Trapped By The Life You Built? The Brutal Truth About Why You’re Still Miserable (And How To Break Free)

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Have you ever had the conversation with yourself or with someone else?

But I did everything right and nothing is working.

I have.

I just got a message from a client yesterday and it said, you know, and obviously there's more to the story, but everything's working against me this morning.

Why does that do that and what do you do about it?

That's a really important question.

Because the world we live in sometimes is easy and often is hard.

The world we live in often teaches us to view.

When situations don't go our way, it means something's wrong with us.

Oh, often we deflect and we cuss or yell at the weather or the divine or the universe or the government or the economy or some business partner that cheated us or some client that didn't come through or whatever.

But the truth is, stuff happens all the time.

Excuse me, that's not like you want.

So what are we going to do with that?

And more importantly, there's a.

There's a bigger piece to that, not just crap going like you don't want.

What if you do everything right and you build something that you thought was going to be great and it doesn't work at all?

I'll give you a funny example.

So you have in your mind a certain kind of omelette and you think, this is going to taste great.

I'm going to put this in it and cook it this way and do this, that and the other.

And my favorite meal to cook is breakfast.

I'm not much of a cook and I don't pretend to be, but I do good at breakfast.

Waffles and breakfast burritos and, you know, a few things.

And sometimes you plan it and you do everything you think you're supposed to and it doesn't work.

In fact, worse than not working, it's awful.

It falls apart.

It breaks right in front of your eyes.

So I titled today trapped by the life you built.

And so it's really the same thing.

I'm trying to do something that doesn't work right.

Only on a macro scale.

I built the life I meant to build and now it sucks.

Ever felt like that?

Well, let's talk about how that happens.

First of all, where did you get the idea or the knowledge or the certainty that, quote, this life, this outcome was what you were supposed to build.

So for example, when I grew up, the only thing that there was was you grow up, you get a job with some big company, you work there 30 or 40 or 50 years and then you quote, retire and the nameless, faceless corporate universe takes care of you.

Now, incidental to that, you try to do things to get up in the company, right?

You want to get to leadership and then management and then executive positions if you can.

But it's all in the context of doing what you're supposed to.

And at the same time, you're supposed to get as much money as you can.

You're supposed to, you know, have a family, get married, have a family, you know, 2.3 or 3.6 kids or whatever.

And that is success.

And so you're given that recipe.

Now when I was growing up, that was really strong.

In fact, it was the only story playing where I grew up and when I grew up.

Now you may have grown up in the same years as me and heard a completely different story, but the principle is this.

The band, the music, the story that was playing around you influenced you in powerful ways.

Often, in fact, most of the time we adopt those stories, we believe them, we accept them as truth.

Oh, this is how, this is how it's done.

And you get there and you have it right, you climb the ladder, you got the brass ring and then what?

Covey, Stephen Covey, talks about this in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is considered one of the great business books of all time.

He talks about spending all the effort to climb the ladder and then find out it's against the wrong wall.

That's one aspect of this problem.

Trapped by the life you built.

So in the process of building this success, this corporate success, or this family success, or this relationship success that you were fed, and I'm not saying you were fed it by any ill intentioned people.

You know, families, religions, social circles, they give you what they think is the quote, right answer.

What they simply do not ever take into account is your individuality, your simple, your own will, your simple choices, your gifts, your talents.

And if you move outside of that, you know, color outside the lines, you're weird.

And depending on how far outside the lines, you're weird to terrible, to ostracized, to disinherited, right?

So somewhere in that mess, we've got to answer the question, what is it with these stories?

How do we grow up and put them in proper perspective?

Because I'm not saying everything that anybody teaches us is wrong by no stretch it kept us alive and safe and worked.

Society stayed together.

Lots of people grew up and worked for the corporate machine, right?

And society produced goods and services and we all did the things right.

And there were and are a boatload, a crush load of miserable people who hate their jobs, work for the weekend and wonder why nothing turned out like they wanted.

Because the dream that we were sold and still sold to some extent is if you follow this particular path, not only will you achieve success, you'll have cash and whatever, but you'll be happy.

In other words, there is an equating of being happy with following this certain set of actions.

You're going to be happy.

So following this path of earning and progression and becoming equals happy.

Well, my experience is that is a disaster.

It was always a disaster.

And today with the proliferation of opportunities and the madness of, I don't mean bad madness, but the craziness of the Internet and Internet millionaires and YouTube stars and just all the craziness, it's not only not true, but it's poison.

Want to know the truth?

We're about creating the ultimate life purpose, prosperity and joy.

Well, the first question that you might need to ask yourself about your own life and then about kids.

If you happen to have stewardship of raising children, if you've elected to have them, or if somehow they ended up as yours through whatever circumstance is what do they want?

Sometimes that's hard to tell.

When I was asked as a kid, what do you want?

I didn't even know what to say.

I spit out the same things I always, you know, I heard.

Well, I want to be a something, a business person.

I don't even remember having a real desire.

The only thing that turned me on as a kid was music.

I loved playing the piano.

I played several instruments and I was in a lot of musical things, drama and music, but that was sort of on the side.

That was one of those things you kind of did.

Like if you drew really well, that's nice, you know, that's a nice little talent you have.

But that doesn't change the fact that you need to go to school, get an education, get a degree, graduate, get a job and do the thing right, the thing meaning the thing that everybody else was doing.

And that's a disaster.

And I rail against it strongly now.

I can't change the past and I'm not going to rail against anybody that ever did that to me or anybody else, because that's all they knew.

What I want to talk about today is if you feel trapped by the life you built, you don't have to stay there, you don't have to give up, give in, and sort of capitulate on the idea of what you wanted.

So let's check up, check out what the characteristics are.

So if you're successful, let's say you make three, $400,000 a year, you have a nice house, cars, maybe a relationship, maybe a family, whatever, and you have that cash, are you happy?

Because I know so many people that are successful by those standards.

Somebody looking out from the outside and seeing your position, your income, your, you know, you look cool, nice car, business suit, etc.

Woman or man, and you're still hunted.

In other words, going to work or completing the quote work that provides you that cash in that position isn't satisfying or fulfilling.

Now, a vast majority of people fall into that category because survey after survey shows between 60 and 90%.

It depends on the survey and how the phrase is questioned.

60 to 90% of people are not satisfied with the quote job that they have.

So that's one telltale sign.

Are you happy?

Do you love going to work?

Do you dive into projects?

Do you feel fulfilled and validated because of what you're doing, like all the time?

Not once a month, not once a big project, not once a quarter, not only at review time when you got a big bonus, end of the year you got a $50,000 bonus.

Ah, now I'm happy.

No, that's not happy.

It's got nothing to do with it.

Money is an abysmal poison substitute for true contentment and happiness.

So I'll just be bold and irritate a lot of people.

Money can't buy you love.

Money can't buy you happiness.

Money is not the be all, end all of anything.

It's necessary.

We got to have rent and food and it's fun to have.

I used this background on purpose because I was talking about authors and I said, give me a futuristic.

So there's a woman using some kind of futuristic craziness, writing, creating something, and I thought that was a fun picture, so I put it there now because AI is rising now and rising so fast we can barely catch our breath as it does so.

But that's a fabulous and unique opportunity right now.

So I want to ask you, are you happy with the job you have?

Do you even have a job?

Did you create a business and it has simply become a job?

If you're a business owner and the business depends on you showing up, first one to leave or first one to get there, last one to leave.

All you have is a job that you created.

Instead of working for someone else, you're working for your own idea, but you're working more hours.

Probably you're doing something you thought you were going to like at some point.

Maybe you still like it and maybe you don't.

And then comes the real question.

So you built this career or job or situation.

You built it out of fear, not freedom.

You built it out of fear you would fail if you didn't.

You built it out of fear that you, you know, something bad would happen if you didn't follow the prescribed path.

You built it out of fear that you would look bad to others because they were successful.

And what's wrong with you?

How many people have you heard say that?

Either in real life or movies or books or anywhere else?

Well, what are they going to think, whoever the they is?

Right?

That's a terrifying place to be, a sad place, and above all, completely unnecessary.

So now you're trapped inside your own creation.

Why?

Well, you have a big mortgage, you have obligations.

You have people that depend on you.

Maybe you have a family.

Maybe you're supporting others.

Maybe you're terrified about what it would look like if you just walked away and said, this isn't who I am.

This isn't what I want to be.

You know, in my.

When I was growing up, anybody that did that, that sort of walked away and said, this sucks.

I'm going to do something else.

They were an outcast, weirdo, bum, irresponsible, stupid, wrong, and every other pejorative word that you can think of.

Any of that sound familiar from your family or your friends or even your work colleagues?

So let's consider.

Where did that come from?

Well, we know getting trapped is this.

You go down a path.

You have a definition of success.

You think something's going to work for you, and it doesn't.

But you stay there anyway.

At that moment, you become trapped.

You have become trapped by your own story.

Trapped by embarrassment, trapped by obligations you've made, commitments you've made.

I hate the word obligation.

I don't have any obligations.

None at all.

Not car payments, not house payments.

None of those are obligations.

They are pure, joyful, loving commitments that I made because I want those things and I'm delighted to pay for them.

There's a difference in energy between the word obligation, which carries the seeds of resentment, and a commitment, which is a joyful promise that I made, that I want to honor from this moment until it is fully fulfilled.

The last payment, if it's Money or the last moment I draw breath, if it's my relationship.

Now, I failed at a lot of that stuff earlier.

I viewed everything as an obligation.

I entered them because I thought I had to, because it was the story.

And I live trapped in a.

In a story of my own creating because I chose initially to believe and then to stay in the story of misery and failure.

Now, I personally had a wake up call in 2007.

That's the year I turned 52.

So decades I lived in this box, this disaster.

And if you've done it, you know what I'm talking about.

And then some miraculous things happened.

And in 2007, I. I had the vision and then the courage.

Just walk away, start over.

This is all a disaster.

And I've spent the first 52 years of my life living that.

And I'm not going to feel bad or get angry about it or frustrated because I quote, wasted time.

Although that thought crosses your mind, believe me.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to take everything I learned about what to do and not do in that first 52 years, and I'm going to create a new and beautiful and fulfilling and ultimate life of purpose, prosperity, and joy.

So the first thing you need to recognize is what is the story you believe that's driving your life?

You have a story.

I'm not saying it's a false story, but identifying the drivers, what you think you're supposed to do, who made that rule?

Where did those ideas come from?

Do you own them or did you accept them from others?

What I discovered is everything I was doing was accepted from others, and I hadn't questioned it and then either rejected or adopted it as my own.

I'm not saying at all that everything you were taught is somehow wrong and you have to reject it all.

What I am saying is you need to decide if you own it or if you're going to let it go, because now you understand it no longer serves you all right.

So one thing, there's a huge difference between being driven to do something with obligations and feeling called to do something because it lines up with your heart.

Now, most of my life, I didn't know to even ask these questions.

And one of the things that has come up in me as I have made these changes in the last 18 years, because my change started in 07, and I'm recording this in 2025.

So in the 18 years, I've discovered which things I own, which things I discard, which things I'm letting go and which things I choose to maintain because I now know what I want to be.

Now, this want that I'm speaking of is at the deepest level of your soul.

It's not about stuff and houses and cars and cash and trips and all that stuff.

Those things are peripheral, and they're fun, but they're still peripheral to the truth of your being.

There's a true thing that you see over and over in movies and books and all that stuff, and that is high performers often end up trapped in a dream life.

They follow the script.

They go maybe to school or do whatever, create this.

And then they end up grinding, creating money and position, and then realize it's not satisfactory and feel trapped.

Now, one of the reasons that this happens is because without examining our beliefs at the deepest level, we simply adopt our childhood stories.

We adopt what happened to us as normal.

I had a friend that was talking to me about growing up very poor in a place in New York.

And, you know, when someone asked him about his life, his upbringing, because he had been poor and everything, he said, we were happy.

We didn't know we were poor.

And so that's a story.

The poor is sad because he didn't experience that.

The fact that he was happy and had love and family around him made him able to continue with that as he grew up and did create wealth for himself.

If he had grown up in the same neighborhood, perhaps next door, and the story had been about unfairness and misery and others have more, and, you know, evil people are rich and all that, and that story is prevalent, his life experience would have been completely different.

Now, you know people like that.

So this is your invitation here and now, to decide who you are and what you want to believe.

And why is that important?

Because the fundamental truth is this.

You won't have your ultimate life purpose, prosperity and joy, until you decide what that looks like.

You decide, and then you own that to the deepest core of your heart.

If there's any element of somebody else's story in there, there will come a day today or next week or in a year where that friction destroys you.

Unless you examine it and decide that you own it.

For example, I can mow the lawn and hate it.

I can mow the lawn and love it.

If I mow the lawn and hate it and mow the lawn as a euphemism for anything, then I'm full of negative emotion.

I resent it.

I'm thinking all about other things and life is frustrating.

Or I can mow the lawn and love it, grateful that I Have a lawn and a place to mow and a place to live, making it look nice and attractive, then the lawn still mowed, either way.

But my spirit is in a completely different place.

And what I notice is when I do whatever work, it is positive and gratefully I feel better and I have more energy for lots of other stuff.

So what?

The cost of living somebody else's dream, Somebody else's definition of your own success.

Even if they're not telling you what to do, they've defined it.

The cost is burnout.

You may know what that's like.

The cost may be your health, it may be relationships.

How many people do you know that worked and worked and worked and worked, make more and more and more money?

They lost their family, they lost their home, they lost their self esteem, they lost stuff.

Often that has you turn into negative things, substances and other stuff.

Why?

Because you're getting all this stuff and it's not happy.

You are not happy because what you're getting isn't fulfilling.

Because you haven't decided to own it.

Okay, There's a saying that many successful people, even most, are often disconnected.

Why would that be?

Well, let's think about who's running their business or their life or their company.

That inner child, the one that was told to do this and forced to do that, is running the company.

And that's or, or your life or your position in the job or your relationship.

And that's all done from fear.

If you run your life from fear, fear of failure.

Excuse me?

Fear of failure, fear of being shown up, fear of not being good enough.

If that's how you run your life, you're going to be unhappy.

And it's only a matter of time until it collapses around you.

So we started with the idea of being trapped by the life you built.

Now if some high percentage of people, and I gave numbers earlier, don't like their jobs, and that means most people find themselves either a little or a ton in this predicament.

So let's talk about what to do.

Because it's one thing to just talk about the misery that I certainly have experienced.

I did exactly that.

I lived the script I was supposed to.

I created success in my employment.

I got a number of high profile jobs, I made a lot of money and I worked a lot, right.

And thought I was successful.

The true things that I wanted to do were never even on the table.

I lived everything I was supposed to live.

And of course I had the hollow feeling, the empty feeling, the not good enough feeling and all that Comes with it.

And then eventually, of course, that all crashed down.

And that happens often, so that's not that weird.

But the question is, what are you going to do about it?

What are you going to do with that truth?

Are you going to let it continue to run you?

So here's the invitation and the truth for the last half.

So we know how many people are stuck in work they don't like, careers that aren't fulfilling, obligations, quote, that they resent.

Stop.

Stop right now.

And this may require some help.

Okay.

It certainly did for me.

How do you feel about your life?

Like, you spend a certain amount of time doing what you sleep and besides that, what, you go to work, you make money.

Does that excite you?

You come home and spend time with those you love.

Are you feeling fulfilled?

Are you feeling seen?

Are you giving love and compassion?

That's true.

With no strings attached.

Are you doing those things again that you're supposed to do?

Okay.

I absolutely was a poster child for all that.

And that's, I guess, why it's so deeply connected.

I felt isolated, unappreciated, disconnected.

And part of.

Part of it was my own fault, maybe a lot of it, because I didn't have time.

I had all these things I was doing.

And the truth of life, which is love, service, relationships, adding good to the world was just not at all or on the periphery.

Oh, I served in my community and in my church, but it was all with that sense of obligation.

What a disaster.

So I'm going to invite you right now to do several things.

One, take stock of your life.

Is the way you create your cash joyful and fulfilling?

Yes or no?

Is the status of your relationship, your primary relationship, joyful and fulfilling?

Is this is the way you spend all your time joyful and fulfilling?

Yes or no?

And those questions aren't difficult to answer.

And if your answer sounds like, well, a little, then the answer is no.

If it's joyful and fulfilling.

Boy, you know that.

And you're flying up and raising your hand.

Yeah, it's joyful and fulfilling, and I know it.

Now I have an invitation for those of you that said, yes, it's joyful and fulfilling every day, all that I'm doing.

I invite you to talk to me because I'd like you to tell your story about how you got there on the show.

I love sharing the stories of those who have gone past the old stories, built new meaning in life and created purpose, prosperity and joy.

If you want to do that, you can reach out the URL on the screen kellenfluekeigermedia.com There's a contact form.

I want to share your story because, you know, my mission is to reach 300 million people with this truth of transformation, that you own your life.

You can have purpose, prosperity and joy.

Today.

You really can.

I don't care if you hate your job this minute.

None of that matters.

That's the cool thing about your divine nature.

Me, us, we as divine beings, we can change all that right now.

That isn't a ten year process.

Now, one of the other things that come when we feel like we're living in this obligation is the sense of being precarious.

Nothing is ever safe.

You might lose the job.

Somebody might find out about that, whatever it is that you have done right?

Somebody might find out your secret problem, somebody might find out how miserable you are, you might make a mistake at work, and then, boom, you're gone.

And so fear is driving the show.

On the other hand, if you live fully aligned with your purpose that you choose, none of that matters.

I do things and they fail all the time, and I don't care.

That's just feedback and it's an opportunity to do whatever it is again.

I can write a book, and, you know, I've written a bunch and if it doesn't sell, well, that's okay.

I can redo it or I can do another one.

I can move on and create.

But the act of creation, will was completely consistent with who I'm being.

So if you answered no to the happy questions, are you happy with how you create cash?

Do you love it?

Do you make any distinction between work and play?

Or is it, ooh, work over here and then, oh, now I get to play.

If that's true, I'm sad because you're leaving your greatest gifts on the table.

Your greatest gifts are in doing stuff you love, creating value with it so you can get paid.

You know, there's the old saying, do what you love and the money will follow.

That's absolutely true.

If done the right way, you know, it really is, because the things you love are the things that you're best at that you really do well.

And if you're willing to do the work, you can figure out how to get paid for that big time.

Because it's what you do best.

It's not a mystery.

Okay, the other thing I want to talk about is about sovereignty.

Often when we've built a life that we hate, we've given up control.

We've given it up, given up control in explicit ways.

Okay, I'm going to do whatever they, whoever they is, tell me.

And so that creates resentment.

Sometimes we've given up control, even of ourselves, because we have habits.

We go to work, we get home, we watch tv, we drink beer, we do whatever, we work for the weekend.

And that habit just reinforces itself over and over again.

And pretty soon, you know, face down in the mud, we're like, I wanted to have so much different life.

And by then we believe it's impossible.

It's never too late.

And it's not impossible.

So here's the first step.

After you assess your happiness with how you make money, with your health, and with your relationships.

Let's just start with those three things.

Then you have to decide.

What would you do if you could, if money and time were not an option?

Not, not, not.

Sorry.

Not an option, but not a problem.

What would you do?

Now, sometimes when we're harried and we hate life, what we say is, I sit on the beach forever.

Getting past all that, then a vacation to, you know, get all tuned up again, because that's not going to last very long.

If we feel deprived because of, you know, we've been denied or we've been full of obligations forever, I get it.

But after that, deeper.

What would you do?

What does the.

The spirit, the gift in you want to create?

See, we're creators by nature.

Purpose, prosperity and joy is our divine nature.

We are designed to prosper.

We are designed to have, live into and love purpose.

We are designed to love and serve each other.

Most people don't have the courage to explore that.

So I want to issue you some invitations here.

Number one, if any of this has resonated with you and you find yourself unhappy where you're at and you find yourself finally sick of it and you're going to do something, let's talk.

Because helping you find your true purpose is something I do better than anyone in the world.

And the reason isn't a mystery.

It's because of the battle and the work I went through to make that discovery.

So I have processes to help with that.

That's number one.

Number two, if you're not creating a big impact in the world, meaning lifting, blessing, serving, helping, and you want to, let's talk.

Because we were built to love and serve.

You were built to have joy and have this ultimate life I keep talking about.

But if you don't know what your purpose is and you don't know what you really want to do, and it's limited to, I just want to have all the money and time in the world.

That means you haven't done enough thinking because that wears out really quickly.

So one place to go is www.yourultimatelife.ca free stuff.

Five steps to your ultimate life.

If you have a story you want to share about your own overcoming growth, resilience, choices, tragedies turned into triumphs.

I love sharing that stuff.

I love sharing that stuff.

And I'd love to share yours.

So go to kellenfluekegermedia.com and reach out.

Now, here's the final point.

You are a sovereign being.

You own your life and you get to choose what to do with it every minute, no matter what's come before, right this minute.

You can make that choice.

Now.

What if you gave yourself permission, deep, full on hardcore permission, to start again, not from scratch.

Because you're not zero years old.

You have all these experiences behind you and that is both the engine and the guideposts for where you can go.

So we're not going to start from scratch, but you're going to start from truth.

And the truth is what you've learned, who you really are, what you know now and where you want to go.

You're a divine being.

You've had a boatload of experiences that have shaped your life up to now.

Are you using those experiences to complain about?

Are you using those wounds as battle scars to brag about?

Or are you using those circumstances to refine you, to lift you, to temper the steel in your heart?

See, those are choices we get to make.

And if you want to live a life of purpose, prosperity and joy, you can.

That is available to you, not to somebody else.

You, right here, right now.

But it doesn't come in an Amazon box and it's not going to create itself.

So if you yearn to have everything you want, your first choice is to start now.

The first choice is to examine where you are happy, unhappy.

Why?

What are you doing?

What are you believing?

That work is the most fun that I have with people.

So if you'd like my help doing that, get ahold of me.

I've told you how already.

Or you can look up one of many books that I've written about that.

And the reason that I've written so many is because I learned all that the hard way.

And my goal in writing them was to save you time, to serve your heart and to love you fiercely so that you can move forward right now, eliminate the nonsense, rise up to the level of your capability, which is infinite, and start creating purpose, prosperity, joy in every day, in every hour, in every moment, because I'm not smoking anything.

It's possible and it's real.

And it is your birthright to move forward right now and create your ultimate life right here, right now.

Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.

Every episode gives you practical tips, tips and practices that will change everything.

If you want to know more, go to kellenflukermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here.

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