Shake Off Your Past for a Better Future || with Michael Arterberry

An inspiring story to teach you how to find purpose in your struggles and change your story for yourself.

You don't need to ignore your past, or shove it deep down. There is a fine balance between acknowledging it and moving beyond it - whether that's lifelong struggles or even just this past year. Tune in to this inspiring story about how to effectively shake off your past for a better future.

Against all odds, Michael Arterberry has pushed through immense struggle since childhood, to be the motivational speaker and author that he is today. He is also the creator of an intensive program for youth, which he describes as only being possible due to his own healing. His heart wrenching story is one of resilience, with a practical application so that you can also move forward in a way that is in alignment with your goals and doesn't dismiss your past.

About a few other things...

One or two times a year I open enrollment to my small group coaching Progress Program, where we focus on transforming your body, mind, and spirit by combining mindset and action. If you're searching for your identity, feeling like you don't have purpose, then this group with will provide the guidance and accountability that you need. You can read all of the details here, as well as hear testimonials from former participants in their own words.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Monica: [00:00:00] Michael Arterberry. Welcome to the show.

Michael: [00:00:02] Thank you. Thank you for having me, Monica. I'm very excited to speak to you and your audience. 

Monica: [00:00:06] You know, you are coming on at the perfect time. We're at the beginning of a new year and it feels like a fresh start, but it feels different than it has in Januarys in your past, it feels a little bit scary.

A little bit unknown or a lot. And it's because of the past year, we had a crazy hard year for the whole world.  Understandably, a lot of our listeners have some scars that they're carrying around with them.  Before we kind of dig into how they can still move forward andntake what they've learned, but shake off the bad stuff as they move into a new year.

I want to set the scene here a bit, because for decades, this has been your work. You've helped people move past their past, as you have done in your own life. And I was curious to, if we could start with just hearing a little bit more about what that work has been for you and, and how you've been able to see the people you've helped. Being able to move onward and upward even with their scars. 

Michael: [00:01:02] I want to tell you a story to kind of set up the table for talking about who I am and what I represent. Um, and the story is about a farmer and a donkey, right? And this donkey is one of his favorite farm animals. Because once he finishes working with the donkey on the farm, he brings the donkey back to the house and he allows the donkey to play with his kids.

So imagine the kids come running off the porch, they come down, they jump on the donkey, they wash him, they ride him. And you know, so he's a work animal, but he's a pet as well. And this is a normal ritual they do on a regular basis. So one night he brings him home. They do their thing. He releases the donkey back out into the farm.

He goes in, they wash up, eat and go to dinner. But the following morning, when the farmer comes out and whistles for his donkey, his donkey doesn't show up. So Monica, he's concerned he's walking around at fault. He's calling his name and finally he hears him make a noise at the bottom of an empty water well.

See, during the night the donkey didn't see the well and fell into it. So he couldn't get out. So because he couldn't get out, he's making a noise. A farmer recognizes that he brings over six of his friends and they like, yo, how are we going to get them out? So one of his friends says, let's get some rope and let's pull it out.

So they all get some rope and they stopped last one, the donkey, they throw the rope, they miss, they throw the rope, they missed and finally throw it by his hind legs. He steps into the rope. They shimmied up his body and they stopped to pull. They pulled the donkey moves. They pull the donkey moves. They pull the donkey, moves to the halfway up the well, they realize that the donkeys too heavy. So they lower back to the bottom of the well, and now this farmer has to make a grim decision. Now, see, he can't feed them food at the bottom of the well, because that wouldn't make any sense. You know, we can't starve them because, you know, as I introduced a story that is more like a pet, it's not like just a farm animal.

One of his hardheaded friends was like, "Hey, just shoot him." He's like, ah, man, I can't do that. So one of his more reasonable friends whispered in his ear and he said "Listen, you don't want your kids to fall in a world. So you're going to have to sacrifice your dog. So we can make sure your kids are safe.

We're going to get shovels. We are going cover him with dirt. The kids would be safe, but your doc is going to have to go. And thefarmer, says, you know what? I take, I can deal with that. So they all get shovels and they start shoveling dirt. And every time that dirt will hit the donkey, the donkey was scraped. And every time the donkey was screaming, it would cause the farmer some distress.

So you got dirt scream, dirt scream, dirt scream, the Monica, all of a sudden the screaming stopped. When the screaming stopped, they gave the donkey a moment of silence, but then went back to work, more dirt, more dirt. The next thing you know, you see the donkeys right here. They start doing a cartoon style. More dirt. Next thing you know, you see half his body, they start doing it even faster.

The next thing you know, that donkey walked right out of the world that he fell into. Now, every time that there donkey came to the well,  it would fall on his back, he would shake it off, and he would step on and he took every scoop of dirt cup was meant to kill him, to save his life. So check this out, Monica. I am the donkey.

And what I want to do is I want to share with you some of my dirt first and foremost is I grew up in a home with a raging alcoholic farmer, raging with a capital R.  Now I tell you this because he raised from the time I was born until the time he died when I was 16. Now, if you've got a father like that, the way that that sets up in your life is that anytime I got caught up with having fun, the liveliness of the day, always there was a reminded a tapped me on my shoulder and was like, "Hey dude, listen, don't get too happy because you got to go home to that man." So, you know, it was crazy growing up in an environment like that. 

On top of that, I grew up in poverty. Now what's crazy about it is both my parents work full time. My dad was a bus driver. My mother was a housekeeper. So she, she cleaned people's homes. Now I have four of us, my dad's money went to the drinking. My mother was able to finagle and raise four kids with a housekeeper's salary. So, you know, we made sure we didn't ask for extra things and she made sure she provided us with things that we needed.

When the head of your household is an alcoholic, then you got to think about the fact that yo, everything comes from the top. So, you know, I remember, I remember my parents had been blown out, like blow out arguments. And I'm going to look little boy and nobody debriefs it with me. Like, so the next morning, it's not like nobody talks to me about it. They put my clothes on and they send me to school. And so, you know, for years I had to deal with that. 

But, you know, I tell the story because what I think, no, not what I think, what I know is that my passion is the fact that I endured that and I'm able to identify and, and feel that from a person who has similar experiences. But Monica, the beauty of the gift is. It's not limited to people that have gone through struggles, like my own. I'm able to pick up on a vibe of anybody that's not in a place of balance and I want to push and help them to get there 

Monica: [00:06:45] For you, when you look back on your past, I mean, I have never experienced any of those things. And, you know, I think a lot of my listeners will feel the same. Like, wow, how can I even complain about what I've been through in 2020 when I hear this man's story? And at the same time, I get the sense from you that it's not about comparison, it's suffering is suffering and you're here to help us figure out how we can, you know, be like that donkey and, and use the dirt that's being put on us over and over as a way to move upward and outward.

And I wanted to know, before we go into your advice on this and your expertise on this, what made the difference for you? 

Michael: [00:07:27] You know, what made the difference is my mom. And I didn't understand that until I got older. She was a praying woman. So she prayed a lot. And, um, you know, if you're on the spiritual side, you understand the power of prayer.

If I look back over my life, God gifted me with the ability to be a phenomenal athlete. So in the midst of all this craziness, I played basketball, baseball, football, and soccer from the age of eight until I graduated high school and I could have gone to college to play any of the four sports.

So what I did growing up is I created a functional family. My coaches became that father figure. My teammates became the brother and sister that I would have in a functional home. And the accolades that I got from my community. Became the, what you would get from a parent that was feeding you the proper stuff.

 I say that because I was able to walk through that storm and almost not get touched because I lived in two different realities.  And so when I reflect back, you know my peers , when they see the stuff that I put out, you know, and I wrote a book and we can talk about that later.

 I have one of my buddies, he called me up crying. This is a seasoned lawyer. And he's like, dude, you used to come to school every day with a smile on your face.

He's like, how did you do it? And you know, that's how I did it.  My classmates called me a superhero because I, I excelled like that. 

Monica: [00:09:05] I find as I'm listening to your story too, this fine balance between ignoring your past, you know dismissing it, stuffing it down, or acknowledging it, embracing it as part of the story, but not who you are and that giving you the courage you needed and the strength he needed to rise above.

And to me, that's, what's most striking in this story, is that difference. 

Michael: [00:09:30] Well, you know, what I teach is that we go back and we touch our stories, but we don't stay. . I feel like when people go through life, they step on landmines. The landmine doesn't blow them up, but it causes damage.  And what we have a tendency to do is we start to make decisions based on the damage rather than what's happening in real time. So you're doing all these things in your life based on situations that happened years ago, that's thrown off your path for what's going on in the present.

And so I teach people to go back and find the landmines. Let's go back and we find them. And as we go back and find them, let's dissect them. Let's rip them apart. But then once we finish doing that, we don't stay. We have to come back and in my groups, you know, when I do it in schools, you know, um, if I feel the kid has come out far enough for 40 days out, I don't let them leave.

You don't leave the room. I meant I'll call in the social worker. I mean, I got a social work degree, but if I feel a kid went back and got trapped there, we don't, he doesn't get on the bus until I feel like he's back to 2021.  

Monica: [00:10:53] That's incredible. I I'm just thinking back to, I became a teacher out here in the Bay area and it was so eye opening for me. I'm, you know, I'm this white girl from Utah. That was my life. And I grew up super privileged without realizing it. And what I saw on most of my students' eyes, you know, they were dealing with a lot of things I had never seen before. Never experienced. A lot of the things you just named an addition to, you know, gang violence and, and not even having adequate food in their neighborhood.

And it, it was so different for me. And what I wish I had known back then is how to do that. How to help my kids go back the way you just said to acknowledge and embrace their past, but to not stay there. 

Michael: [00:11:42] Yeah. And you know what I do, Monica is I open up all my workshops with, um, I have a picture of the house that I grew up in.

And if you see the picture, you would think it was condemned. When I bust it out and they see it, they all gasp, and then I tell them, Hey, listen, that's just how it look when I lived there. And then I walked them through. How it was to live in that house. But then I show him a picture of the Ray's ranch that I live in now.

And I hold the pictures up next to each other side by side, explain to them that life happened in between these pictures. But what I'm doing is when you say go back and explain to them how to go back and split it into two stories, what I'm letting them know is before we get on this journey, that your leader has cracks. He's not perfect.

My programs two days, they come back the second day in pajamas. They're so comfortable that when they come into the room the second day, they literally have on pajamas because they're like, "Yo I'm kicking back and I'm getting all this stuff out."

Monica: [00:12:50] I love that. All right. So let's connect the dots here for our listeners. I mean, you work so well with youth and that is absolutely your mission. I see the passion. I see the difference that you are making. Let's talk about 2020 and the landmines that people have been through and how they can, like you say it, shake it off. But with  acknowledging what they've been through and also helping themselves move forward in a way that's going to be more in alignment with what they want to be better in their lives. What advice do you have 

Michael: [00:13:21] for 

Listen, what, what my prices, this is that. You know, sometimes they talk about how, when God wants to get your attention, he'll do something to slow life down.

You know, sometimes bring your sickness, bring you injury, lay you up in the bed and force you to reflect because you'd be moving too fast. That's what, COVID two 20, 2020. Listen. It's about perspective. 

And, you know, I read a book by Bruce Wilkinson called the dream giver. And what it talked about is that we're born with a vision to become something, but during our lives, people bully us and get us off our path. And so we , end up doing something totally opposite. 

And I'll finish with this, and I want all your listeners to hear me when I say this. My mom turned 88. And I, I called it a wish, a happy birthda y .  I was like, Whoa, my mother is 88 years old. And then I did 53 I'm 53. So I did the math and thought about how many years I'm going to live until I get to 88. Now I say this Monica, because what I want your listeners to understand is that once COVID lifts and moves on and we're sitting at a barbecue someplace, we're going to be laughing about it. Do you remember 2020 when we had our masks and you couldn't go to the store, we are going to be laughing about it.

It's going to be a small piece of an entire lifetime. So for you to throw your attire life away for six, eight, 12 months of what was discomfort would be a disaster.

 Monica: [00:15:10] I really appreciate that perspective piece. All right. So let's say they're, they're telling themselves, okay. Yeah, that is true. And I can feel that I can feel, this is just a piece of the bigger story that I'm going to be telling one day. What other suggestions do you have for them to, to make that part of their story? Instead of it being the only story they have. 

Michael: [00:15:28] Fear is paralyzing. So what I need them to understand is this: when they get out of the bed more and more, and their objective is to chase that thing that we're talking about. And they reach over to put on their shoes, when they decide not to do it. There's another person in the world that's waiting for them to make their move so that they can also accomplish their goal. You become accountable to more than just you. So you got to understand that your perspective has to be so much bigger than you as an individual that you got to say, wow, "You know what? I got to get up and pursue this because if I can get it, there could be five, 10, 15 people down the line from me that could benefit from me stepping out of my comfort zone and push them to a place of accomplishment." 

Monica: [00:16:27] that's another great perspective too, right? When you make it mean less about you, when you're not the only actor in a solo play, that's another form of perspective that I think we're all missing out on right now. Going back to your original story, the donkey. They, they shake it off. Well, first I like how you talked about you. You first, you acknowledge the past. You really make sure that you're not dismissing it and pretending it didn't exist and then you shake it off and then what's next?

Michael: [00:16:57] Once you identify it, you have to address it. So me knowing what I came from, I couldn't just say I came from that and stand on the fact that I was an overcomer. I had to deal with the fact that I had an alcoholic father.

So what did that encompass? That encompassed that before I got married, you know, I went and I had counseling. To make sure that I wasn't an alcoholic, you know, and you know, therapy. I realized that I'm my own person. I'm not him.  

And so I don't have to worry about that carrier of also, you know, coming through that process. What I learned is that life is about breaking cycles. Now I learned this through my, my work and it's what I teach people. But what I realized is that, you know, one night when I was falling asleep in that old, crazy house that I grew up and we really had heat in the winter, 10 years old, going to sleep, I'm crying.

And I'm saying to myself, in the midst of my tears, is that if I had my own children, my own children will never have the live a life like that. So as I'm going through life, Monica and stuff gets tough. My unborn children became the catalyst of my push. The beauty is I have a 16 year old and a 14 year old . Their cousins, my siblings, didn't break the cycle. So there's times where we go back to neighborhoods that are similar to where I grew up and they get to distinguish between, "You know, listen to dad, didn't do what he had to do.

This is something where we could be a ." 

You get people that do the work I do, but don't address their past properly. And they can't teach well because they come into a session and they're still healing. You can't try to help me heal, you know?

Monica: [00:18:48] It can lean two directions, right? It can lean into either someone being so trapped and only seeing the small part of a story, a bigger story and being resentful and understandably, like I'm not going to dismiss that understandably resentful and continuing the cycle, or it can go into toxic positivity. And we see that too, where people are like, if you're only looking forward, that's a toxic positivity, right? That's like the you're not actually addressing, like you said, you're not addressing the real roots, then they're going to keep showing up for you in other ways. So, Michael, let's say that the women who are primarily our listeners, they're listening to this and thinking, okay, I need to give myself some time to heal. I've got to address why this past year or the past years, because we have lots of women who have dealt with a lot of life experiences and different levels of trauma.

If I can address those and dig deep in those and really learn from them and then shake them off. What, what do they do then to move forward in a way that's not the toxic positivity version of this 

Michael: [00:19:52] They have to realize that we all go through things in life not for only ourselves.  You definitely are not going to celebrate the fact that you were chosen to be the one that was strong enough to break through the barrier of whatever your trauma is.

But, you know, I do celebrate it because the way that I use it therapeutically is I talk about it every day. Yeah. The fact that I get up and my business is to talk exactly about what I endured every day of my life, growing up. I don't get hung up on it. So once they go back and they touch it and they get to a healthy place of identifying it, find people to help talk about it more.

Don't hide it out. You know what I'm saying? Don't hide it now that you've got it, find a woman that's going through some, something similar as you and hold her head and walk her through the process. And when you're finished with that one, find another one and find another one. And what you'll find is the more people that you are able to soldier through something, you heal.

You start to grow whole. 

Monica: [00:21:10] Yeah. It's like a healing chain, you know, a chain of people, all healing together. I love that. And it brings me back to this. We keep talking about stories here, but it, it brings me back to, you know, the power of story.

And the way that you view your own, the way you view it connected with other people, the way you can talk about it. Um, and to me that's really helpful right now, especially as we think back, like back to the barbecues that we're going to have and how we'll tell our story about this time. And other times in the past.

Michael, I know that many of my listeners are going to want to know more about you and your story and your work. 

 Michael: [00:21:50] I wrote a book called Be Encouraged.  The way that it came about, I think is very special. On my Facebook page or on a daily basis, I will put out some inspirational. I would do my study time spiritually, and then write something posted on my page. Then I would do this every day and it became just what I do. And a woman that followed me was dying of cancer  and she came into my messenger box and she says, you know what, Michael, if I can find all your stuff from one place, it would be wonderful.

And so I went back and I started pulling some of the favorites about 200, cause it's 250 pages. Um, and I put it together and I dedicated the book to her, and I released it at it's called Be Encouraged. And so you read one of my pages to set up your day so that if you read it and you're in a negative space, immediately you get hit with not today. 

Monica: [00:22:54] Fantastic. I'll make sure we link to that in our show notes for everybody, as well as any other places that you are on, whether it's websites, social media, all the above. Before we sign off one thing I love to talk about with my guests. It's just what they're working on with their own personal development, because we are a personal development show.

We love to work on ourselves, whether it's, you know, goals or productivity or habits, whatever it is. So for you, what is something you are working on as you move into 2021? 

Michael: [00:23:22] What I'm doing is most of my programs are within schools. So, I'm stepping into the realm of corporate. Yeah. Yeah. I pitched a pitch to a corporate company and I battled with some big, big organizations and I made it to the last round. In a few months I'm going to pitch it and , I want to get my feet wet. 

Monica: [00:23:49] Well, I wish you, well, as you move into the new year and your family as well, and I'm so grateful that you took the time to be on the show, Michael. Thank you. 

Michael: [00:23:56] Thank you.