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The Unlucky Sperm: How to Take Responsibility For Your Life with Nelson Tressler | EU 6738 min read

May 31, 2021

You may be feeling stuck in your past and struggling to create the future you want because you are still holding onto pain from the past. Have you ever stopped to think about what can happen in your life when you begin to focus on what you can control instead of trying to change what […]

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I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, marriage coach, course creator, retreat host, mother of 3, married for 23 years and host of the Empowered and Unapologetic podcast. 

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You may be feeling stuck in your past and struggling to create the future you want because you are still holding onto pain from the past. Have you ever stopped to think about what can happen in your life when you begin to focus on what you can control instead of trying to change what you can’t?

My phenomenal guest today has done just that, and he is here to share his story and encourage you to stop focusing on things you cannot change and to rather assign a positive meaning to events that have happened in your life.

Meet Nelson Tressler

Nelson Tressler is the Founder and CEO of IGotSmarter, and author of the unlucky sperm. He created a program created to support and motivate people to achieve their goals. early life was filled with trauma, struggle, and court trials.

But although his childhood was something that many of us couldn’t fathom going through, he was able to turn his life around in a positive way. He set goals, kept a positive mindset, and stayed accountable for his actions. He has developed the IGotSmarter App to help others do the same.

Visit his website and connect on FacebookLinkedIn, and Twitter.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Get unstuck from your past
  • You are a product of your choices
  • Assign a positive meaning

Get unstuck from your past

Everyone has difficulties in their life, and everyone deals with things in different ways. However, if something terrible happens to you, either through life or by the misdeeds of another person, if you wait for them to change before you do, you will be waiting a long time.

“If I move forward, then they’re going to think [what they did] was okay, so I can’t” … you are going to be waiting for a very long time. As a matter of fact, you are literally handcuffed to your past and you will stay handcuffed to your past until you are willing to go ahead and do something different. (Veronica Cisneros)

If you stay connected to your past, your life will get stuck, and the only way to get unstuck is to take 100% responsibility for your successes – which also means taking responsibility for your failures. This is good to do because it means that you know that you belong to yourself and that your life is up to you.

You are a product of your choices

You are not a victim of your circumstances but you are a product of the choices that you have made and make every day.

You need to take 100% responsibility for your own success and you can’t control what’s going on in the world and you can’t control what’s going on in your relationships … but what you can control is what you can do. I believe it is utter insanity to worry about and focus on the things you can’t control. (Nelson Tressler)

When you turn your attention inwards and start focusing on what you can control and take action over, that is where you start to find your power. Similarly, when you hand over decisions about your life to other people, that is where you lose power.

Retain your power by taking control of your choices and actions: you cannot control the waves of the ocean but you can control how you set up your sails.

Assign a positive meaning

When you go through incredibly difficult periods in your life and come out the other side, what people often want to do is shut it off and push it far away from themselves because it represented a terrible time or immense pain.

Finding a positive meaning does not mean that you gloss over that pain, it means finding some value in what you experienced that you can take away into your life as a lesson to yourself or even as a lesson to others.

In this way, you also regain some power back from that situation and convert it into something that serves you instead of letting it be something that hurt you. By learning from it and putting it to rest, you are able to move forward and not get stuck.

One of the things I like to say when things are hard is “this isn’t happening to me, it’s happening for me” and I just have to find out what that is, why is it happening for me? … a lot of this is mindset. (Nelson Tressler)

Books mentioned in this episode:

Nelson Tressler – The Unlucky Sperm Club: You are Not a Victim of Your Circumstances but a Product of Your Choices

Useful links:

Meet Veronica Cisneros

Veronica Cisneros | Empowered And Unapologetic PodcastI’m a licensed therapist and women walk into my office every day stressed and disconnected. As a mom of three daughters, I want my girls to know who they are and feel confident about their future. I can’t think of a better way to help other women than by demonstrating an empowered and unapologetic life.

So I started  Empowered and Unapologetic to be a safe space for women to be vulnerable and change their lives for the better before she ever needs to see a therapist.

Whether you listen to the podcast, join the free Facebook communityjoin the VIP community, or attend our annual retreat,  you’re in the right place. Let’s do this together!

Thanks for listening!

Podcast Transcription

[NELSON TRESSLER]
That you need to take 100% responsibility for your own success and you can’t control what’s going on in the world. You can’t even control what’s going on in the relationships that you’re in, but what you can control is what you can do.
[VERONICA CISNEROS]
Hey girl. Imagine a life where you feel supported, connected and understood. I get it. Being a mom is hard, especially when you’re spinning so many plates. We exhaust ourselves trying to create the perfect life for our family. You deserve to enjoy your family without the stress perfectionism brings. On this podcast, I provide practical and relatable life experiences. I teach women quick and easy to use strategies to help them reclaim their identity, re-ignite their marriage and enjoy their children. If you’re ready to be challenged, then pull up a chair, grab a pen and paper because it’s about to go down. I’m Veronica Cisneros, a licensed marriage and family therapist and this is the Empowered and Unapologetic podcast.
[VERONICA]
Hey ladies, welcome to Empowered and Unapologetic. I’m your host, Veronica Cisneros. So today’s guest is the founder and CEO of IGotSmarter and he’s also the author of The Unlucky Sperm. He created a program to support and motivate people to achieve their goals early. On in life he was filled with trauma, struggle and court trials, but although his childhood was something that many of us couldn’t fathom going through, he was able to turn his life around in a positive way. He set goals, kept a positive mindset and stayed accountable to his actions. He has developed the IGotSmarter app to help others do the same. So please help me by welcoming Nelson Tressler. Hey Nelson.
[NELSON]
Hey, thanks for having me on Veronica. I appreciate it.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. Absolutely. I have to say like, like I said, offline, like just reading your story it’s like, yes, it is definitely like, you can’t imagine this and it does sound like something from a movie, like totally. Just listening to your story and it’s just like one struggle after another struggle, not only in childhood, but also business and just all facets of your life. It’s like, “Holy moly, can’t this man just catch a break? So can you please share with us your story?
[NELSON]
Yes. So quite the origin story, my mom got pregnant with me when she was 15 years old and while she was pregnant with me, her father, who was the local trash collector in a small town in central Pennsylvania, drove the town square, there he spotted two police officers, stuck a gun out the window and opened fire on those police officers killing one and critically wounding the other. Eventually my grandfather was captured and brought to stand trial where he was facing the death penalty and my mom testified during his murder trial that the reason that her father had shot and killed the police officer was that that police officer had raped her and she was now pregnant with his baby who was me. My mom’s testimony worked. The first trial ended in a hung jury. Eventually my grandfather was tried again where they took the death penalty off the table because of my mom’s testimony. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole where he eventually spent the rest of his life more than 40 years behind bars.
[VERONICA]
Holy moly. I’ve already heard this story and I’m still like, “Oh my God. This is crazy.” It’s crazy. So you mentioned in one of your interviews, “I took responsibility for my life.” Can you please tell me what that means because growing up, I’m sure it wasn’t that easy to just take responsibility for your life, knowing everything that had happened.
[NELSON]
Yes. I mean, my life didn’t get any easier from there. I mean, my mom is 15-years-old when she had me and eventually she married a man who would become my stepfather and he was an alcoholic, very physically and emotionally abusive. We had four more children and the lifestyle that my mom and stepdad were living, it fell upon me to take care of my siblings from diaper changing to bottle feeding. Eventually one day my stepfather was walking home drunk from a bar and there was somebody else driving home drunk from that bar and they ended up hitting and killing him. It was at this time, here’s my mom, she’s dropped out of school in the eighth grade, never worked outside the home and as hard as her life has been to this point, and it has been brutal, losing my stepfather left her with no hope.

It was at this time that she decided that she was going to take her own life and fortunately for everybody she wasn’t successful but when she got out of the hospital she determined that she couldn’t care for all of us on her own. And that’s when our family got split up and I went to go live with my grandmother, who was the wife of the man who shot and killed the police officer. For the first time in my life, my basic survival needs were being met. I mean, with my mom, we never had food in the refrigerator. It was always a crap shoot, whether or not you are going to have the lights when you hit the switch. You were constantly worried that my stepdad was going to come home drunk and beat me or my mom.

So for the first time in my life, living with my grandmother, I didn’t have to really worry about survival anymore. And I could start really focusing on where I was heading and where my life was heading and what I wanted for my life. I remember one day a counselor came from the local university and they talked about what you needed to do to get into college and I remember thinking to myself, “Man, if I could get a college degree, my life would be perfect from there on out.” But to this point I had already failed the fourth grade. I got placed into special ed. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t spell, come to find out I had dyslexia. So you know when you tell yourself, you’re going to try to do something hard, all of a sudden that voice in the back of your head that wants you to stay where you’re at, they want you to stay comfortable, they start screaming to you all the reasons that you shouldn’t even attempt it.

And I remember thinking, Nelson you’re in special ed. You can’t read, you can’t write, you can’t spell. Of the family, my mom’s family, she had 15 brothers and sisters. Only two of them had ever graduated from high school. None had ever gone to college. And I remember thinking to myself, geez, I’m going to be lucky to graduate high school, let alone go to college. But I saw where my life was headed and it sucked and I really had nothing to lose. So from that day on, I started to kind of do the things that I thought would get me into college and four schools later, 12 years later, four years in the air force, I finally became that first person in my family to graduate from college.

That’s when I became obsessed with goals and personal development and for the first time I really saw the potential that lied within me. You know, I came through this trial and being the person I was and my family, and always being looked upon and no one really expecting anything good out of me and I realized, holy cow, look what I did. You know, it was hard. It took a long time. It was a struggle, but I did it and then that’s when I became obsessed with goals and personal development and realized truly that with enough time, enough energy and enough focus that I could accomplish anything. And I’ve used that over the last 25 years to design a life that I couldn’t have even imagined growing up.
[VERONICA]
Holy moly. Holy moly. That is like, I kind of want to just start clapping. Here’s why. So many of us get stuck. So many of us get stuck and well, this happened to me. So I have to wait. I can’t tell you how many women, not only in my private practice, but also the women I coach. Well, I can’t, because I’m waiting for this person to accept me. I can’t move forward because there was trauma, let’s say such as rape and there’s no way, there’s no possible way that I can go ahead and move forward. This person has to hold themselves accountable. This person has to be responsible. And so if I move forward, then they’re going to think it’s okay and so I can’t, and it’s like, well, girl, you’re going to be waiting for a very long time. As a matter of fact, you’re like literally handcuffed to your past and you will stay handcuffed to your past until you’re willing to go ahead and do something different. But it’s not only a risk. It’s also taking a chance. So with everything against you, with, I mean, your mom, your mom’s not necessarily cheering you on saying, “Come on Nelson, you can go out and do it. And yes, you have dyslexia. However, we’re going to go ahead and get you tutors.” You didn’t have that. In addition to, you didn’t even have a father figure. The father figures you’ve had were all a bit dysfunctional.
[NELSON]
Yes. And the one thing that I learned and listening to what you just said about some of the issues with some people that you help is the day that my life kind of turned around was the day that I took 100% responsibility for my success.
[VERONICA]
Amen.
[NELSON]
And you mentioned my book, The Unlucky Sperm Club. The subtitle of that is You are Not a Victim of Your Circumstances. You are a Product of Your Choices. And that’s the one thing that I’ve learned and we teach in our program, IGotSmarter that you need to take 100% responsibility for your own success and you can’t control what’s going on in the world. You can’t even control what’s going on in the relationships that you’re in, but what you can control is what you can do.. and I believe that it is, it is utter insanity to try to, to worry about and focus on the things that you can’t control. But when you turn that inside and you start focusing on what you can control, that’s when you take back that power, that’s when you start understanding that your choices matter, because if you’re giving away those heartaches, if you’re giving away the problems in your relationships, in your life to somebody else or something else, you’re also giving away all the power to fix those.

And when I determined that, “Hey, I’m in charge. I can’t control what somebody does to me. I can’t control what’s going on in the world, but I can control how I react to it,” that’s when I took back the power. And that’s when I realized I’m in charge. You know, I can’t control the waves of the ocean, but I can control the ways that I set my sail and took 100% complete control of my success. And that’s made all the difference.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. So how does vulnerability plant all of this?
[NELSON]
I’m actually getting better at being vulnerable for the longest time. For the longest time I showed no vulnerability. I mean, the family that I grew up in, if you showed that it was like a pack of dogs. You never wanted to let them see you cry or even show with motion and that was just not part of our culture. My wife’s family is the total opposite. They cry at Hallmark Commercials and so I’ve gotten, I’ve kind of been acclimated into showing your feelings and knowing that it’s okay and that you’re not going to be judged for it. In fact that they like when you show your feelings because it lets them know that you’re human, is what they tell me. Because when I came into this I was kind of that stoic, nothing bothered me and I’d never showed emotion and they taught me how to do that and taught me that it was actually healthy and okay to open up and be vulnerable and let people know that you’re not perfect and that you do have feelings and that things that they say or do might hurt your feelings. So it was, it’s been an adjustment for me.
[VERONICA]
So I appreciate you just saying all of that. My question is how did all of this impact your relationship? And let me explain a little. You were living this life. You’re going after a goal, goal, goal and so you went literally from one extreme failure, you know giving up in school, like not really being so attentive to next level, I’m going to go ahead and meet every single goal I have, not a lot in between. When you ended up getting married, how did that impact your relationship?
[NELSON]
Yes, so because of the family I came from, I mean the one thing that I could control was I told myself my family’s never going to want food. They’re never going to have to worry about turning on the lights. So I set out to work as hard as I could to make as much money as I could and I felt like that was how I could do my part. The problem was, the only, I didn’t have that model family to kind of see how things were and because I was doing so well financially and in my career and things like that, when I came home from work, I expected my Stepford wife to meet me at the door with three very well-manicured boys setting at the table with the napkin, strung over their lap. And that’s not what I got.

I would come home to crying babies and the house is a wreak and my wife heating up macaroni and cheese from the night before. And I lashed out at her, and I talk a lot about this in my book, The Lucky Sperm Club and I felt like she wasn’t trying hard enough. I had these expectations that were so high. I wanted it to be that perfect family because of where I came from and I felt like, “Geez, I’m doing my part. I’m doing everything I can. Why aren’t you trying harder? I know you can do it.” And we ended up you know, going through some really rough times. We separated a couple of times, again, I talk about that in the book and, you know it was a struggle and it was touch and go, but there was one thing that happened. I mean, we both wanted to be married and my number one goal is I want to be married for 50 years to my wife and I just celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary. So I’m halfway there.

And you know, we always joke about that. I always say, you know what, it’s the 18 happiest years of my life, because we had some rough times in there. But the one thing that I started to do that made a huge difference was I replaced my expectations with appreciation. You know, I saw all these other people that just loved my wife and thought she was incredible and I’m like, “What are they looking at?” I couldn’t see it, but then I kind of took a step back and I realized, man, she is incredible, but I just had these unrealistic expectations, these expectations of perfection that nobody could have lived up to. And that’s what I was judging her off of. But when I took that step back and just started to appreciate everything that she did great, and really for the first time saw how incredible she was at being a mother and raising these great kids and being a great wife and always putting everybody ahead of her, that’s when I just started to fall in love with her all over again.
[VERONICA]
Would you say that those expectations were all fear-based?
[NELSON]
Yes, they absolutely were fear-based. I didn’t want to live the life that I had lived. I didn’t want my kids to live that life and when I saw that it wasn’t perfect at home and having it the way that I thought it should be, it scared me to death. Yes.
[VERONICA]
Yes. I only asked that because I was that same way. I can’t say I grew up the exact way you did. However, there was a whole bunch of dysfunction in my upbringing and the same with my husband’s. So for me, I’m very much like a go-getter, like, “Okay, well, that’s the goal. Let’s go ahead and take it this next level.” And I can get very, very easily sidetracked in work and reaching numbers and whatever. And one thing that I constantly get caught up in, or I did constantly get caught up in is you’re trying to go ahead and meet all of these expectations to go ahead and make up for everything that happened in your past. How did that play in to your life?
[NELSON]
Yes, I mean, I think that was definitely what was happening with me. I wanted to go out there and take over the world and, there was a lot of, you know, the town that I came from and the life that I lived in my family, there were people who didn’t expect anything out of me. And they expected me to probably end up in jail or live a miserable life. So I think there was a lot of it in me too, that I was going to prove everybody wrong. So I think that made me work even harder. I just didn’t want my family to have to suffer through a lot of the things that I suffered through and I just busted my butt, but fortunately for me, I mean, my kids were always my number one priority. So it wasn’t, I didn’t get to the point where I was missing sports games or school events or anything like that. So thankfully, I didn’t go down that path, but there were definitely nights when the kids would go to bed, that I would stay up until three in the morning working and trying to provide for them.
[VERONICA]
That’s something that, so that’s where a lot of miscommunication happens, I see in couples, especially in marriages, is a wife, and what I hear from a lot of my clients is, “Well, he’s too busy for me. He doesn’t show us love. He’ll come to games or he’ll sit at the dinner table, but he’s not necessarily present.” And what a lot of women don’t realize is men aren’t necessarily taught to go ahead and express emotion. Men aren’t taught to be vulnerable. Matter of fact, like you’ve mentioned earlier, it’s highly discouraged. Like you show any form of vulnerability, somebody is kicking your butt. So what was it or did you, were you able to go ahead and communicate with your wife? Listen, “I’m trying to go ahead and make up for my past and I realized that this is impacting our marriage. I don’t know how to express love. I don’t know any other way. Teach me.”
[NELSON]
Yes. I mean, we went to counseling during our hard times, a couple of times, and talk through some of that and the therapist kind of pulled a lot of that stuff out. But yes, I mean, vulnerability, is not something that a man is going to, at least me it is chocking up there as one of their number one traits. I don’t know my, I think my wife understood that and realized that and kind of compensated for me, but yes, it was a struggle then, and although I’ve gotten better at it, I’m still not crying at Hallmark Commercials by any means.
[VERONICA]
We don’t want you to.
[NELSON]
I’ve got a lot of work to do.
[VERONICA]
We don’t need you to go that far. We don’t need to go that far. What advice would you give to the woman who is married to someone like you? Like, what do we need to understand so that we can connect more?
[NELSON]
You know what I think would really help is I think you have to have tolerance with that because that’s where I think a man gets his worth, is how he’s providing for his family. And I know that’s what I was. Hey you’re driving a nice car. We’re living in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, and our kids are going to good schools. Like I have worth as a man and, you know I think a wife needs to understand that that’s where that comes from, but there’s nothing to say that you can’t compromise and say, “You know what? I understand you got to go out and take over the world, but at the dinner table, let’s put away the phone. Let’s not talk about work and let’s talk about us and our family and things like that.”

So having those little slots of time that are reserved for that and then as a wife being okay, if it’s not that slot of time, that it’s okay, that your husband’s out there trying to take over the world and understanding that he’s doing that for you and that’s the way that he’s showing his love. But you need both of those and I think if you give him, “Okay, here’s an hour at dinner and after dinner that we’re going to talk about life and family and schedules, and you’re going to be here and present with me. And besides that I’ll take more of it if you can give it to me, but I’m also not going to be irritated whenever you’re out there doing the things that you feel like you need to do.”
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. I love that. I love that. I agree. I agree a hundred percent.
[BREAK PROMO]
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[VERONICA]
You being so open, honest, and raw in your book and with your story, that shows great vulnerability. And I appreciate you sharing that with us and also, I appreciate you opening up about your marriage and how all of that’s kind of impacted you all together. You mentioned a lot about meaning. What would you say was the meaning for your childhood?
[NELSON]
Yes. You know, and I love this, this one concept has changed my life because for the longest time in my childhood you know, when I joined the air force, I never moved back to that small town because of everything I represented, my family represented. And for the first time I was in the air force and I could say my last name and it didn’t mean anything to anybody and it was very liberating and for the first time I thought, “You know what? I can be anybody I want to be and my last name doesn’t mean anything.” So there was that and then when I met my wife, and I didn’t talk about this with anybody, but when I met my wife and we were getting serious and thinking about marriage, I felt, “Okay. I need to tell her my past and my family history.”

And I told her, but I never told anybody else. I never told my kids, I never told my friends or coworkers or in-laws. That weakened me. I hated that part of my life and what it represented and all the pain that it brought me. So I never even wanted to think about it. But then as I kind of got to this stage of my life and was able to sell some businesses and figuring out, okay, what do you want to do with the rest of your life, I started to think about why I had lived the life that I lived. And for the first time I started to think, “You know what, Nelson, you might have lived that life so that you can help other people, help, inspire other people and motivate other people and help other people realize that they’re not a victim of their circumstances, that they’re a product of their choices.”

And for the first time in my life, you know I truly believe everything, anything that happens to us, we get to assign meaning. And for the first time in my life, I started to assign a positive meaning to those events and my childhood and the circumstances of my birth. And all of a sudden, instead of it weakening me, it strengthened me and it motivated me and it inspired me. Same exact events. The only thing that changed was that I gave it a different meaning and I think we can all do that with everything that happens to us in our lives, is assign a positive meaning. I know sometimes it’s hard and it’s hard for me, and I have to get super creative to kind of, okay, what’s here? What am I going to learn from this? Or how is it going to strengthen me? It’s hard sometimes, but I think it’s possible that we can give a positive meaning to everything that happens to us in life.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. I agree. I think it’s so important. Otherwise, we get stuck. And I love that you said what have we learned from it? And for most of us, if we look at it in that light well, it didn’t take us down, we didn’t die, it didn’t end our life. You know, it felt, it was painful. It was traumatic and I’m able to go ahead and still move forward. I love it.
[NELSON]
Yes. I mean, one of the things I like to say when things are hard is this isn’t happening to me, it’s happening for me. And I just have to find out what that is, why is it happening for me? It’s a lot of mindset. I mean, a lot of this is mindset and what you’re going to bring. I mean, especially with relationships. And again, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve been to counseling, I’ve been separated. We’ve talked divorce, but man, as I sit here and just celebrated, my 25th wedding anniversary is what I can tell you is it is worth it to work it out. And you know fear does not play very much in my life. But the one thing that scares me to death is if I wouldn’t have worked it out with my wife, the life that I would have forfeited, all the memories that I would have forfeited. That scares me and I’m so blessed that we were able to work it out and figure it out.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. What do you think was on both of your sites for you to go out and work it out?
[NELSON]
Yes, I mean, I think we both loved each other. Of course we both wanted a good family. We both had strong faith. I mean, it’s a true miracle that we made it. So I think there were so many things you know, as we looked back and after kind of making it this far and believe me, we’re under no illusion that we’ve made it. There’s still a lot of work and still a lot of things that we need to do, but I think having that goal together to live happily ever after sometimes there’s ebb and flow in that and ups and downs and you just got to understand that it’s that long-term perspective. And I think getting through those trials and tribulations in our marriage early on proved to us that we can get through it if we want to. So now whenever we kind of have a disagreement or something, one, we don’t blow it up like we used to because we understand a lot of it is small stuff and we try not to sweat that, but we also realize you know what, no matter what comes our way, if we really want to, we can get through it. And not only can we get through it, that it’ll be worth it when we do.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. I love that. I love that you just said that. So my last two questions, what are you doing right now to live the life you want to live?
[NELSON]
I’m living life with purpose. We talked a little bit about IGotSmarter and that program and the app. Every single day, I am planning out my day. I know what my goals are, I know what actions I need to take to achieve those goals. I’m learning gratitude and giving thanks for everything that I have. So I am living life with purpose, and I know where I want to end up. I know I want to end up at 135 years old, surrounded by five generations of my posterity and everybody just looking down and thinking what a great experience it was to have me in their lives. That’s what I’m shooting for and I try to make those choices to make that become a reality.
[VERONICA]
I love that. I love that. Awesome. My last question, and I know you’re a male, and I’m still going to ask this because of everything you’ve shared, what advice would you give to the mom who feels stressed and disconnected? That mom that’s reheating that ‘n’ and cheese, what advice would you give her?
[NELSON]
Things will get better. I think there’s so many moms out there that feel like, and I hear this from my wife, she sees the Facebook moms that look like they’re having this perfect life. And that’s the one thing that I had, have to laugh is somebody had read my book and they had known us, our sons had played baseball 10 years ago and he came up to me and he said, “Man, I read your book. And I can’t believe that you guys were going through that because I looked at you and your family and thought you guys had it all together.” And we are all struggling and you know what, every single day is a new beginning. It’s a new day to start over and I think there’s so many people that want to wait until everything is perfect to start living that life that they want to live.

But my one suggestion is start today and start where you’re at. That’s the only place we can start. You know, don’t wait for things to get better, don’t wait for all the traffic lights to turn green before you head down that road. Start today, start where you’re at, and then focus on what you can control because it’s insanity to try to focus on what your spouse is doing or what your kids are doing. Focus on how you can create this life and design this life that you want to do and what you’ll find out is everything else will come together as you’re doing what you can control. And I think you feel a lot more in control because all of a sudden you’re making the choices that you can make but if you’re focused on all the things that are happening outside of your control, it’s a rough existence.
[VERONICA]
I wanted to go ahead and make sure I touched on this too. Your app, IGotSmarter. How can it help us?
[NELSON]
Yes, so, I mean, it’s a full-blown goal fulfillment program and what it does is one, you go through a self-assessment and you make sure that you’re crystal clear on what you have and you reflect upon your life and what’s worked and what hasn’t worked. You learn how to write a goal. There’s just so many, I mean, here we are in mid January, I don’t know when this will air, but you know, 92% of people have already failed on their new year’s resolutions. I mean, there’s a lot of people struggling out there with achieving their goals. And this program helps you stick to your goals. You can invite a success partner that’s working on their own goals to help you. Through the app, you have instinct communication. They know when you’re doing your morning ritual or your evening ritual, when you’ve checked off a milestone.

Another thing that I think we do that really helps people is we all have these big, hairy, audacious goals, and our mind has trouble wrapping around it. So what we’ve done is we teach people how to break those big goals down into what we call a four-week sprint and now all of a sudden, your mind can really wrap around, “This is where I want to be in four weeks.” And we break that down into milestones. And here’s where I want to be by the end of the week and then every single day, you plan out what you’re going to do to achieve that milestone and eventually that goal and your mind can get behind what you have to do today. But if you’re thinking about goals you want to do five years from now, 10 years from now, there’s no urgency. There’s no real clear vision of what needs to be done.

So this program has changed people’s lives. It’s changed my life and it’s not just something that’s thrown out on paper or research. This is what got me from where I was to where I am today. I’ve used these strategies and techniques for the past 25 years and I’ve patched up everywhere where I failed with goals and personal development, and really put it through in this program and put it into an app. So it’s easy to use. If you want to live an exceptional life, you need to plan it and you need to live with purpose. It’s not just going to happen for you.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely. I agree. A hundred percent. So where can we find it?
[NELSON]
It’s both in Apple and on Android. So you find it on the app stores. You can also go to nelsontrussler.com and there, we’re giving away 30 days free to make sure it’s a good fit for you. So you can go on there and get it for free for a month and try it out. And my book is also on nelsontressler.com, Amazon, and anywhere books are sold.
[VERONICA]
Your book, I think it, I believe is something that both, you know a woman and her husband, they can gain so much from it.
[NELSON]
I think, you know if you’re struggling with marriage and relationships I think the book will change your life. I mean, that’s what I kind of wrote it from. I mean, my marriage and my family is my number one goal above everything else and that’s the one thing that I wanted people to realize is, you know what, everybody struggles and there’s a few, it’s a memoir slash self-help. So at the end of every chapter, there’s the things that have helped me through it. And yes, if you’re struggling, it’s a great read.
[VERONICA]
Yes. I appreciate the male perspective too. I really do. So where can we find you? So you gave us your website. Are you on social media?
[NELSON]
Yes. I’m on all the socials. I’m new at social media so I’m building those up. I’m trying to build it out on Facebook and Instagram. But yes, I’m there and post great messages on there of positive and encouragement. And that’s what I’m trying to do for everybody.
[VERONICA]
Okay. Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
[NELSON]
Yes. Thanks for having me, Veronica. Great conversation. Appreciate it.
[VERONICA]
Absolutely.

Many women lose their own identity in the shadow of being a mom and a wife. We are a community of women who support each other. We leave perfectionism behind to become empowered and unapologetic. I want to personally invite you to join our girl gang. It’s a free Facebook community for women just like you. Go to www.facebook.com/groups/empoweredandunapologetic. See you there.

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Empowered and Unapologetic is part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a family of podcasts that changes the world. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution or Imperfect Thriving, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

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I’m Veronica, your new Boss MOM Mentor with no filter and no BS. 

I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, women’s coach, course creator, and retreat host. Married for OVER 20 years, raising three girls, and the host of the Empowered and Unapologetic podcast. 

Enough about me… 

My jam? Helping high-achieving women thrive both at home and in the hustle of work.

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