How to Overcome Trauma | Wesley Chapman on Impact Theory

everybody welcome to impact Theory you were here my friends because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless but you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it so our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the amazing people and ideas that are gonna help you actually execute on your dreams all right today's guest has been an entrepreneur since the age of 8 and we're not talking about a cutesy entrepreneur with a lemonade stand set up by his parents we're talking about a for-real entrepreneur who started a business selling flowers and doing manual labor to help make ends meet his true life story reads like a Hollywood movie that's so outrageous you would never believe it abandoned by his father at one and his mother at age six he endured physical psychological and sexual abuse as a child until his grandmother got custody of him he refused however to let that hardship define him and defying the odds he went on to build a very successful business that saw him consulting for fortune 500 CEOs by the time he was 19 he service companies like Apple Verizon Microsoft Costco and Walmart providing guidance and innovation in branding marketing and sales and at its height his company was making six figures a month providing him the kind of life that most people can only dream of but for him it felt Hollow so we ultimately exited that company and founded a non-profit aimed at combating mental illness rescuing at-risk youth and helping people reach their highest potential at last count and I'm sure it is even more by now he has travelled over 81,000 miles done over 675 thousand minutes of communication on the topic and given over six hundred and twenty-four hours worth of interviews in an effort to reach people and help his work has been featured on Fox a-any CNN TechCrunch and many many more please help me in welcoming the man who truly cannot be broken the founder of the nonprofit powerhouses a human project and superhuman dot life Wesley Chapman good that what you gave me chills well did trust me you gave me chills like 80 times doing the research it's it's crazy and the thing that really impacted me the most and since we're talking about getting the chills is the perfect place to start with the background that you've had how did you find beauty in your life again because most people they don't and once they go down to the dark place that you went that's it it's game over it's a great question um I mean Beauty to me was the simple things I think that was something that I just biologically had programmed in me from somewhere and I also think that when you don't know the other side so I mean all I knew from start to you know the point where I changed everything I was 16 was darkness I really didn't have a comprehension of joy like for me and I didn't understand anything but the darkness but there were these glimpse there were these moments that things would happen like I remember my first Christmas that I can really remember with my grandma and I got this ninja house and like I can vividly still to this day see that ninja house and in and I got one stuffed animal his name's Ralph and I still have him to this day my son now has him but it was just those little tiny things and then when I would see those or I'd experience those I'd want more right so it was this internal internal combustion happening inside of like I have to figure out a way to have more of the ninja house more of the Ralph's like I have to have these these things more in my life and normally that's fulfilled by parents or that's fulfilled by out but it wasn't for me even my grandma she was so overwhelmed with taking care of me and I was quite the little Hellion and so I mean she just was trying to get me to survive let alone provide any kind of joy for me and so it was just one of those things where I had to just find it from within and then when I did it became like a drug and then that led to its own issues and problems and different things but yeah I think it was a combination of a lot of different factors but it was just more about the internal like I want this more you know just that once I had that little flavor i won more of it and I would do anything to try to obtain that I knew a guy once that had a really bad stutter and he said the problem with stuttering is that you know you're gonna do it so it makes you anxious and so it's like this self-reinforcing loop of negativity which the more you stuttered the more you're afraid you're gonna stutter so the more that you do stutter and I it just gets worse and worse right and he said something that always stuck with me and he said getting that cycle going in the opposite direction is brutally difficult work and I know that a lot of the kids that you reach out to and having watched a lot of the content that you put out around human camp which is you want to talk about chills like that that was crew it's so amazing to hear these kids tell their own story in their own words but how how did you get like what are the techniques you use to get it going the other way so that it was being able to take those glimpses into beauty and turn them into a full-blown emotional experience a lot of self-talk you know I mean a there's been a lot of marketing material created around positive thinking and you know self conversation and and they're making money on it obviously and I respect that to some degree but the reality is is just looking in the mirror and telling yourself the story that you want I mean and a lot of people tell the story that everybody else wants them to tell right so the marketing message is so young girls right now I'm fat I'm ugly my hair is not long enough it's not blonde enough it's not brunette enough my hips are too big they're not big enough whatever it is right the the story is being told from out here and then you're bringing it to you what you have to do is tell the story you want and so for me I didn't want to be the kid that didn't have a dad didn't have a mom that was abused that was you know living in poverty that's not the story I wanted I wanted to be the powerful person I wanted to be the one that people looked up to I wanted to be the person that that was respected with his friends not made fun of with you know his classmates so I just started telling that story over and over in the mirror I mean it was as simple as that and then I started but started telling a new story about I am that kind of yeah instead of I am a for example troubled youth right I was told that oh you're just your trouble to us so we need to help you and I'm like no I'm not a troubled youth like I'm I am a youth right so let's get where there were trouble I'm happy youth I'm a playful youth I'm a successful youth like put the word fill the word in there that you want and if you believe the word trouble and much like the stutter thing then that's what you are right you're just perpetuating that stereotype or that conversation more and more and whenever I did that whenever I wish I'd have my moments of weakness where I would try and try and then fail and as soon as I'd start like just kind of okay you know but you're just like everything like frumpy and just like all right I'm just gonna give up that's when my life became worse and worse and I started making worse decisions and then I started realizing like wait if I just keep pushing over here it's hard it's hard as hell there's no easy answer to this there's no like okay well every morning at six o'clock you know wake up and meditate for ten minutes and tell yourself you're beautiful and then go like it's not it doesn't work like that it's a constant battle and you're gonna have moments of complete and total defeat where it's just like what am i doing like why do I keep trying to do this and it for me again it was just reminding myself of I want these happy moments I want to have this life and and so it just it started to perpetuating little things that I would see like a new friend at school or a relationship or you know would start to like blossom into different things and then with the business it would be oh wow like I can go and sell and I can do it and as soon as I started like seeing just a little bit of progress then that motivated me for the next and the next and just build and build and build and I'd still say I'm building like I still have issues but it's just focusing on that that different conversation telling a different story and the story you want and that's the first thing I tell you this' like look don't look at my story don't look at someone else's story what's the story you want and that's that's a really simple question but it is such a difficult question for these kids to answer with all the different things coming at them from all the different angles all the different marketing messages their parent messages the world messages movies all this stuff breaking down what they want a lot of them have no idea because they've never thought that's even a possibility so you've talked in The Walking with West series about living reality right right so are you talking about finding anchor moments like what do you tell the kids find anchor moments in your real life like and sort of fan those flames or how do you teach them to brick-by-brick begin to build that story yeah everyone's different you know cuz every one has a different story and I think we get locked into like the horrific stories it's like really easy to say oh wow let that's such a triumphant moment that he came out of that you know and whatever but there are a lot of kids who are struggling in freakin La Jolla California or Beverly Hills California or whatever zip code that is doing really well on this planet they're still struggling with self-worth they're still struggling with identity so just because it may not be that they come from a really bad background they still are having issues with reality and what is what is something that they can hold on to and what is something that can anchor to and so the first step that I always do with anyone that I work with youth adult whatever is what do you want and and that question becomes like a rabbit hole for figuring out and pulling and dissecting and coming through and then when we finally get there then we see certain things in their lives that have given them that want or that desire or that curiosity and then you just start working through that and the more layers of success that they can create the stronger their house becomes right more bricks yeah there's few people that I've found that talk about narrative that really understand narrative externally as a brand marketing guy and then narrative internally about how you construct a story that's really powerful one how did you start conceiving of narrative and two how should people be using that inside you've said that you know empowerment is never going to come externally it's always going to come internally so how can people use that narrative to tell themselves an empowering story for me so the first place where I saw that was in Marvel right was in was in the comics like the first thing is I think the first one I can remember a Superman and it was just and I know that's not Marvel but like the superhero world the comic world and I just remember just seeing this like normal-looking person quote-unquote right and and yet he had all these superpowers but then everybody hated him and so then he had to have these moments you know he liked the whole up and down and everything and it had a very very young age it just clicked with me that it's not that they have to have somebody else outside of them say they're a superhero or they're amazing or they can save the world it's they have to have this moment web of themselves like the Incas was in the cave right where it's like oh wait like you are Superman you are this person you are this this individual and people may not like that but this is who you are and go out and be you and that really clicked with me of like wait it has nothing to do with what you do externally or what people say it's how you view yourself and what you do inside and so that's where I came up with this concept of you know put the put the victim to bed and wake the hero up instead and the next part of that is you have to be a hero to yourself before you can save the world and so you have to have that moment of I am Who I am I'm comfortable in who that is and I'm gonna go out and use Who I am in the world in the best way possible and that that was very young for me and I don't know you know why or how or whatever but it was a very I was a very young person to understand that fully and and probably didn't understand it to the level I do now but it was enough for me to say okay so I'm not defined by what my parents did or what their parents did or what the system is done or what the adoption agency didn't do or what some counselor didn't do or whatever I'm defined by who I am so the actions that I take so I can be known as the individual who tries to help people and who is polite and nice and kind and all these different things and so I just made that decision and then started telling that story yeah do Jesus okay so you drop like 80 different powerful like deep wisdom on that one so let's dive into a few of them so first of all I absolutely love that quote put the victim to bed wake the hero up instead first things that rhyme or preview something like seventy two percent more true or something hilarious like that cool so that one I love it because it rhymes so one what do you like that decision where you decide to be that or the other you can say it I think in a super powerful way because you have been victimized but you refuse to play the victim walk us through that like why shouldn't people give into seeing themselves as a victim and they really have been victimized what does every human being wants one thing in my opinion I mean you rip it all down and you get down to it we all want control right that's we want to be in control of something whether it's ourselves other people future like we want control it makes us feel safe which is really what we I guess if we take it to the next level we land we really want to safety and control as part of that you know getting safety when you're a victim you're in zero control like you have zero control and then we can go you know from the simplest thing of like you're a victim and you want the government to take care of it well what if the government fails well now you're screwed right so you need to be independent in that space you're being abused you're a victim yes I understand that there should be sympathy inside of being a victim for something that happened but that's the key something that happened if it's happening that's what we're talking a completely different thing here and I want to make sure that's clear if you're currently being abused you're currently being you know victimized then please seek help and it's not being a victim to ask for help what's really - me being a victim is you're past it it's happened and now you just keep replaying that in your head over and over and over again I was the last time I was molested I was about seven six and a half seven years old I carried that and and again I was physically abused after but I'm talking sexual molestation I carried that Toes about 16 years old inside of me and constantly told that story every day anytime something would go bad in my life I would just look at people and be like well you know this is what happened to me and da-da-da-da-da and it when I was 16 I stopped and I thought that person hasn't touched me for 910 years yet they continually touch me every single day of my life so who's really in control who really even though I was like trying to be the big bad like they'll never hurt me again you know whatever I was still allowing them to hurt me every single day so I let go of that control so being a victim is being completely powerless and and taking away all control you might have which ultimately doesn't make you feel safe which ultimately doesn't give you happiness which ultimately doesn't give you prosperity and you know fill in the blank and so what does being a victim get you nothing absolutely nothing so if you're getting nothing from one direction why not turn around and go to the other direction I mean to me it's really common sense but you have to break down that and you have to give people this understanding that it's okay to have had something happen to you like you're not a bad person because of that and it sounds crazy and somebody's watching this who's gone through something you know the guilt you feel and the things that you carry that you haven't told anyone because you're ashamed or all these things that's okay but continuing to allow it to affect you that's on you that's not on the abuser that's not on the situation that's on you it's a choice you have to make of I am no longer gonna let this happen and I've seen people probably the most miraculous case I've ever worked on as a woman in her mid-50s and when I met her she was in a wheelchair she's been in a wheelchair since she was 14 she was raped when she was 13 so from 14 to mid-50s she was in a wheelchair she started working with me started unlocking a lot of different things in her she started doing a lot it wasn't just like one thing so I want to make it really clear it wasn't just like one moment but over the last two years now doesn't use a wheelchair works out in the gym every morning does CrossFit all kinds of stuff she's had all these surgeries you know they said they were all these problems what was happening was she was just allowing that victimization that that thing to control her life for this long I know that's that's like a really extreme case of it affecting every aspect of her body her spine her nervous system all that once she started letting all of that go now she's you know and it's just it's an amazing story but I've seen that even with youth you know extreme anxiety massive depression eating disorders all these things happening because they're holding on to something both in shame and in victimization once we let them let that go and they start rewriting their story and they start being this hero to themselves so many things start happening in their lives in the opposite direction so it's just again path of victimization is nothing path of hero you might as well give it a shot and all the different cool things that happen along the way are just amazing Wow so I love that concept of really thinking about your decisions through the lens of efficacy and I know that you're a big proponent I mean you have to be in the marketing world of really looking at what are my results right am I getting results or not and and that's exactly how I think about being a victim and and you know obviously you've got you've dealt with people that are dealing with much more extreme victimhood but I think that you've touched on really a whole spectrum and I know that a lot of people watching this they have been victimized like that so they may not even realize like how subtle and toxic the notion of being out of control that things are happening to you that you can't control that situation or make different beliefs about yourself but the simple barometer for me is look at your belief system right that's where people get tripped up forget about your actions for a second look at your belief system what you believe about yourself what you believe about the world what you believe about other people it's great quote from Einstein and he said the most important decision anybody has to make is whether or not you live in a hostile or friendly universe right like are things actively working against you or is it your coming for you right exactly and we see so much of that right now you know with with all the different world stuff going on the politics in the United States and it's just it comes down to a choice and it's a choice you have to make and to your point I have something called the ELMO effect which is that and I'll just very quickly go over it but just because you haven't been victimized at a level that you know they write a story or a book about doesn't mean that you aren't suffering in similar pain and this is scientifically been proven I think was Harvard did a big study about the different levels of abuse because as a society socially we look and we say wow sexual abuse like that's the top like if you've been sexually abused holy crap like everything's been taken from you physical abuse man that's that's horrible mental abuse like all these layers layers of abuse and then we put like different classifications to it like right like this is priority so on and so forth but then the question comes around is how does the brain react to abuse how does the brain react to certain things and the the findings in the end is the brain only understands what it understands based on the on the chemical reactions that have happened inside of that being so for example I've never broken a bone in my life there is no wood in this thing but like I just haven't but I have stubbed my pinky toe like a thousand times it's the most painful thing in the world like it really is now a guy that's broken you know his leg in six places is gonna be like Wes you're a wuss like I can't believe that but the reality is I only understand what I've gone through so the ELMO effect is very simple you may have had something happen and I always say it's your eighth birthday all you ever wanted was the Elmo doll right you told your grandma your grandpa your friends your everyone mom dad all I want is an Elmo doll your birthday comes around you get an Xbox and mountain-bike and $500 and gift certificates but no Elmo doll now for 20 years you're living your life and every time you're in a relationship you'll text you'll do something and they won't respond to you or you ask for something you don't get it and every time you have this self-sabotaging thing in a relationship where you go to the person you say you never listen to me never hear what I'm saying even though that person's doing so many other things for you when you're asking for certain things it's not being reciprocated you go all the way back to that 8th year that that barometer that benchmark that was set that all you wanted was an Elmo doll regardless of all the cool stuff you just got you didn't get an Elmo at all so thus people weren't listening to your feelings aren't being validated and heard and you're 28 years old figuring out why you can't have relationships and the Elmo doll effect is actually a real case that I worked on I've just kind of like breaking through and figuring out where was that set up where this person was just you know self sabotaging every single time and it comes came out to be that they wanted something for their birthday when they were younger and they didn't get it and they've been holding on to that and and even like admitted to themselves that every Christmas they're thinking like yeah finally I'll get it you know it's like 28 29 years old as soon as they release that it's like they're not playing the victim anymore so that may seem like really silly in all this other stuff we've been talking about but to to people who are watching this who haven't gone through something horrific you may be holding on to something as simple as a stupid little Elmo doll that's affecting your belief system your story and giving you limits in your life instead of creating a limit lists and how do you teach people to go back and sort of renew perspective on the Elmo doll it's it's really you know just quiet space kind of putting yourself in a position of just really kind of going through and timeline in your life and I usually start with like what's your first childhood memory and then from there you know you can kind of start architecting and building different story and figuring out like where things happened but I think that most people they know what's holding them back at some level and they just don't want to be honest with it and they'll do a lot to bury it and the older you get the more it gets buried but I think if you really look back on your life you can say okay that's and I just don't want to take ownership of that and a lot of times it's like I said that shame whether it happened to you or you did it you know it's that shame of just let go a shame like if anything we've proven in this world like we're we're a world of forgiveness like we will forgive people who are honest and vulnerable and real but you've got to be that first in order for us to you know but you got to do that for yourself first you got to forgive yourself so once you identify the thing that's there how do you sort of retrain your mind to look at it differently so what I've done is it's it's all perspective right so you look at I will go back to my story as horrible as my story is the perspective that I look at and what I look at it is is that I have an uncanny ability to understand human beings in trauma like that's a gift it's it's no longer a curse which is what you know my young adult life it was always a curse now it's a gift like I can truly understand just about any story and I know that sounds so cheesy and silly because of some of the things that have been marketed but like there are positives in every situation that we go through and even in the entrepreneurial world were trained I think that's another thing that's really benefited me is like failure I think it's more of our egos that we don't want to say like failure exists it's like no failure doesn't exist it's a learning what learning moment no you screwed up you failed like let's just own that like there's nothing wrong with that and yes you should learn from those failures but the things that I learned through the abuse that I went through we're incredibly powerful I mean my ability to withstand life like good luck knocking me down like that that really that's not an ego or a cocky thing it's just like good luck and what's cool is I didn't know any of this stuff when I was a kid other until I was about 16 17 I started like reading encyclopedias on the human body in mind but even then we had no clue and now like all this science is coming out about energy and positive and negative and chemical hormones being stored in the brain and like memories actually releasing endorphins like all this stuff's happening and it's like wow cool like the monks had something yeah it's like we're we're like going and proving these very very very very ancient rituals to be scientifically like accurate and who knew where they got their inspiration but regardless we're now proving that this rewriting of the story this telling you know yourself and believing something different literally changes the chemical makeup in your body which releases different hormones and different endorphins which then allows you to have a different you know complete outlook and not just that but you know we're central beings so we sense other things from other human beings right like we use the old adage of dogs right like if you're scared of a dog and you go up to its gonna know you're scared and so it's gonna bark at you more or whatever human beings are the same way right if you if your own confident you don't feel sexy and you don't feel this way that's how you're gonna come across not because that's what you really maybe our skin and you know skin and all that but that's the chemicals that you're releasing so you know people ask me all the time how did you get Jody wish you could do like a little like degree right because like she's she's hot as hell and so it's like how did I this little scrawny like 160 dude get that as a wife and I look at my sake cuz my chemicals rock right like she was just attracted to that and it's and it's whatever but it's true and you look at different things in the world and you see people you know we both have a mutual friend Gary Vaynerchuk right you hang out with that guy and like no matter how cool you think you are you're not as cool as Gary like when you're with him like he just has that like genuine awesome thing and you've interviewed some great people and you probably tell stories about that but that's chemical and that's based off of the belief it's based off of all the different things that we're talking about and so now science is proving that which is really fun and this is your concept of bio worth right right yeah so guys if you haven't already seen it he's done an amazing TED talk on bio worth you guys definitely want to check that out it's pretty incredible you just basically rewind the last five minutes and play them back knowing that that's the concept of bio Earth I mean it's really pretty interesting and that's something that is absolutely core and central to me as an entrepreneur to me as you know what I want to do in the world is to really help people understand that if you grow to really understand neuroanatomy if you understand you alluded even to hormones and if you really understand that stuff and maybe this is just me but in understanding it I was able to visualize it and visualizing it I could take control of it and didn't feel like I had to be at the mercy of my emotions or just what I was going through from a neurochemical standpoint and then a big one for me was understanding the way the brain rewires itself yeah so neuroplasticity all that stuff is pretty incredible knowledge is power and I mean just just simple things right just understanding where your organs are in your body most people have no idea like what does a gallbladder do I don't know we can probably take it out can wait like should we like you know like I mean it's just so many different things the liver it regenerates itself it's the only organ that can literally regenerate itself so understanding what this is right from head to toe and just having a basic concept of where things are and being able to visualize that is so powerful it's so powerful all right let's take a sharp left here I want to go back to so on the set of your show waking up with West you have iron man hanging on the background you've got Thor you made a reference to Superman earlier who's your favorite superhero and why oh nice question so Iron Man easy okay and to me it's because he amplifies the most of love like who I think I am I guess and also it was a well you can't say that without telling us who you think you are yes so it's just this concept of like I don't have any super gift right like I'm not Superman with like the Sun recharges me and I'm awesome I don't have spider-man or webs all that fun stuff but like Iron Man is just a really successful smart guy who builds a really cool suit that can do anything right and so it's that kind of concept of I can put on any armor that I want and be able to accomplish anything in this world and that really for me now it's it's done different things in my life in the previous before I started human project and you alluded to it with my business I wore suits literal suits like in very expensive suits and the more money I could spend on my suits the more awesome I felt about myself and that was a guard right if you invited me to go bowling right I'd be in a suit really oh yeah like there was there was jokes that like I was born in a suit because that was my armor because no one would get to like me telling my sister he's a new thing I didn't start publicly telling my story till I was 27 Wow 27 28 and so again shame all these different things and so that suit protected me like that was my armor and so Iron Man to me has meant a couple of different things in my life and even when you study like the comic book of Iron Man he makes all these different transformations throughout his his life and now in the Marvel series they're finally kind of at that last chapter of where he only uses the suit to do things that matter but really he's just who he is and he's out there and he's you know kind of dropped the playboy and he's dropped everything and whatever and that happens in the comics where he just kind of goes from this like really arrogant you know all about himself gets the suit thinks he's cool and then falls in love has this whole transformation you know goes through the whole process and then at the end it's like the suit is just a tool and that's where I kind of feel I'm at now is the suit is just a tool so if I need to go and help youth right we just had a case where we had a girl come forward and ended up being about 20 other girls for being molested by the same guy so I had to put on a suit there that it that I had to go in and be her advocate and go against a system that's broken massively broken and just about getting myself arrested and every other fun thing but the suit was there to make it happen and at the end of the day the guys now serving two life terms but the the thing is is like now I use the suit as a tool you really are the perfect example of what I find so empowering about superheroes what I find empowering about narrative in general is the stuff is there if you're ready to take it on and my big beef and one of the reasons that impact theory exists is to get people to understand that the way that we tell mythology in a modern context is largely through superheroes certainly here in the u.s. it's a little less pervasive internationally but in the u.s. one of the most powerful things that we have to convey how you should be living your life your value system right with great power comes great responsibility I mean there's like all these things that maybe some people don't even realize come from comic books but you know all this really powerful stuff coming in comics and if people can stop dismissing it as being something for kids and really embrace like you have like the self-awareness of understanding the suit the awareness to be reading this comic book and going hey wait a second the way that this guy is using his suits very similar to how I'm using my suit maybe they're different but then being able to understand the journey that he's gone the empowerment doing something that matters and and having that similar transformation in your own life to me is is just insanely powerful yeah stories I think there's so much power and story and it's why I chose to share my story you know I don't get anything out of sharing my story personally it's not a healing moment like I had my healing moment my healing moment happened you know and closed doors in the middle of the woods like my healing moment was with me but now my story I have seen the power in my story and I'll share it as many times as I have to for people to have the ability to through my story find their moment in the woods there a moment behind the closed door because that's what's going to change their life and ultimately gonna change the planet and it's in to me it's the more vulnerable that story can be and when you look at comic books I think it's a lot of individual stories that they've hidden behind these kind of you know super human characters if you would in order to create a shield so that they don't have to you know have that vulnerability and that ridicule I cannot tell you the amount of ridicule that I've gone through in sharing story of my personal story which I never saw coming it was never something but I think that all story you know you brought up you know like mythology and and the Greeks and like all the stories they were telling had to do with certain things that humanity has been dealing with for eons ever since you know we've we've been here and now we tell it in these comic stories and there's so much power to them but to me it's story in general more people need to share their story not in a victim way and not sharing a tap for a point of healing but for a point of literally empowering but I would encourage anyone share your story even if it's just inside of your own ecosystem I mean your family in your community if there's something you've been holding and and heal through it and then share it because guarantee there's somebody else who's going through something similar and you will be able to reach them I can't reach everybody my story doesn't my personality it's not gonna click with every single person but the more of us that share openly the more impact that we're gonna have and kind of solve this global dysfunction that we're dealing with yeah there was I had this really like immense sense that at the human camp one thing that you were really making visceral and real for the people that go there is you are not alone yeah and hearing these kids talk I mean it really guys you go watch some of these stories they are they're simple they're deadly simple like these kids are what it must be like 12 to 14 ish yeah our camp ranges from 12 to 18 but most the stories that I think yeah you're 12 to 15 yeah they they were so beautiful in their unguarded nests and the way that the kids were talking about maybe for the first time and maybe realizing for the first time that hey this crazy experience that I had this sense that I am I am massively alone in this just huge void of a life because obviously normally these are kids that are struggling and so they they're they don't have the normal infrastructure of parents we have and they're you know talking about what they've been through and that their punch line is here being at this camp and sharing with these other people I'm getting reflected back the sense that I'm not alone that somebody actually understands my struggle and for all the horrible that comes with this highly social world that we're living in there is a flip side to that and the reason that the first question I asked you was about how you refined beauty is because that to me is is interesting you get what you focus on right and so you can focus on the dark you can focus on the neglect or what your parents did or didn't do or you can choose to focus on finding like those little glimmers of beauty that you talked about and fan those flames focus on them think about them obsess over them like most people obsess over negativity and it begins to build this I think of as you know embers glowing embers into a fire and now you've got this warmth you see these kids go through that in like real time in front of the camera it was so cool yeah the the simplicity of just knowing that you're not alone is is really not simple it's it's math because in those dark moments you are alone for the most part you are physically alone and so then it's not that hard to take it from a physical to a mental state of I'm the only one being molested I'm the only one being beaten I'm the only one with alcoholic parents I'm the only one with a mom and dad who hate each other I'm the only one that lives in a really wealthy community but everyone's lying to each other like you it's really simple for that to happen but the the reality is is you're not and when you're not alone you have community what does community give you safety right it all comes back to like being safe and if I feel safe then I have power and then I can do something and control and all these different elements so you know yes that's huge and it's a massive thing that we talk about you know not being alone so what's something that you like if you had to pick one thing that you want to make sure that the kids get out of human camp what is it the biggest thing is is is really understanding the power that they possess right so our whole mission you know when you take all the fluff and all the marketing words out of it is empowerment that's it it's it's an true empowerment not marketing word empowerment but so define it then for also true empowerment of understanding that you're in control you control your destiny you can create what you want to create you have gifts that nobody else on the planet has you have talent you have everything everything you need to become whatever you want is right here right and and I don't care what the limitations are physical mental spiritual I don't care any everything is there for you you know so the point is is that with these children as you're going through you find these little glimpses these little pieces and then you explore what they really mean and then you just find like this huge root system that's underneath there and then you start just really building from there and that's where you can just motivate them to go to the next level mmm super powerful all right before we get to our last question where can these guys find you so you can google me apparently I hear that works that works well yeah so Wesley D Chapman but really like and we haven't got too much into it but really focus on the organization a human project I mean we're doing things there that our people are telling them can't be done like my personal goals I want to impact a billion people on this planet before I die like that's my goal and I also want to put ourselves out of business so it's like this double hedge you know double-headed sword in fact right before this I was on a call explaining that to somebody like you wanna put yourself out of business I'm like yes like for the first time in my life I'm building a company that should that needs to die like I don't want to still be talking about this in 20 years like the fact that we as a global human society are still having conversations about children being abused and going through horrific situations to me just like blows my mind like what's the secret to actually getting rid of that problem self-worth to me and it and it's also the shame but in my opinion it comes down to self-worth and eliminating shame from these things so we can have real conversations so that it just doesn't become something that people have to deal with alone a human project is on a huge mission like I know that I know we can't do it alone that's why we're enlisting the help that we're listing like we're not this isn't this isn't a simple problem to solve in the sense of the global aspect of it but the solution is simple and it just has to be understood right like I've I've been asked hundreds of times why are you Wes right why aren't you the stereotypical like you're abused you went through this your dad's an alcoholic your mom's this you're like why aren't you in that pool I made a choice that's it I made a choice I made a choice that I didn't want to be that there's nothing special about me there's nothing miraculous about Who I am like the only miraculous cool thing is I don't have to eat or sleep sometimes like that's it I just made one choice when I was 16 years old that I was no longer gonna be a victim and I was gonna be a hero to myself and that I was going to change my life and I had no idea that would leave me here and no idea I'd be here in the set talking to you doing what we're doing no idea it was never part of the plan the only thing I knew is I didn't want to be the victim and this other trajectory of life I wanted something different so I made that choice and now I'm here and everyday is like I wake up and I'm like holy crap like when I got the email from your team I'm like really me cool humming like watching your show and I'm like holy crap look at all these guests that are on there and I'm like things are just happening and it's because of one choice and that's it so if you're listening to this and you're thinking you've made all these different choices and your life is in one direction make one different choice just one and see where it goes Wow well you've answered the question I was gonna ask you which is what is the impact you want to have on the world but I think that's pretty clear yes thank you so much thank you coming up it's absolutely incredible thank you guys you're gonna want to dive deep into this man's world that notion of it being a choice that at the end of the day it's your choice and that you're gonna get the life that you focus on and you choose what you're gonna focus on so put the victim to bed wake the hero up instead I love that it is fun it rhymes and therefore is so much more true but here's the thing it's actually gonna work and I think that Wes really made clear that you need to be determining your choices based on efficacy what is actually working and if going in the victim direction is giving you a zero result and it's not delivering anything but more pain and that you're reinforcing that cycle in your own mind to go in the opposite direction and to really begin to tell yourself a news story to find those little glimmers of hope and beauty and to fan those flames and turn them into something that you can think about that really are true they're really something born in your life but you choose to put more energy and effort into something powerful that's gonna push you in a direction that's going to give you the kinds of results that you want your life all you have to do is look at where this man started and where he's ended up to understand that if there's nothing special about him and he's done all of that then there really is no limit to what you guys can do so guys I hope that you got the chills from this guy as many times as I have it's absolutely incredible and as you go deeper into his world it's just gonna be more and more of that and like you said please go to a human project calm and click on the stories of the kids it's gonna blow you away it affected me deeply so be sure to check it out all right guys this is a weekly show so be sure to subscribe my friends and until next time be legendary take care Wes thank you so much everybody thanks so much for joining us for another episode of impact theory if this content is adding value to your life our 1 ask is that you go to iTunes and stitcher and rate and review not only does that help us build this community which at the end of the day is all we care about but it also helps us get even more amazing guests on here to show their knowledge with all of us thank you guys so much for being a part of this community and until next time be legendary my friends [Music]

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 160,976

Rating: 4.9212399 out of 5

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, childhood abuse, childhood trauma, traumatic experiences, overcoming trauma, dealing with trauma, living with trauma, moving on from trauma, moving on from abuse, overcoming abuse, entrepreneurship, transforming abuse, victims of abuse, victims of trauma, growing from trauma

Id: X5T6qXpWXIA

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2017