that that echoed a lot in that story was talking about choices and personal responsibility and stuff like that.

So we thought making choices would be a great topic for an episode that we could talk about.

And yeah,

So Glenn.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So it's,

I was fortunate enough to hear Tony Collins speak at my son's school when we lived in Rhode Island.

And I was really impressed by his message and got his book,

Broken Road,

Turning his mess into a message,

Which I mean,

The title is awesome.

And so is the book,

You know,

I read it.

And it's it his whole life is very inspirational,

You know,

And he he's had his ups and downs and overcome adversity.

And what he's seen is that through his life,

It's it's a lot of how our life unfolds is a matter of choices.

You know,

And it's the choice to put ourselves in the right situations.

It's the choice to do the work to get ourselves prepared.

So when an opportunity comes,

We're ready.

It's the choice,

You know,

To say no to negative things,

Of course.

It's a choice to say yes to positive things.

You know,

It's and a choice to follow our intuition even,

You know,

When things are shown to you,

When you when you feel that pull to follow that pull to say yes to it,

To choose yes,

You know,

And to lean in that direction.

I mean,

All of like everything.

It's funny because everything that I just said,

I pulled out of Tony's story.

Yeah,

You know,

Like so so that so yeah,

Take a look.

Take a listen to the podcast.

I don't do interviews very often because of course,

This isn't a podcast that does interviews.

But you know,

It was it was the right move.

So I followed it.

I made the choice to follow it.

So we wanted to direct you guys to that to check out that full episode.

Yeah,

We want to discuss choices.

It is absolutely.

So so something that that was that was talked about at the beginning of that,

Which was you talked about the the making the choice to be ready when opportunity strikes like a lot of times,

You know,

There's we're forced with a decision of we're not getting the immediate results that we want right now.

So we don't put in the work to get to where you know what I mean?

Right.

This podcast is a great example of that.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Literally did this.

Yeah,

We literally did this podcast for years.

I mean,

Maybe three years and nobody was listening.

Let's cut to the chase.

I mean,

We're probably getting 25,

50 listens a month or something.

You know,

I mean,

People weren't really listening to the podcast.

But but you know,

And when I revamped my business and moved out of the life enhancement center,

I looked at every piece of my business and decided what was I going to keep and what was I going to get rid of.

And I,

You know,

I got rid of personal training,

I got rid of events,

I got rid of a lot of stuff.

But what I,

You know,

What I kept was life coaching,

Because I knew that I should be doing it.

And it felt good.

And I enjoyed it.

And then the podcast,

It was like,

Well,

Nobody's listening to this.

Should I bother continuing to do it?

And there was one reason and it was because it felt right.

And it was fun.

That's it.

That's the only reason it was a yes.

It wasn't because like,

Logically,

I knew that I had some big plan that it was going to turn into something and feed my business.

I didn't I couldn't see that far ahead.

So it was just a yes,

Because it was fun,

Enjoyable.

And that's what I knew I needed to be putting my energy towards.

And then all of a sudden,

It did turn into something.

You know,

If we're doing what brings us joy,

Then we're going to be heading in the right direction and putting effort towards it,

You know.

I think it's fun.

Have you ever heard the like the saying,

Like you're you're one choice away from a different life?

Yeah.

You know,

It's it's very true.

Yeah,

It is true,

Because it's you know,

It's it's all little choices like I look at,

You know,

I mean,

I don't want to like sound like I'm the only one that does this because I'm not I'm just using myself as an example.

But I mean,

When I look back at my life,

I've never like I like the direction my life has taken in a lot of ways.

I mean,

It hasn't been perfect.

But I mean,

What the heck?

I you know,

I got I got sober.

I you know,

Changed my life.

I moved to raise my son,

Started a life enhancement center,

Have my own business doing an international podcast,

Wrote a book,

You know,

All this stuff.

It's good stuff.

You know,

I'm happy about with all this stuff.

But I haven't known what I was doing in any of it.

You know,

I never put together some plan that this was what I was going to turn into.

It was always just moving towards joy and making the choice to say yes when the choice came up.

You know,

It was it was just simple,

Simple little choices that that turned it into something.

So it's it's like when I when this thing took off,

It was through insight timer.

And I was on insight timer using it as the meditation app that it is and saw some different types of things on there.

And I went,

Oh,

I wonder if I could upload my podcast.

And then I followed that.

And then I upload my podcast.

Then it you know,

It really helped blossom the podcast and all this stuff.

Now,

That was just because I made a choice to follow an intuitive nudge.

I had thought didn't seem like anything more than a thought at the time.

But it was an intuitive nudge pointing me in a direction of something that was going to benefit me.

So so I just made the choice to follow that.

And I did.

And it turned into something.

A lot of people are,

You know,

If you're just sitting there going,

No,

It'll never work out.

Oh,

It's no,

The cards are stacked against me.

Oh,

Only certain people,

You know,

Get successful podcast or are successful in these types of careers or whatever example you want to use.

You know,

We the people who aren't doing something with their life are making excuses.

The people who are doing something with their life are making choices,

You know,

And that's the difference.

It's like make it make a conscious choice or just lean in the direction of you never know what it's going to turn into.

And you're never going to find out if you don't try.

So just go out there and try stuff.

You know,

It's that's how everybody makes it.

You know,

If somebody's discovered as an actor or a singer or something,

It wasn't because they were sitting at home on the couch going nobody's ever going to find me.

Yeah,

You're right.

You know,

You're right.

Nobody is ever going to find you because you're sitting at home on the couch.

But if you're out there putting out stuff and and trying things and then all of a sudden something happens,

Everybody points the finger and go,

Isn't he lucky?

Look at how lucky he is.

Oh,

He's so lucky he gets all the breaks.

No,

It's not luck.

We make our own luck by putting ourselves in the position to be found,

To be following our nudges,

To making choices,

To say yes,

You know,

And then all of a sudden things start falling into place and everybody thinks it's just luck.

Yeah.

What did some awesome saying?

Yeah,

I don't know if I'll be able to think of it.

Well,

I'm going to try though.

Let's see if it comes out.

Something like it's something like luck favors the prepared.

Fortune favors the brave.

No.

OK,

Sound like that,

Though.

It's something it's something about,

You know,

It's like if you're prepared,

Then all of a sudden you find yourself lucky.

You know?

And that's you know,

I even I heard Ashton Kukcher speak about something like that.

I like a kids choice award that speech that went viral.

And he was talking about how he always did his best in every situation.

If he was sweeping a floor,

He was sweeping the floor to the best of his ability.

And then it turned into something else,

Which turned into something else,

Which turned into something else.

You know,

And it's how doing your best and that's a choice instead of choosing to complain about doing something you don't particularly want to be doing,

Except that you're doing it to do it to the best of your ability.

And then all of a sudden people see you doing something to the best of your ability.

And that's what everybody's looking for.

If I ever hire somebody,

I want somebody that does things to the best of their ability.

If I see them doing something half ass,

I'm not going to be like,

Hey,

They'd probably do a really good job for me over here.

You know,

They can't they can't clean up a table very well.

They left half the stuff here.

But they'd probably be very thorough when they when I gave them their dream shot at doing a marketing campaign for me.

It's like,

No,

You know,

Succeeding is a habit.

If you're if you're in the habit of doing well and the best of your ability in something,

It carries on through everything.

So two things.

Number one,

Both of those quotes are actual quotes.

Fortune favors the brave is by Virgil.

And I know that from a Jason Mraz song,

Which I'm sure you've heard.

And luck favors the prepared mind is Louis Pasteur.

There we go.

Yeah.

Luck favors the prepared mind.

That's the one I was thinking of.

I knew it had something to do with,

You know,

Being prepared and then all of a sudden finding some luck.

It's you know,

What people call luck.

So it's it is it's all about taking you know,

And I say this all the time,

It's about taking responsibility for our lives.

We have to live on purpose.

We have to live consciously.

We have to just look at things and go,

OK,

Like,

I don't like where I am.

I need to make a choice to do things differently.

And it's amazing how lives can change.

It's you know,

I see it all the time.

I don't have like I'm a life coach.

I don't have people coming to me because their life is going real well.

People aren't like,

Hey,

Glenn,

You know,

I want to give you money each month because everything is really good in my life.

And I was just maybe wondering if we could tweak it and make it just a tad better.

Like,

That's not why people look me up.

You know,

People look me up because that they're either feeling that there has to be more to their life,

More happiness,

More fulfillment,

Or that they're just really tired of the way things are going.

And of course,

As you know,

One of my favorite quotes,

We can't fix a problem with the consciousness that created it by Einstein.

Sometimes we need that outside consciousness to see things in a different way.

If we're caught up in a negative pattern and we're having difficulty seeing some positive changes or the way to do things differently,

Get talk to people,

Get some outside help.

You know,

That was one of the biggest things of my beginning when I first started waking up like I hadn't even woken up yet.

And one of the first things that I did right was I just went.

I don't understand like I might my sponsor at the time,

You know,

One of my favorite stories of,

You know,

He says,

Well,

Glenn,

Is there an area of your life that isn't messed up?

I was like,

No.

And it's like,

Okay,

So you got them all.

Like everything's trashed.

And I'm like,

Yeah.

And he's like,

Okay,

So were you trying to destroy your life?

So no,

It was okay.

So were you trying to do good?

Were you trying to succeed at life?

I said,

Yes.

You said,

Okay,

Then it's would you agree that it's safe to say that your best thinking sucks?

Yes.

That I could follow that logic.

I was like,

Yeah,

Okay,

I can I can hop on that train.

My best thinking sucks simply because I've been trying real hard and my life isn't going the way that I want it.

It's like,

Okay,

Then you need to let go of the way you're thinking and the way you're looking at things and adopt a new way.

Just try it a new way for a certain period of time.

If it works,

Great.

You have a new way of being that works.

If it doesn't,

You can go back to your old way.

You know,

What do you have to lose?

And I was like,

Yeah,

Okay.

So I hopped on board.

And I allowed him to guide me in a new way of thinking in the beginning.

And the things he would say to do made zero sense to me.

I mean,

I would literally do them because I was spiteful and I wanted I couldn't wait to go back and shove it in his face that it didn't work because I knew that it wouldn't work.

And I was very intellectual,

Rational,

I could really I knew that this was not going to work.

And then it would work.

It was like that Seinfeld episode living in Bizarro world,

Man,

I didn't know which way was up which way was down.

I was like,

I like this transcends logic.

This is insane.

And it's just that's when I realized well,

Not then later,

I looked back on it.

And I realized we can get into habits and ways of looking at things that make perfect logical sense.

Because that's our perspective.

We've we've developed a way of looking at life that doesn't work.

It's ineffective.

And do can we have I could I could have like cited 16 logical reasons why what he was saying wasn't going to work.

And I probably could have swayed an audience of 1000.

Because my points made sense in a logical way.

But I was looking for negativity.

And he was looking for positivity.

And because of that,

Our perspectives were completely different.

And once I adopted a new perspective,

And started making positive choices,

You know,

Based on this new way of thinking,

That's when everything started popping open and changing.

And I started looking at the world in a different way.

And the rest is history.

So we,

We actually only know each other because of like random choices like that.

Not random,

But personal.

Taking responsibility choices like I was offered a like a kind of a weird scenario to get to get a free life to not a life coach to get a free personal trainer through the gym via an old boss that I had at Subway,

Who wanted purely I mean,

He was he's a very nice man.

And he wanted to help me.

But he also wanted to use me as a marketing campaign.

Right.

It was a it was a two Yeah,

Yeah,

It was kind of like a win win setup.

Really?

Yeah,

He wanted to help me,

But he also wanted me to eventually become like the spokesperson for their store.

And from a you know,

A broader sense,

And they were they like had gotten the corporate store on like the corporate side of the business on board and stuff.

And so everything was good.

And they went to the local gym in town.

And they had done this a couple years before actually.

And it failed horribly.

Like the personal trainer that they hooked me up with was bad.

And,

Or,

You know,

I didn't we didn't connect at least.

And,

And I was younger,

And I wasn't ready for it,

Whatever.

And so I could have very easily said no this time.

But I was like,

Yeah,

I need,

I need help.

So yes,

I so I made the choice to better myself.

And so simultaneously,

Glenn.

Yeah.

What was your end on that somebody came to you?

Yeah,

Well,

On my end,

It was funny because like,

Within a month prior to this happening,

I had,

Like I,

I had made the transition out of some jobs I didn't like in the personal training.

And I was I was really trying to live consciously,

Quite honestly.

So I was looking at my life going,

Okay,

What do I want to put energy towards and stuff.

And one thing I realized is I was like,

You know,

I'm happier personal training,

And I'm heading in the right direction,

And it feels good.

I'd like to give back.

And I would like to personally train somebody that can't afford it.

That really needs to help not,

You know,

Just like,

Just the average person,

I want somebody that really needs help,

I can't afford it.

And I had made a note of that,

Like within a month prior,

And then all of a sudden,

I'm at the gym and some guy walks in and says,

Hey,

Can I talk to the manager?

I want to,

You know,

And of course,

He comes to me.

And he's like,

You know,

I want to talk to the manager about getting a gym membership for a friend of mine,

He really needs to get healthy and lose weight.

And I'm putting together this program.

And I was like,

Yeah,

So I bring him to the manager.

And I'm like,

Hey,

Guys,

Can I sit in on the meeting?

And they're like,

Yeah.

So I sat in and this guy finishes telling me about you.

And I just,

As soon as he stopped talking,

I was like,

I'll train him for free.

This was exactly what I was looking for.

And you know,

And of course,

The gym was gracious.

And they're like,

Yeah,

We'll give him a free membership.

So and then like within a week,

I met you.

And as I said earlier,

The rest is history.

I mean,

It's turned into a podcast and friendship.

And yeah,

Absolutely.

Like you're one of my absolute best friends in the world for sure.

And you are to me,

Ben,

We're having a tender moment.

We are.

We are.

Thank you,

Ben.

But that's you know,

And you didn't want to.

So we had a camera like Dave,

The producer of the show,

Brought a camera to the gym one day to like,

Because they wanted like testimonials and stuff because you know,

The gym and the local store wanted publicity from this as well.

And you did not want to speak on camera at all.

You were very,

You did not want to be recorded.

Like you were you were so but you so so then it became a big choice for you to start a podcast because you were very self conscious about or whatever I don't want to say self conscious or project everything.

But you didn't want to speak publicly.

Yeah,

Well,

I mean,

The it was the camera thing at that point.

I mean,

But in the past,

I did have a big speaking public thing,

Too.

You know that I mean,

That that was I gigantic.

I mean,

I can't even say how big it was such a big fear of mine that like,

In my drinking years,

I was pretty crazy.

And I would like in my head,

I truly believed I really wasn't scared of anything,

Because I had shoved my fear down so deep,

I couldn't really feel it.

So so like,

I mean,

Of course,

I was riddled with fear.

I found out once I get sober.

But I mean,

On an unconscious level,

I didn't think I was scared of anything.

And I could be hammered drunk and be like,

I'm not scared of anything,

Except public speaking.

I swear to God,

I remember saying stuff like that.

It was gigantic fear.

But so I did go out and speak at meetings.

And I actually got asked to do speak at this big anniversary meeting at a podium with a microphone with all these people.

And I was like,

Oh,

My God.

But I made the choice to do it.

You know,

And that's,

You know,

This is kind of a nice point that you touched on.

It's,

You know,

My father was like this.

He told me that he was like this,

And I become like this later on in life.

He used to do that when he felt fear over something like,

Like he worked at a in an IT company for years,

And they'd be like,

Hey,

We need somebody to teach this class.

And then all of a sudden,

He'd be like,

Oh,

My God,

That like,

You'd feel fear about being a teacher getting up in front of a group of people and teaching.

Well,

Then he would go do that.

Because he didn't like the feeling of fear going through him to hold them back.

And that's kind of the choices I make moving forward.

If I feel fear,

As I don't like that feeling.

So like nobody else does either.

But usually what I do is I get I stop and get still for a moment and go like,

Is this something I would want to do if I wasn't scared?

You know,

If I have no interest in it,

Then I don't I'm not going to spend my energy like trying to overcome some fear just for the sake of fear.

Most likely I might might actually do that too.

Because but but really,

The most situations I just check and go,

You know,

Would I like to be able to do this?

And the answer is most of the time,

Yes.

And then it's like,

Well,

I'm not going to let fear hold me back like that.

That's not going to happen.

I'll be a moron in front of people.

Like I will make a complete fool of myself.

And and and when I when I say that I will I've done it,

Man,

I will knock it out of the park.

Like when I was working on public speaking,

I was literally at a podium one time with sweat pouring off of me.

Like,

Literally,

It literally like was dripping off my fingertips and down my face.

I blacked out.

I don't even remember what I said.

I was physically shaking.

And that's how bad I was.

My voice was it was horrible.

But but I and then I went and did it again.

And I did it again.

And I did it again and get better at it.

Like I'm okay looking like a moron at the end.

I'm obviously afraid of looking like a moron when I get up there because otherwise I wouldn't have so much fear.

But but then but like I look like a moron so many times in my life.

It's really nothing new.

And that's how I rationalize it in my head.

Like make the choice that looking like a moron for a moment is worth being brave in the end.

It's worth getting past that fear.

Once you get past that you find it's just an illusion anyway.

And that kind of goes into the quote that I brought up,

Which is fortune favors the brave fortune favors the bold when you make the bold choice when you make the brave choice.

You know,

We've done episodes,

We've done episodes on how to make tough decisions.

Like this is not about how to make tough decisions.

It's about how to make the choice that you know is the right choice.

By taking personal responsibility for yourself.

You know what I mean?

Like when you know the the right choice is to face that fear.

When you know that the right choice is to get out and go to the gym when you know that the right choice is to follow that dream.

Like it's your responsibility to make the choice for yourself.

Right.

Your life is your responsibility.

And nobody can do it for you.

We just have to do it.

We get caught up in overthinking and you know the rationalizing and excuses and trying to see 14 steps.

Well if I do this,

Like if I speak in public one time that I'm not going to be over public,

You know my fear of public speaking.

So why bother?

No like that's you know you can't think like that.

You do it.

You make the choice to take responsibility and just move forward.

And when you do all of a sudden you know what happens is when you start heading in a direction that's going to bring you more joy,

Happiness and fulfillment,

The whole universe conspires in your favor.

It's you know the support all of a sudden opportunities come that weren't there before.

And it's you know that that's how that's how everything works.

It's like when you are when you're sitting where you are there are like a bunch of choices in front of you that you can make that the universe has set up a bunch of different possibilities of things that you can do.

And as soon as you take a step in the direction of one of them,

As soon as you make a choice and you take a step instantly there's you know a whole new set of possibilities that the universe sets up based on that step that you took.

Now all of a sudden you have new opportunities that weren't there before you know and then you take the next step you make that choice to take the next step in a direction of something and that is that's the momentum that's the energy that you need to be in.

And then all of a sudden opportunities and things and people show up you know God works through people.

Everybody's heard that.

It's like that's that's because it's true.

You know all of a sudden somebody shows up in your life and says hey do you want to do a podcast?

Yeah all right.

And you do one and then you know years later turns into something you never know.

Just make the choice to say yes in the direction of what brings you joy.

That's great man.

That's yeah exactly.

And if there's any doubt in anybody's mind that you have to take personal responsibility for yourself and make the choices that you know are the right choices but you're afraid of or you know you like make choices not excuses is what Glenn said earlier.

You would not be listening to this podcast right now if if we didn't do that and everybody does it sometimes and everybody doesn't do it a lot of times you know.

Right so just start doing it more times.

Yeah.

You know we don't have to get it perfect.

It's just you know our intention and our effort is enough.

Nobody you know it's just heading in the direction of that's all and all of a sudden you find yourself there.

So so we want to once again thank Tony Collins for being the inspiration for this episode and check out that interview that Glenn did with Tony Collins.

It's on the Life Lessons of Laughter feed.

If you're listening to this on Insight Timer or if you're listening to this you can go back.

It was a special bonus episode for Life Lessons of Laughter.

Find it on Glenambrose.

Com where you can find everything Glenn and you know he's available for life coaching sessions and stuff and it's crazy Glenn that we both now have clients literally around the world.

Because we both have clients in other countries because of this podcast because of seemingly insignificant choices that we made almost 10 years ago.

Yeah that's this is and I can't wait to see where it's going next like that you know.

Everything builds off this podcast.

So it's just that little that little yes and and it's already global.

So yeah.

Yeah I think next step next step aliens.

Maybe anything else.

Alright guys check out Glenambrose.

Com.

You can visit the Patreon to get video of this and every other episode of Life Lessons of Laughter in the last two and a half years.

Yeah yeah well and Tony's Tony's was by phone because yes elsewhere.

So his is just an audio version.

But like Ben said that's that's going to be in the Life Lessons and Laughter feed on all the different platforms we have it out on which is like iHeartRadio and you know all I mean all of those iTunes all those.

So just go to the Glenambrose.

Com hit the Life Lessons and Laughter button there the picture and it brings up all the different platforms that it's on.

So check us out and keep your eyes open for my new book.

It's coming to a theater near you.

Okay not a theater but not yet but it's coming to you and yeah check out the check out the book.

Now you're making me think we should do it.

Yeah you're making me think we should do a video version of the book.

We'll see.

That would be weird you just reading the book.

Yeah no I wouldn't do that.

Anyway we'll figure we'll see what the future holds maybe we'll be doing a movie about something someday.

So all right thanks for listening everybody and go make some good choices and we'll talk with you soon.