STTS 122: Changing Your Belief System to Change Your Life With Damion Lupo
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
Release Date: 03/07/2019
A Roadmap to Resilience
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
A conversation with Lex Robinson and Brandon Mancine during which we discuss the vital characteristic that is resilience - and how to go about developing it for every aspect of your life.
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STTS 148: Celebrating Those We Lost
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
Mark and Lisa, a staff member at his Martial Arts School, shares a story about a tragedy that hit Lisa two years ago. Lisa talks about the celebration of life of her son, Leo, and how she remembered the happy times about his life.
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STTS 147: What Strength Through The Struggle Actually Means
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
Today’s episode is about the two different but powerful meanings for Strength Through the Struggle that you can use in your life. Let’s get right to it. Hello everybody! Thanks for taking the time to tune in and listen to this episode. I really appreciate your time and energy. While this episode isn’t specifically about martial arts I’m going to use them as an example. When I came up with the name for this podcast it was the result of wanting to be truthful about life. At least my experience with life. And what I’ve learned about it from my childhood, into the military and as a...
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STTS 146: What Happens In Vegas
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
What’s the opposite of “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas? I’m here to tell you in this episode of the STTS. Let’s get to it. If you live in the United States, or possibly other countries as well, you may have seen the commercials advertising a visit to the city of Las Vegas. There are dozens of commercials, all about 30 seconds long with different storylines. Each commercial, regardless of the storyline, promote the idea that as long as nobody back where you live knows about what happens, then do whatever you like in Las Vegas. Because What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. It’s...
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STTS 145: Nourishing Life
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
My wife and I are on vacation in the Dominican Republic. This episode is not about how I live some amazing life, although it is amazing in many ways. It’s not about who we live a life of luxury, traveling to exotic places and living where we want and how we want. It’s about how change for the positive can happen when the environment for it exists. Six years-ago Teresa and I were at the very same resort in the DR. We arrived the second day it was open. We opted to take the trip then because the price was outstanding by virtue of being new. At the time the staff was not that fluent in...
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STTS 144: Bitter Or Better
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
Have you ever had a moment of absolute anger? What about Outrage over something? A little indignation maybe? Maybe things didn’t go your way in a situation. Somebody hurt you. A person close to you won’t hear what you are saying. A person wronged you. Someone took advantage of you. You felt disrespected I’ve been there. I’ve lost my cool over plenty of things that were small. True misunderstanding when the other person didn’t mean it the way I took it. What about something that is righteously wrong. There is no arguing about it. It was unfair, unjust and unwanted. Something sexual...
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STTS 143: A Christian and a Buddhist Walk Into A...
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
When Your System in Life Isn’t Working Welcome Back. What we are going to chat about today is how to overwhelm can get us off track and how to overcome that. Let’s get to it. First of all, THANK YOU, to everyone who is hearing this today. I appreciate you and the fact that you took the time to listen in. These podcasts can only help if they are heard. Please share them with your friends and family. Does it ever seem as if at the end of the day things are not going your way? I mean you care. You aren’t lazy. You are working super hard every day. When the day is over you are definitely...
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STTS 142: I Got Everything I Want But...
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
A couple of years ago, I was having a really hard time breathing when I would try to sleep at night. As time went by it got worse. I was in Colorado to do some training with one of my martial arts instructors and it got to the point that I was afraid to fall asleep because I actually thought I would die. I ended up canceling my training after the first night of no sleep and flew back home to go to the VA hospital and get checked out. After a CAT scan, the Emergency Room consulting Ear Nose and Throat physician came in to see me to give me the diagnosis. He chucked a bit and said, “Looks like...
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STTS 141: How To Simplify Life Without Regret
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
I once heard a story about a famous landscape architect. He was a master at what he did. He traveled the world creating amazing gardens and landscapes for prestigious locations. It is said that on days when he felt particularly challenged, he would pull out a piece of paper from his pocket, look at it, nod, fold it up and get to work creating another masterpiece. People were astounded by the brilliant designs that would seem to come out of nowhere after he studied that tiny piece of paper. Eventually, this master designer died. After the funeral, people went to his house for food and to share...
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STTS 140: How We See Ourselves
Strength Through The Struggle's podcast
An old student of mine stopped by in the middle of July. I didn't recognize him and had to ask his name. As soon as he said it I recalled his time with me. He was a student for about 5 years. Roughly age 9-13. He was being raised by a single mom. She hoped the martial arts would help him get some discipline, direction, and focus. It was a challenge getting him to do what would help him. It was a challenge to get him to make better choices. It was a challenge to earn his trust. He was a boy then and a man of 32 now. I asked him what he had been up to. He extended both arms which were covered in...
info_outlineIt’s easy to get our lives focused on keeping ourselves entertained. There is a massive marketing machine out there everywhere you turn not to mention how the human mind is so willing to cooperate.
Buy this and you will feel great!
Go on this vacation and your kids will have memories for a lifetime!
Drive this car and people will know you are somebody!
Own this, buy that. It never stops. And it is all too easy to be sucked into its energy to consume, consume, consume.
But life wasn’t really meant for us to be constantly entertained or on a quest of consumption. There is no lasting value or meaning there for us to build a fulfilling life.
Damion Lupo is a guy who took consumption to an extreme for the average person. He regularly spent $75,000 dollars a month on fun, food, housing. Can you imagine that? He spent more money in a month, every month than most individuals make in a year.
Eventually, his life bottomed out though. His fortune was lost and his family was gone.
Once the ability to consume and be entertained went away, he, in turn, felt an emptiness inside of him. And that brought the pain.
Luckily life is filled with new beginnings. Opportunities to learn and bounce back from tragedy or mistakes.
Damion decided to get help for the next part of his journey. He found a trusted mentor. Damion, in turn, started to ask himself the same question every week. “What is True?” And that went on for two years as he rebuilt his life around values and purpose, contribution and connection.
Damion showed us, once again, what life is all about…
This hero’s, or heroine’s, journey to come to grips with what truly matters most in life. Overcoming our weak spots that trip us up, greed, self-serving behaviors, the desire to take short cuts. And in turn, find wisdom from our experiences to bring us to the next part of our life. A life of Connection and making Contribution as a way of life.