The Gift of Rock Bottom
The Amplified Impact Podcast
July 10th, 2023
This episode is all about the gift of rock bottom.
It might sound crazy…especially if you’re going through a tough time right now.
When someone tells you that rock bottom is actually a blessing, it’s hard to believe.
Who wants to hear that when you’re feeling down and out?
But from my own experience…hitting rock bottom was the catalyst for incredible change and growth in my life.
When I lost everything, when I had no other choice but to rebuild from scratch, that’s when I discovered my true potential.
And that’s the beauty of rock bottom.
When you have nothing left to lose, you’re willing to take risks and do whatever it takes to create a better life.
So…embrace the challenges, learn from them, and use them as fuel to propel yourself forward.
This just might be the turning point in your story.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Rock bottom for me was a blessing because when you hit rock bottom, you don’t really have anything else that’s holding you back from trying whatever. The alternative is unacceptable.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
Yeah, what’s up, everybody? Today I want to talk about the gift that is rock bottom. And that might seem like a weird concept, especially if you’re going through a rock bottom moment right now. It can be so trite. When somebody comes to you, you’re in a time of need, time of pain. You’re at that rock bottom place. You maybe got laid off at work, your loved one left you, or somebody passed away, and you’re in this pit. And when somebody comes to you and says, hey, man, time heals all wounds, it’s all going to be okay, this is actually a blessing. This is going to be your story.
Anthony Vicino [00:00:37]:
This is going to be the thing that you overcome, which you can then share in the future to help other people. You can be the example that helps others, right? You hear those things, and when you’re in the thick of it and you’re in that moment, it falls on deaf ears, and you’re just so emotionally tied up in the pain that that stuff doesn’t register. It’s all true, but it doesn’t register, and it doesn’t necessarily help. So if that’s you and you’re going through the rock bottom moment right at this instant, just know I commiserate. I understand what you’re going through and that it might be hard to take these words and realize that there’s truth here and some concepts that can maybe guide you forward. But for myself, when I hit rock bottom, that was at the time, it did not seem like a blessing, right? When you get kicked out of the house, your fiancee leaves you and you’re living in the back of a van, and you’re just trying to figure out how you’re going to make ends meet because you have maybe $1,000. In the bank and you’re sleeping at night in downtown Oakland and you’re in the back of a 13 passenger van that you renovated with. Put a mattress back there.
Anthony Vicino [00:01:43]:
And homeless people are walking by or drunkards from the bar is letting out. They’re walking by your van, and they’re trying to look in the window, and they’re trying to open the doors, and you’re sleeping in there, and all you really want to do is crawl into a hole and die. You just want to disappear from the face of the earth. And you’re embarrassed and you’re ashamed because your friends, your family, you don’t want to admit that you failed at this thing or that you’re suffering, you’re struggling. And when I was in that place, the last thing that I could think of at that time was that this was actually a good thing, that it was going to be the origin story in a lot of ways for what the next ten years of my life would ultimately become. And it’s really easy to, I think, look in hindsight and connect the dots and say, oh, yeah, it was all so easy. Of course, it all flowed so naturally, but at every single point of the journey. It never really seemed like it was going to work out per se.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:36]:
It was always just kind of like desperately trying the next thing and finding a little bit of traction and then sliding back and then forward and it never felt as smooth as it is now when I tell the story to people and so understand that if you’re going through that, it’s hard. I don’t want to minimize your pain or your suffering or anything that you’re going through. But for me, what I came to realize now, being able to look back onto it in hindsight, is that rock bottom for me was a blessing because when you hit rock bottom, you don’t really have anything else that’s holding you back from trying whatever right. The alternative is unacceptable. And you’re in this position of having your back against a wall. You’re almost like a trapped animal and you’re willing to do whatever it takes at that point. And that was important for me because before that moment, I probably wouldn’t have stepped into entrepreneurship in the way that I did because it seemed so foreign and scary and something that I wasn’t necessarily cut out to do and succeed at. I wasn’t entrepreneurial as a kid.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:42]:
I didn’t have a lemonade stand. I didn’t pluck flowers from the neighbor’s yard and sell it back to them. I didn’t do any of that stuff. I wasn’t a salesperson. So the whole idea of a business, I didn’t know anything about it, and I felt overwhelmed and it just never crossed my mind as something to do. This was a decade ago. This was really before entrepreneurship became like the fad. And the thing that everybody talks about now is like, oh, I’m an entrepreneur on Instagram.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:03]:
It wasn’t like that, guys. But it was the out for me at that point because when my friend came to me and he said, hey, let’s build a business and give this a shot, I was willing to try it because everything else had failed up to that point. And that was the gift of rock bottom for me, which was you will try anything because everything else has failed and you can’t stay where you are. Right? And in a lot of ways, I think the harder place to be is not at rock bottom, but actually living a life where everything is going pretty good, but not great. And you hear this cliche that good is the enemy of great. And the reason for that is when you have a good job, you are afraid of what might happen if you lose that. It’s not a great job, but it’s a good job. And if you lose it, well, then that’s no job, right? And so is it worth the risk of leaving that good job to maybe go get the great job? For most people, it’s not worth that risk.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:01]:
And it’s the same with friends and family and relationships in every other domain of life, your physical health. Like, you might have good health, but not great health. You might have good relationship, not great relationships, because you’re afraid if I cut off these people in my life who maybe aren’t pushing me forward, but they are, in fact holding me back, well, who’s going to fill that void? Maybe the people that fill the void. And like the next friends I find, maybe they’re worse. Maybe I don’t find anybody, and it turns out I’m just going to be lonely hermit for the rest of my life. So the fear of losing is so much greater than the fear of the reward of potential gain for people who are living a good life that they will just go ahead and suffer for decades and decades, living in all right existence, but never really tapping into the greatness that they know that they have inside of them and ultimately then manifests itself in later years. When you look back with resentment and with regret at the fact that you didn’t live up to the potential that you knew you had inside of you, and that’s a horrible pain, a horrible weight to have to carry. And I don’t wish that for anybody.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:59]:
And I’m not saying I hope these people hit rock bottom. I’m not saying that either, because rock bottom sucks. But at least from rock bottom, the choices are kind of made for you, right? And you will do the things that’s necessary, and through that, you might be able to achieve extraordinary results. Now, that’s not to say you will succeed, right? So rock bottom, again, it’s a blessing and a curse in a lot of ways, but so is the end. Like, so is good. So are those fuzzy handcuffs that we all that we put on ourselves. Like, I’m there now in my businesses. I’m doing well, but I start to put the handcuffs on myself because the fear of losing what I have is greater than the potential reward of going and getting the thing that I want.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:40]:
And so I settle. And this is just human nature. This is what we do. And I want to share that with you because it is a constant battle that we all must wage, which is to achieve our greatness. To tap into that power that you know, that you have inside of that you sense in there, it requires casting off identities constantly. It requires you to continually progress and move forward away from where you currently are into unknown territories. And in those unknown territories are risks or dangers, and it is scary, but that is where progress, that is where your greatness lies, is in the pursuit of that. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a comfort zone.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:25]:
I think there is just a familiar zone. The comfort zone, if it was truly comfortable, you would have no complaints about being there. That would be great. But most people, their comfort zone is a place of actual discomfort. They feel limited. They feel afraid of what might be outside of that bubble. And instead, it’s familiar. The pain of the good life is familiar, and the enemy that you know is better than the one that you don’t.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:51]:
And so most people stay within that familiar zone when the truth is that the extraordinary life that you are able to achieve, that extraordinary life that you are able to achieve, is just beyond the bounds of your familiar zone, of that comfort zone, of that place that you call home. It requires that adventurer’s mindset to go and be a pioneer of your own existence and to forge trails that you had never forged before. And it’s in that pursuit that we grow, that we learn. It’s that we progress. And that’s, really, the journey of being a human, is one of progress. It’s not about arriving at the destination. It’s about the progress in the same way that it’s not about arriving at the destination. It’s not about staying put where you are either.
Anthony Vicino [00:08:46]:
It’s about the motion. It’s about the trajectory of that motion and where you’re headed. And so I hope wherever you are, whether you’re at rock bottom or you’re struggling with this idea of being good but not great, and all the dissonance that comes from both of those places, I hope this gives you a little bit of motivation, a little bit of perspective, a little bit of connection to the fact that you could achieve extraordinary things if you just moved confidently in the direction of your dreams. And I hope that very deeply for you. I wish an extraordinary life for you because you deserve it. So thank you for being here. Guys. I’ll catch you back around these parts tomorrow.
Anthony Vicino [00:09:33]:
Until then, stay hyper focus.
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