You don't need to live like that.
May 01, 2026
I was 12 years old the first time it happened.
I was on a school bus. Nothing dramatic. Nothing dangerous. Just a normal morning ride to school.
And then something shifted inside me that I didn't have words for.
My heart raced. My chest tightened. I thought I was fine and told myself that.. but that made it only worse.
The walls of that bus felt like they were closing in. I wanted off. I needed off. But I didn't know why and I couldn't explain it to anyone because I didn't understand it myself.
My parents didn't know what to do. How could they? Nobody was talking about panic attacks in those days. There was no framework for it.
So I did what most people do when they don't have answers.
I adapted and I accepted. I built my life around it.
I avoided public transportation. Bought a cell phone when they first came out so I could "shock myself" back into calm by calling a relative. I mapped my exits. I managed my world to stay inside the groove that felt safe, even when that groove felt like a trench.
For 18 years.
Not because I wanted to live that way. But because somewhere along the line I stopped asking whether it had to be that way.
I thought I did.
Then someone who loved me said a few words that changed my life.
"You don't need to live like that."
She wasn't harsh. She wasn't frustrated. She was simply telling me something she could see clearly that I had stopped being able to see at all.
There are people who can help you. There are answers. You don't have to stay in this trench.
I made an appointment with a therapist within days. Weeks later I felt different. Not fixed. Not perfect. Different. Lighter. Like someone had lifted me out of a groove I had worn so deep I forgot it wasn't the only path down the mountain.
Today I stand on stages in front of thousands of people for a living. I ride trains. I fly across the country. I do anything, anywhere, anytime.
Not because the fear disappeared on its own. Because someone nudged me onto a new path and I was finally open enough to take it.
This week I sat down with Jesse Sieff of Sieff Studios and we talked about exactly this. The grooves we dig for ourselves without realizing it. The beliefs we carry that were never really true.
I grew up poor so I'll always be poor. I don't deserve love. I'm not capable of work that actually fulfills me.
Think about skiing for a moment. The first time you go down a slope you can choose any line you want. But the more you ski that same path, the deeper the groove becomes. The snow compacts. The edges harden. And eventually that groove becomes a trench so deep that it doesn't feel like a choice anymore. It just feels like the hill.
But it was never the only way down.
Earlier that same week I was featured on David Meltzer's Office Hours, filmed at the Sirius XM Studio at the Wynn in Las Vegas. I sat in a room with people who understand nutrition beyond the textbooks. Who use vibration for healing. Who build apps for mental health. Who create blue collar jobs that change lives.
Every single one of them had found a new path. And every single one of them had made it their mission to help others find one too.
The recipes for a better life already exist. The experts are already out there. The paths are already cut.
We just have to be willing to believe we don't have to stay in the one we're in.
Your groove is not your destiny.
The trench is not the truth.
And whatever you have silently accepted as permanent - the anxiety, the limitation, the belief that this is just how you are - I want you to hear the same four words that changed my life.
You don't need to live like that.
Most people won't believe that today.
But you're not most people.
