Episode 10: Making MAGIC – Transcending from Lack to Success

Tom Pisello

My guest today is Brian Rossi. He is the CEO and founder of Enstigate, they’re an entrepreneurial success engine and consultancy. 

Brian is the author of this book right here. Lack or Success, which I had the pleasure of reading and learned a lot from. Brian who lost his life partner of over 14 years Imelda. She was his exotic inspiration, his turnaround artist, his mystic, his spiritual guide, his life Sherpa, and then he found himself without our back in 2017, the same year that I lost my Judy. 

It might have been easy for Brian to fall back to old ways to think about past struggles and repeat those, for Brian knew that this experience. It wasn’t to be feared that Imelda was still and is with him, and that he needed to embrace her passing as an even stronger source of inspiration to become even better. In this interview. 

We will explore Brian’s journey, which he does detail in his book, discussing his secrets and methods to transcend from lack to success. Brian, welcome.

Brian Rassi

Thanks, Thomas. Thanks for having me.

Tom 1:44  

So Brian, I like to start at the beginning. I love origin stories, and I’d love to hear how you and Imelda met

Brian 1:54  

Well, it was a timeshare. I’m not sure if you have ever gone on a timeshare presentation before. This one was at Pompano Beach Fairfield resorts. 

I moved there from California and I got my real estate license and I wanted to go into sales. So I got hired by Fairfield and and had me go through a couple of weeks of initiation. And they teach you all the ups and downs of the sale. And so they take you on like existing tours. 

So I got out late one day, and the tours were already in motion. And I remember this New York manager and she’s like, hold on one second. I’ve got the perfect tour for you. 

So the gentleman that was on the tour got up to go get a cup of coffee. And she goes over to this young lady, that was Imelda, and so she brings me over and and she says “You’re gonna go on this tour with Imelda”.  Imelda look me up and down, and she’s five foot nuttin, 100 pound nuttin, exotic looking Filipino girl,and she looked me up down. And I’m like, “Hi, how you doing”. She says, “Don’t say an effing word on my tour”. That’s all she said. And all I did was, I nodded. And I sat down. I sat down and so the running joke goes, I got hit by Cupid. Any woman that could just spit that out with a straight face. I’m like, man, you gotta have some gumption, but she had it. So that’s how we met. That’s how I met Imelda.

Tom  3:28  

Yeah, five foot nothing Spitfire.

Brian 3:31  

always have this running joke, that I if I was in the back alley, and I needed someone, I would take Imelda. She’s a beast man. You would not know to look at the frame. She’s fierce. 

Tom 3:45  

and your life with Imelda was equally inspiring from that first meeting where she kind of puts you into your place to kind of the life that you build with her. Tell me a little bit about the life you had together with her.

Brian 3:57  

You know, it’s been a journey. Imelda was a very gifted spiritual, an intuitive, and she had an “out of body” experience before she met me. And it led her on a journey of spiritual quest. 

By the time I got to where she was, four years, five years into this journey, you gotta remember this back in like 2000 to 2004, the  spiritual community, things like that intuitive stuff was not the norm as it is today. So it was like, Where do you go? Where do you goto  get this information? How do you actually cultivate your talents? How do you actually bring that forth to the market and not be shunned? 

And so it’s an interesting journey, as I saw her cultivate her intuitive talents, Over the years she was  self taught, and then was in and out of programs. Of course, I saw her evolve her talents over the course of time, and I was learning and observing vicariously through her as I was going through a normal entrepreneurial sales business journey on the outside, and then I would come home and see her going through her spiritual, intuitive, galactic, journey along the way. 

And it was interesting, I would consider her an urban, modern day monk type lifestyle from what she would read, practice, cultivate, train and bring forth to the planet. 

And this was before Jay Shetty who is making that real popular right now. I’ve got his book on being a monk and living the monk lifestyle. Having that spiritual gift now, that intuitiveness, is really being sought out. And not just for emotional healing. But in business, where Jay I know is well respected and gets most of his gigs.

Brian  5:51  

Imelda over the years, I would have many, many readings from Imelda, a treasure when you have someone that gifted. She was like a seventh degree Empath. She can really see into the future. She could tell you, “Hey, Thomas, get that shoulder checked out” or “Check your gut, like you might have something going on over there”. 

She would just randomly go up to people and say, “Hey, you might want to check that out”. She always gave the right next step to take in your journey. That’s what I always appreciated about her. Her talents weren’t just “Hey, you got a problem?”, she would be “Hey, take the right next step”, or “Hey, watch out for this guy in business”, or “Hey, watch out for this program like, be very cautious about what you’re about to get into”. 

There’s been so many circumstances over 14 years, physically together. And I say that physically because I know she’s still probably on my shoulder. 

Every time I see a cardinal… you see this cardinal back over here on my shoulder. That was from my late grandmother, Miss Verde. Rassi. But every time you see a cardinal, you should be looking and seeing if it’s one of your loved ones coming back to you to actually say they’re thinking about you. They’re here. 

So if you’re watching this in the car and see a cardinal, it’s probably your significant other or your loved one, coming back and saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m still ticking”. You know, I’m around. So that’s what you should be thinking.

Tom  7:21  

We had one on Mother’s Day this year. We were in Hawaii. And that can be a really rough day when my daughters are missing Mom, and what do we do on those special occasions. 

Well, we took an epic trip. I had the girls plan a road trip. And they planned each stop along the way that we were going to do that day. And a cardinal “followed us” and showed up at every stop the entire day. And they pointed it out, they posted it in social they took pictures of it and say of the cardinal that it was definitely a sign. So thank you for sharing that. 

You know, t this kind of takes us, going sequentially through your journey with Imelda, where all of a sudden, she was gone. Tell me about what the heck happened?

Brian  8:11  

She had some internal health complications that came on very, very suddenly. So within a couple of weeks, she was very healthy, and then passed on. 

When I realized that it was going to be a passing,  I remember that day so vividly. It’s really hard to forget those days. So I remember, I came home from the hospital. It was raining and it was like my entire world was shattered. You know, she was my business partner, life partner. Obviously we had a really good chemistry, business wise, people wise, spirit like everything we had – a best friend type of thing like that. 

So when you lose something like that, and you built your life around this person, and this is what a lot of people on this call and podcasts are probably going through right now, when you go into grief: Your identity is not just you, when you build something with someone, it’s you and them and so when you take them out of that equation, this is what happened to me was my identity was shattered. 

I didn’t know who I was: physically embodied, emotionally, spiritually. I did not who who I was. 

And that’s how you feel right after grief. And my personal viewpoint is you’re going through a journey like “Who am I now?”, “Why am I going through this journey?”, “Why now?” 

It forces you to start asking very detailed questions on your purpose. And that’s what I remember very distinctly. I was at the computer, and it as raining, and  I’m like “Who am I and what is going on here?”. This is freakish, and it took weeks upon weeks to ctually decipher and articulate that. 

And I know that’s what you probably went through Thomas, when you went through it. And I know there’s other people on this call that if you really think back you lost that identity of who you were. And that’s part of the journey is that it starts there, as to how you’re going to get back your identity, your values and belief systems and all that stuff that goes out the window with this loss.

Tom  10:15  

Brian, I basically jumped back into my old identity. I was still running a company, I had about 20 folks working for me, so 20 families to feed, and we were struggling because a lot of running a company that small, it typically depends on the founder, which I was. And I kind of put that stoic mask back on, to run the business.

And it took me a while to become introspective and really delayed my healing process as a result. So it was really, powerful that you were able to say, and realize that your identity was shattered, and to not go back to old ways, right? Not repeat it, but then start to look and say, Okay, who is it that I am and what do I ultimately want to become?

Brian  10:59  

Well, it wasn’t right away, Thomas, That was part of the journey. 

About three weeks went by, and Imelda had a class, a course that she always taught. This was her signature course, on the ENRICH playbook. ENRICH was an acronym for reclaiming your integrity to create happiness, reclaiming your integrity to create happiness. And so it took about three weeks. 

And I remembered, Oh, I gotta go to the ENRICH course. Now I’ve taken this course, seven years, multiple times a year, but for some reason that day, when I went through the course again, I was open. 

This is all hindsight and years of cultivation, to bring it into this concise form, and there was no way I knew it going in. And to not burst the bubble Thomas of what I put in the book about the class, this was after a year, after I realized what happened, right …I went to the ENRICH playbook class, and I was teachable. And I talked about in the book about being teachable, and it was from Kevin Trudeau, he’s a well known author, speaker and a good business owner and entrepreneur, he talks about being teachable, you have to be willing to learn and willing to change. 

And that’s when you become teachable. Now, when you become very, very teachable, usually the right teacher will come into the picture, in this case it was a novice program. But if you think back when you are really wanting to change something, and you really want to learn something, you become teachable, and usually the right person, or the right circumstance, or the right opportunity is going to come in and fill that void.

Now this is what was interesting: When you actually are teachable, you can change on a dime. When you fill the gap of when you are teachable. You are now filled, you can’t go any higher. You can go anywhere because you actually filled the void of being teachable. That’s what happened after the ENRICH playbook. 

I got the idea. I’ve gotta go on this quest. I’ve got to start figuring this out for myself. And then I did something similar to you what you did Thomas.I just went back to an old way, andI  just put my head down and went tp work. I didn’t care what the work was. I was running a company I was like, screw that, I gotta get out of the house. I wasn’t even leaving the house. 

So I just picked a job. And I worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day. And I did that for seven months. Until I ran out of steam, which actually came on the one year anniversary of when Imelda pretty much passed away. I remember I walked out the door. And I was going to work right? And a wasp stings me on the finger. A wasp stings me oout of nowhere, like boom, like, oh, man, where’d you come from? So I’m in the car. And I ask myself, “Why would a wasp sting me today?”. Yeah, and I on that question, I Googled spiritual Wasp meanings. I actually literally Googled that because this is how you learn how your loved ones come back, and it’s like, hey, waking you up, waking up out of the norm. I’m like, Alright, I’m gonna quit this job today. 

So I went in and I literally quit that job that day, and I started the journey back into Enstigate. It came on the one year anniversary.  

For my journey, it took about a year for me to kind of get back into “this is Brian again”. This is the new now. I’m in the identity of Brian, not Brian and Imelda. Now I’m back to Brian. Okay, you’ve crossed that path. Okay, now it’s time to grow back into Brian’s identity, Brian’s value, what does Brian want to create? Not what Brian and I want to create.

Tom  14:37  

And I think part of what you preach in doing this to kind of get success is did you go back and then start to explore your failures and kind of the root cause of maybe some of the lessons that you learned along the way pre Imelda and then Imelda.

Brian  14:57  

Yeah, you know, about a couple months after with that job I, I decided to grow back up Enstigate. What you see in place today, my company was Imelda and my company we originally built. That’s exactly why we’re on this call.

So I went to this entrepreneurship endeavor in Cincinnati called Startup Cincinnati, a five day event. They had all these different speakers. It’s all about entrepreneurship in Cincinnati, and I was visiting the town. That’s where my parents are located, along with my brother and sister, my niece and nephew. 

So I went to this five day event, I put on a suit, I went back in, I was like, alright, let’s figure out what’s going on in entrepreneurship in Cincinnati. So the first day it started, set eight o’clock am and went to eight o’clock in the evening, 30 to, 40 minute talks all the way throughout, with multiple rooms. And there was a theme that was brewing Thomas, in that, and I picked up on it … everyone was talking about failure. Everyone’s talking about fear and success, fear and failure, a lack of money, a lack of time, a lack of support all different types of things. And I’m like, Man, I get this urge, I gotta talk about failure. Like, I got a frickin talk about failure, it was on my mind. 

By the end of the day, I go back and see my parents for dinner. And they’re like, how did that go? I responded, “Well, it was great. You know, I had this feeling, I’ve got to write about failure”. And the first thing that came out of my mom’s mouth was “Who wants to read about failure?”. And in that minute, I was, like, I’m writing about it, I know there’s something there.

Tom 16:35  

They’re probably thinking, “How’s Brian getting back on track from his loss? How’s he building for the future?” And then you’re talking failure, right? They must have been freaking out.

Brian 16:49  

They’ve come to know me. It’s funny how, you know, when you get into the right success structure, how your loved ones who want to support you, They just don’t know how to support you. 

I remember very distinctly, they want to support you. And a lot of times I shut it off, like when people would call I’m like, “I don’t want to hear, I don’t want to talk to anyone”, you know, and you shut off the phone and you kind of go through it. 

But as they see you, as they observe someone getting into the right success structure, how they observe someone moving through their life, after grief, they come on board. It’s actually a really interesting thing on how the Rassi family, how they’ve come together and grown through the walks of someone so important. 

Similar to those on this call, is when you go through the journey, you’re teaching them how they ca deal with something like that. And for good or bad, bad or good.

Now in this case, I went on a full onslaught. iif people just don’t know this about me, but you will quickly, I didn’t care at that moment, I made a pact that I was going to figure it out. For me, it was like I was going to solve this for me. I didn’t care how much money, how much time, I didn’t care what it was. I didn’t care how it was going to happen. It was going to happen, Thomas. And I made pacts in and I threw down the money. I did the time. I’m one of those guys that if you tell me to stand in that corner, with one foot, look in the corner, say the same chant 100,000 times for four days, you’re gonna get a success, I will do it just to prove if it was right or wrong. 

And so that’s the way it was with the topic of Failure and the book. It was going to happen and get done.

Tom 19:04  

Yeah. Now what you did in your Failure exploration is you tied it back to Fear as being the number one stumbling block for most people as to why they kind of snatch failure from the jaws of success. Fear, and being afraid of the success perhaps, or afraid of what the future might hold. Afraid of taking that first step in some instances. And I think there’s some parallels that we can take between business and the grief process and the grief journey. 

Brian  19:38  

You know, it’s interesting. There was a study that really was the impetus for all of this.  Everyone thinks fear of failure, fear of success, but I think, as I learned for the book, there’s something that precedes that which defines Failure.

If you start going through the definitions, failure is “the lack of success”. Lack of success is failure in the definition. So I’m like, okay, “lack”. Lack comes before fear, so it’s like fears a superficial, top level, experience that happens. But something led up to the fear and before the failure, there’s something that precedes both. 

And in my case, it was lack. So I saw this study, and the study was done about Lack. They did a study years ago, where they surveyed 400 Farms before their crop, and then after the crop crop. And before the crop, that’s when they don’t have money, right? And they gave them basic financial questions, and it had them answer. And then they gave a simple financial questionnaire after the harvest ..after they had loads of money. And they gave them the same type of financial questions. And they found that there was over a 13 point IQ drop when the Farms had a lack of money, versus having money. 

imagine working a whole day, not sleeping the next night, and then working the next entire day. How sharp are you? After that next full day that is now your new normal IQ is tallied, when you are in the state of lack. That’s a 13 ot so point drop.

And this study was about the lack of finances. But what happens when it’s Lack of Love, Thomas, what happens if it’s lack of support? What happens if it is lack of time. So this is what the lesson is, when you’re in Lack, you are now operating with a 13 plus IQ drop.

That’s why when you see people that win the lottery, and all of a sudden, five years later, they gave it all away. They lack the identity. They lack the embodiment of the belief or the value of who that person is. Notice how Lack is beneath the surface on this call. It’s really the Lack that that’s really running the show. Yeah, that’s right, really run the show. It’s not the failure. That’s what manifests. That’s the result. That’s the manifesting result. That the experience, the feeling. They might not be able to articulate it, but Lack is likely the driver of it.

Tom  22:34  

Let me talk a little bit about where my lack came from. Because I had to do this work. And I didn’t do this work until after I lost my wife. And I wanted to heal from it. And I started to work with a therapist. And, we talked a little bit about the grief that I was feeling, but she took me back, she took me way back. She took me back to childhood and teen years. And I think a lot of our subconscious issues that deal with Lack go back to that formative period in our lives. 

For me, a lot of it had to do with Dad issues. I had a great Dad, I loved my Dad, but he was an athlete, and I was a nerd, a writer, a musician, I couldn’t have been any more opposite than him. And he knew only had to “love an athlete” and give accolades to an athlete. And when I tried to be that athlete, even when I did well, I felt like it was never good enough, right. So the “not enough”, the “less than” became the story that I started to tell myself from way, way back then. 

And although I’ve achieved success, and I’ve healed through the grieving process, I still have to go back to those fundamentals and still have to work on making sure I don’t go back into that Lack mode. the “Less Than” mode that I kind of programmed into myself rom those experiences and those initial interactions with my Dad who I wanted to be proud of me. 

In one way, it was a great motivator in that I worked my ass off to prove myself right and strive for the accolades. But there was always that Less Than that I was always fighting against internally. Talk about that a little bit,  if your experiences were similar … You’re Italian, so I’m sure your family was not too  dissimilar than mine?

Brian 24:31  

In my case, you gotta understand. I learned this through the research of the book.

Bruce Lipton, well known biologist, speaker, author, he did studies about the brain and from the ages of zero when you’re in the womb, to about seven, that’s when you get programmed by everyone around you. Every time you hear something from your Mom and Dad, a babysitter, TV, ipad, iphone, your brothers and sisters, your aunt and uncle’s,.. You are programmed, literally a sponge into the unconscious mind. 

So all those thoughts, all those things go into your mind. And that creates your belief system and identity. Now most of the thoughts and learnings are unconscious of  this point. Some 95 to 99% of all our thoughts every day are unconscious, meaning only one to 5% of our thoughts are conscious, like now here  I’m consciously talking to you, Thomas. 

But 99 of those thoughts are going on behind me. They fuel reproduction, make sure the hearts pumping, make sure you’re metabolizing food, but it’s also those thoughts of, you’re not good enough, you’re not capable enough. Hey, watch out for this, don’t don’t, fall in love. Don’t love again, Love Again, You remember the last time you love that person left you and it triggers you, All these thoughts are going on unbeknownst to you. But these survival instincts and emotions, they totally dictate your decisions and your behavior. 

Because when you actually go through life, and you are on social media or listening to this, all of a sudden it’s triggering all these memories, some are conscious, subconscious or unconscious, and it goes to the filing cabinet, it pulls up that content, and then it gives a physiology, feeling and emotion associated with that time. And then that’s how you behave in the world. And this is what they call triggering. 

This is why you get triggered, why people like “what’s causing that person to go off the rails?”. Well, most likely something triggered them in the past, perhaps in childhood, that they have no idea about. And now they’re just acting out that deep recall and reaction to the planet, And you just happen to be there taking the brunt of it. It’s not who they are, they just got triggered. 

And it’s so interesting, once you understand how the brain works, how you work, you can then start deciphering, “How are you going to fill the Lack? How are you going to fill the lack of understanding? How are you gonna fill the lack of emotions? How are you going to fill the structures in your day, to work your way back into a functional life a happy fulfilled life?”.

Tom  27:17  

Without the person that you lost? Yeah, because now is really a challenge. Yeah, cuz now you’ve got some of these fundamental Lacks, gaps in your psyche, that are remnants of past hurts, and now you’ve got this new big hurt. So you already had holes and gaps, that perhaps maybe your spouse was filling some of them and helping you to overcome them. But most of us haven’t done our work on those past hurts and now we’ve got this new big hole with the loss of our partner.

And then, what happens for a lot of people, when they go through losses, well, now they’ve got an even bigger hole and bigger hurts and bigger Lack, and they try to fill it, They try to fill it with maybe a new relationship that might not be healthy, with that new person never going to fill that Lack. They might try to fill it with alcohol, with drugs, or with “bad” behavior. 

Some fill the Lack in a good way, you know, they go in, they do the work, they fill it with knowledge, they fill it with intelligence, they fill it with spirit and faith. 

When you think about it, we are now, like you said, almost a blank slate that occurred to you a year later after the loss, you’re like waking up to the reality that you’re in now. And now I need to start becoming Brian 2.0, 

It is really, you not only have these old hurts and wounds that form a lack of, but now you’ve got this big gap that needs to be filled. Talk about that a little bit and how that can lead to failure, subsequent failures ing relationships, in life, in business, if you don’t take care of it.

Brian  28:59  

That’s what it was and what’s so frustrating on the journey, Thomas was, you would read all these books, right? And they all have one premise. And some of these are well known authors and speakers. They’re well known, and they have an offer, and you get this golden nugget, and you start implementing that golden nugget and then all of sudden you’ve read another book and that contradicts or has different language than the first book. And then you read the next one, and that has different talks or points, and they can never put the whole picture together. 

For me. that’s what was so frustrating about my journey was, I would pick up someone’s nugget, implement it and see if it worked or not. And that’s when I wrote Lack or Success. I tried to put all the nuggets and the entire wheel together, into one framework.  Some would work now as certain foundational items that you have to do. And because I wasn’t smart enough to say this was the right one. I just knew that if I did certain foundational items It was going to shake out in the end, after my research. 

And that’s what I tried to do on a daily basis. And what I tried to open up other people is the idea that you don’t have to be that smart, and be that so on top of everything. You just got to do these basic things, and the rest of the fulfillment is going to come. You think about where you want to go. 

Now, a lot of times when people focus in on the Lack, you’re just going to attract more and more lack. So if you say I Lack. I’m really lonely at this time, and I want to get into a relationship really quick. Well, guess what? You’re going to attract someone just as equal as you are at that time, which is probably not where you want to be. If you’re broken, and you want to fill that void, most likely, the person I’m going to attract is going to be broken. 

So you might want to be conscientious. So at least I knew that going in, I knew I had to heal the heart, I knew how to heal who I was, I needed to become whole again, before I could go out into the marketplace or into the society and have another significant other, that would equal or match the new vibe that I was throwing out. 

Now you went back to an old version of Hey, I’m gonna outwork myself and make myself kind of numb to  the situation. That’s what I did originally. And it just took a while until I got the wake up call. You know,

Tom  31:37  

I’ve got a quote from the Buddha here on my desk:. What you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine you create. 

 I don’t know if you are familiar with that quote, but sounds like you’re definitely living in that.

Brian  31:53  

Yes, if you do certain things, this is what I figured out. And this is what I try. And I go over this in the book, And it’s the reason why I wrote the book. I originally went on this journey for me, I had no idea. I know, I say I wrote it on Failure. But really, I needed to figure this out for me. 

And that’s why through all the money and time invested,I started seeing some successes. Once I started understanding some of the frameworks. 

I’m a consultant company, we help business owners, entrepreneurs that lack money, lack support, lack operations, lack access to their intuition perhaps. And you would see all this in front of me, you’re like, wait a minute, I was there six months ago, or wait a minute, I was there two years ago. And I’d say, hey, try this try that as it’s what worked for me. And then they would go try it, and it would work for them.  Okay, well, let’s try to figure out how to keep going on this path and put it in a framework that they could leverage it more often. 

Now what happens when you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, or at least a family, you experienced this Thomas was i’s a family business, in most cases, your partner is a part of it, you’re part of it in most cases. And so as you heal on this journey, you’re literally healing everyone. 

When you go on this journey of self mastery, you’re like, literally healing everyone around you, you’re healing yourself, you’re healing your kids, your future partner or spouse. You’re healing, so much going on this journey, and you’re learning so much in this growth process. Because this is what ultimately was the inkling of waking you up to the situation. You didn’t ask for this, but it is what it is, and you can leverage it for good, growth and more for all around you.

When Imelda passed away, I went to a medium reading. I’m not sure if people on this call, know what a medium is… a medium is a special spiritual person that can see to the other side and see the essence of who you’re talking to, after they’ve passed away. And so in essence, they can communicate with the dead. 

And in my case, I wanted to communicate Imelda, I wanted to get some questions answered. Like “Why did you leave? Why now?” Like, there’s certain things that I wanted to know, right? 

And the big lesson came from the answering that I got from Imelda was, “Hey,  I was a spiritual crutch for you”. When you have someone so spiritual with you, I would not get to my own intuition or figure out or ask these serious questions, because by the time I would go down that path, through that form of the lack, I had a solution really quick. Imelda would give me a reading, … “What do you think about this?” And she would, give you the answer, but it was a crutch. I would never go on this journey myself. 

To fully understand the growth of who I am today, it sucks, but it’s the truth: that when she got out of the picture, guess what had to happen? I had to hone these skills. I had to meditate. I had to do affirmations, I had to figure out the right structures, I had to go on this journey of growth, I had to sit there and think through “what do I really want to do”.  I can’t have this crutch to help me, I need to be empowered on this growth journey to become Brian Rassi 2.0 as you put it, but we all have that journey. 

That’s why you’re here. That’s why what’s ultimately happening in my personal opinion, when it comes to love. And healing is the opportunity, right? We could wallow in the grief, which you’ve got to experience  and get through it, feel it, feel it deeply, but what comes out the other side is the most important. What you realize as the Lack and then transcend beyond that to success.

Tom  35:58  

I think that’s the reset button and the reset doesn’t occur instantly. It’s not going to be a week, two weeks, or three months in it. Like for you it took a year to get through that experience that reset. But once that reset is done, like you said, what, what was the crutch? What were you relying on in your spouse that wasn’t making you whole?

What didn’t you do while you had that relationship that you should have been doing? Because you kind of almost took advantage of it. Right? That other person was there to fill in some holes .. What were the holes that you should fill before you get out there again? What’s the work you need to do? 

For me, I was all about business. And I wasn’t really giving much back. And for me, she was the one that on her gravestone is inscribed “A life worth living Is a life in service for others”. That’s kind of what I’m doing now, because she was filling that hole. And that was my crutch. And now I’m like, yeah, it’s not just about making money and building the next company. It’s about what my purpose is and fulfilling that purpose to serve others. 

And so just like you got rid of that intuitive crutch and spiritual crutch that you had, I definitely had a crutch with my wife. And now with her gone, you kind of have to figure out alright, how do you walk on your own and walk proudly and in honor of her, and not just limping around for the rest of your life.

Brian  37:24  

Correct. And they want you to walk around, probably they want you to go on this journey without them. They’re still with you, but you need to get your “big boy pants” on and start going on this journey of re -rouping retraining reprogramming re-establishing your identity, your values and beliefs, what you want to do, how you want to serve. 

And in that journey in that process, in that grief cycle of going through it and remembering and going on this knowledge pursuit, you get to observe through others on how they did it. And then you can pick the golden nuggets up and how you can implement them in your life. 

That’s the best way I can describe how I did it. And I have a feeling Thomas, that’s what you’ve been doing as well. In your own way. We all have our own little way to do it. And they all will work. They all will work as long as you are dedicated and devoted. I talk about devotion, and devotion is the superpower that sustains the rigors, challenge is the light in your corner that fuels you to go the distance.

Those were her lines on our last interview that she gave about a month or two before she passed away. But devotion is very key. You have to be devoted to this life of growth, and choose to grow. That’s ultimately at the end of the day, we are genetically built to grow. And just because you go through grief, and you’re experiencing a lack of love and perhaps a lack of support, a lack of something, the wake up call is to have you choose to grow through this process. To fulfill what you always wanted to fulfill anyway. 

This is part of what you asked for in your journey. This is what I asked for now as I’m living through it.  I’m growing through that. And so are you, Thomas and so is everyone else listening

Tom  39:27  

And our purpose is in that meaning and finding that meaning and living that meaning, right? 

So in the grief: experience the sadness, experience the pain, but do make a conscious choice to grow out of it. Don’t just wallow in it for the next five years. And we can say this right, Brian, because I want to give everyone a perspective. We’re five years in, so it’s not like this stuff happened overnight. We’re talking with five years of hindsight, and a perspective and a point of view that’s come from going through a lot of trials and tribulations of growth, because I don’t know about you, but mine wasn’t exactly linear at all times. Not linear at all.

Brian  40:07  

Year one, brutal. Year two, I finally felt like okay, year three, I still have Inklings. And reminiscence years four and five. I think about her all the time every day, but it’s not so emotionally charging, The emotional charge is gone. I’m not going to sit there. 

When her birthday comes around, or the date of passing comes around. I might get a tear and start shedding some tears in my eyes, but it’s nowhere near like it was year one, or year two, when those pockets came. And so I just want to give that perspective to everyone on the call that you’re always going through it. You’re always going to be thinking about that person that was so special to you, okay. But it will get easier. But only if you choose to grow through this, and start going down that path of growth, 

I can only imagine if I stayed in the grief … stayed there and re-lived it, you can relive that forever. All the time, it’s a loop that can beat the crap out of you.

Tom  41:19  

Yeah, that’s a sadness loop. With the loss, you’ve got a chance to recreate your identity. There are some that fall into the sadness loop of recreating their identity in the  loss and grief. And, even though you wrote a lot about it in the book, and I talk about it every day, I write about it every day. It’s a growth mindset. It’s not a loss mindset.

The loss is what gave us the reset and helped reshape us. But you can make the mistake of taking this and yournew  identity and your ego to be one of the victim… that you got victimized by this tragedy of disease or loss or accident, or whatever it was that took your beautiful bride, 

But you need to not wear that victim label, and get that growth mindset in place. Before we run out of time, though, I want to get to Imelda and a term she used, which is MAGIC. Tell me about MAGIC, Brian.

Brian  42:09  

MAGIC is an acronym. And the stands for Multi-dimensional Alignment with God’s Infinite Creation. And what she really meant is, and this goes back to memory, we talked about fear of failure, fear of success, you take a step back, and you have lack of success and how lack is used as a success prevention mechanism that I talked about in the book. But then there’s another step. And this is what I mean by MAGIC,

What was the real reason for that Lack or loss, it is to wake you up. That there’s a higher power, there’s a higher purpose for what you’re doing in your life. And when you experience loss, that’s you, at this time, with the wake up call, to go on this journey of self mastery. And whatever was in your spot, you chose this. 

And I say this because part of that mediumship reading with Imelda was that “we’ve done this many times in many lifetimes”. And this goes back to your belief of reincarnation, I believe in reincarnation. And we’ve had many past life regression readings where me and Imelda have come into a relationship like this and done this before. 

So this happens a lot in loved ones, and it’s good, it’s helped. So I’ll give you some peace of mind, that you will see your loved one again. It just will be in a different form.. But in this case, it’s a wake up call as to God’s infinite creation, where he said “Hey, Brian, time to figure it out on your own big guy … it’s time for you to choose to grow. It’s time for you to go on this journey, and it might take 5 to 10 years to get there. But you asked for this, and what’s gonna come out of it, and it’s gonna be amazing”. It’s just gonna be different than what it was, this is gonna be a different journey than with Imelda and me.

Tom  44:02  

To be enlightened… so now it’s your turn to become enlightened.

Brian  44:07  

Yes, my turn to become enlightened, and that’s what she really meant. I believe by the acronym MAGIC. I did not know that at the time. I know that now with hindsight and really thinking through it, as I wrote the book of what that acronym truly meant.

Tom 44:21  

Brian, what’s the one piece of advice you’d like to leave our widowers, our growth warriors with today?

Brian  44:28  

You know, I I believe that success is a skill set. You can master it. It can be taught, it can be learned. It can be applied with consistent results. Now what comes from that? And what I did not understand when I came up with that premise and had gone on this journey is it that it works for grief. 

It works for the process of grief because of your lack of love. You know, instead of working in a business as lack of money or lack of support, look at grief as a lack of love. It’s the same process.

What success is in the dictionary is to have an aim and or have an achievement and be able to actually experience that achievement. That’s what success is in the dictionary. 

And in this case, with grief, you don’t want to just survive it. You want to experience an achievement – once you achieve your own identity, life fulfilled again, and be whole again, right? That’s your goal when you go through grief, right is to become whole again become Thomas again, become Brian again. And what that is, and in what you are, that’s your goal. 

So when you go through this healing process, you are going to reap the rewards of success and master that skill set as you become who you’re supposed to, to become a 2.0 version of yourself. So choose to grow, choose to go on the Self Mastery journey, choose to get it done. And when you do that, you will master this skill set and will have exponential benefits as you go through not only you will become whole, it will have exponential benefits on the people around you, finances and so

Tom 45:56  

So the book Lack or Success. I’ve got a link to this in our Tools section under Books and Resources. So definitely check it out … you can order it on Amazon, it’s where I got mine and came in two days, I was able to get through it pretty quickly. It’s an easy read, but a really powerful read. And Brian, I think you’ve got something to share as well with our audience.

Brian 46:18  

We created something special, for those that want to take action, and of course, you can read the book and buy the book. But I want you to take action today and choose to grow. And what I did is I created our epiphanies and self mastery series. And what this is, you actually get the five biggest epiphanies on this journey that took me years and tens of thousands to figure out and all you have to do to get this is pull out your cell phone, go to the text box, type in a six digit number 411321 That’s 4113216 digit phone number. And in the body of the text, type the word MASTERY, and you’ll get asked for your email. And then you’ll get these five biggest epiphanies that it took me years to figure out and they all come with education exercises that you can use today to help reclaim your identity. Regain your Self Mastery journey that you gotta know as you go on this journey to get over grief.

Brian’s LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrassi/

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