Today I turned 50 and in this episode I'm going to  share with you the 15 most powerful lessons I've  

learned in 50 years. That's how long I've been  on this earth. And for most of that time I was  

losing the battle. I was broke. I had two homes  in foreclosure. I was struggling with addiction,  

single for over a decade, spiritually  disconnected. And yet here I am today.  

I built a $40 million transformational company.  I'm married to the woman of my dreams. I live in  

my dream home. I overcame addiction. And I have  a personal relationship with a higher power that  

guides everything I do. So, what changed? I'm  going to share with you the 15 most powerful  

lessons I've learned. Not abstract fluff, not  hallmark wisdom, but hard one truths that pulled  

me out of a thank God it's Friday life to a life  I actually love living. If you're feeling stuck,  

uncertain, overwhelmed, or financially stretched,  these 15 principles might just rewire everything.

Principle number one, your life is a masterpiece.  It's a tapestry woven from all different kinds of  

pieces. The good, the bad, and the ugly. But  what's important to understand here is that  

the challenges that you've overcome have helped  you become who you are and have set you up for a  

destiny that is worthy of a masterpiece life. I  believe every single person has greatness inside  

of them. And often times we use the challenges  that we've had as explanations for why we're  

stuck in our life today. But the truth is they are  the catalyst for who we are becoming. No matter  

where you are today or how long you've been  struggling with financial insecurity or your  

health challenges or feeling lost and confused  or being alone or single, that can change in an  

instant. Your life is designed as a masterpiece.  Every single person I know who has achieved some  

level of greatness, some level of success, some  level of genius expression in the world went  

through the same challenges that you're going  through. Those challenges are not a reason for  

why you're stuck. there a reason for why you will  live a masterpiece life. Principle number two,  

you're one decision away from what you want. And  I'm not talking about your decisions to do things.  

I'm talking about your decisions about things.  Most people live in financial insecurity because  

they've made a decision that money is scarce or  hard to make. When you shift that decision, your  

reality changes. People are living a life based  on the decisions about life that they've had in  

the past, that they're not good enough, that they  don't matter, that they can't trust people, that  

they have to control everything around them to  be safe. And that becomes your reality. Thoughts  

become things and you are creating your reality.  And so if you want your reality to change,  

you have to make a new decision. I was single  for over a decade. And then one year towards the  

end of the year when I was making my New Year's  resolutions, I made a decision that I didn't know  

how. I didn't know when, but I was going to meet  a beautiful Colombian woman and make her my wife.  

And through a series of crazy synchronicities over  the next two weeks, I ended up in a city where  

I didn't live with people I normally didn't hang  out with who connected me to Carol Gutierrez Bear,  

the woman that I'm married to today, a beautiful  Colombian woman that I made my wife. One decision  

can alter the course of your life. But if you  continue to react to your current circumstances,  

thinking the thoughts you have about your reality  as it is today, that things never work out,  

that you have to work really hard in order  to just get by, that becomes your reality,  

and you get stuck in a groundhog day type of  existence, living the same day over and over  

and over again. But if you're willing to make a  new decision in the midst of your current reality,  

everything can change. And this is backed by  neuroscience. The moment you make a new decision,  

you start to have different thoughts and ideas.  The moment you make a new decision about your  

health, about money, about relationships, about  yourself. You start to actually change the things  

that you notice in your reality, there's a part  of the brain that's filtering out most of your  

reality, and it hones in on what it is that you've  decided or you believe. And the moment you make a  

new decision, all of life begins to conspire to  bring that decision into your material reality.  

Coincidences, synchronicities, rendevous begin  to occur. The moment you make a decision, you're  

one decision away from what you want. Principle  number three, there was never any reason to worry.  

If I could actually go back in a hot tub time  machine and tell my younger self something,  

it would probably be this. Hey, don't worry. It's  all going to work out. And you know what's really  

wild? You can look at your own life right now  and look at the things that you were worrying  

about and see that some way somehow they resolve  themselves and you made it through it. And yet  

you'll still choose to worry today about the  same types of things. And I get it because  

worry is a habit. It's one of the most ingrained  habits that we have because it's built into the  

nervous system in order to help us survive. We're  looking for threats, but the truth is the threats  

rarely if ever materialize themselves. And so,  if I could go back in time, I would tell myself  

to just relax. Don't stress. It's all going to  work out. Because the truth is it will. And our  

joy becomes stolen by the worry that inserts  itself in the experiences of our life. A vast  

majority of my life I didn't enjoy. and I still  produced the results that I wanted or got through  

those challenging times despite my worry. So why  not enjoy the ride as it's unfolding, there was  

never any reason to worry in the first place.  Principle number four, your greatest weakness  

is your greatest superpower. I remember when my  parents went on their first vacation when I was a  

little kid. I was 7 years old. They went to Hawaii  for a week and the babysitter was taking care of  

me and I was worrying that my parents were never  going to come back. And in her unenlightened way,  

she shamed me by saying, "You're such a little  worry wart." That always stuck with me. And I  

always beat myself up for being a worrier until I  realized that worry is just a form of rumination.  

It's a type of deep thinking. And who I am today  is a result of my natural capacity to take complex  

concepts and really think about them in a deep  way and be able to break them down into simple  

concepts and explain them to other people. you  know, the business that I built as a result of  

my fascination and rumination with how I could  build a transformational company at scale in order  

to help end human suffering and to help as many  people as possible. So, there's something that  

you experience in your life right now, an aspect  of your character that you may look at and be  

judging as a character flaw. But what I'm telling  you is is that's the seed of your superpower. As  

you go through your own hero's journey and the  journey of your life and as you mature and as  

you grow and learn and as you commit yourself to  transforming yourself and transforming your mind,  

that weakness will transform into your  greatest superpower. Principle number five,  

you chose your parents. So for a long time,  I blamed my parents for the way that I was.  

I blamed my mom for making me a worrier because  she was a worrier. I blamed my dad for me feeling  

like I wasn't good enough because of the way that  I experienced my father growing up. But the truth  

is is that I chose my parents. I believe that we  come into this life having learned from previous  

lives in deciding what it is that we want to  learn and grow and expand into in this life.  

And in that we choose our parents. Your parents  were meant to install programs, the wounds or  

the traumas into you because one of the purposes  of your life is to transform that trauma into who  

you're meant to become. We only become the light  because we experience the shadow. We only become  

good because we experience bad. We only become  confident and faithful because we experience worry  

and doubt. And so part of the process of this life  is choosing your parents knowing in advance that  

they're going to be installing some programs into  you that your life purpose is to transform. And  

so often we blame our parents for who they were  for us. But in fact, if you look at it, often  

times our parents carry their own wounds that they  passed on to us. And before they leave this life,  

often times they never let go of those wounds.  They never transform those wounds. They came in  

as soldiers of transformation, carrying their own  burdens and pushing those burdens onto us so that  

we in this lifetime could unlock the power of  those burdens and step into our greatness. Now,  

sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow when  we experience abandonment or physical or sexual  

abuse. I'm not saying that we don't wish that  these things hadn't occurred. I'm just saying  

that they did and you chose these things so that  you could transform the burden into a gift and  

be that gift for the rest of humanity. Principle  number six, all suffering is caused by your own  

thinking. When I was studying in India, this  is one of my biggest takeaways that I received  

that the suffering that I experienced in my life,  forget about some of the suffering that you see  

out there. But the suffering that you experience  in your own life, the stress, the anxiety,  

the overwhelm. I don't mean the physical pain.  I mean the emotional and psychological suffering  

is a result of one thing and one thing only, and  that is your own thinking. And when you really get  

clear on this, that it's not that I lost my job  that is invoking my suffering, but it's my fear  

that I'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage  at the end of the month and survive. It's my own  

thinking about losing my job. It's not that I  don't have a a partner in life or a soulmate  

yet. It's the belief that I'm going to be alone  for the rest of my life that is causing me my  

pain and suffering. It's not the amount of money  in my bank account. It's my belief that I'm never  

going to be able to have financial abundance and  prosperity that's causing my personal suffering.  

You start to realize that all suffering is a  self-inflicted wound. And you have the capacity  

within you to transform your suffering into a  powerful state by changing your own thinking.  

We are not victims of our external circumstances.  We're actually victims of our own mind. But that's  

something that we can control. All suffering is  caused by your own thinking. Change your thoughts  

and you can transform your emotional experience of  life. Principle number seven, community overcomes  

challenges. This is something that I learned in my  addiction recovery. If you want to create anything  

great in your life or if you want to overcome any  challenge, it is not a do-it-yourself project. It  

is a do it with others. And the reason for this  is because in order to transform a problem into  

a solution, it requires energy. Energy transforms  problems into solutions. And that energy comes  

from connectivity with other human beings. When  you align yourself with other people who you have  

genuine authentic relationships with, it creates  a power within the nucleus of your own life,  

you start to bring in resources, thoughts,  ideas, support that allow you to transform  

any circumstance or situation. I could have never  gotten sober in my recovery program without other  

people. I could have never become successful as  an entrepreneur without other people. I could have  

never become the person that I've become, the  husband that I've become, the father that I've  

become without other people. And unfortunately,  there's this idea oftentimes that we learn from  

our parents as we're growing up that we need to do  it on our own. That asking for help is a weakness.  

But that's not actually true. Asking for help is  a strength because not only does it support you,  

but it gives other people the opportunity to be  in service and we start to connect as one human  

family. Community overcomes challenges. Principle  number eight, authenticity unlocks greatness. I  

had the opportunity to speak at an event with  somebody who I admired, another speaker, the  

Reverend TD Jakes. And as I was able to connect  with him in the green room before I went on stage,  

I was letting him know that I really appreciated  him and I appreciated that when I was in my  

darkest times, I listened to his videos and  his voice lifted me up and I shared with him  

my experience struggling in addiction recovery,  struggling financially, being alone for as long as  

I was. He actually got out on stage and said, "I  met an extraordinary man back there and he's going  

to come out here and share his greatness with  you." And the reason why he's so extraordinary and  

the reason why he's been so successful is because  he doesn't throw his stars, he throws his scars.  

He said, "When you are authentic and you allow  people to see you, they see themselves." Hey,  

it's David. Quick interruption to your regularly  scheduled podcast episode. I want to let you  

know about an opportunity to go even deeper  into this work together. If you have not yet,  

please check out the show notes. In there, we've  got links to both our mind hack and our whole  

human framework programs. Our mind hack course  is an incredible framework. It's the foundation  

of everything that I teach on this show to help  you understand how to become deeply aware of the  

subconscious programs that are holding you back  and to teach you the technologies and frameworks  

to allow you to dramatically transform those  belief systems and rewire your brain. Again,  

the Mind Hack program is our 7-day self-paced  program. We also have our 12week course,  

the whole human framework. And we've got both  of them right now bundled in a special offer for  

those of you who want to go big, want to go fast,  and who understand that you don't want to put off  

another day of your full potential or holding  on to unnecessary stress, anxiety, or suffering,  

but you want to be liberated from these habits of  thinking and have a powerful living experience.  

Check out the link in the show notes. Jump on over  to the website. Take a look at the programs and  

the extraordinary success stories of entrepreneurs  just like you who have gone through these courses  

and I will see you on the other side. And now  back to your regularly scheduled podcast episode.  

And in today's world, there are so many people,  especially in the influencer, YouTube, Instagram,  

celebrity universe, who present a perfect picture  that we can never actually accomplish. And that is  

a vulnerability because then we're not actually  being ourselves. Authenticity allows people to  

connect with you. One of the top two things that I  hear on this show is that people love me not only  

for my ability to distill complex concepts  into simple frameworks they can integrate,  

but because of my authenticity. Authenticity  unlocks your greatness. And not being you requires  

so much energy to hold it all together, to be able  to put that fake facade in place. and it becomes  

draining and not sustainable over time. So the  beauty of it is is when you're being yourself,  

it's easy. It's relaxed. It doesn't require a  lot of energy, but it's actually what attracts  

and magnetizes people to you. Principle number  nine, you are important. You are an essential  

perspective of God or infinite intelligence in  the world. Right now there are about 7 billion  

perspectives. Every single one is important.  Every person is connecting and interacting with  

all other people in this incredible super oranism  that coordinates the advancement of civilization  

and humanity. You're here for a purpose. And you  may not know what that is right now, but that will  

become clear to you over time. And that clarity  accelerates when you can acknowledge that you are  

important. You are important. No matter where you  are in your life right now, no matter what you've  

accomplished or what you're struggling with,  you're an essential part of the human family.  

And it's important for you to acknowledge this,  that you are good enough, that you do matter, that  

you are important. I remember those times where  I was living in depression and living in anxiety  

and feeling like, why did it even matter that I  was here? And if I had given up then, I wouldn't  

be living the life that I'm living now. And if  I didn't live the life that I'm living now, I  

wouldn't be able to impact so many people who have  expressed that their lives have been changed by  

my work. And so, don't judge yourself based on the  chapter that you're in right now. Know that you're  

on your hero's journey and just decide that you  are important and in what way you are important  

will become clear to you over time. Principle  number 10, what you make matter matters. This was  

something one of my mentors taught me. She said,  "Thoughts are things and they're creating your  

reality. And what you put your focus and attention  on and how you put your focus and attention on it  

becomes reality." And this beautiful statement  that she made was an articulation of how physics  

works. If you focus on the things that you want,  they will materialize into your life. If you focus  

on your problems, those things will materialize  as well, too. What you make matter matters. There  

was a book written on this called Think and  Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It's the number  

one best-selling success and wealth book in the  history of the world. And Napoleon studied the  

most successful people in the world at that time.  And he came up with 13 observations of the things  

that they did. But the central tenant was that  they created their own reality. That what they  

thought became reality. What you make matter  becomes matter. Principle number 11. Everything  

you want is already on the way. Whatever your  dreams are, those aren't hallucinations or simple  

imaginations. That's you tuning into a potential  that exists right now in what would be referred  

to as the fourth dimension or the quantum field or  the aosic record. the ideas you have, the vision  

that you have is actually something that already  exists. And by tuning into it, that activates that  

potential in the field. And that potential starts  to make its way into your reality. What's required  

here is to be patient. But it's important  to understand that the dreams you have, the  

vision you have, the imagination you have is not  something that you're making up. It's something  

that already exists that you're tuning into. And  so with a little bit of effort on a day-to-day  

basis, one day at a time, and holding that faith  and vision, everything you want will materialize  

because everything that you want is actually  already on the way. Principle number 12. When  

nothing's working, try doing nothing. This was a  principle that I learned from a guy named Frank  

Kinslow who wrote a little book and the title of  the book is exactly that. When nothing's working,  

try doing nothing. There are times in our life  where we experience a problem and we try to attack  

the problem and the problem just gets bigger.  And the reason for that is as Einstein said,  

we can't solve a problem with the same frequency  that created it. When you're trying to attack a  

problem, you're in the problem frequency. And so  often times we have to step away from a problem  

and that's how the problem resolves itself. This  is very counterintuitive, particularly in high  

performance in entrepreneurship where we're told  in order to solve a problem just work harder,  

wake up earlier, hustle and grind more. But when  problems show up in my life and I'm not able to  

solve them, I step away from the problem. I go  back to the solution frequency. Well, what is  

solution? Well, it's the things that you love in  your life. Because at one point in time, those  

things were not there and that was a problem. But  you overcame that problem. And so now you live in  

nature. Now you have a bathtub. Now you have the  money to buy a coffee. Now you have some friends.  

Go do those things. Be in the frequency of the  solution and watch how the problem transforms.  

You'll have a new thought or a new idea to  approach the problem differently from the  

frequency of solution. Often times we step away  from the problem and the problem resolves itself.  

So when nothing's working, do nothing. Principle  number 13. God wants a personal relationship with  

you. I did not grow up in a religious family. My  mom was Christian. My father was Jewish. We didn't  

go to church or temple. We celebrated all of the  commercial holidays, Christmas, Easter, Passover,  

Hanukkah. But we weren't a religious family.  I didn't grow up in a relationship with God.  

I found God in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.  In my 12step program, I built a relationship with  

a higher power of my own understanding. I found  that that personal relationship is very important.  

In fact, I prayed for that personal relationship.  For a long time, I understood the concept of God,  

but I wanted to feel like I was with God. I wanted  to feel the relationship with God that I never got  

with my father because I wanted to have a divine  father. I wanted the type of relationship that  

that little shepherd boy, David, had when he  stood up in front of Goliath with full faith  

and conviction and said, "Today will be my  victory, not yours." And I've shared this in  

other episodes. More recently, over the last year,  I started praying for a personal relationship with  

God. And through a series of synchronicities, I  was brought to a morning routine where I write  

to God on a daily basis. Not every single day,  but I get up and I write a love letter to my  

heavenly father. The kind of relationship again  that I wanted to have with my dad that I never  

got. And it's been really helpful now having my  son Gabriel. He's three years old because some  

mornings when he wakes up and I wake up with him,  he wants nothing to do with his baba. He wants to  

play with his toys. He wants to see his mommy.  and he'll tell me, "No, Baba, I don't want you,  

Baba." And it just brought to my awareness that  that must be how God feels when he's waiting every  

single morning to have a relationship with us and  we say, "No, Baba, I'm too busy with work. No,  

Baba, I'm too busy with worry." And so, I decided  that I wanted to have a personal relationship with  

God. And the beautiful thing about life is that  when you ask, you receive. And it's important  

for me because there are always times when my  mind will not get me through a circumstance or  

a situation. And I have to surrender it to a power  greater than myself. There are things that I can  

control and things I can't control. And I have  to be able to turn those things over to someone  

or something that I trust will resolve them. And  I get that in my personal relationship with God.  

Principle number 14. There's no doing it perfect.  So I still get anxious. I still worry. I still  

move into suffering. And I still say things that  I shouldn't that I regret saying. But the point  

of life is not to be perfect. I like how the great  teacher Abraham Hicks says, "You never get it all  

done." We're continuing to learn and refine and  grow and evolve as human beings. We're continuing  

to discover new character flaws or ways of being  that we would like to work on and improve as a  

person. I think that's a big part of the journey  of life. And so, it's important to not move into  

self-judgment because there's no doing it perfect.  And there's no need in order to do it perfect if  

you want to change your life. There's a passage in  scripture that says, "All you need is the faith of  

a mustard seed." Small changes in your mindset,  small changes in behavior, and small shifts in  

daily action can move mountains. And so, if you  want to have a more abundant life, if you want  

to have a healthier life, if you want to have a  more connected and clarified and spiritual life,  

it's not that far away. It just requires small  shifts in the way that you're doing things and not  

putting the pressure of perfection on yourself.  Principle number 15, there is no force more  

powerful than a changed mind. So if you want to  change your circumstance or situation, it's not  

about trying to control your external environment.  It's about looking at the thoughts that you're  

having and changing them. You know, your beliefs  are dictating your destiny. You really are  

creating your reality. And so oftentimes people  say to me, "Well, if what I believe is creating  

my reality, how do I become aware of the beliefs  that are creating it that I'm not aware of?" And  

my answer is always the same. Pay attention to the  reaction you have to the problems in your life.  

The thoughts that you have about the things that  you don't like, these aren't a reaction to your  

circumstances or situation. They're actually the  thoughts and beliefs that you've been having and  

holding for a very long time that are creating the  challenges in your life. Change those thoughts and  

you change your reality. So, I hope you love this  episode as much as I loved sharing it with you. Do  

me a favor, pay it forward, share it with someone  if you haven't yet commented, leave me a rating  

or review whether you're listening on the audio or  video platforms. And most importantly, subscribe.  

We like to provide all this incredible content  for you and the way that we receive a thank you  

is through your subscription and it's the way we  grow this channel. I love you so much and I look  

forward to seeing you in the next episode. Hey,  it's David. Hop on over to davidbear.com. Click  

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