987. How to Turn Your Worst Moment Into Your Greatest

“School really wasn’t my jam. I did okay in it, but I’m not a math person at all; I couldn’t really think that way. I was good at English, good at writing, that kind of stuff. My favorite classes in high school included wood shop and metal shop where I excelled. We had a class that was called World of Construction. It was in a bus garage attached to the school and was taught by an ex-Marine I liked a lot. He really shaped who I was. He saw the genius in me as far as being a builder. I picked it up really fast. Anything I did was right on target, and he loved working with our group of guys. We would build a part of a house in the bus garage: the walls, the floor, the drywall, the roof, the shingles. I could not wait to get to that class every day. That’s really what drove me. I fit there, you know what I mean? Like you have a place where you fit. I didn’t fit in algebra. For the year in algebra, I got a grade of five out of a hundred because I just didn’t get it. I would always say to the teacher, ‘Please tell me where I’m going to use this in my life, and then I’ll really try to understand it. But right now, I have no idea where I’m going to use this. My mind just doesn’t think this way.’ Part of my work now is helping people to understand where they fit. Just because some people are fantastic at calculus doesn’t mean that you need to be. We need to find our own way. We need to find where we fit and excel in those areas.”

Scott Sunderland found himself going from a 35-year-old athletic father, husband, and business owner to lying in a hospital bed unable to move in 2001. Using visualization techniques over the course of a year, Scott was able to heal himself. However, limiting beliefs, past traumas, and disempowering mental habits came back to haunt him when, in 2012, he watched his best friend drown in front of his eyes. Blaming himself, he was broken once again. Standing in a room on fire, Scott was faced with running through those flames to end up at the empowered life that he lives now.