[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Deraney, and I'm your host, Andrew. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Hey, it's a blessing to be with you and your listener. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: It's my pleasure. And I have Dorothy Graham Odell to thank for the introduction. I'm grateful she's in my life, and now that she introduced us and you're in my life. So thank you to Andrew on this show.
It's authentic, it's real. I don't even edit this thing.
And in life, we learn that life is linear, right? We grow up and people tell us, if you do ABCD and e f is going to happen, right? We're not told that something's going to come in our way and block something after one of those steps. And people have a decision to make when that happens, they either can retreat or they can plow through it or do something about it to become a stronger person. I know you are not one who would retreat or have retreated. So that's why I wanted you on, because you're a good human being and you're doing amazing things after many challenges. So if you could reach back as far as you'd like and tell us about that defining moment where you felt like you were hit upside the head and said, you know what? There is a better way to live, Andrew. And I'm going to find that better way.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So ten years ago this month, which is August of 2023, but ten years ago, it was August of 2013, I was at the height of my life. I was 28 years old. I'd been teaching for six years. I had the dream job, working with young adults and teenagers, doing religious education. We had two beautiful little girls and a third on the way, and we didn't have a perfect life. We were doing everything we could to make it the absolute best that it could be. And we had just moved back to our hometown of Boise, Idaho. I'd finished my master's degree in education. I was loving life. And within a six week period, the move, the baby, the master's degree, it all came to a screeching halt when my wife decided that she wanted to separate. And I found myself living in my parents basement. The stereotypical almost 30 year old who now does not get to be with his baby or his other girls. And this marriage and this career also has all come to a screeching halt. And I took all the blame, believing I had failed God, my wife, and those three little girls. And there I am, living in my parents basement, thinking that my life mission was over. And that was what I call my dark night of the soul.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Wow.
For all of those things to happen at the same time, especially right after you were at the peak, you were not expecting this. And that's often what happens to us. We're not expecting it. So when you're on that couch, in your darkest moment, when did you start to see the light that.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Well, I've always said that we're only as good as the people we surround ourselves with and the books that we read. And I was literally on not the couch, but on the bed in my parents basement. And I picked up Victor Frankl's book, and I was reading man's search for meaning. And if your audience doesn't know, Viktor Frankl is a survivor of the Nazi. We say concentration camps, but they just completely slaughtered everyone. They weren't concentration camps. They were genocide camps. And he made it. He was one of the survivors. And in his book, he wrote this. And I will always remember sitting on that bed, and I put it in my book, this incredible teaching. He said in that cell where he spent three years of his life, that there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom, which determined whether you would or would not become the plating of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: When I read that, it felt like he was reaching into my inner being and pulling out my heart cords and just moving me. And I said, I will not be the form of a typical inmate in this perceived imprisonment that I'm calling my parents basement.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Absolutely beautiful, very powerful. Absolutely. And in one of my dark moments of life, I read that book as well. And it had as much of an impact on me as it has you. Taking that feeling, that impact, getting out of that bed a different person because you had a visceral reaction to those words from Viktor Frankl. What happened next to get you out of that dark moment?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Well, I made a decision. I thought, what do I truly want in life? And I summed it down to, I want to be happy. And when people started asking me, hey, how are you doing, Andrew? I would literally say, I'm happy. And it was not a fake it till you make it kind of approach, which I am not a subscriber of. It was a act as if I act as if I am happy and I be a happy person. I will do happy things, and then guess what happens? I will have a happy life. So I just started one simple change, and that was telling people that I was happy regardless of my circumstances.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know what? For those who think it's one of those fake it till you make it, the truth is our brain just responds to what it hears. And so if we're thinking I'm happy, brain is going to believe it and it's going to rerecord or at least put this new recording over the old beliefs. And you're right, you're going to start doing things and it's become habit. So thank you for sharing that with the audience, because this stuff is real. It's real. All right. So now you're telling people you're happy. It's now part of you. Ah. And how did that anchoring of happiness change you and change your trajectory and your next step?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Well, it gave me something to believe in, and I began to attract the right people. That helped empower me and gave me opportunities to grow into what I get to do now, which is a speaker, a coach, and an author. And I am the guide that was guiding me. I had those people that were so influential, and now I get to be that for them today.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: That's absolutely fantastic. So what is your key topic or key message in your book, which we will get to, and in your speaking and your coaching, what's that key message or that shift you are suggesting your clients receive?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Well, it's simple, really, Drew. It's that every single one of us, deep down, has a mission, a call for our life that is yearning to be fulfilled. And most of us have learned to tune it out, so much so that we don't even know that it's still ringing, and that we can simply let go of some limiting beliefs and negative emotions that have been rooted unconsciously for probably our entire life. To be able to hear that call and answer it so that we can be of service to humanity as we so desperately need.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: It's an unbelievable the way you articulated it, when one is able to believe that and it sinks in and it does change your brain's makeup, it's powerful. And in order to really believe that, what would be the first step for people to really start to believe that what other people say is really an illusion and it's not the truth, and we create our truth.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Well, the first step is really identifying where you're at.
If we're talking about the dark night of the soul, let's get real, okay? Let's stop pretending, and let's actually acknowledge the hurt, the pain, the negative emotions of anger, sadness, whatever it may be. Fear, hurt, guilt. Let's get real as to where you're actually at.
Because until we have that perfect black velvet, we can't stick this beautiful, brilliant diamond on top of it. And we actually just need to lay that foundation and say, I am at rock bottom, or I am in a dark place. Maybe it's not the darkest place, but let's just get real that where we're at is not where we want to be.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: And it takes intention, and it is hard work, and it takes time and effort, and a lot of us will shy away from that because we want that immediate gratification, that quick fix. In order for something very important to stick in our lives, we've got to work at it.
And to be able to acknowledge that you are in a dark place, and it's okay, and I'm going to get myself out of it. We all can get ourselves out of it, right? It's within us, isn't it?
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah. You are bred. It is a part of your spiritual, your dna to be able to conquer and overcome. And that's what makes every hero's story so compelling. And you are in that story. And whether you're the villain or the victim, whether you're the hero or the guide, you get to change what the next page is going to look like in that next chapter and what the ending will be as a result.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
After you had this mindset, this paradigm shift, what massive action did you take to catapult yourself forward to become who you are now?
[00:10:40] Speaker B: I just decided to surround myself with as many people and books as I possibly could, and I changed my environment. And your environment will always be stronger than your willpower. So no matter how badly you say you want something, and I believe that you probably do, what matters is the environment that you put yourself in. So I found the people, the resources, the classes, the workshops, the company, the friends, my religious community, my family. I just became extremely intentional about who and what I spent my time with.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: So you talk about environment. Now, let's think of the physical environment. The bedroom in your parents basement. Was that part of the environment?
What you also changed, in addition to surrounding yourself and circumstances, were you able to.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah, as soon as I could. Which actually just a month into the divorce, because the separation took about six months. And as soon as I knew that, you know what? I am not going back home with my family. Then I got myself into an apartment, and I physically changed that environment. So, yes, I pulled myself out of the basement.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Because a lot of times when we talk about environment, people automatically think the physical environment, which is a big piece of it, but it's also the mental environment and cognitive environment and who we surround. But the physical aspect is important, and I think what's important to know is there's no sequence. You don't have to change your physical environment in order to change other parts of your environment in order to be able to then get out of that physical environment.
What do you think about that?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: That's true.
They go hand in hand, and it doesn't matter which hand goes first, but nothing changes until something changes. And we have to make a change. And when we change our physical environment, we change our mental and spiritual environment, our friendship environment. When we begin to make those changes, then we begin to see things differently. And that's what it takes. We change the way we look at things, and all of a sudden, the things that we're looking at change.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. All right. So we talked about, you have a book, you do speaking and you do coaching. Which came first, or were they simultaneous?
[00:12:56] Speaker B: No, not simultaneous at all. I began coaching about eight or nine years ago, and that also provided me an opportunity to begin speaking and training in small groups, not like I do today. But, yeah, that coaching and that speaking is what started everything.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Now tell me about the book, because I know I joined your Facebook group for the book, and I've been following, and when I get acclimated enough, I'm going to start being active and commenting. Tell us about the book, what inspired you to write it, and what got you to actually start? Because a lot of us have afraid of starting something like that. What did it for you? What was your spark?
[00:13:40] Speaker B: So I finished my master's degree, and I swore I would never write anything ever again.
And I think every author has that moment unless they truly grow up believing that they love books and want to be a writer, which is like 0% of the population. There's a few, but I swore off writing. And it was the end of January 2020, a very interesting time in the world. We were literally weeks away from the worldwide pandemic, and I'm standing in Zion national park in southern Utah. If you've never been, you got to go.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: You have to. And I'm looking up at this beautiful red rock canyon, this rock wall that goes up for, I don't know, hundreds of feet. And I'm having this moment in nature, and this happens often to me where I go outside and I find myself going really deep inside.
And I'm looking at this rock wall, and I'm just overcome by its grander and its beauty and the power of this canyon. And it brings me to tears. And then I hear a voice. It's my own mind. I don't know what it is, but it came from God. And it said, andrew, this is a rock, and you are my son.
Imagine what others will experience when you fulfill the measure of your creation. And now I'm, like, all on sobbing, and I'm walking away, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with all this. And then the words strength of the oak, strength of the willow came into my mind, and I knew that that was a title of a book that I hadn't even thought of writing. And I was in. I didn't know what it was going to be or when or how, but I knew that it needed to be created.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: That's unbelievable. That's an unbelievable story to be able to have some higher power. God, for you and me, speak to us when we weren't expecting it. You may have prayed, you may have asked, you may not have.
And for you to be open enough, to have an open enough mind to accept it, because I guarantee you, each of us have had that message come to us, and we didn't even notice it, and we ignored it. Either malicious, on purpose, or by accident. You were ready to receive it, and it came to you. So with that, what is the most impactful thing you've done for a client in recent memory that you can attribute to having that feeling of being that rock? Give me one.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Well, interestingly enough, before I went on that trip, I was getting bored with what I was doing in my coaching.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: That's fair.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: And it kind of shocked me, because when you're living your passion and doing what your unique gifts are calling you to do, to serve those that you are called to serve, you would think that it's just something that that passion never goes away, right. And I found myself, I remember having a client come in. We were getting ready to spend 5 hours together, do a deep dive breakthrough session, and I was literally thinking, I don't want to do this.
And what happened was it was literally a week or two after that I went on this trip, and I had this experience in Zion National park. And I came back and I was reinvigorated. And since that time, I've been able to do over 150 additional of these breakthrough sessions where I go deep and we spend 5 hours together. And a recent example is a beautiful woman who came to me. I live in Boise, Idaho. She lives in Maine, so all the way across the country. And she came to me, referred from a Family friend who said, you just got to talk to Andrew. And she had been working with a counselor for over 20 years, the same counselor, and this counselor retired, and she was feeling like, I don't know how I'm going to be able to keep my life together because I've been working with this person. And in the first hour and a half of our breakthrough session, she said to me, andrew, I now understand things about myself that I never learned in 20 years of counseling.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: And I said, that's the longest anyone's ever experienced that, but it's not the first time I've heard it. And we're able to find things that are deeply rooted in your UnconsCiouS mind, that are causing you to feel certain ways and have certain thoughts that you never even knew were there. And that is one of my favorite things that happens with these clients that I get to work with.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: And you've hit on a few very important things.
Your role is really to show your client the power they have within them and show them you have these Tools. You're not going to need me. All the time. She was counting on an external person to carry her through Life. And in an hour and a Half, you were able to let her know that she has the Tools. It's a matter of finding them and using them, and you gave her that ability back. So absolutely fantastic. Andrew, I could talk to you all day. I got two final questions.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: All right. First one, you're sitting down with young seven to ten year old Andrew, and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Say, little Andrew, you think you want to be an architect someday, and that's cute, and yet you're going to help people design and build things in their lives that they never thought possible. And I want you to be a very keen observer of those that God puts on your path. And I want you to learn as much as you possibly can from every single person along the way.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Love that.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Valuable, that is. And I'm intrigued by the architect, because you can either think of the physical architect who helps build buildings, or you can think of an architect in different ways where you can help people become the architect of their own life. I love that. All right, different hat. Now you're sitting with young Andrew, the young entrepreneur, young businessman. You want to give advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Get in line and never get out. Everyone starts at the back of the line and most people don't stay in line. And everyone at the front of the line started in the back of the line. So get in line and never get out.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Never get out. I love that. Well, Andrew, I'm going to say we've gotten to know the essence of Andrew Anderson and people are going to want to get more of you. So, audience, I definitely recommend, this guy is so selfless, Andrew. If you want to reach out to him and spend more time with him, he is gifting three. And tell me if I'm, three minute consultations for the first three people who reach out to Andrew at freecall. Andrew L. Anderson.com. First three gifting, three complimentary 30 minutes sessions with him. That's number one. Number two, if there's no need to meet with him, but you still want to get more of him, show me the book, Andrew.
Amazon. Is that on Amazon?
[00:21:07] Speaker B: All over Amazon. You can hear me read it to you. You can get it on any electronic device or you can get a hard copy.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: All right. You can use your ears. You can read yourself. Strength of the oak. Strength of the willow. And what's the subtitle down there?
[00:21:22] Speaker B: How to find courage and compassion in a turbulent world.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: We all need that, folks. Grab the book. Andrew, I got to thank you for coming into my life. I'm grateful. We are now friends and you're an amazing human being. Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing great things and people need you.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Thank you. It's an honor to be with your tribe and to the listener. If there's one thing that you can go and do today as a result of our being together, it would be go serve someone. Get outside yourself to find yourself. Go serve beautiful.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Be well, everybody.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it. If you find yourself immersed in adversity and would like to find support from other men in times of struggle, please become a member of my men's supporting men collaboration tribe by emailing me at
[email protected] expressing your interest and I'll get in touch with you, speak to you soon.
