Find Your Inner Hero: How Adam Jablin Overcame Fear and Addiction

Stephen Box: 00:00:00

If you desire to create a better life, but you find yourself

Stephen Box: 00:00:02

constantly going back to the same stories, the same beliefs, the same

Stephen Box: 00:00:06

old patterns, the same addictions, then you are in the right place.

Stephen Box: 00:00:11

This week on Unshakable Habits, I have a special guest, the founder

Stephen Box: 00:00:17

and creator of The Hero Project, Mr.

Stephen Box: 00:00:19

Adam Jablin.

Stephen Box: 00:00:20

And Adam's going to talk to us about his own story of recovery and share

Stephen Box: 00:00:25

how fear is really the driving force.

Stephen Box: 00:00:29

Behind this struggle.

Stephen Box: 00:00:31

And that's coming up next, right here on Unshakable Habit.

Intro: 00:00:36

The right habits can help you have it all.

Intro: 00:00:38

More time, better health, improved relationships, and less stress.

Intro: 00:00:43

But most people lack the tools to stick with those habits

Intro: 00:00:46

long enough to see results.

Intro: 00:00:48

That is about to change.

Intro: 00:00:50

Welcome to Unshakable Habits with your host, Stephen Box.

Intro: 00:00:54

It's time to take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable.

Stephen Box: 00:01:02

Welcome back.

Stephen Box: 00:01:02

This is episode number 73 of Unshakable Habits.

Stephen Box: 00:01:06

I am your host Stephen Box, and this week we're gonna be talking about fear.

Stephen Box: 00:01:12

Whether it is the fear of change, the fear of failure, or even the fear of success.

Stephen Box: 00:01:18

And more specifically, we're going to talk about how that fear often

Stephen Box: 00:01:21

manifests itself as us wanting to stay in our comfort zone of the past.

Stephen Box: 00:01:27

So we keep telling ourselves the same stories and the same beliefs

Stephen Box: 00:01:31

and following the same patterns and falling into the same addictions.

Stephen Box: 00:01:36

This week, I have a special guest with me, Mr.

Stephen Box: 00:01:40

Adam Jablin, who is a renowned recovery and performance coach.

Stephen Box: 00:01:44

Welcome Best selling author and keynote speaker.

Stephen Box: 00:01:48

He's been featured on ESPN, FOX, CNBC, TNT, BDT, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Stephen Box: 00:01:58

His mission and purpose is to free people from addictions.

Stephen Box: 00:02:02

Faulty Dependencies, Fears, Doubt, and Anxiety.

Stephen Box: 00:02:07

Adam ignites the hero within so you can be fully alive.

Stephen Box: 00:02:11

He's the founder and creator of The Hero Project, a high level coaching program

Stephen Box: 00:02:16

that has helped thousands of people.

Stephen Box: 00:02:18

The work focuses on empowering individuals to take control of their lives, mentally,

Stephen Box: 00:02:23

spiritually, physically, and emotionally.

Stephen Box: 00:02:26

So you guys can see why I thought Adam would be a great guest, because

Stephen Box: 00:02:29

we have a lot of alignment there.

Stephen Box: 00:02:32

Adam's own personal journey of triumph over alcoholism and addiction

Stephen Box: 00:02:37

awakened his abilities to help other people rediscover their true selves

Stephen Box: 00:02:43

and experience life to the fullest.

Stephen Box: 00:02:46

So I'm very excited to I wanted to introduce you guys to Adam today,

Stephen Box: 00:02:50

but before I do that, I just wanted to quickly share with you a little

Stephen Box: 00:02:54

personal insight here about this.

Stephen Box: 00:02:58

Some of you may have heard the story before, a lot of you may not have,

Stephen Box: 00:03:01

but the short version of the story is growing up, I was bullied and it

Stephen Box: 00:03:06

created a situation for me where I really took on this mentality of I

Stephen Box: 00:03:13

need to be better than other people.

Stephen Box: 00:03:15

I need to show people that they're wrong about me.

Stephen Box: 00:03:17

I need to be able to defend myself.

Stephen Box: 00:03:18

And the best way to defend myself was this mindset and philosophy of the

Stephen Box: 00:03:23

best defense is a good offense, right?

Stephen Box: 00:03:25

And from that standpoint, I had a very aggressive personality.

Stephen Box: 00:03:32

We'll just put it that way because that's the nice way to say it right now.

Stephen Box: 00:03:35

I was a jerk.

Stephen Box: 00:03:36

It's the other way to say it, right?

Stephen Box: 00:03:38

But.

Stephen Box: 00:03:38

I was very successful in what I did.

Stephen Box: 00:03:40

I was very good at sales, and there came a point in my career where I was being

Stephen Box: 00:03:45

held back because of my personality.

Stephen Box: 00:03:48

I wasn't getting opportunities to advance in leadership and be able to

Stephen Box: 00:03:54

earn more income and do bigger things.

Stephen Box: 00:03:58

Because of my personality, it wasn't a good mesh for leadership.

Stephen Box: 00:04:04

And I knew that it was a problem.

Stephen Box: 00:04:07

I knew I needed to make changes, but my identity was so ingrained at that

Stephen Box: 00:04:13

point where I felt like, Hey, if I stop being this way, what happens, right?

Stephen Box: 00:04:18

Those ghosts of being bullied started to come back to haunt me a little bit,

Stephen Box: 00:04:23

and I was afraid to change and become This less aggressive version of me.

Stephen Box: 00:04:29

Now, that doesn't mean I became someone who just People could walk over, whatever.

Stephen Box: 00:04:33

I was still very assertive, I still was not afraid to stand up for myself,

Stephen Box: 00:04:38

but I had to learn to do it in a much smarter way, and I learned, had to learn

Stephen Box: 00:04:44

to become a leader, and thankfully I did, because that's why I ultimately

Stephen Box: 00:04:48

became a coach, was those skills I developed during that transition, and

Stephen Box: 00:04:53

had I not gone through that experience, I wouldn't be the coach that I am today.

Stephen Box: 00:04:57

But at that moment at that time it was a super scary transition for me.

Stephen Box: 00:05:03

It's so As Adam and I were chatting in our interview, I really just

Stephen Box: 00:05:08

felt such a connection to what he was talking about when he started

Stephen Box: 00:05:12

talking about these different levels of fear, because I thought about it.

Stephen Box: 00:05:16

It's man, that, that's me.

Stephen Box: 00:05:17

I had that, right?

Stephen Box: 00:05:18

I didn't, at the moment, maybe realize it was fear.

Stephen Box: 00:05:21

I didn't say Oh, I'm afraid to change.

Stephen Box: 00:05:24

Looking back and thinking about the concerns that I

Stephen Box: 00:05:27

had, the worries that I had.

Stephen Box: 00:05:28

The stories, the beliefs, all that stuff I kept telling myself.

Stephen Box: 00:05:33

Yeah, it was definitely some fear there, even though I didn't

Stephen Box: 00:05:36

recognize that on the surface level.

Stephen Box: 00:05:38

Below the surface, it was definitely there.

Stephen Box: 00:05:41

with that, guys, allow me to introduce you to our guest, not

Stephen Box: 00:05:45

just today, but all week long, Mr.

Stephen Box: 00:05:47

Adam Jablin.

Adam Jablin: 00:05:49

Thanks for having me, man.

Adam Jablin: 00:05:50

It's a privilege.

Stephen Box: 00:05:52

So for people who maybe are not familiar with you already,

Stephen Box: 00:05:55

could you just take a few minutes to explain to us a little bit about your

Stephen Box: 00:05:59

story, your background, and what makes you the expert on overcoming fear?

Adam Jablin: 00:06:06

Yeah, my, Background really, I would say starts with my

Adam Jablin: 00:06:10

recovery and my sobriety and I'll be clean and sober 18 years coming in July.

Stephen Box: 00:06:15

Congratulations.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:16

Thank you so much.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:17

Thank you so much.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:18

And within that process of recovery and discovery, all these gifts

Adam Jablin: 00:06:25

and abilities that I didn't even know I had naturally came out.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:29

But also in recovery, you really have to do a deep soul dive into

Adam Jablin: 00:06:34

who you are, how you're made up, how you think, how you act, how

Adam Jablin: 00:06:37

you behave, what your beliefs are.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:39

And when I started really just attracting all these people to help, one moment at

Adam Jablin: 00:06:46

a time, one second at a time, one day at a time, one month at a time, one year

Adam Jablin: 00:06:49

at a time, this became so natural to me.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:53

It just became so natural to me.

Adam Jablin: 00:06:55

And other than what I really found out is we're all addicted to something.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:00

We're all addicted to something.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:02

my story itself has a lot of transition, transformation, triumphs, tragedies,

Adam Jablin: 00:07:08

but one of the things I really found is that people have a hero within them.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:14

They have a hero with it and they just have to let go, finally let

Adam Jablin: 00:07:19

go of the old stories, the old beliefs, the old patterns, the old

Adam Jablin: 00:07:23

addictions, and go on that journey.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:26

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:27

And.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:27

it, I would say what made me an expert was doing it over and over and over again

Adam Jablin: 00:07:35

with A list celebrities, professional athletes, mom and pops, kid, whatever

Adam Jablin: 00:07:41

it is, and each of them getting the result that they were seeking.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:44

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:45

the expertise was built.

Adam Jablin: 00:07:46

Slowly, but surely one step at a time.

Stephen Box: 00:07:50

Yeah, I love that.

Stephen Box: 00:07:51

And there's some reinforcing in what you were just talking about there, because

Stephen Box: 00:07:55

I've interviewed a lot of different people and I've heard over and over

Stephen Box: 00:08:02

again about those insecurities, about those doubts from people that you

Stephen Box: 00:08:05

would expect would not have them right.

Stephen Box: 00:08:08

People who are very.

Stephen Box: 00:08:14

I've had someone on my show who was a supermodel and she told me

Stephen Box: 00:08:19

that models are some of the most insecure people in the world.

Stephen Box: 00:08:22

And, we would think the opposite, because we think oh, they're, so beautiful.

Stephen Box: 00:08:25

They must, have all this confidence.

Stephen Box: 00:08:27

And they're super insecure.

Stephen Box: 00:08:29

And I love the fact that you pointed out that even A list celebrities and

Stephen Box: 00:08:34

athletes and everybody else, we all have addictions, we all have these fears,

Stephen Box: 00:08:38

we all have these self doubts, right?

Stephen Box: 00:08:41

We're all human.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:42

We're all human.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:43

And the fear centers in our mind.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:47

That's where it centers.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:49

it can feel like it's in the body, it can feel like it's in the

Adam Jablin: 00:08:51

nervous system, and I get that.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:54

But you feel what you're thinking.

Adam Jablin: 00:08:57

we, all of us from childhood.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:00

to puberty, to, high school, college.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:05

We went through these stories, we went through these trials, we went through

Adam Jablin: 00:09:11

these growing phases that really made us perceive the world in a different

Adam Jablin: 00:09:15

way, and it's a disease of perception.

Stephen Box: 00:09:20

What was that moment for you?

Stephen Box: 00:09:22

Like, where did you start to realize that maybe you had some of these

Stephen Box: 00:09:27

fears that were holding you back, or that you had these addictions

Stephen Box: 00:09:30

that you were dealing with?

Stephen Box: 00:09:31

What was that Kind of wake up moment for you to say, wait, there's something

Stephen Box: 00:09:36

here that I can actually change.

Stephen Box: 00:09:38

I would

Adam Jablin: 00:09:39

have to say it was day nine in rehab, I went to rehab and my

Adam Jablin: 00:09:46

thought process was, I am going to be the most dedicated, disciplined, determined

Adam Jablin: 00:09:52

rehab patient they've ever seen.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:53

And within three or four days, they'll see there's nothing wrong with this guy.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:56

He's a monster.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:57

He's an animal.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:58

Must be family.

Adam Jablin: 00:09:59

Must be the business.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:00

Must be the new baby.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:01

and everything they were teaching me

Adam Jablin: 00:10:05

and backfired on me.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:06

It was cracking me in the center.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:09

And it was true ego deflation, and what happened was I slowly stopped

Adam Jablin: 00:10:14

becoming the old Adam and the I, and the me, and I started becoming the

Adam Jablin: 00:10:18

part of a week, and I was broken, man.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:22

I was broken.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:24

like there was a poster on the wall and I'll never forget it

Adam Jablin: 00:10:27

that said, make the appropriate face with the appropriate emotion.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:31

I always had one face, which was a smile, a wink, don't worry about me.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:34

So I could do whatever the hell I wanted.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:37

I was a phony.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:37

I was full of it.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:40

So every day I learned something new, something about spirituality, something

Adam Jablin: 00:10:45

about mindset, something about what, what real mental fitness is, what physical

Adam Jablin: 00:10:50

fitness really is, but truly also a connection to something greater and.

Adam Jablin: 00:10:55

As I let that old Adam go, he finally died.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:00

Which meant a new Adam was

Stephen Box: 00:11:02

born.

Stephen Box: 00:11:04

I'm curious Was there a point where you blamed other people or

Stephen Box: 00:11:09

felt like it wasn't your fault?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:12

that's a great way of wording it.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:15

did I think it was not my fault that I think it was other people?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:20

In a way, I don't think my languaging was quite like that.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:23

I think it was more like, can't they see everything I'm doing?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:26

Can't they see all my effort?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:27

Can't they see how much I love them?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:29

Can't they see how much I try?

Adam Jablin: 00:11:31

If everybody would behave this way, the world would get along great.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:36

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:37

so it was really the actor wanting to be the producer and the director and

Adam Jablin: 00:11:42

control all the parts of the play.

Adam Jablin: 00:11:45

It wasn't that I was in such denial that I didn't know that I had a part

Adam Jablin: 00:11:49

or a responsibility in it, but I felt no, I felt like I wasn't seen and I

Adam Jablin: 00:11:56

felt like I wasn't acknowledged and I felt like I wasn't validated, so it

Adam Jablin: 00:12:00

was, through a lot of work, a lot of work with a lot of different people,

Adam Jablin: 00:12:03

specifically my mentor, what I realized was I was not a people pleaser.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:08

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:08

a people pleaser is you say, I like the, you like the Yankees.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:11

I say, I like the Yankees because I just want to prove it.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:14

That was, I had a Superman complex.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:16

I was a rescuer.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:18

I tried to be there for every single person, every time.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:22

Not trying to please them, but trying to help them.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:26

and when that wasn't acknowledged, I got thirsty.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:31

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:12:31

I popped pills like they were Tic Tacs.

Stephen Box: 00:12:33

So was that a matter of, one of my mentors always uses

Stephen Box: 00:12:37

this saying of, every behavior is an attempt to solve a problem.

Stephen Box: 00:12:43

Yeah.

Stephen Box: 00:12:44

And we don't always use the best solution to the problem, right?

Stephen Box: 00:12:48

It's a solution nonetheless.

Stephen Box: 00:12:50

So it sounds like that's where You weren't saying that other people were

Stephen Box: 00:12:53

making you a certain way, you were doing what you felt like you needed to

Stephen Box: 00:12:58

do, you were playing that role that a lot of men are told to, to play, being

Stephen Box: 00:13:01

the provider and the protector, and you were playing that role, but it felt like

Stephen Box: 00:13:08

you weren't getting the recognition for it, so that seems to drove the behavior

Stephen Box: 00:13:12

of, maybe I just need to do everything harder, I need to do everything more.

Stephen Box: 00:13:18

the

Adam Jablin: 00:13:19

name of my book is Lotsaholic, but I did

Adam Jablin: 00:13:21

everything a lot, everything.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:22

I was, I'm extreme to a T, to a T.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:27

And I'll tell you, three martinis and pop a few Oxycontin or whatever

Adam Jablin: 00:13:31

it was at the time, works fast.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:34

It works fast.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:35

Talking about a solution, but it doesn't work well and it doesn't work.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:40

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:40

And eventually that brought me to my

Stephen Box: 00:13:42

knees.

Stephen Box: 00:13:43

What was that moment for you that ended up driving you to recovery?

Stephen Box: 00:13:49

An intervention.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:50

I would have taken this thing to death.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:52

I would have tried to prove to everybody that I can make

Adam Jablin: 00:13:55

everything work at all times.

Adam Jablin: 00:13:57

But, luckily enough, I had a loving family that was able to

Adam Jablin: 00:14:01

see some of the consequences.

Adam Jablin: 00:14:04

That were happening in my life way clearer than I was and it wasn't like death or you

Adam Jablin: 00:14:08

know It wasn't but they were seeing what was happening to me specifically mentally

Adam Jablin: 00:14:13

and spiritually and how Dissatisfied it was and how unhappy I was and how

Adam Jablin: 00:14:19

resentful I was and how irritable I was and that's not me And they stepped in

Adam Jablin: 00:14:24

right at the right time and honestly if they stepped in one day before I would

Adam Jablin: 00:14:28

have been like, I'm out of here, but God provides pro and it was the right time

Adam Jablin: 00:14:35

at the right place and I could hear them.

Adam Jablin: 00:14:38

I could hear that.

Stephen Box: 00:14:39

Yeah, it's crazy how that just sometimes happens, right?

Stephen Box: 00:14:42

Where we are literally so against hearing something.

Stephen Box: 00:14:46

And then it's like that divine intervention, that one moment when you

Stephen Box: 00:14:51

are actually the most open to hearing that message, all the sudden it gets through.

Stephen Box: 00:14:55

I

Adam Jablin: 00:14:55

couldn't plan this if I tried, man.

Adam Jablin: 00:14:57

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:14:57

I really couldn't plan this if I tried.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:00

from my recovery, to what's happened in my life, to the hero project,

Adam Jablin: 00:15:05

to everything that's happened, I live a very rich, fulfilled life.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:10

Very fulfilled.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:12

I have so much love and friends and family and support around me.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:16

It doesn't mean I don't go through, my ups and downs

Adam Jablin: 00:15:19

emotionally, but I dance with it.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:21

But I couldn't plan this if I tried.

Stephen Box: 00:15:24

Yeah, I love that, man.

Stephen Box: 00:15:25

I love the fact that there's that acknowledgement of, it sounds like you've

Stephen Box: 00:15:30

really bought into the idea of controlling what you can control, but accepting

Stephen Box: 00:15:34

the fact that there are things in a life that sometimes you just get lucky.

Stephen Box: 00:15:38

that God has intervened for you or whatever, and you just, you feel

Stephen Box: 00:15:43

blessed to have had it and know that it wasn't necessarily all on you.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:48

Yeah, I really surrender to, I'm in the effort business.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:51

Yeah.

Adam Jablin: 00:15:52

And God's in the outcome business.

Stephen Box: 00:15:54

that's a fantastic way to look God is in the outcome business.

Stephen Box: 00:15:58

So guys, we're gonna be wrapping up for today.

Stephen Box: 00:16:01

If you are enjoying our interview with Adam Jallon, make sure that

Stephen Box: 00:16:05

you are following the podcast.

Stephen Box: 00:16:07

It is 100 percent free.

Stephen Box: 00:16:09

Adam is going to be here with us all week long and tomorrow we're going

Stephen Box: 00:16:12

to be diving into The fear of change.

Stephen Box: 00:16:16

So you definitely do not want to miss that.

Stephen Box: 00:16:19

But until then, I remind you as always, guys, that while none of us are born

Stephen Box: 00:16:23

unshakable, we can all become unshakable.