1005. Childhood Trauma Took Everything from Him, But He Took Everything Back

“At 18 I said to myself that by the time I’m 21, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. Legally! This was important because my uncle was in prison for life, my family members and friends were getting arrested, and by 26, three of my best friends had been murdered. I said to myself, money is the solution–the solution for abuse, for poverty, for the water getting turned off when I was a boy. So I made that declaration to myself to do it legally. At eighteen and a half I became a general manager in training for a Wendy’s restaurant. By 19, I had a leadership role with 52 people under me. By the time I was 21, I was making six figures, working in sales for a Fortune 10 company. But I would call age 20 to 26 the most chaotic period of my life. You know, you hear all the time that money brings more problems. That’s true if you haven’t done the work, if you haven’t stepped into the place of creating massive change in your life. And I hadn’t! So I found myself in the day-to-day throes of working for a corporation, making all this money, and not even understanding how to manage it. I was making six figures and living paycheck to paycheck. I was going out for $500 dinners, buying $300 shoes, spending five grand in the mall…I’m driving a $95,000 car! It was chaotic because I thought money was the solution. I didn’t understand that money is only a tool. I thought that money was going to fix everything, but it did not. By the time I was 25, I’m 300-plus pounds, I’m smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and I’m drinking myself to sleep. It was way past time for a change!”

From homeless to hero, Michael Unbroken is the founder of Think Unbroken, best-selling author, award-winning speaker, podcast host, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. Since 2016, Michael has empowered over 100,000 trauma survivors to get out of The Vortex, learn to love themselves, and become the hero of their own story. Michael has spoken in over 80 countries, won investments from Undercover Billionaire Grant Cardone, and is on a mission to end Generational Trauma in his lifetime.