You Are In Control of the Story You Write (Extreme Ownership)

A coaching client of ours was recently fired from his job, and was feeling down about it. I told him this could be a good thing if he chose to make it a good thing. As Grant Cardone says:

“Every problem is an opportunity in disguise”.

This client listened to my words, and instead of sitting around feeling sorry for himself for being fired – instead of being the victim – this client of mine grabbed the opportunity with both hands, reached out to an old boss to see if there were any positions currently available, and ended up getting a better job with more pay, more flexibility, more responsibility, and more room for growth. He ended up being better off for having been fired, because he chose to make himself better off. Absolute legend.

The following is the message I sent him once he got the second job. I hope it inspires you to grab life by the horns and turn “losses” into victories. You’re in control of the story you tell about what happens to you.

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Remember when you got fired or let go? “Unceremoniously terminated”, as you called it. You were so down and defeated when I replied to you and said, “Good. This is an opportunity. Make the most of this. Decide that this is going to leave you off better rather than worse off. Make the most of it.” And look at what you’ve done. Look at this opportunity you’ve run towards. Look at what you have created, my friend.

This is power. This is you stepping into your own power as a man, as a human being, as an earthling, as a collection of molecules and atoms and whatever other crazy stuff is going on inside of us. This is you stepping up to the plate and becoming your true self and saying, “I’m in control. Shit doesn’t just happen to me. I’m not a fucking victim. If you fire me – that’s beautiful, I’m going to find something better. If a woman rejects me and doesn’t want to be with me, hey, I fucking love that, because there’s something beautiful around the corner for me.”

“And this thing that I’m feeling like is a bad thing? Nah, fuck that, I get to write the story. I get to say if it’s a bad thing or a good thing. And you know what? When I say that something is bad, it doesn’t feel good. I feel like shit. I feel hopeless, like a victim, defeated, down. But when I say something’s good, I feel good. I feel like a winner; I see the potential for growth, I see opportunities to be better, I see chances to evolve myself and step into my own power. So why the fuck wouldn’t I choose to say everything’s fucking good?”

This is the core philosophy behind Buddhism, behind Byron Katie’s books. You know I’m a huge fan of Byron Katie, and one of her biggest philosophies is: nothing happens to us, everything happens for us. Your boss didn’t screw you over, he gave you an opportunity to go work somewhere better. That woman you asked out didn’t reject you, she gave you an opportunity to go find a girl who’s more into you. When you can see life as a series of opportunities instead of a series of misadventures, the world opens up to you and the impossible becomes possible.

What you’ve done here by immediately finding a better work opportunity is you’ve decided: Today is going to be the first day of the next chapter of my life. You got fired, and you’ve chosen to see it as an opportunity for growth; you’ve fully embraced having a winner’s mindset and playing to WIN. You perfectly embody Jocko Willink’s mindset in his amazing video, Good:

By embracing this attitude of “Anything life throws at me is a GOOD thing”, the world starts to become a fun playground. Life becomes really fucking fun. It almost feels like you’re playing a video game, with every curveball being a great way to grind XP and level up your character.

And we’re not always perfect; we don’t always immediately see things as opportunities. Sometimes we let life get us down. And in those moments it can be oh so easy to tell ourselves (and anyone else who’ll listen) that we’re the victim, that life isn’t air, that bad things are happening to us. I’m not immune from getting down either; I’m not perfect.

But in our darker moments – those moments when we tell the story of how we’re a victim – it can be helpful to think of that story as just the first draft. And we are always capable of examining that first draft – the story of our victimhood – and rewriting it into a more compelling, more uplifting, more positive story. Drafts can be rewritten as many times as we want, until the story we’re telling about our own life is empowering. In other words, we’re allowed to write stories that actually serve us.

Draft 2 is a story of how this thing life has thrown at us is actually a good thing – how this is an underdog story, instead of a tragedy. In one of my favourite movies, Stranger than Fiction, one of the characters says “Every story is either a tragedy or a comedy.” Which story are you going to tell about your own life?

There’s a saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. But often life isn’t even giving us lemons; it’s giving us beautiful apples and strawberries and mangoes. We’re just calling them lemons.

Life gives us so many beautiful opportunities for something better, and yet our first remark is often, “This sucks. How could this happen to me?” And I understand why – we as human beings are terrified of change, so we label any change in our life as automatically bad, awful, something to fight against, something to complain about. But if we can instead just admit we don’t know whether or not this will be a good or a bad thing (because we can’t predict the future), we’re then freed up to actually come up with a plan of action for how we’ll make this a good thing.

So I’m so unbelievably impressed by you, my friend, and the fact that you’ve taken this “bad thing” of being fired and turned it into a better draft, a better story, a story of victory. “From Fired to Hired” – what a great story.

The story of a man who chooses to be in control.

The stories you tell about your life are yours and yours alone to tell; you’re the one welding the pen. You can either write a beautiful motivational story every time you hit a challenge or a hurdle – you can grab that pen and say, “I’m gonna write a beautiful motivational message. A motivational message to myself, and to others.”

This is all I’ve ever tried to do with my content; I’ve tried to write uplifting stories about my life, rather than focusing on the negatives or feeling sorry for myself. Anytime I go through a struggle, I deliberately choose to write a positive story about it. A story of overcoming adversity, of overcoming trials and tribulations; an underdog story. I write the stories other people are going to want to read.

When I’m going through something hard in life, I will literally say to myself, “If I choose to be positive about this, and if I overcome this and push towards greatness, I will then be able to write that as an article or a YouTube video to inspire other people.

And before that, I had the Good Looking Loser forums as my motivation – I’d think to myself, “How great is the story going to be when I get to post it on the forums. A story of me choosing to overcome the odds and take action, instead of just complaining.

You have the same tool in your arsenal: whenever you’re struggling, think how amazing it’ll be when you get to tell the guys in the coaching group what you’ve overcome. How amazing it’ll feel to have them tell you they’re proud of you. How great it’ll feel when they tell you your story is inspirational to them. Use that thought of great it’s going to be, to push through the discomfort and chose to take action towards being a winner.

And in those moments where you have fears l, or doubts, or insecurities: tell yourself “If I just push through this pain period even though it don’t want to, even though I’m scared, even though I’d rather tell a story of how I’m a victim or life isn’t fair… If I can just have a little bit of courage, it’ll be worth it for the chance at a better future. It’ll be worth it to turn the negatives into positives.

And really, what were saying here is there don’t have to even be any negatives. By reframing every “negative” into an opportunity, life becomes a lot more frictionless and effortless. Things happen for you, instead of to you. Suddenly, everything is a gift. There is a silver lining in everything, if you’re willing to have the courage to take ownership of your own destiny instead of making excuses. What happens to you in your life is your story to tell.

In that moment – in deciding to tell only positive stories about your life – you essentially become God. You get to write your own story, shape your own reality, decide whether or not your life is awesome or absolutely horrible. You essentially get to decide whether or not this is a harsh universe, or a kind universe. You get to tell the story of whether life is suffering or a beautiful gift.

You’re God.

Go tell a great story about your life.

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If you have no idea how to start telling that great story, then let’s fix that. Join The Winners Club and have the most elite group of guys in your corner who’ll have your back and push you to greatness. Greatness is guaranteed if you just dive in – it’s time to run towards the life you’ve always wanted.

I’m happy to jump on a free call with you to discuss – apply here.

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