Rewriting the Stories We Tell Ourselves through Inspirational Transformation with Vin Infante

It is just the way that I was looking at it.

And so I would say that my determination to take complete and total ownership over my life and find aspects of mastery and find a way to create my life instead of getting dragged through it, because I've been there, is something that's really driven me to not be back there.

SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Great Great and Inspirated.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowell, and I'm excited to welcome you into the What's Happened, my friend.

Welcome back to Great Great Inspiration.

I'm your host, Evan Low, and you are tuning in for what is episode number 191.

When I'm not here in the studio recording podcast episodes like today, well, I'm working as a transformation coach, helping my clients to create, embrace, and ultimately step into their next best chapter of life, helping them to achieve a transformation in their life.

And in speaking about transformations, I have a guy on the podcast today who embodies the theme of transformation.

He's performed a transformation in his own life.

He now helps others to achieve a transformation.

His name Venefante.

And I am excited to welcome him to the show.

Joining us today is a true catalyst for change.

A therapist, mentor, and master coach, Venafante is helping the world to get over what has them stopped, to have them rediscovering who they truly are.

And well, inside of today's episode, we're going to get to unpack Vin's story.

His story of radical self-acceptance, of self-discovery, of rediscovery, of redefining who Vin even was.

Because he went through a season in his life when things were tough.

Growing up, he was bullied a lot.

And it was really bad.

You're going to get to hear all about that.

But you're then going to get to hear how things changed when he went away to college.

How he transformed himself.

Turning himself into a new version of him.

Until one day, when it was just him in the bathroom, looking at the mirror.

And he realized that he wasn't living at the true stuff.

At that moment, in the mirror, everything came.

And that's a forward on the path.

That's going to make the impact on the world.

By letting the world knows and more so realized today.

Today is Dena Funday.

Today is a pleasure to have them here on the podcast today.

So with that said, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome to today.

Our guest then a fun.

Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely did.

Well, I'm excited to dive into your story, give me and my audience a little picture into your life, kind of where you came from, and uh, you know, kind of really how you got to where you are today.

And so I would love to kind of look back, let's look back at your childhood, and kind of give me a snapshot of what life was like for you growing up.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it all starts in the childhood, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

So for me growing up, it's a bit of an interesting mix between having good parents and a not great experience with life, being an outsider, getting bullied most of my life, if not for the longest portion of it being in my younger self.

And as I had gotten older, I had started developing a lot of aspects of depression, anxiety, panic, suicidal ideation.

So I I struggled a lot with my mental health.

And I struggled for many, many years, and things continued to progressively get worse and worse as time went on.

And you know, treatment didn't really seem to help.

I was, I actually thought about it, I was pretty much in any form of counseling or therapy.

And there was always somebody there to listen to me for my whole life, right?

I would go to the guidance counselor's office, I would sit with the school social worker, and then as I got older, I would talk to the guidance counselors in the high school and the middle school, and then eventually I had a therapist in high school and college, and everybody was so unable to help me.

And I was living in such a state of victimhood that things were just seemingly never really looking up.

And that's that's probably the biggest portion of where the suicidal ideation and some self-harm tendencies started to come in, is just that feeling of helplessness.

You know, I've come to understand one thing about suicide is that it's not that people want life to end, it's just that they want their situations to end, but they don't know how to get out of them, right?

It's it's like you're walking down a really dark tunnel, and it just you never see the light.

You just you don't think you're ever gonna get out of it.

So the thought is, well, if I'm never gonna get out of this tunnel and I hate living in darkness, this is the best way out.

Yeah.

And uh it's unfortunate because they don't realize if you keep going, and it might be a long tunnel, but if you keep going, there's always a light at the end, and it it takes time for some people, it takes a lot of time, but uh that tunnel has an end to it at some point.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I and I think you you hit it, is it's it's though it's that journey in that tunnel that can be so long and so dark.

And when you feel so helpless, and and especially when the quote unquote, you know, professionals, they can't even help you.

You literally feel like, well, what's the point?

Right.

Yeah, understandable, understandable.

So now, did you have a family history of depression?

No, I don't believe I did, at least, well, that's good.

Now talk to me about like how old were you when when it started?

SPEAKER_01: Hmm.

SPEAKER_02: I think that I started getting anxiety at a pretty young age.

So my mom has always been a bit of a overprotective helicopter-esque mom.

And she would do a lot to be there and be supportive of me, but that also made me feel like I needed her, you know, and not in a bad way, not like in a well, actually, sorry, maybe not in a good way, right?

Because everybody needs their parents, but more so I needed her to just like be there, period.

And so I started having some some anxiety around like leaving my mom and doing things.

And this kind of goes back, maybe as as far as I can remember.

And and when I say as far as I can remember, I don't know, maybe like late into grade school, you know, maybe around fourth or fifth grade, around there.

And then obviously like middle school, high school, things like that.

So it it continued to kind of develop and roll into this idea of having this built-in anxiety.

And I feel like the depression, the depression stuff started coming up later as I started feeling more and more helpless with the situations that I was encountering between being bullied and feeling like an outsider and having a lot of trouble connecting with people and just feeling very alone.

And so I think the depression came later, but I had that history of just getting picked on and feeling very uncomfortable in my skin.

So anxiety was there from a really, I would say a really relatively young age.

Like I can remember times when I was in, for instance, fifth grade where I was the butt of the jokes in these group settings, and there were times where I would like call my mom to come pick me up.

And so I remember, I remember things like that.

I remember, you know, I was sleeping over a friend's house one time, and and I I don't I don't specifically remember why, but I was just having bad anxiety, and I was like pacing back and forth.

And mind you, I was in fifth or sixth grade.

It was either fifth grade or or early sixth grade.

And I'm just sitting in this kid's house and we're having a sleepover, and I'm having terrible anxiety.

And I was like pacing back and forth for almost an hour between the bedroom and the bathroom, and then eventually I woke up his parents and I asked for them to call my mom to come get me.

You know, and so I remember things like that had been pretty normal for me at least from a pretty young age, right?

Maybe like 10 or even younger.

I'm sure there were a few things that I could recall if if we really wanted to get into it.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I I mean, and it's tough.

And especially I wanted to touch on one thing when when you talk about not only are you you dealing with these internal struggles, but you mentioned that you had to deal with bullying as well.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, a lot of bullies, a lot of a lot of bullying, but you know, I never fit in.

That was that was just kind of my thing.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow, wow, wow.

So now throughout school, we're talking elementary, middle school, but then even up into to high school, did that continue even up in as you got older?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, high school was actually the worst.

High school was where my suicidal ideation was the highest.

I'd got thrown in trash cans during lunch sometimes.

And I was just really not doing well in high school.

I think high school was probably the worst of it.

High school was probably the closest I was able to get to suicide without actually doing it, if that makes sense, right?

Like I would just sit there and think of all the interesting ways I could potentially do it and and what would cause the least mess and what would be the least, you know, worrisome for people, and this, that.

And like it was interesting because there's a lot of planning and consideration, mostly for others.

I was like, oh, if I do this, then somebody's gonna have to clean me up.

Like I remember sitting there and thinking about that.

And so high school was was probably one of the worst parts.

I was have I would wake up with panic attacks sometimes, hyperventilating, unable to breathe.

I would, I would constantly feel sick.

And I remember this was actually a constant from middle school to high school, is I would feel sick and want to go home a lot.

I would have upset stomachs, I would vomit, you know, come out the other way like vomit too, right?

Trying to not really discuss the viewers right now, but I didn't realize that at the time, and neither did my parents, right?

But it was actually those physiological responses to anxiety that I was experiencing because my mom at one point had questioned if I was being real or not.

Like she goes, you know, it's interesting because I pick you up, I pick you up from school and I bring you home, and then you instantly feel better.

She goes, you know, are you lying to me?

I was like, I'm not lying.

She's like, well, then how do you just feel better instantly as soon as you come home?

And I'm like, I don't know.

I just know when I'm home, I feel better.

And, you know, I I think there was a little bit of um of a little bit of a mistrust there.

Where my mom wasn't entirely sure either of what the situation was.

And I never informed her.

I didn't tell her, like, oh, I'm getting bullied in this, that, right?

Because what winds up happening is you tell your parents and then they call the kids' parents, and then the kids' parents talk to their kid, or they don't, or they just say something, and then the kid comes back and bullies you worse, right?

So I I remember there was I can't remember when specifically, but I told my mom one time, I was like, Oh, you know, somebody's picking on me.

And she's like, What?

I'm gonna call the school, I'm gonna call the parents, and like she she started kind of going on that whole thing, and I felt so embarrassed.

So I was like, I'm never telling her anything again.

Yeah.

And so it winds up making you almost suffer in silence, right?

And learning, you can't really tell, you can't really tell adults.

I mean, there was even a time in middle school I got pushed down the stairs by this bully, and I told the dean what happened, and the dean blamed me for it.

And then, you know, if something else occurs in the future, who they're gonna look at?

They're not gonna look at the actual bully, they're gonna look at me and be like, this kid caused trouble, so it must have been him again.

And so I I learned very, very early, like, do not tell anyone that anything is going on aside from maybe like the school counselor I would hang out with.

That person I'd slightly trust.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

And and when you look at it now, like what a shame.

You know, what what a shame that a child has to feel like that.

Right.

You know?

Now, one thing I was curious about when you talked about in your high school years it being the worst and thinking about suicide, why do you think you never attempted it?

SPEAKER_02: I think I never attempted it because so funny, and I mean, growing up with religious belief, I felt like it was probably the worst thing that you could do.

I I will say if there's one thing that being afraid of burning for all eternity in hell does, is it it stops you from killing yourself.

I mean I was like, I could kill myself right now, but then I'm a burn for an eternity.

That don't seem too like it's like this seems like a very permanent solution to a temporary problem.

It's like permanent in the sense that it transcends even this lifetime.

Yes, yes, that's one piece of it.

The other thought was I'm a very visual person.

You know how how different people learn in different ways, right?

Okay, okay.

I've always been very visual, so I see everything.

Like even when I'm doing things, math equations or whatever, they they float in it on a screen in front of me.

So one of the biggest things was I had this playback because my mom, my mom used to tell me all the time how how much I mean she still does, so I don't want anybody to think like, oh, he's neglected now.

But my mom used to tell me all the time how as I like as I was growing up, how much I mattered to her, right?

She always used to tell me, like, I can't imagine life without you, and blah, blah, blah.

And you know, funny enough, now as a parent, I I kind of get it.

Like, I have my daughter, and I'm like, yeah, I I can't, I can't even see what life would be like without her at this point, right?

And and she's only a year old, I haven't even had her that long.

Yep.

So I mean, at that at the point my mom is telling me how important I was, I think I was in my teens, right?

And so it was the thought that if I were to do this, first up, who's gonna find my body?

Yep.

Right?

Like somebody's gonna find it.

So it's like, who?

Well, that becomes a question.

And the thought would be like perhaps it would be my mom.

And I can't imagine what that would be like putting her through that.

And then I thought about I thought about my family.

I was just like, I don't want my family to have to deal with this realistically.

And and I was sitting there and I was thinking about it, and and and it's interesting, right?

Because I think that's what a lot of people miss.

When people commit suicide, and I know there's such a debate right now where people are like, it's not selfish, like, don't you dare say that, it's mental illness.

And uh I, as someone who's been really close, like I'm talking, you know, I used to stare at a knife virtually every day because I was like, maybe I'll do it today, right?

And so as somebody who's been really close, I I could honestly say it I think it's a very selfish thing.

Because the main reason I didn't do it is because I was considering how other people would feel.

Like I couldn't imagine putting my mom and my family through finding my body, having to call everyone, like do funeral arrangements, bury me, and then live with that.

I really like that was on my mind.

That was one of the major reasons.

Like I started even thinking, you know, burning in hell for all eternity might not be so bad.

Depends how hot it is.

But putting my parents through that, I honestly, that was the biggest deterrent for me.

I couldn't, I couldn't imagine it.

I couldn't imagine it.

I couldn't think about it.

And and it it actually hurt me to have the visual image of my mom like finding my body.

That that was like painful for me.

So that was one of the main reasons I never did it.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

I I totally I I can understand.

I can understand from my own dark past, and and I agree a hundred percent, and and I relate to exactly what you said, is is I always said, if I do this, then what is that gonna do to my family?

Right.

You know, now during these childhood years, going through depression, anxiety, bullying, was school though, something that you still did good in?

Because I mean, I know a lot of kids their their grades fall apart, or high school, they drop out of school.

What was that situation for you?

SPEAKER_02: Oh no, I didn't do good, man.

I I I graduated with like a 66 average, and I only got accepted to one college, which was my local community college.

Okay.

Okay.

I I spent a lot of time playing video games, and uh video games were my were my escape out of life.

And I used to play a lot of RPGs.

So for those of you that don't know, it's a role-playing game.

And then throw in MMO, which is massive multiplayer online.

So now if you put the two together, you get MMORPG, which is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game.

So, with that big mouthful, what I used to do was I used to spend hours role-playing as somebody that I actually wanted to be instead of my depressive, anxious, bullied, lonely self.

I used to play a lot of video games because I was able to be someone that I wished, like a really strong person, somebody who was powerful, somebody that was cool.

I wound up making friends online, you know, having virtual friends, people that I met that lived in Chicago and California and Australia and all these wild places.

And so that was something that took a lot away from my grades because I didn't like living in reality.

So to constantly escape reality, I would play video games.

And that would not allow for time to really study and do homework.

And I also didn't care.

I just hated school.

I was like, why am I going to put effort into this?

I hate it.

Meanwhile, if I go on my game, I'm living in a world where I'm not bullied.

I'm loving my life in the game.

I get to explore really cool places.

I have friends here.

And so it just became this better alternate reality, which I I spent so much time in.

I on Saturdays I used to game for like 15 hours if I could, or 18 hours if I could.

And on weeknights, I would come home and I would rush through my homework and do it half-assed just to get on the video game for a bit.

And so that that wound up actually being the main focus of my life for a pretty decent amount of time.

SPEAKER_00: So then how does this kid transition from this virtual reality world to living in his own reality?

What was what was kind of the turning point for you?

SPEAKER_02: Well, going into college, I realized that things needed to change.

And I thought that that was where I would start because I really like I was just honest.

I was like, I'm not happy.

I hate my life.

I don't want to keep living like this.

This isn't good for me.

I like if something needs to change, then something needs to change.

And I I guess I'll start doing it.

So going from high school to college is when I transitioned, started working out, changed up my hairstyle, grew out a beard, changed up my clothing style, changed up my body type, right?

Like, did all these things to really focus on me.

And then one thing that I did was I wrote Vincenzo on all my college transcripts instead of Vincent.

And so I wound up even changing just like my identity, my name, to really start putting myself into this place of like, this is who I am becoming.

And that allowed me to start focusing on like what I wanted to do.

And then I wound up excelling in college and did really great in college.

And I got accepted to every master's program I applied for.

And then from there, I wound up graduating at about 23 with my master's.

And I started trying to figure myself out more because the entire time I was going through college, even though I was doing a lot better in life, like externally, good grades, you know, better car, better body, better style, better friend group, better, you know, ability to even have a girlfriend.

So everything upgraded except for my mental health.

That was still pretty down.

And that's where, like, in my college years, I was having more mental breakdowns and more trouble just keeping my life together internally because I was just so distraught for so much of the time.

My therapist like formally diagnosed me with anxiety, depression, panic disorder, and suggested that I should go on medication, to which I told him no, in a more colorful way.

But that was a big, big part is me trying to do these transitions.

And so, in trying to do these transitions, one of the things was it did pull me out from that video game curse.

And I also had a really honest understanding, too, is that the more time I spend in here, the less I'm actually doing to improve my life.

And that's that's kind of one of the big sad truths that a lot of people who are addicted to gaming don't want to acknowledge is like you're not accomplishing a damn thing unless you're a pro gamer.

If you're a pro gamer, keep at it.

But if you're not a pro gamer and you're A hobby gamer for 18 hours a day, you have a serious problem.

You are not forwarding your life, and you need to be very honest about that because that was something that I didn't do.

And when I wasn't being honest, I was sucked into the game.

But when I turned around, I was like, I'm spending my entire weekends on this.

I'm spending every weekday on this, hours upon hours of my life.

And one thing that was interesting, the game that I played, I so anyone who might know this game, I played World of Warcraft.

And World of Warcraft has a command in there where if you type a prompt into the into the keyboard, you type slash played, what winds up happening is it tells you your collective hours that you've played on that tune.

And when I did slash played, because I was curious, how much time have I spent on here?

I saw I spent in the in the game, mind you, the equivalent of like 250 days of my life in this game.

Now, that's funny though, because if you think about it, it's not 250 days collectively, like it counts it as 24 hours, right?

So every 24 hours you play the game will be a day, right?

But let's say I spend eight hours, like a whole day just playing the game, and then I do other stuff.

My whole day's over because I spent eight hours playing that game.

And I did that three days straight.

That's eight, sixteen, twenty-four.

So in reality, one game, one day played was actually like three days of real lifetime.

And so then I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh my God, I played 250 something days on this game.

But if we multiply that by three, because of the of the way I'm doing the math, right?

We're looking at we're looking at about almost a thousand days of my life I've spent here.

I've spent almost three years just sitting here, wasting away in front of my computer.

And that was like a really harrowing moment for me to be like, I gotta get the fuck off this and do something with my life.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, that's powerful.

That's really, really powerful.

Now, when you talk about turning things around, you you exceled in college, you get into a master's program.

What degree were you seeking?

Did you at that point have an idea what you wanted to do as a career?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I always said that I was going to be a therapist and a firefighter.

Those were my two childhood dreams.

And I had gone for psychology in my undergrad for my bachelor's.

And then for my master's, I went for social work with a clinical focus because my goal was to get out into the field as quickly as possible and start doing psychotherapy.

With a social work degree, you only needed two years and a license to start doing psychotherapy.

Whereas if I were to pursue a master's in psychology, you would need a lot more time and do a lot more things before you could actually start doing some psychotherapy.

So I said, you know, I want to just get out there.

I want to get working.

I I want to really get into this field.

So let me take the social work route, get out there quick, and then start doing, you know, start doing therapy quicker.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

The other thing I wanted to just kind of draw attention to was when you talked about starting college, and you talked about that you would put a different name on your papers.

Yeah.

Would you say that kind of in a sense, maybe even without even realizing it, you were kind of like reinventing yourself?

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02: I definitely was.

That was a big, big part of it.

I was, well, I was trying to reinvent myself, right?

But I didn't do it successfully.

And that's that's the funny part of it.

Is you can reinvent yourself, but you could also fake reinventing yourself.

And I think I fake reinvented myself.

I think that that was probably the biggest reason that I still struggled with anxiety and depression and all these different things.

And that's why it took me so long to really finally overcome those issues because I didn't realize that it was a fake way of redefining myself.

And explain that more.

SPEAKER_00: What what do you mean when you say it was fake?

SPEAKER_02: So your name is Vincent.

I'll use me for example, probably be easy to say.

Your name is Vincent, and your name is not Vincenzo.

Why are you telling people your name as something it's not?

Now, some people might argue, well, your name is Vincenzo if you're in Italy or you're Italian, right?

Uh which I am, I'm Italian.

So in theory, I could just be like, yeah, I'm Vincenzo.

But the reality is, by changing my name, I wasn't doing it for the right reasons, right?

I was doing it because I didn't like who I was and I didn't like the life I was living.

So I changed my name to avoid having to embrace or accept the things that have happened in my life.

I did it so that I could avoid being Vincent because I thought Vincent was the problem.

I thought being Vincent was why I got bullied.

Being Vincent was why I was depressed, being Vincent is why nobody liked me, being Vincent is why I was lonely and I had no connection.

So I put the wrong emphasis on what it was to be Vincent and why I needed to become Vincenzo.

And so I think there is a high level that people need to understand about the acceptance of yourself in its entirety, whether you like it or not, and being able to just like, yeah, this is who I am, like fully.

This is who I show up as in this life, and not trying to avoid that.

So that's where I feel it was an inauthentic thing because I was trying to avoid being Vincent.

It wasn't because I was trying to essentially well, I guess to some degree I was trying to better myself, right?

But it was more so the aspect that I felt like Vincent was a loser and I didn't want to be called Vincent anymore.

Like I started to actually just hate the name.

I was like, don't anyone call me Vincent?

It was like, that's not my name anymore.

And it was just it was because I was wrapping so much pain into it because that's kind of the experience I had.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, understandable.

So what was the pivotal turning point when we took all of this that we're talking about and things truly started to propel forward?

SPEAKER_02: So the pivotal turning point I had was at the age of 23.

23 years old, I was extremely fed up with all this shit.

I was just like, you know, I was like, I can't, I can't keep doing this.

I'm so freaking tired of constantly being anxious, depressed, upset, having panic attacks.

Like, this is just not working for me.

And everything should be good, right?

Like society would say, like, everything's good.

I have my master's, I have a cool car, I got a hot girlfriend, I got friends.

I got two or I had two jobs.

I wound up quitting both of my jobs to figure myself out.

And I just couldn't figure it out.

So one day in the summer, I was at my parents' house where I used to live, right?

And I went into the bathroom.

I don't know why, but I spent time contemplating in the bathroom.

And I just went in the bathroom and I was standing in front of the counter, and I I slammed my hands on the counter.

I'm just like, you know what, what is still wrong with me?

Why am I still so depressed?

Why am I still so anxious?

Why am I still dealing with all this bullshit?

Like, why can't I just stop?

And it was interesting because I really just didn't have an answer.

And I was just experiencing this extreme level of frustration and tiredness at the same time.

And then I looked up at myself in the mirror and I said, Oh my God, I get it.

I was like, You're Vincent.

And that that was such a powerful moment because that was the first time in about seven years I said my actual name.

And what that was, was that was a moment that I believe melted 90% of my anxiety and depression away instantly.

Like complete instantly.

That moment was the highest moment of peace I've ever felt in my life.

Because it was a moment where I was finally accepting myself.

I was finally accepting my past.

I was finally accepting who I was.

I was finally accepting the moment that I was in right now, and that everything I'm experiencing in this present moment is based on all the decisions I've made in the past moments leading up to this.

And that if I didn't want my life to suck anymore, it didn't have to, starting with this very moment, I could change it right here, right now.

And then I had a very honest conversation with myself where I said, All right, let's look at it.

You're weak, people pity you, no one admires you, you're not a great leader, there's nothing great about you.

You're actually pretty unremarkable.

You're depressed, you're anxious, you're sad, you have trouble keeping girlfriends, you have very few real friends, you honestly are just this person that is not admirable.

And then after having that honest talk with myself, I said, Is this who you'd like to keep being?

And I said, Absolutely not.

That person that just sucks.

I hate this.

And then I said, All right, right on.

So who do you want to be?

And that's where I started getting really creative.

I was like, all right, well, I want to be a leader, I want to be inspiring, I want to be loving, I want to be empathetic, I want to be powerful, I want people to be inspired by me, I want to help others, I want to be this great person.

I want people to look at me and be like, he's capable, he's strong, he's confident.

And I said, well, these are all great things.

So now if you want to be these things, how do you get there?

What would, for each one of those things you said you want to be, what would you do?

What would you say?

How would you act?

How would you make others feel?

How would you respond to life?

What might you think?

What would you talk about?

And I really challenged myself to kind of look at that and say, hmm, I could actually be all of these things.

I just have to do the things that are in alignment to these things as opposed to the things that we're doing.

And so that was actually the biggest moment that started the trajectory of beginning to create this person that you're talking to today.

Because in that moment, I realized a few things, and these are the concepts that I really talk heavily about is one was radical self-acceptance.

Two was extreme ownership, the ability to just look at things in your life and take full responsibility for it.

Three was my five elements of self-mastery.

That's kind of the thing I created.

And it's that understanding that there's only five things in this world you can control your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your behaviors, and your language.

And why that's so important is because those five things are what's going to determine the trajectory of your life.

And if you're focusing on anything outside of those five, you have zero control over it and you're going to put yourself in a helpless state.

And then the last piece was internal leadership.

When I talk about internal leadership, I talk about the presence and the identity you are committed to bringing into this life and how you want to show up not only for yourself, but others.

And so all of these things I did in basically that moment in the mirror.

And this was kind of the realizations I had as I looked back on my life and I was like, huh, how did I do that?

But that that was uh that was it.

SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, so first and foremost, how freaking awesome, how powerful, and yet you were only 23 years old when you had this just absolutely explosive kind of you know, self-check, like in the mirror, who am I?

And why am I running from who I am?

Right.

I just man, I mean, I I applaud you because I mean I think some of us, I mean, people spend their entire lives waiting on that moment to happen.

SPEAKER_02: It's a shame, right?

That they're waiting on that moment to happen because you have to create it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: So from that day in the mirror, it's one thing to have a moment like that.

It's another thing to actually put the pieces together to take action.

What do you credit to your success to make it happen?

SPEAKER_02: Hmm.

I credit my success to making it happen.

Just my my desire to never be be the person I was, right?

Like I heard this a while ago.

It was uh it was definitely from a pastor in a in a compilation speech.

It might have even been Joel Olstein who said it.

And so one of the things that helped me as a person was I used to listen to a lot of compilation speeches as I as I was growing, like in my in my stage of of massive growth, right?

You listen to a lot of great people say a lot of great things, and some of it just starts sticking.

And one of the biggest things that he said was, we're not human beings, we're human becomings.

And I was like, that's an interesting concept.

Why, why, why does he say that?

And and it clicked to me as like we are human becomings.

We are always becoming another version of ourselves, should we choose, right?

Because there are some people that are stagnant in this house.

But we are always human becomings.

We're always trying or striving to become the better versions of ourselves.

And so I think the biggest part of my growth, my development, me as a person, is because of the fact that I look at it like that.

Like, I still don't believe I have myself figured out.

I honestly don't think I ever will.

And I think that people say when they're like, Oh, I know who I am, I'm like, you know who you are right now.

You don't know who you're gonna be in 10 years.

You don't know what what's gonna happen.

Like, I know right now I'm a father, right?

I don't know what could ever happen.

Like, God forbid something terrible happens.

One day I'll be like, yeah, I'm I was a father, or I'm not a father.

And so you're only able to do what you can with what you currently have in front of you.

And you get to determine that, right?

Based on your decisions, based on your perspective, based on your language.

And so as I started taking more ownership over my life, I started realizing life isn't actually terrible.

I'm not actually helpless.

And life really doesn't suck.

It was just the way that I was looking at it.

And so I would say that my determination to take complete and total ownership over my life and find aspects of mastery and find a way to create my life instead of getting dragged through it, because I've been there, is something that's really driven me to not be back there.

It's like, hey, I've I got the shit kicked out of me for the first half of my life.

I'm not gonna do that ever again.

And that's where I said, you know, at a at as I went on this self-development journey, I was like, I am only gonna be doing the things that really fill me up.

If it doesn't fill me up, and that could be work, people, family members, friends, I don't care.

If I don't feel a good energy and I don't feel filled up by your presence, and I feel like you're draining me, I'm done with it.

And I kept very true to that.

I would quit a job very quickly.

I would cut people off even quicker.

It wasn't, in my opinion, it wasn't me developing a bad or intolerable habit of life.

I found it to just be successful people know.

I I've come to see successful people are extremely quick to make decisions.

They don't sit there and think.

They really don't.

They'll think if it requires thinking, but they don't think about everything.

Because a lot of people, when they're successful, they have a high level of trust in themselves.

And so if they're making a decision, chances are they trust that decision.

So if I make a decision to get someone out of my life, I'm not going to go back and forth with it because I already know the quality of people I want.

I've created a lot of clarity around how I want to live my life and how I'm willing to accept other people in my life.

And so if you're if you're somebody that I'm getting rid of out of my life, I don't have to question it.

I don't even have to think about it.

I'm just like, oh yeah, you're gone.

No big deal.

And so I think there's been a big combination of things that have led me to being on a really great path.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Well, I mean, Vin, I mean, dude, the words that you speak, the thoughts that you are busting out with are so powerful.

I mean, I don't know if anybody else listening is like, ooh, baby, let's hate rewind and take some notes.

But uh, because because Vin is uh is uh laying it down and I love it, man.

Yeah, so so what does life look like for you today, both in terms of your own kind of self, your self-improvement, this this journey of self that you've been on, as well as career, you know, journey and just life.

Obviously, you said you're a father, which I mean, I think is just absolutely incredible.

But I'm just kind of curious what is life for you today?

SPEAKER_02: Life for me is amazing.

I honestly don't know a better way to describe it.

I've come to understand one or two things about happiness, that happiness is just simply a state of being, it's not really an emotion.

And happiness is something that is sustainable, it's actually very sustainable.

And it's very sustainable because all you have to do, and this this is very hard for some people, but all you have to do is just do the things that make you happy.

And I say it's very hard for people because a lot of people know it'll make them happy, but they're too afraid to do it.

Like, you have a really terrible, crappy uncle in your life.

Oh, I can't stop talking to him.

Why?

Well, he's my uncle.

I have that family obligation thing.

I'm like, stop talking to him, he's a shitty person.

No, no, I can't, I can't.

It's my uncle.

All right.

Well, keep enjoying your shitty uncle then.

Like, I don't know what to I don't know what to tell you.

Enjoy your crappy uncle and the terrible interactions you have with him.

Like, there's no real other way to put it.

And so I move very quickly in my life.

I'm a full-time entrepreneur.

I have my mindset and performance coaching slash therapy business practice that I do here.

I run another business.

I have absolutely amazing friends.

I've got a great mentor.

I have uh a really beautiful family.

And I and I I work on myself every day.

You know, I and and and it life isn't perfect, right?

Like, are there things I would like to have, you know, more time in my life for?

Of course.

Yeah, I I feel like I feel like there's some days that I don't get to do a lot of the things that I'd like to do.

And like, that's okay, though, because I live an awesome life anyway.

You know, I'm very blessed.

Even the problems I have, I'm blessed to have the problems I have.

The quality of the problems that you have is also a is a direct relation to the quality of the life you're living.

So I think I have the greatest problems.

I think I have the greatest life, and I'm not really too concerned with other people.

So I'm able to just kind of focus on the things that I have, which I think makes my life a lot easier too.

And I don't really think I have a better way to describe it than I just did.

I I'd say I'm pretty much living as close as I can be to my absolute dream life.

I think the only thing that would make it a little bit closer, because I wouldn't even say better, it would just make it closer, is being able to travel more.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what you remind me of when when you talk about this, and we when we've heard your life's journey and we've heard about the hard times, is it comes back to that that little saying, and and it may sound cute and it may sound silly, but it's the truth, is that there's always a rainbow after the rain.

And I believe that your story is a beautiful, beautiful reminder to us all that if we're in the storms of life, if we're in the rain, to keep moving forward because soon enough we can use you as an example.

That soon enough we can start living in the rainbow.

Right.

Yeah.

Man, listen, Vin, I want to thank you for being here today.

If somebody is loving you as much as I'm loving you, where's the best place for them to get a little bit more Vin in their life?

SPEAKER_02: The little bit of Vin could be in your daily dose of Instagram.

Uh I I post a decent amount of reels.

I've been a little slow lately as things have gotten a little busier in my life.

So the content creation has slightly slowed, but you can still check out the stuff I have on there, and I will be back posting very shortly.

So Instagram is great.

It's Instagram vin.infanti.

That's where you can find me.

And you can find me at the same handle on TikTok.

You guys can find me on LinkedIn at VinInfanti.

And you could also go check out my website.

It's vincentinfante.life.

It's my whole name, first name, last name.life.

And on there, I would invite everyone to check it out.

If you click on the resources tab, you get a free resource.

It is a very good version of a vision board, but it's even better because I created it and I call it a mission board.

And so I invite everybody to kind of check out those things.

And if you ever need anything, feel free to shoot me a DM or an email.

And uh I always answer and I do my best to be responsive to people with questions or people that just are curious about life.

SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, Vin, I think I can speak on behalf of me as well as everybody else who listens to this podcast.

That you're absolutely freaking awesome.

I thank you for sharing your journey, your story, and you've given us a whole new reason to get on over to the Graham.

SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks a lot for having me, man.

It was a great time, and I hope the audience gets some great value out of it.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.

And for you listening today, I want to thank you once again for being a listener here on Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Be sure to check out the episode show notes where all of the links mentioned will be found.

And uh, hey, get out there and take on the day with Grit, Grace and Inspiration.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I wanted to remind you that I never wanted to episode something that I have to say or that my death has to stay.

Wow.

I wish I could I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing.

I just that's what you're wrong.

And these dark scores are deserving of having all the information on the slide.

There's nothing special about me or any chest I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it.

And so I encourage you to look at yourself in there and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do this.

Or my contact information is inside of every episode just like this.

So go down, check out my contact information and reach out to me today.

But that's great to go to day every day.