The Power Of Forgiveness

How many people in your life are you holding anger and resentment towards?

Do you realize that when you hold anger and resentment towards other people, you’re allowing them to take your life force? You’re allowing them to steal the life force from within you.

The negative energy that you spend thinking about them, thinking about how pissed off you are, thinking about how hurt you are, is just keeping you in Negativeland.

The more time you spend in Negativeland, the more time you don’t spend loving yourself. The key to happiness is forgiveness.

There is Power in Forgiveness

I want to share a story that’s very personal to me; it’s about somebody that not only works with me, but has been very important to me in my life.

I want to take you back into the 90s.

I was looking for a car for my aunt. I went into this used car lot called 28th Street Motors.

There was a guy sitting across at the desk and I sat across from him and I told him I wanted to drive the 1985 silver 525 IS BMW.

I took it for a drive, I came back, and I low-balled him. He looked at me and laughed.

I went back and bothered him on a regular basis, trying to almost steal the car from him, which he wouldn’t let me do.

I was living in Boulder, Colorado. I was dressed in a leather jacket; my nickname was Fonzie. They didn’t know what hit them in that town.

My friend, Greg, was the salesman sitting across the desk. He was from Boston. He was a stranger then, but eventually, we hit it off.

Greg doesn’t like anybody when he first meets them. I mean, it takes a while to really get to know him and get under his skin.

In a very positive way.

We hit it off; we started hanging out. We had many great adventures, including the unbelievable black ice story. When you talk to him, just say the word black ice and see what he does.

Eventually, Greg and I had a business together, we called it Roadsters. It was a cool, little used car lot.

We sold cars to all the college kids in Boulder. We were hip, we were cool. We took our dogs to work.

We had fun, but I was always California dreaming.

I ended up moving to San Diego right when we were making a lot of money.

I would go back and visit Greg in Boulder and I’d watch  the business grow. I was proud of him, proud that I started this with him. Proud that he took it to a whole different level, and deep down I always felt damn, if I only stayed.

When an opportunity opened up to come back and reinvest in the business, I jumped all over it without even researching anything. Greg and I weren’t super close at the time, but there was always that bond that we had that we will never forget.

So I blindly invested; oh yeah, you know what happens when you blindly invest. You might as well just throw money into the wind and watch it float away.

I jumped back in and, one day, I got the phone call that I dreaded. The phone call Greg had always dreaded.

I was three days away from leaving for London. Back in 2011, I think, or 2010.

Greg called me up and said, “I lost all your money.”

I took a deep breath. I was pissed. I was annoyed.

He told me that a lot of shit’s going to go down. Cops were after him. He’d probably have to go do some time.

Time? I said, “What do you mean?”

And he said, “Probably some white collar crime.”

Making the Choice to Forgive

At that moment, I looked to myself and I asked myself how many chances in your life are you able to support a friend in need? You see, most people would have kicked him to the curb.

Most people would have said, “Fuck you, asshole; you lost all my money.” And kicked him to the curb. “You should have known. You knew you were going to lose the money; whatever.”

But you know what? I looked at the situation as a gift from the universe. At that moment, I realized I had an opportunity to stand up for somebody and fully support them. Because I know that whatever Greg did, he was and is an amazing person. He just went down the wrong path. And a lot of us go down wrong paths.

So I decided to forget about the money. Within the same conversation, he begged me, “Please, I will pay you back in time.”

I trusted him. Did I want the money right then and there? Absolutely. But instead, I supported a friend. I supported him in so many ways.

I supported him by flying to Boulder, helping him, talking to him, supporting him at his trial.

Eventually, Greg went away. He went away to white collar prison.

I sent him every book on personal development that I could find. I put money in his canteen.

I sent him meditation books. I sent him books on forgiveness.

And when he got out, I supported him in any way I possibly could. His lesson that he learned? Well, when you have that privilege of speaking to him, he’ll share it with you, because he’s an open book.

I forgave him. And because of that, I’ve still got one of my best friends for the rest of my life. Somebody I can count on. Somebody I can trust. Somebody I know who’s going to be there for me no matter what. And that’s worth more than any money.

As far as the money goes, he’s been paying me back, slowly but surely.

He’s been working for me. Because I wanted a coach that lived life, that went through everything. Because Greg has gone through everything.

He had to get divorced. He had to pick up and fix the relationship with his daughters. And now he’s in an amazing relationship with a woman that I think is class A all around.

And as far as a friend, there’s no more honest friend than him out there.

It all came because I forgave him.

Reopen Your Life Force

Forgiveness. Hardest thing in the world. We’ve been wrong so many times in our life. But when you start forgiving everybody, you reopen up your life force.

I want you to leave the past where it was meant to be, in the past.

I want you to open up the friendship again with somebody who might need you, might need your support emotionally. One of the greatest things about my friendship with Greg is that it’s 100% honest. We call each other out on everything.

When he coaches somebody, he calls them out on everything. The best coaches are not the ones that study in school. The best coaches are the ones that lived life, that got their asses kicked all over the place, and embraced and lived the lesson.

That’s why I’m proud to have him as part of my team. I’m not looking for people that are pliable.

I’m looking for people that are real, because when all of you come to me, when you go through any type of coaching program, you know you’re going to get the honest truth, and that’s what life is all about.

If you forgive everything in your life, you will allow your life force to come back out again.

The power of forgiveness. It’s so good.