The Hero’s Journey Begins Now: 7 Steps to Overcome, Transform, and Thrive
There's Power in Taking the Hero's Journey. Are you ready?
There is no blueprint for life.
No instruction manual is handed to us at birth telling us how to be good parents, children, friends, or even good people.
8.02 billion people are faking it from birth.
I see it all the time.
Men and women are chained to their past. There’s a desperation in their constant refusal to let go of their suffering.
They hold on to each mistake or betrayal like a hot poker, never letting go as their past sears their flesh and brands them to a life of uncertainty, anger, fear, and desperation. Their refusal to let go keeps them chained to the past. With no tools to break free, they remain jailed in an emotional prison, never to be free or happy.
On Fridays, I share five ideas for you to reflect on—The Power of Five Ideas. Hopefully, if God, the universe, or whoever winks kindly at you and me, one of these ideas will bring some relief, happiness, or wisdom our way.
But today, I offer seven steps to help someone break free from the prison they built or at least give them a weekend furlough.
Because everyone deserves happiness, joy, and success.
Especially you.
Let’s get to it.
1. It begins with forgiveness
You must forgive yourself.
Cry. Get mad. Scream. Punch the wall. Blame the world, then yourself. And then go easy on yourself.
You screwed up. You failed. So what. Everyone has. Learn from your mistakes. Apologize if you hurt someone. And then forgive yourself. You cannot heal until you forgive yourself.
It is time to stop living as if you are condemned to a life of crawling over hot coals. You are not Sisyphus condemned by the Gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down.
Family therapist Keir Brady says self-forgiveness is separating ourselves from the mistakes we made. We are not our past.
Asking for forgiveness does not guarantee forgiveness but is a step toward healing. Treat yourself with compassion and respect. And then give it to others.
In my twenties, I managed my family’s dry cleaning business. Our dry cleaner was Hector. He had spent the previous eight years in prison and would become a mentor for the brief time he worked for me.
Hector volunteered at his church and fed the homeless in his neighborhood. I asked him why he did so much.
He smiled at me. “Mikey, I did a lot of stupid and bad things in my life,” he said. “I guess it’s my penance. Supposedly, my priest said God forgave me, but I haven’t.”
Hector showed me real forgiveness begins when you stop asking for blessings and become someone’s blessing.
If you won’t forgive the man or woman in the mirror, at the very least, pardon them. You’ve paid the price. Move on.
“Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” — Maya Angelou
And then forgive your brother, sister, or anyone who hurt you.
Carrying a grudge is like holding a hot coal. The only one who continues to hurt is you. Let it go.
Mahatma Gandhi called forgiveness an attribute of the strong. It is hypocritical to ask for grace if you are unwilling to give it.
Forgiveness is not about making others feel better about themselves or helping them overcome their sins. It is about you finding peace.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you.”— Lewis B. Smedes
2. Make peace with the past and live in the moment
You had a crappy childhood. So did I. It’s the most common beginning to a story.
No one lives without some dysfunction. Everyone has a past, and few people have a happy childhood.
It is time for you to get over it.
This is what I hear all the time:
I had shitty parents. High school was a crappy place and time. My girlfriend just dumped me. By text! A job ghosted me. The guy I trained 10 years ago is now the CEO. I have cancer. My family was poor growing up, and we had no money. I still don’t.
I understand. You had a hard life, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Things change, and you can change.
It's time to let it all go. It sounds callous, but your life won’t improve until you leave the past where it belongs. It does not exist anymore. Only this moment does.
Make your past the reason you are strong. Make it the reason you succeed.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein
You are not the person you were yesterday, much less ten years ago. You changed.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote a man cannot step in the same river twice because it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.
Our lives are like rivers. They have ebbs and flows, and each day is different. You are different.
Holding onto the past—your mistakes, the pain inflicted upon you—is like carrying a massive rock while crossing a river. It’s easy at first. You step into the water, wading forward as the current tugs at you. But you refuse to let go. The deeper you go, the stronger the pull. And you still don’t let go. Your stubbornness, the weight of your past, and the force of the current drags you under. You don’t swim. You drown in your misery.
You are not the same person when you were a child.
You are not the same person you were when you were bullied in school, lost job after job, or when the love of your life died.
You changed. You grew. You are more powerful than all your tragedies combined.
H.G. Wells said, "If you fell yesterday, stand up today.” You don’t have to be tall, but you must stand up.
Use all your pain, suffering, struggles, and disappointments as your teacher.
Our failures are not the end of the road. They are just a bend in the river we call our life.
“Failure is a detour; not a dead end street.”— Zig Ziglar
3. Stop repeating yesterday’s mistakes
Everyone makes this mistake.
Supposedly, Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.
Everyone knows someone who fits that definition. And if you don’t know anyone who’s insane, chances are you’re the crazy one in your group.
Most people are conditioned to live the same story daily, constantly living in the past or waiting for tomorrow but forgetting to live for the present.
For them, it’s easier to make the same wrong choice, to continue beating the same dead horse, than to live fully in the moment.
Breaking the pattern is uncomfortable, and for some, being uncomfortable is the worst sort of pain. But it’s all they know, so they stick to the same story.
There’s a story about a man who went to visit his friend. When he got to the house, he saw a dog sitting on the porch, howling in pain. The man asked his friend what was wrong with the dog. His friend said the dog was sitting on a nail. ‘Why won’t the dog get up,’ asked the man. ‘I guess it doesn’t hurt that bad,’ said his friend.
Most people are too afraid to pull the nail stuck up their ass. They think it will hurt too much. They’re right, it will hurt. But keeping it there magnifies the pain, allowing it to fester, prolonging their suffering and adding time to their prison sentence.
Living for yesterday is living in fear. You become the dog sitting on a nail. It will hurt to get up, but staying stuck is a living death.
Get up.
"When you repeat a mistake, it is not a mistake anymore: it is a decision." ― Paulo Coelho
4. Ditch the jerks
“Quality of life actually begins at home — it’s in your street, around your community.” — Charles Kennedy, member of the House of Commons from 1983–2015
Studies show that positive relationships are crucial for our health and longevity. Our lives are defined by our relationships and the communities we belong to. These relationships can give us purpose and sustain us during bad times. We live longer if we have friends.
However, bad relationships do more harm than all the positives we get from good relationships.
A 2000 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed women in a bad marriage were 2.9 times more likely to die from heart disease. A bad social network or relationship can hurt your health. It can kill you. It’s even worse news if you’re male and in your sixties or beyond. Most older men have poor or no social networks. This is one of the reasons why men don’t live as long as women do.
If you want to live longer and better, then ditch the jerks in your life.
The same applies to your career. Staying at a company that undervalues your work and identity will hinder your growth and impact your well-being. Many people tie their identity to their jobs, and working for an employer who doesn’t respect them can diminish their career prospects and long-term happiness.
My wife worked at a company that paid her less than her male counterparts. I told her to leave, but she believed senior management would see her value. They never did. Her career took off only after she left the company.
Here’s my advice:
Dump the assholes in your life and find better people to love you. Find a better job. Find better friends. Stop giving power to people who don’t care or respect you.
Your life (and career) depends on it.
“Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.”— Henry David Thoreau
5. Embrace a suffering mindset
“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” — Rocky Balboa
Buddha (and a million other people) said that life is suffering. And he was right.
Life is filled with pain. Children get cancer. Countries invade other countries. People kill other people. We lose jobs. There is massive homelessness and hunger throughout the world. COVID-19 killed millions.
There is suffering everywhere.
Maybe we cannot end (for now) childhood cancer, wars, or hunger, but individually, we can change our perception of suffering.
We can embrace our pain, our struggles, and our suffering. And we give them meaning, a reason why we fought so hard.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor E. Frankel, Man’s Search for Meaning
Suffering ends when you learn to accept suffering as a gift from the universe. We need to struggle like our ancestors did. Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis, wrote:
“But a radical new body of evidence shows that people are at their best—physically harder, mentally tougher, and spiritually sounder—after experiencing the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to every day. Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose.”
― Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self
Admittedly, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, and I’m splattered with crap, and blood is rushing past my fingertips, it doesn’t always feel like a blessing. But it is.
We need stress. We need to struggle. In our DNA is a warrior waiting to come out.
Our minds and bodies are programmed to fight saber tooth tigers, walk hundreds of miles to find food and shelter, explore new worlds, and build civilizations.
But sabretooth tigers no longer exist, and we drive to the store to get food. Most of us have shelter. And unless we’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, we’re not discovering new worlds any time soon.
But the challenge remains: our bodies and brains need adversity.
In you is that warrior demanding to be free. Your soul is desperate to discover new worlds and build whole civilizations. Each of us needs a cause to fight and struggle for. And yes, maybe even die for.
We revere the martyred saints and hold heroes who died in battle in such high regard because they fought and died for a purpose greater than themselves.
And this is what each of us must do:
Find something worth fighting for. Maybe even die for. Embrace the struggle. Lean into your pain and fight.
That is how we grow. That is how we become better people.
"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." — Molière
6. Be grateful
Despite all the obstacles and the pain, you found a way to overcome them. You survived. Be grateful.
Be grateful for the good times and bad ones.
When my daughter was four months old, she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and in an instant, I hated the world and everyone and everything in it.
Then, I met a boy at the Children’s Hospital, where my daughter was getting treatment. His name was Mark, and because of the chemo he was taking, his skin turned to a golden sheen.
I ran into him in the hallway, playing cars with his mother. He had a grin from ear to ear. So did his mother. I asked her how she could be so happy when her son had a neuroblastoma that was almost as big as his stomach.
“I’m smiling because Mark saw the sun this morning. And yesterday, he ran and laughed. This morning, he said I was the most beautiful mommy in the world. And that, Michael, is why I’m so f*cking happy.” She looked down at Misha, who was playing with Mark. “And you should be, too.”
Thirty-one years later, Misha is alive and prospering, and I am grateful for every second she lived and every moment I am blessed to share with her.
Be grateful for everything. I am especially thankful for Mark and his mother.
"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings." — William Arthur Ward
7. Be the hero in your story
This is how you break out of the prison you made of your life.
You are not a victim. You are not a failure. You are not a bad person. No matter your story, no matter your history, you can recover. You can change your life.
“We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.” — Tony Robbins
Being the hero of your own story means taking responsibility for your life, owning your choices, and actively shaping your journey toward growth, fulfillment, and meaning. It involves acting with courage, integrity, and determination to overcome obstacles, pursue your purpose, and become the best version of yourself.
8 Elements to becoming the hero of your story:
Take Responsibility – Take charge of your decisions and actions, and accept responsibility for the good and bad outcomes. Heroes don’t blame others or complain.
Embrace Challenges – View problems as opportunities for growth. Heroes see setbacks as temporary and learn from them.
Be courageous – Face your fears, step out of your comfort zone, and make bold choices that align with your values and goals. Learn from your failures.
Pursuing Purpose – Identify what matters most and choose to live with intention.
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs – Recognize that everyone has self-doubt, insecurities, and negative beliefs that hold them back. Give yourself a break and be kind to yourself.
Live authentically – Live your principles, passions, and values, even when they are difficult or unpopular.
Do good, be good – Marcus Aurelius said instead of talking about being a good man, just be one. He also said that justice is the greatest virtue. What good is courage or wisdom if you only do good for yourself?
Embracing Your Story – Accept your past and present as parts of your journey, even the failures, the sins, the time when you hurt others. Use your experiences to inspire personal growth and guide your future.
Being the hero of your story is about choosing to write your narrative instead of letting life write it for you.
It means living authentically, facing adversity, and striving to create a life that reflects your values and purpose.
Become an active participant in your life, not a passive observer. You are the hero of your story when you are grateful for the obstacles as much as the blessings.
We love the saints not just because they knew how to suffer but because they forgave their accusers and themselves. Make peace with your past, and while you’re at it, ditch the people holding you back.
Thanks for reading. Now, go be the hero of your journey.
Love to you and yours,
Michael
This is magnificent. So much here in just one newsletter to read over and over and apply.