Trent Shelton’s Comeback Story - The Power of Rehab Time

Internationally successful motivational speaker Trent Shelton talks about his story and struggle with fear and depression, and how his life changed completely once he accepted the power of his voice. Learn about the challenges Trent encountered during his professional football career and how those struggles became his message that he now shares with over 12 million followers every day.

• Trent grew up in the New Orleans area with his two older brothers and family. Sports were a major component of Trent’s life and his parents were always supportive of him and the things he pursued.
• One of Trent’s earliest memories of pain was because he was asthmatic and had a lot of difficulty breathing when he was younger. It was so bad that during one coughing episode Trent burst the blood vessels in his eyes. His mother drove him to the hospital where Trent stopped breathing and blacked out. He spent a week in the hospital and it was then that he realized how fragile life could be.
• Trent learned to never take life for granted and realized that God has a plan for his life. The pain was not there to break him, it was there to build him, and it gave Trent a lot of emotional resilience from a young age.
• Trent’s parents were his earliest teachers. He learned how to have faith and resilience from his mother and he learned how to be a supportive father and husband from his dad.
• Trent grew up across the street from people that went on to play professional football and that showed him the fruits of hard work. Hard work can make any reality and dream come true. Get around people that make your dreams tangible and make you feel like you can accomplish them.
• Trent found some success as an athlete when he was in school but during one of his first drafts, he found himself being left behind. Athletes put a tremendous amount of significance on their performance, and it was the first time in his life where Trent really felt like he wasn’t enough. A couple of weeks later, Trent was cut from the team.
• He went back to his parent’s place and sheltered himself. What you suppress will turn into your depression, that's what happened to Trent. For the following three years he lost himself in the journey to try to make it as a professional football player.
• Instead of the love of the game, everything was based on the fear of being cut for not living up to what people expected.
• It’s hard for athletes to look within and accept that they need to heal. The selfish season is about making sure you take the time for you so you can show up in your life in the way that your family or your team needs you to.
• It’s about doing the dark work, the work nobody sees. That can be reading books, listening to podcasts, taking care of your body, and having the difficult conversations you need to have. Selfish season is about burning whatever necessary bridges you need to burn, the ones that are leading your life to destruction.
• Fear controls so many people’s lives and it prevents people from becoming the person they were created to be. The fear of staying the same has to outweigh the fear of change.
• Failure is just a feedback sample. You have to look at the cost of inaction and what you’re going to pay for not pushing forward.
• Your perspective is under your control. It’s the window of how you see the world and it can be one of two things: the prison perspective or the power perspective. The prison perspective holds you back, the power perspective puts you in the driver’s seat.
• How you see life will determine how you feel about life, how you feel about life will determine what you do with your life, what you do with your life will determine what you get.
• The clarity of your perspective is determined by the quality of your practices. Self-love and self-care are crucial.
• No matter what you have, if you don’t fix yourself at a core level, you will still have nothing. Once the thrill of external things wears off, you will still have to deal with the pain.
• Trent hung onto his football career, not because he loved it, but because he didn’t know who he would be without it. In order to accept reality, he had to release it.
• Most of the time we try to solve things at a surface level. To harbour true strength, we need to conquer pain at its deepest level. Once Trent released his fears and the things holding him back, he began the process of repairing the holes left behind.
• Trent is an introvert so he did not expect himself to become a speaker. It wasn’t until a friend saw that Trent had something within him and encouraged him to speak to a group of high school kids did he discover what he was capable of.
• Your transparency can become someone else’s transformation. Realizing your past had a purpose can bring incredible healing to your life.
• You are more than your sport.
• Detach your emotions from the outcomes and strive to stay in the middle.
• At some point in your life, your moments turn to memories and memories are all you have. Fulfilling memories with the people that are closest to Trent are now the most important things in his life and what he’s most grateful for.
• Ask yourself why you feel like you are being held back. Is your fear really yours or did somebody give it to you? You have to understand where your mindset comes from before you can address it. Be open to working with other people who are willing to coach you and get around those people.
• There is nothing great you can do without a vision.
• If Trent could send a message to his younger self, it would be “It all starts with you.” We usually live in a blaming and complaining mindset, but if you want to change your life and be better you need to take responsibility for your life and take your power back.
• Trent’s mom gets his Comeback Story shoutout. She instilled faith and perseverance in Trent and taught him that there was always something bigger than him in his life.

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Straight Up with Trent Shelton podcast