Another #GreatRead for the month! This month, I’m sharing motivational speaker Trent Shelton‘s book (written with Lou Aronica), “The Greatest You: Face Reality, Release Negativity, and Live Your Purpose.”

I’ve featured some of Trent’s motivational videos on Imperfectly B before and have been watching him for some time now. As he shares in this book, his story hasn’t been without its share of adversity. After Playing Football for many years, he was eventually signed to the NFL and was cut and rejected by several teams. He tried to keep his love of the game alive, but it just didn’t pan out the way he planned. In the midst of this, he was smoking, drinking, and partying all of the time, among other things, to try to numb the pain. His life was all over the place.

The motivational speaker got a wakeup call after losing his college roommate to suicide. He realized that he had to face the reality of not playing football at the level he wanted. Instead of attempting to numb that pain, he decided to work towards becoming a better and stronger person and found his true purpose in life in the process. 

In this book, Trent shares his own life experiences as well as other stories from his supporters (known affectionately as Rehabbers) to discuss how to find your purpose, learning to forgive those who have hurt you, the importance of building a legacy, and more great topics that will help to better your life.

You can order a copy of the book for yourself HERE.

Of course, I always have some lessons learned from these #GreatReads and I wanted to share a few that I got from Trent.

Key Takeaways:

Your journey will not always go as planned. 

Haha, duh. “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Obviously, Trent had big plans to be a NFL star but it didn’t work out that way. He had to pivot and quickly learned that sharing his vulnerable moments with people created a new purpose for his life–one that impacts millions to this day. You have to be willing to step away from what you thought you were meant to do, no matter how long you’ve worked at it, in order to truly achieve what you were meant for.

You have to face up to your reality, not run from it. 

In keeping with the last point, you have to be real about where you currently are instead of being in denial or trying to numb your circumstances with outside forces. This takes real honesty and courage. It requires you to ask yourself tough questions like what are you hanging on to or running from due to fear? Where are you at in life right now? What excuses have you been making for yourself? How can you do better? You have to really own your stuff and commit to actually working on it. Trent reminded me of that.

You may have to burn some bridges along the way. 

Whew, this is real. People talk about cutting people off all of the time, but can you cut off those who are closest to you when they are hurting you more than helping you? We’re talking your best friend or even a family member. You have to ask if the people around you are uplifting or draining you? Are there bridges that need to be completely burned or can some actually be repaired? I’ve had to love people from a distance, people I thought I would never lose in my life. However, things happen. In order to be your best self, you may have to say goodbye to some people, no matter how hard it is.

You have to develop a “championship mindset” for your overall life. 

According to Trent, with any goal or dream that you have for your life, whether it’s career, health, family, whatever, it requires a championship mindset. The five traits of this mindset are commitment, discipline, consistency, faith, and heart. Of course, I’ve talked about the importance of the first three, but it’s important to have faith in your work and vision, even when it isn’t panning out like how you think it should. That faith keeps you going on the bad days. It’s also vital to have a real heart for what you do or whatever goal you’re trying to reach. If you’re just trying to do something to keep up with another person, to make quick money or any other dumb reason,, you won’t stick with it.

I hope that you guys will check out this book and that it helps you in the same ways that it’s helped me!