From Childhood Trauma to Purpose: How Gratitude Changed My Life
This article took me 17 years to write. Please enjoy over your next cup of coffee.
Childhood for me was a period of a lot of darkness, loneliness, and pain. When I look back on that period in my life, the concept of having dreams or a future seemed foreign to me. Life just felt like an ongoing marathon of survival, devoid of hope or ambition. This was my life and this is what I had accepted.
To this day, I still remember the exact moment all of this changed.
It was the summer of 2007, and I had stumbled across a book by complete coincidence that was just laying on a table at the local public library. It was “Unlimited Power” by Tony Robbins. While the contents of the book itself were valuable, it was what the book represented that truly changed my life — for this was the first time I realized that if I was not happy with my life circumstances, that I had the freedom and choice to do something about it. The only thing stopping me were my beliefs and my mindset. It was almost as if that book had awakened my consciousness and allowed me to experience a glimpse of self-actualization.
That moment was a definitive turning point in my life which sparked an obsession which would set me off on a lifelong journey to transform who I was and to create and live a life by design.
Fast forward to 2011…
I was inspired by the books “Think and Grow Rich” and “Psycho-Cybernetics” and decided to spend the entire summer meticulously writing out my 10-year goals in immense detail. These included the obvious things like desired location, career path, dream car, and financial situation. However, they also included intricate details like how I wanted to feel about myself, what fears I wanted to overcome, how I wanted to make others feel, what would living a life in alignment with my life purpose look like on a day-to-day. Every night for the next two years, I meditated and visualized myself accomplishing these goals. 12 years later (two years over deadline) in June of 2023 I finally checked the last item off my list and my 10 year journey was finally complete.
A few fun data points to share that have occurred since 2007:
Have averaged 2–3 books per month for the past 17 years leading to over 436 books read on various topics, including self-development, finances, therapy, memoirs of world leaders, business, metaphysics, psychology, and much more
Have listened to 10,000+ hours of podcasts, TED Talks, or other educational content
Invested over $55,000 in personal development through training, webinars, coaching, therapy, conferences, and workshops just to name a few
This journey has been both rewarding and life-changing. It is true that none of us are the same people we were 17 years ago, but I’m proud of the fact that my change was deliberate and by design.
In reflecting on my journey, as I often do, there have been some specific lessons learned that have inspired me to write this post — the biggest one would ironically come in 2016 when the Youtube algorithms would put that son of a bitch Tony Robbins back into my life with a video where he talked about gratitude.
In 2016…
I watched that video on gratitude by Tony Robbins and the seeds had been planted.
In 2017…
I started a daily gratitude practice with the help of a book called the “Five Minute Journal” made popular by Tim Ferriss in which you spend no more than 5 minutes a day writing three things that you were grateful for.
In 2019…
The impacts of gratitude began to have profound impacts on my life and I was inspired to give a keynote speech at Google on the power of gratitude.
In 2020…
Gratitude and healing through therapy helped me realize that even through all of my misfortunes, there have always been people in my life that have shown me love and kindness. Sometimes during the darkest and lowest points in my life, the random kindness and love that a stranger would show would be the only thing to help me move forward.
Coupled with the teachings of Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability, I was inspired to make a list of everyone I could think of in my life that I was grateful for, ranging from my 5th grade teacher, to that cool kid in grade school that was always nice to you, down to the random person that showed you kindness when you were feeling really down on yourself, and I embarked on a two year journey to track them all down to the best of my ability and express my gratitude and sincere thanks to the kindness and love that they had shown me.
In 2023…
After a long journey of self-healing, gratitude along with coaching had allowed me to have my strongest realization yet, which was that all of my blessings in life, such as my life purpose and my unique strengths that allow me to bless the world, were born from the traumas, abuse, and life obstacles that I’ve had to overcome. I’ve come to realize that you can’t just be grateful for your blessings, you also have to be grateful for your misfortunes and setbacks.
Present time…
I’m at the point in my life now where I wake up every single day feeling truly blessed for the life that I have and for the person that I’ve become. I’m at peace with realizing that everything happens for a reason. I thank God and the Universe for allowing me to have a prosperous business where I am able to truly be in alignment with my life purpose and spread light and love into the world in order to spark impactful change.
I spent much of November and December of 2023 reflecting on what I want this next 10 year journey to look like. During this period of reflection, a thought kept popping into my mind — which was the realization that a large part of my life was influenced by random acts of fate. Not a single day goes by where I don’t ask myself:
“Where would I be today if I didn’t stumble upon that Tony Robbins book back in 2007”
or
“Where would I be today if those random strangers hadn’t shown me love and kindness when I needed it most?”
You will never know how your random acts of kindness and love will impact someone’s life and potentially the world. Regardless of if you can see the immediate impact or not, my life journey has taught me that we all have a responsibility to GIVE if you are in a position to do so.
In the spirit of gratitude, I’ve decided to embark on a campaign called #JourneyTo100 where I will challenge myself to gift the world with 100 complimentary 2 Hour coaching sessions as my way of giving back.
If you are someone that has a true desire for change and you would like to experience the powerful impact of coaching then please click the link to my scheduler below and book a 30 minute intro call where we can discuss in more detail what you can expect from a complimentary session. This is a 100% no strings attached offer.
Link to Scheduler:
https://coaching244829.hbportal.co/schedule/65e14967eff53800256d7104
Lastly, to anyone reading this article. If you are feeling inclined to help then please consider spreading the word by sharing this article, reposting it, or simply introduce me to anyone you feel may benefit from this offer so that we can work together towards this Journey to 100.
Learn more about my origins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKVHiwOkmbg
With Love,
Coach Alex Lee
