What's up guys?
Welcome back to the Homework Assignment Podcast.
I'm your host RJ Patino.
I wanted to just get on here and talk really briefly.
This isn't going to be a full episode, but just kind of talk about something that I see
a lot of lack in, I think not just in society, but people that are around me as well and
workers as well within my business and family.
I think it affects every single one of us at some point in our lives.
That is the ability to change an attribute or ourselves as a whole, who we are, the way
we think, our attitudes, our mindset.
There is really one thing that I truly think it comes down to and how you actually change
and that is you change your heart and you do something about it.
So action.
I talked a little bit about this and we'll continue to talk about this repetitively over
the years and over the life of this podcast.
That change requires action.
We all have stuff in our lives, whether it's the way we look, dress, the way we act, the
way we perform, the way we talk.
There's always something that we critique ourselves about or something that we want
to change or maybe it's constructive criticism that we get from other people.
Maybe it's something that people say, hey, you should change this about yourself.
I think a lot of times, I know for a fact a lot of times, us being human beings, we
talk about change a lot or we think about change a lot, but the one thing we don't
get to is the actual doing it part.
Actually changing ourselves and actually putting in the action to do so.
I think it's important to recognize the power within ourselves to make these changes.
We see other people maybe live lives that we want to live or we see other people get
things that we've always wanted or maybe we see other people's dreams come true and maybe
it's our dream or maybe we feel like, hey, you know what?
What I want in life isn't coming to pass.
That person is just lucky.
It's not luck.
It's due to somebody's action and commitment and consistency to something that they want
or something that they're trying to achieve.
I look at people that are overweight or people who are unhealthy and they talk about, yeah,
I really want to eat better.
I really want to, I got diabetes, history in my family and okay, well, you want to change
and you know you should, but yet you do nothing about it.
And then you sit there and you judge people that are doing what you have always wanted
to do and have never brought yourself to actually doing.
And it creates this anger.
It creates this envy.
It creates this depressive state of mind, a victim state of mind.
And that only brings that person down 10 times further.
It only hurts them more and it does absolutely no good.
And so I know in society right now that victim mindset, that poor me mindset has really taken
a popularity.
And it's hard for me to sit back and really see that.
And I think, you know, again, from my personal experience, I had a part of my life that I'm
not very proud of.
I had a part of my life that I wasn't making the best decisions and I wasn't taking care
of myself physically, emotionally and mentally.
And due to the decisions and not taking care of myself, that also affected the people that
I loved and the people that were close to me.
And so there was this group of years that I really, instead of not only did I not progress,
I didn't stay stationary, but I actually kept going further down and getting deeper and
deeper.
And I look back and I wonder or I know how now, but I used to look back and wonder, OK,
well, how did I change?
How did I come to actually pull myself out of this state of being a victim?
You know, my my childhood and my life with my parents and my family, one, I know there's
people that have worse situations out there.
I know there's people that have worse cards dealt to them.
And I don't think that makes what I went through any easier.
But I definitely believe that what I went through was very hard and it took a toll on
me, especially as an older brother of five siblings.
I felt even more guilty because I decided to succumb to a life that only brought more
sorrow and pain.
And not only did that hurt me, but I also felt the guilt of not being the example and
not being the leader to my siblings that they needed in the time that we all needed something
to look to.
And so I know there were plenty of times during this phase of my life where I really wanted
to change.
I know there was so many times where I looked myself in the mirror and said, you know what?
Today's the day I'm going to do this.
And there were times that I put in action and my action was definitely in the right
place and the right mindset.
And I do remember even seeing fruits to the action that I did put in, but I didn't put
enough in or I didn't keep going.
I saw a little bit of progress and I was like, oh, that's good.
I'm good.
And I would stop.
And so what it really came down to is no matter how many times I tried, no matter how many
signs God gave me in my life that were perfect opportunities to pull myself out of this place
in this phase, the one thing that really worked that was really hard to do was to completely
separate myself from the environment, from the people, from the toxic situations that
I was constantly putting myself in and completely separate myself from it.
And that goes into, you know, I moved 30 or I guess 20 miles away from the place where
I was living out, where all my friends were, where all that, you know, bad environment
was and the pressure, the peer pressure, I moved myself away from I moved, you know,
40 minutes away and I not only moved out there, but I also stopped talking to certain people.
I stopped associating myself.
I started saying no to going to certain parties and events.
And I really, even though I was far, far from perfect.
Okay.
I want to make that very clear.
It wasn't just like, okay, just because I'm away from here, like all my decisions and
temptations are easy to ignore.
That wasn't the case.
I still had issues.
I still had temptations that I succumb to and I still had a hard time changing my heart,
not just changing my situation, but changing who I was.
But that first step of actually getting myself out of that environment was one of the biggest
steps that I took and it brought the most progress.
Okay.
It was the best action I could have done because it gave me the strength to say no.
It gave me the strength to see and feel that, okay, this is something new.
If I just focus here, give me something to focus on.
Okay.
It was like, it was a whole new environment and it felt good.
And so I was able to distinguish that and be like, okay, well, I know I feel bad when
I go here and being here, I feel a lot better.
So I was able to actually separate myself from everything.
And not only that, the people I was now around.
So there were still some really good friends of mine that came with me and, or that I still
talk to.
And those are the friends you want, the friends that will also support you when you're trying
to change your life or when you're trying to do something, even though they may not
be.
But at the same time, we were all in a position to where we were all kind of just doing it
together, which was fantastic.
And so the people I was now surrounding myself by were people that were supportive and people
that wanted the best.
And also like, Hey, well, I wasn't going to parties where, you know, they're where I shouldn't
be.
I was now going to hang out in places and environments and whatnot, where I could actually
make good decisions.
I wasn't surrounded by those temptations.
And so, you know, that over time, obviously really changed and helped or helped me change.
And so I know for a fact that during this whole phase of my life, one of the main excuses
I had was that, okay, you know what?
Poor me, the way my, my family fell apart, the way we lost everything, the way I thought
my dad or both my parents were somebody and it turns out they were actually somebody that
didn't even know.
And so that trust I had that, Hey, you know, I used to have, it's funny.
I used to, I remember, I even now see movies and I see, I get really emotional in movies
when it comes to like a dad, especially in those heartfelt moments with like a dad and
a child or, you know, you watch movies where a dad like goes, you know, risk his own life
to save his child.
Like I get really emotional because I remember feeling safe with my dad.
And I felt safe with my mom too in moments, but my dad, especially like my dad to me was
a hero.
I remember feeling so safe with him.
I remember to this day exactly how that felt and exactly, you know, I still, I still yearn
for that.
And so, you know, watching this person that I always felt safe around completely unraveled
before my eyes and then also come to find out the life he lived where I thought, you
know, he was someone that I knew and turns out he wasn't even then, you know, that kind
of that, that, that was just that tipped me over.
I mean, it was really hard.
And so I use all this as a justification to the way I lived.
I use all this as a justification to the way I acted, to, to how I performed in every aspect
of my life.
And I expected, and I think I did this more subconsciously than, you know, realizing it.
I expected people to understand that the reason I was doing what I was doing or the reason
I did what I did and whatever situation was directly because of what happened in my life
or my trauma in my life.
And that's what the victim mindset is.
And it took me years to figure out, okay, I can either just sit here and say, poor me
and see what comes up in my life and try and get pity from other people and try to know
when I make a mistake or when I need some help, you know, try to use that situation
to even manipulate people.
I finally realized it was either that or I could just stand up, walk away and say, you
know what, I want something more for myself and for my life.
And I think it does take time.
I think it's, you know, it's hard for me to see people that I know or that I love go through
that.
Okay, dude, I just wish you knew all it takes is this one decision, one decision to a decision
that you are you mean a meaningful decision that you want to change.
And all it takes is that decision and actually following that decision to the end all the
way through dedicating yourself to it.
That's all it takes.
And I know it I'm making it sound easy.
I know it's not easy, but once you're actually like once you do it and look back, you realize,
you know, I had me saying that was it.
That's all I had to do.
I wasted all this time, this time trying to do so many different things to better myself
and better my life and get out of the hole I was in and nothing worked.
And all it took was this.
I still get baffled sometimes at it.
And that is really the message I want to share that it comes down to you.
You have the power.
We have the power to actually make a change in our lives.
And so we can sit here and we can mope and we can say, oh, well, my situation is different.
You don't understand.
You know what?
People aren't going to understand.
I feel like people don't understand me every single day and what I went through.
Okay.
And I know I don't understand other people's situations, but it doesn't matter because
you don't need people to understand.
The only thing you have to do is understand yourself that you have the power to do something
about where you're at.
You have the power to change.
You have the power to wake up and just decide, make a decision to not be where you're at.
That's all it comes down to.
And I wish I could have seen that so much sooner.
I think I would have been in a way better, stay a way better position.
I think I would have been able to maybe not feel so guilty, you know, not being there
for my family because I would have actually been there.
I think I would have.
I mean, I'm sure sometimes there's things that we want to go back and change in life.
I personally, you know, I've told my wife before, like, hey, anything that I would have
to change or anything that I want to change, if it doesn't lead me to you, I'd rather
not change it.
And I'll stick to that all day long.
But if there's some things that I could change, anyways, that goes into that whole dream state.
But the point is, is that the victim mentality that society is teaching us to have these
days that society is saying it's OK to be depressed, it's OK to be codependent, it's
OK to have anxiety, it's OK because you had trauma.
This happened to you and that wasn't OK.
It's OK for you to be nothing or for you to feel the way you're feeling and never do anything
about it.
I'm here to tell you that's a bunch of crap.
OK, that is a lie that is told to us to keep us suppressed.
And I'm not talking about suppressing, speaking out and, you know, fighting the government.
I know, like a lot of people go into, you know, politics and stuff, but it's to keep
us suppressed so that we don't become who we're actually meant to be.
People want to control us.
Right.
And, you know, I believe, hey, and when we talk about religion, like the devil wants
you to feel that way.
OK, people want you to be the victim so that they have power over you.
And when you wake up and realize that and realize that you are being told lies and that
you actually truly have the power to change yourself, you're going to actually do it and
you're going to look back and be like, I cannot believe that is all it took.
And I do not want to discount anxiety, depression.
Like these are these are real diseases.
These are real issues.
I suffered from anxiety and depression for years.
And I know a lot of other people have to.
And at the same time, the things that got me to get to overcome those diseases, symptoms,
mental, whatever you want to call it, was a fact of waking up and deciding, you know
what, I do not want to be this way.
The brain is the most powerful thing in this universe.
Hands down.
OK, your brain, the ability, your brain has the ability to do absolutely remarkable things
if you believe and if you utilize that power.
And so, like I said, you know, I suffer from anxiety.
I would get in front of people and literally shake.
I wouldn't I was not able to speak.
And I thought I needed all this medicine.
I thought I needed this.
I thought I needed that.
But I realized, OK, I have the power to change this.
OK.
And at the same time, we do have to trust doctors.
We do have to, you know, there are, you know, medical professionals or people who can help
with that.
And if you need to go get help, go get help, but understand that you can get help.
Understand that you can change and understand that you can manage and understand that you
have the power to change everything.
Do not succumb and settle for a life or a mindset of, well, I can't beat this or, well,
you know what?
This is just the cars that I was dealt.
This is just my situation.
This is just my life because you will get stuck and you're never going to get out of
it.
OK.
Understand that you have the power.
And I truly believe having gone through, you know, my own issues in life, having dealt with
changing my heart completely around changing who I was, what I thought of myself from changing
the, you know, how I acted, what I ate and consumed and who I hung around and beating
anxiety, beating depression, even though I, you know, when it comes to those things, it's
also important to realize and I'm going to go on this standard for a minute that just
because you're upset because something happened bad in your life does not mean you're depressed.
OK, I had to explain this to one of my siblings a little while back that, oh, you know what?
I'm just really sad because this happened and I've been sad for, you know, I'm depressed.
I've been depressed for a couple of days.
No, you're sad.
It's OK to be sad.
It's OK to feel depression.
OK, being depressed and having a problem with imbalance of chemicals in your mind is a completely
different thing than feeling depressed.
That is important to recognize.
OK, if my mom or whoever, somebody I love, if they were to die today, I would 100 percent
be depressed.
I would 100 percent be upset and sad, but I would get over it.
I'm not all of a sudden going to have this problem for the rest of my life because I
lost somebody that I love.
Like you grow, you get over it.
It's always going to hurt, right?
But you learn how to deal with it.
You learn how to move on.
OK, sad things can happen without you becoming depressed for the rest of your life or needing
medication.
OK, my wife died and I became in that state.
I'm not going to need medication to get out of that state.
Right.
These are the things that I'm talking about.
These are this is the victim mindset that is talked about so much, that is taught so
much.
It's OK to be this.
It's OK to be 500 pounds.
OK, it's good.
It's OK to be OK with your body.
It's not OK.
You're going to die from a heart attack by the age of 50.
OK, you need to get in shape.
This is the cold heart truth, no matter what anybody says.
So sum it all up, this victim mindset and understanding that you have the power to change
your entire life is what I'm really trying to portray.
And it's a message I've wanted to share for a long time.
And I'm continually going to share more about it because I've been through that.
And like I said, my situation may be different than a lot of other people's situation and
other people's situations may be 10 times worse than what I went through.
Does not mean that what I went through was any more difficult.
OK, everybody's different.
And it was something that held me down for years and I was able to decide I'm going to
change.
So if you're dealing with something that's holding you down or has been holding you down
for years, no matter how grave it may be, you have the ability to change.
And I invite you to do so.
I invite you to to tap into that power.
I invite you to make the decision and then act on it.
By doing that, you will see progress and you will overcome whatever it is you may be dealing
with.
So I just wanted to share a message and I appreciate all you guys who do listen.
And if you're not subscribed, please do subscribe.
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