Pain Doesn't Make You Powerful. What You Build From It Does.

Everybody wants to have power, right? Power to do something, power to create something. What creates your or my greatest power? Let's find out. Welcome to the show.Tired of the hype about living the dream? It's time for truth. This is the place for tools, power, and real talk, so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life.Subscribe, share, create. You have infinite power. Hey, welcome to your ultimate life, the podcast where I talk about how to create your ultimate life, whatever it is for you.Me, I call that purpose prosperity and joy. A lot of times people say freedom, money, cash, I don't know. What is power? What is ultimate for you? I want you to think about it for a minute.We've been talking over a number of episodes about story and how the story of your life, the things that you've lived, matter a lot.Also had some guests that have told you amazing stories, stories about their own journey, what they've been through, and what they now have to offer the world. And, you know, every single one of them has power. Precise, specific, unquestioned power. So let's. Let's talk about an equation, okay?Your story, the things you've done in your life, that's your lived experience, right? So put an equal sign there. Story equals your lived experience, okay? The next piece of the equation is your lived experience gives you power.Now, you might not agree with that, but I want to. I want to create here the philosophical center of the story arc. You know, this book that I have, the story arc dream build, write it. The.The classes that I offer to teach people how to create their story and how to, you know, how to make this real for you and to collect the power to. To build the life you want. Now, right now, I want to ask you a question. Are you happy? Yes or no? If you're happy, that's great.What is it that makes you happy? What is it about your life right now that's happy, joyful, wonderful? Okay. Do you have the relationships you want often?In fact, most often that's the thing that makes us happy. You know that because when people are dying, they're on their deathbeds. They don't want to die alone.They want people that love them or that they love around them. The biggest regrets on deathbeds are not, I wish I'd made more money. I wish I'd spent more time working or at the office.It's, you know, sadness about relationships. So if you're happy right now, congratulations.I just am so joyful that that's true for you, right now, because you know what my experience is that most people ask that question, are you happy? Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty good. Yeah, I'm pretty good. That's almost always the answer. Sometimes it's immediate. No way, man.I need this, this, this, or I've got this and this and this problem. And you know, they're. No, not really. Once in a while I'll ask somebody, are you happy? Is your hat? Is your life just like happy?And they'll say, you bet. Oh, man, it's just awesome. I know someone who regularly answers that question, Best damn day of my life. I love that answer. And you know why?This individual, this man, he's a friend. Like I said, as a fellow coach, because that's what he chooses today to be. And I like that. So sometimes I borrow that phrase.Today is the best damn day of my life. Today is the most exquisite, amazing day for me. And sometimes I'll. I'll meet somebody, right? Because I do that a lot.I've set up my life so that somewhere between three and five new people every single week, I get to meet. And I never realized how much fun that would be. That didn't used to be true. I didn't used to even think about it.I just did what I was doing, and if I met somebody new, whatever. And I've set it up now so I on purpose meet a lot of people. But anyway, people ask me, how you doing? What's going on?And I always answer about the same. I am outrageous. And I do that for several reasons. One, it's true, and two, it sparks conversation. And I like both of those outcomes.The true part depends on, you know, your definition of outrageous. Somebody being outrageous could mean somebody's ridiculous or out there in left field. I don't mean that.What I mean by outrageous is just fantastic, beyond description. And again, that's because I choose that today is the most fantastic day of my life. It is outrageous. It could never be any better.So I ask you to think about, are you happy? And often where this goes when someone is, well, I'm, yeah, pretty happy. Things are pretty good.Instead of anything less than, it's a 10 out of 10, then I'll ask why. And then they'll list several things that they either don't have that they want to have, or they'll list several things that are going on.Bad things that are happening to them. How? Health, wealth, business, relationship. The typical things.They'll say, well, this isn't right, or I just had this happen, or I'm still recovering from illness, divorce, sadness, one of my kids got hurt, or, you know, some negative thing. And then I'll ask, what is the cause of. Of, you know, those things?And people will either say, I don't know, it's outside me, or they'll simply say, I created my life. And that's very rare. But even when something external happens that you don't want, we create our response. And we've talked about that plenty.So I want to tie this to the story of your becoming, because the story you create about your life is the philosophical center of the story arc. Who you have become as you walk through the world. That's all you really are.It doesn't matter what banks failed or what the weather was or what illnesses swept through town. Who you or I are or who we become or who we choose to be as those things happen, that is the. That is the actual substance of our life.And the supreme power that you or I have. And I'm going to slow down because I want you to hear this.The supreme power that you or I have is to choose to make miracles, glory, joy, fun, wealth, from whatever happens. See, whatever happens is. Is the clay.If you want to, and me, too, if we want to, we can take that clay, no matter what it is, and turn it into glory, beauty, riches, fun, excitement. You might think I'm nuts, but it's true. We can take that clay and turn it into anything we want. And here's the crux.The process of turning that clay into anything we want is our lived experience. And that's why it's so powerful. The day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute process of fashioning the life we have from the clay we are given.That's our lived experience, our truth. Your truth. My truth becomes the integration of all that into our being. We get power when we take that experience and turn it into service.So think about this. Your story is your lived experience. There's no question about that. Your own truth or mine is how we integrate that story into our being.And we get power when we. When we take that embodied truth and offer it in service. All right, so here's the equation. Story equals your lived experience.Lived experience is truth when we choose to integrate it and make something wonderful out of that clay. See, we can make whatever we want bitching, complaining, or glorious truth. And integrated truth is power if we offer it in service. So that's that.That's the path we're going to go down. This is the simplest explanation of why your story matters. Not every Story is automatically powerful, unintegrated story. So remember, three steps.Story is your lived experience that's true no matter what. You can take your lived experience and turn it into truth if you integrate it.And that means if you build something wonderful from that clay, some marvelous things, learnings and so forth, if we allow those experiences to turn us into something, the stories you lived experience, your lived experience is truth, powerful truth. If you make something integrated, and I mean we integrate it with the truth of the universe.And that integrated truth is power when we offer it in service. So here's the thing. Like I said, not every story is automatically powerful.If we don't make something out of that clay, it can turn it into complaint or confusion or, or performance or blame or an identity prison because we become the person who, you know, has all these bad things happen to us. If we an integrate means take the clay and make something good out of it. Simple example, I broke my leg.I didn't, but if I did, I'm thinking about legs and back because I'm in such pain during the day, all day these days, because my back, I got the discs gone and stuff like that, but I'm not complaining. It just is.So if I don't integrate, if I don't make something good out of that, I can complain that my back hurts or my left leg, especially the thigh. Okay, I can be confused. Why is this happening to me? I can pretend that it doesn't and make performance.I can blame my leg or whoever, or God or whatever, and then I can take the identity of a busted person who could do more if I didn't hurt so much. I. I could do that, and I don't. Instead, I just choose to get wisdom from that. Even with a lame leg.My left leg hurt today so bad after church, the thigh again when I was walking that instead of bending it when I walked, I kept it straight and just sort of, you know, use my cane on the right side and swung my left leg around. Why? Just to avoid more pain. But I didn't even think about it in terms of complaint. It's just what it is. And I get to have this body.And it's a little busted right now. But you know what it does? It gives me compassion for others who struggle with anything. It gives me wisdom.Because now I know that I can still do what I want, even with that, like it is. It gives me increased conviction. I'm going to reach my 300 million even with that. And on and on, authority, service, all that kind of stuff.And I'm using me as an example because that happened today. Today, Sunday, as I record this. And it won't be out for a little while, but I went to church today, and it just was terrible. Right?And I love it anyway, because I choose to. And this actually isn't about me. I'm just using me as an example because it happened today.You can turn whatever struggles you have, your launch that failed, your business that's doing super well, the relationship that's in trouble, you're one of your children. That's a strange is estranged. You can turn that into power. Story without integration is just a memory.An integration is a word I'm using that means figuring out how to turn it into something useful. The alchemy of using an experience you didn't want to turn it from complaint to compassion, to turn it from resentment to resilience. Okay?And those are the things that we can do if we want to. Story without integration is just a memory, and sometimes a bad one.Story with an integration where we turn it into something useful that turns into power. The power here is the key. The power isn't in what happened. The power is in the new truth that you now carry.So I want you to think about something that's happened to you that you've already turned into a powerful truth that you carry, and that has turned. You've metabolized the struggle, and it has made you a better person. Think of something right now.Now I want you to think of 10 of those things, and I want you to write them down, because that's part of the assignment in the story arc. I really want you to get this book. Not because I need to sell books. There's a process in here called the developmental story matrix.And it's where we take the experiences of our life and we turn them into pillars of power. Power to make money. Power to add good to the world. Power to be a light for someone else. Now, wouldn't you like to have that power?Power to be a light for someone. Power to create enormous good in the world, and power to create all the cash that you need to spread a message of good and help.Yes, you can get paid. I do. And I know many people that are and can. So the story only matters if you turn it into something. If you metabolize or integrate it into truth.Okay, so here's something that is also true. Lived experience is your story. I said that it gives you something that no amount of study can give you. Because let's just use some examples.Study can give you Language. Good, powerful language because you can talk about something wrong really well and effectively because you've studied it good.Study can give you tools. Okay, again, for the same reason you learn how to do something really well. Study can give you context and models.It can acquaint you powerfully with the history of something, where it came from and some ideas that have been used in the past. Study can give you precision. All those things are important.It's important to have language and tools and context and models and history and precision.But they're nothing compared to what lived experience gives you, which is empathy, urgency, weight, meaning, convincing, power, credibility, humility. All the study in the world won't give you the humility of going through an experience. Lived experience also gives you fire.No amount of study can give you the conviction and fire of lived experience.I remember hearing a woman who'd been in the, I think it was the Philippines, serving on a service mission, and she came back and was able to talk about their, you know, their living standard and poverty and things like that with such humanity and fire. I can't even comprehend anyone that hasn't been there and had that experience being able to talk or teach or love the way that she did.And you can see that obviously someone that's been through the experience, you know, and people say, I understand what you mean. Unless they've done exactly what you have done or felt what you have felt. No, they don't. How dare you say you understand me.That's our natural feeling, right? So study can teach us the map. Lived experience is walking on the terrain right now. I'm not saying anything anti study.Study is sometimes the first way, but lived experience is a thousand times more powerful. And the best teachers, the best teachers have both. They have learned knowledge. You know, this is where I, how I Coach.I've got 40, literally 40 books in two stacks over here that I'm in the middle of because I'm always studying. Then I have a stack of my own books over here that I have written as a teacher, combining the studied experience and my lived understanding. Okay?Lived experience is the irreplaceable layer that gives you power. You can read about grief. That's not the same thing as being reforged by grief. You can study great leaders and study leadership.That's not the same as standing in the fire when things, important things, depend on your decision. Lived experience gives language a living, breathing pulse. Now, I've used the word integration a lot, and so I'm going to say it again.Integration is the difference. It's crucial to understand that because lived experience by itself isn't enough. Just because you've lived through an experience, that's not enough.People live through things and they stay bitter or they stay afraid or they stay reactive or cynical or angry or collapsed or superior. Ah, you know, or avoidant or stuck. None of those things are fun.You know, you, you maybe you have or been around somebody that's bitter or, you know, cynical or collapsed, beat down, can't, you know, recover from, or, you know, holding it over somebody. I'm superior, all that kind of stuff isn't helpful. It's not power, okay? That's people we avoid that. Integration is the word I'm using.Could be other words, but it means that the experience has been metabolized. You've turned it into something. It no longer owns you. You're no longer afraid of it. You can speak about it with humility.You can speak into the truth of it with responsibility, with wisdom, with service, with compassion for those who have similar experiences and with clarity. Here's. Here's something I know.If you followed my story very much, you know that in 2018, which is a few years ago now, eight years, I guess we're into the ninth year now. No, in August. So pretty close.So right at eight years, integration is when the event stops being your crutch or your jailer and starts becoming your teacher. Okay? Your worth has been restored, and you're no longer robbed of your feeling of worth because of the event. You.You reclaim your identity as a divine being. Instead of questioning that because of what's happened.What's happened, you can then see the possibilities that are open to you because you now have been through something you never would have understood otherwise. You choose ownership. Not that you created the event, if it's a tough one, but you. You accept the ownership of what you make out of yourself.Now that it has come, you reclaim your sovereignty over how you are and how you choose to be next. Okay, we haven't integrated a story.For example, if I still need to prove I'm right, if I have the feeling I still need to prove something, you haven't integrated it yet. Okay? Integration turns pain into perspective. The story becomes powerful when it no longer controls you.And this is something personally I struggled with for a long time. And I'm not going to tell details because it would take too long in today's episode. But I needed so badly to prove that I was.It wasn't so much proving that I was right, but to vindicate. I needed to do or have or be certain things to be vindictive, vindicated. See, I was right. See, I'm not all this stuff that someone said that I was.I had a number of struggles during my years of addiction and other things. And people formed opinions about that. You know, you're this, that and the other that owned me for a long time.And for a long time, I needed to be vindicated. That is no longer true. And because of that, I story no longer owns me.The power that I now have is infinite, infinite compassion for those that struggle and love, even for those who jeered and were angry before. I read a story the other day that just melted my heart.And there was a lady, I think there was a woman that came into a tattoo parlor, and she said I needed a tattoo of, you know, 73 or some number on her arm. And they asked, you know, what the meaning of the 73 was.And it was 73 days that this woman's daughter had been drug free, and then she had overdosed and died. And she said she wanted to remember the number, not just because she'd be in clear 73 days. So that every time she.Someone asked her what it was, she could say, 73 days of victory. And the tattoo artist did it and then didn't charge for free and put it up on the wall.And now the story was told by the tattoo artist, and now they've given a hundred or a thousand or some huge number of tattoos. Sometimes it's days. One day, 73 days, 16 hours. But it was to honor the victory instead of laugh at, feel sorry for, or poke fun at the defeat of.Someone eventually died, passed away because of their return to the struggle. And so that story just moved me to pieces. Integration turns pain into perspective. It no longer controls you, then you have power.And this line hits me hard because I say it to myself in a mirror. Helen, you haven't integrated a story if you still need to prove you're right. And for me, the word is vindication. I needed to be vindicated.I don't anymore. But for a long time, that was it. I needed to prove to certain people that I could name. See, I'm not what you said.And if you're feeling, if this is hitting you hard, understand that that's not metabolized yet, and it isn't magic. And I'm not indicting anybody.But I'm saying if you notice that these things, your stories about things that have happened to you or what everybody else has done or the world or whatever, if they still control you. There's an opportunity there for you. And the opportunity is when those stories no longer carry any internal power for you don't strike you.And you're not trying to prove anything. You have power.And when I say the ultimate life purpose, prosperity and joy, the greatest power to do good, to make money, and to have fun that you have is when your stories, your life experiences have been integrated or overcome or metabolized. And then you set about doing good in the world with the power you gained from your experience. Nothing else you've learned to do compares.I don't care if you've learned to be a precision surgeon in a specialty. The story of your own becoming is more powerful. I don't care if you're a lawyer that argues before the Supreme Court.The story of your becoming carries more power. I don't care if you're a rocket scientist.The story of your becoming carries more power if and only if, all of those three cases you choose to metabolize and integrate the experience and allow what it has made you become to be the source of your adding good to the world. Okay, now let's talk about why this carries so much power. And why would I make such bold claims? Well, it carries power because it's congruent.You have stood before people and heard them talk. I know they're lying. And like, yeah, you've stood before people or had conversations with people that you know are telling the truth.And it's powerful because you can feel, and anyone can feel that you're not performing. You're not trying to prove something. You're not borrowing authority. You're not borrowing certainty. You're not hiding. You're open and vulnerable.They also know you're not exaggerating. Okay? You're not blowing smoke. You're not selling vaporware. You know this to the core of your being. And when you get. When you speak.That's why speeches like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address or Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech, they were speaking from their own experience and not performing or borrowing or hiding or exaggerating. They're not blowing smoke. And it's something they know from their own lived experience.So when you or I speak from that metabolized and integrated truth. Words land differently. And when they land differently, it matters.If you're coaching, if you're consulting, if you're healing yourself or helping others, if you're speaking to an audience of any kind, if you're talking to your kids, your neighbors, your friends, or even to yourself, if you're writing your memoirs or a book or you've joined the, you know, the story arc book challenge. I just invite you to go to dream build, write it.com if you want to know how to turn your story into cash. Right here, right now, $100,000.You have a story. It's actually worth a million easily. But I start first with 100k because people can't believe their story's worth that.But if you've integrated it and created the power that we've talked about, your consulting, your coaching, your healing work, you're speaking. If you, you know, if you speak at schools or colleges or events, you'll be in high demand.The things you write, your leadership, your marriage, your parenting, your business, every single one of those will, will move from doing to off the charts effective because, and here's why, people then don't hear, just hear the words. They feel the degree to which your life agrees with them. That's what I mean by congruent.When you hear, when you speak yourself or you hear someone talk and you can feel energetically that their life is exactly congruent with what they're telling you, it's infinitely powerful, okay? Congruence. And that's what congruent means. Life is the same as the words. It. That's very persuasive. Embodied truth.That means truth that we live in our bodies and then talk about. Doesn't need to shout. One way I say that is truth carries its own power. It doesn't need to be embellished, it doesn't need to be shouted.It simply carries power. Okay? When your life backs all your words, every single person in the room knows that's true. Now, I've spoken about this dream build.Write it here a couple of times and in the other episodes, and here's why I, I tie this so much to that, because I meet so many people. I just said earlier, I meet a lot of folks. So many of the people that I meet say, I want to help, I want to give back, I want to do good.And they've learned some tool, some modality, some healing, some effort that works and is important. But then I ask them an interesting question. As we've talked, I've become impressed with what they don't know how to do. I'm in absolute awe.You can do that. Tell me, you know, tell me about it. And I ask them for examples and they tell me about it. And then I ask, have you written the Book of.And I use their name, the book of Sherry. The book of George, the book of, you know, Fred, or the book of Helen or whatever it is. And then they'll ask me.Sometimes they know immediately what I'm talking about. Often they will, but sometimes they'll say, well, I wrote a book and. And they'll tell me the name and the purpose, and I say, no.The real book that I'm interested in is the story of your becoming. Like, you're. You've talked to me, you're passionate and powerful about this thing you love.And have you written the book about how you got here, about the journey, the struggles, the failures, the fall on the face and the resilience and the choices you made over and over again? Have you written that? Have you written that book? Once in a while, yeah, I have it.And I'll ask what you're doing with it and how you're using it and so forth, but most of the time they'll say, no, more often than I would have believed. Well, I. I'm started and I'm in the middle.And some of them have been writing it for six months and one, one case, 20 years, and in many cases, two years, five years, you know, and the reason is because they felt this yearning to write it. They know they want to, and they have sensed the power in that story of their own becoming.All the events and the integration and then living the truth. And the thing that they've learned how to do is a skill that they picked up because they needed it on their own journey. And so you.You can see where this is going when you combine the story of your own becoming, the struggles, the failures, the successes, the choices, the things you learned to do and experienced to become who you are. And you integrate that with the tools and processes that you have acquired or learned on the way. You can see why that's infinitely powerful.It's who you have become. And you're sharing the most powerful tools and methods and systems that did that for you. Okay? So that's why this is the foundation of a book and why.That's why the book of your own becoming is the most powerful thing you got. It's never built from some abstraction. It's always built from that story of your own truth. Okay?The reader will always feel when you do what I've described, that you absolutely know the road, and that can't be questioned. They will know that you understand the depth of that struggle like the back of your hand, because you walked it, you bled on the road. You.You understand and you're able to communicate their own needs Better than anyone ever, because you're speaking from the road. They will also know you, you've done the work and you can name the pattern and everything that goes with it.Like that is part and parcel of your communicated power.You can name all the patterns, the distractions, the struggles, this, the side roads, all of those you know, and they will also feel right to their bones that you can guide them without performing superiority, without being above, that you can be trusted to walk along with them. You offer a real, true battle tested, proven path. That's why the story of your own becoming matters so much.And any other book that we write, and goodness knows I've written, I think 24 now, is, is adjunct to that. So I built, I've written the book of me, right, the book of my own becoming and many, many others. But each one is one of the pieces of that story.Where I expanded it, I wrote the book about. I wrote a book called Forgiveness A Journey of Courage to a Place of Freedom and Power.That wasn't the whole thing, but it was a special emphasis on the role that forgiveness played in my own becoming. I wrote a book called Walking Without Fear because fear has played such a role in my own journey.But all of those were adjuncts or additional pieces to the core story of the road. And when you write it and build it from your own integrated truth, they, they, the reader knows you understand the road, you understand the struggle.You've done the work, you've experienced the pain and the triumph. And you're willing and able to guide them from the side with authority. And that's why your story matters.And it gives the book and whatever programs, services, keynotes, talks, workshops that you create from that absolute bulletproof trust. It gives a deep texture, humanity, humility, authority. It expresses real stakes, bulletproof proof. Bulletproof proof?Yeah, bulletproof proof, real stakes and, and so forth. So your lived experience becomes the soil in which your book grows. And you can see that now.And lots of people write other books, but the book without the live truth could be clever and could be funny and everything else. A book that is built from your lived truth can be transformational, meaning it will actually change.It will cause long term sustainable behavioral change. It will bring your reader triumph, opportunity for real permanent growth. That's why I say book is the most.This, this book, not any book, but the book is the most strategic way to create impact in the world, to create income and to have fun.Because you, from your own lived experience can help people get paid to help them create an infinite number of products and services and have more fun than we deserve to have. It's not true. We deserve to have joy all the time. Purpose, prosperity and joy.And I live that ultimate life, and it's taken me many years to get there, and it has made it my own mission and journey to help you understand and create your developmental story, write your book, and create products, services and programs from that. But whether you use my help or not, the purpose of today was to give you that truth, that your story matters.It's the most important thing that you have. And if you choose to use it in service, you will create or you have the ability to create the ultimate life.So a reader who reads that book is not only asking, is this useful? But they're also asking, can I trust this guide?And your lived experience teaches that they can trust you because it is filled, it is imbued, it is suffused, all these fancy words. It's full of the truth of your lived experience. So, yes, they can trust you. So I have an invitation for you. Actually, three of them.If you have a story, if you have lived the kind of story that I'm talking about, your own struggle, doesn't matter what it was, and you have integrated it into your life and you're serving with it. You're adding good to the world with it. I invite you to be on the show. How you do that is you go to. Whoops, wrong URL.Your Ultimate Life podcast, yourultimate lifepodcast.com There's a contact form. Contact me. Like to have you on the show.I'd like you to share your story, your journey, your mission, your method, message, and I want to honor you by having you there. Because my message is just one, yours matters.The second is if you have had those struggles and you haven't yet turned them into your superpower, same thing. Your ultimate LifePodcast.com use the contact form and let's talk. Because you're already living it and you deserve to turn it into happiness and joy.The third invitation is I'd like to invite you to, if you haven't written the book already, to go to Dream build. Write it dream buildwriteit.com and let me help you. It's a challenge. It takes place in a few weeks. I do it twice a year to help you.You live the truth that you have fought so hard to learn. The next one is September 14 to 18, 2026. And if you hear this after that, then there'll be one in 2027. So don't just register.Go all in in your for your own self with the truth. The real transformations in the room right not the watch the videos after but in the room in the space in the power.So your lived experience isn't a sideshow, it is the power source. Your lived experience is the greatest source of your power. The greatest source of your wealth. You're the greatest source of giving back.The greatest source of our collective ability to help the world grow. Enter 5D upgrade up level right Counteract the negative influences that are happening and live in purpose, prosperity and joy.So dreambuildrid.com come learn how to build from it. And I say as a final comment, nothing can stop you if you choose growth. Nothing can keep you from living your ultimate life. Open your heart.And this time around, right here, right now, your opportunity for massive growth is right front of you. Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.If you want to know more, go to kellenfluekegermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here. Your Ultimate Life Cat subscribe Share.