Episode 45: Redefining Failure with Myles Berrio
“So just be self aware if you love what you're doing within a corporate setting and figure out how you can be the best that you can be in serve in the best way and develop your skills and talents, to be able to take this company to the next level, the next level, the next level.” - Myles Berrio
What challenges or setbacks have you gone through to get to where you are today? What helped you get through them?
Failed it! Fam, grab your notebooks, and give a warm welcome to the most selfless, and inspiring light - Myles Berrio. He is here to guide us through lessons on servant leadership, personal development and developing a mindset that helps you no matter what circumstances life throws your way.
Myles is a published author, renowned photographer, and real estate investor who has endured many new setbacks as a new amputee from a drunk driving head on collision. Listen in as he shares his own experience of how failure is part of the process. Today’s episode will shine light on one incredible thing we all possess – our mindset. He inspires us to think if we can truly shift it to a positive place, how we will use our mentality to lead and serve others.
In today’s episode, Myles talks to us about:
The physical and emotional scars from his drunk driving collision and how he has preserved through
Failure, and why preparing to fail is a game changer
The importance of your mindset when it comes to overcoming failures and set backs
Links from show discussions:
Books/Audio by Tony Robbins, Jim Roan, John C. Maxwell, Darren Hardy, Les Brown
Follow Erin Diehl (@keepinitrealdiehl) and improve it! (@learntoimproveit) On Instagram
Text Myles at 706-814-2821 if you’d like to chat with him
About the Guest: Myles Berrio is a published author, renowned photographer and real estate investor. Having started his entrepreneurial journey in college to escape from working 3 jobs as a full-time student, Myles has learned the art of, “It’s not about what happens to you but what you do with what has happens to you.” Having been the personal photographer for celebrities, the official photographer for commercial brands like UberEATS and Netflix, traveling the globe to countries like Belize, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and many more, generating $100,000 in 6 months investing in real estate during the COVID pandemic, Myles continues to endure through failures and setbacks as a new amputee from a drunk driving head on collision. Myles is a father, a husband, mentor and more importantly a friend that encourages and empowers.
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Erin: (00:00)
Oh, I mean, I hope hold on one second, I'm going to cough and I'm going to edit this part out. I'm like, why am I coughing?
Erin: (00:11)
Hey there, my name is Erin Diehl and I'm a half Southern half Midwestern mama. Some call this voice a nasal twang who took $5,000 to build and scale a one of a kind experiential organization that improves the lives of corporate professionals through personal development, humanity, and humor. Along the way, I've built client relationships with some of the most notable companies in the country all while attracting a rockstar team of experts and hilarious facilitators. Sounds pretty awesome. Right? Well, what I didn't tell you is that my resume also includes a long list of comedy shows I bombed, improv teams I didn't make, companies who told me no and many a heartache when it came to becoming a mother. I want to show you the real deal of the grit, creativity, and determination it takes to overcome your disappointments, embrace the suck and design the career you could only dream about. I believe we all have our own unique gifts that we bring to the world and it is our mistakes that help to unwrap them. Welcome to failed it!
Erin: (01:22)
Hey, failed it fam it's Erin here with your failed it family member of the week. And today it is Torahdeomthewell , I think I'm saying that right. Torahdeomthewell writes the real deal! That's funny. Cause my last name is Diehl. This podcast is fun, relevant and inspiring. I grew up being told “there’s no such thing as trying. You either do or you don’t.” I resented that approach and set me up to personally feel like a failure when I fail at something. That’s a story I now reject. Erin reminds me of the value in the process of failing, reflecting, learning and getting back up to try again!! Thanks, Erin! Oh my God. This makes me so happy. Torahdeomthewell, oh my God. I used to feel the same way. That's why the show is here. I did feel like a failure when I failed. I sat in it. I, I literally felt the suck and made it overcome me emotionally, physically, all the things mentally. That's why the show is here for you. So Torahdeomthewell, send me an email at info@learntoimproveit.com. We are going to hook you up with an improve you e-learning course, you can find a list of those on our website, learntoimproveit.com/onlinetrainings. There's one of 10 sitting there waiting for you. Um, and it is a three week course to help you improve things like leadership, thinking quickly on your feet, sales training. So Torahdeomthewell send me an email. We'll get you all set up. Failed it! Fam, if you feel so inclined, your review on iTunes specifically helps us tremendously. I can't, I sound like a broken record. I'm sick of saying it myself, but they mean so much. So if you can literally take two minutes of your day to go to your iTunes app, scroll to the show, scroll to the bottom, leave five stars, write a review. Oh my God. It would mean the world because it helps us bring more people to the show, helps us climb in the iTunes ratings so we can share more fails with the world. Thank you so much. Let's get to failin it my fam! Awesome. Hello family. Welcome to today's show. I am so thrilled to have today's guest. All right. So we've met one other time other than this, right? And I can promise you that you will feel so inspired and so in awe of how awesome our guest is today. Welcome to the show Myles Berrio, welcome!
Erin: (04:20)
Oh my God. I'm thrilled to have you on the show today. Thank you so much. And I cannot wait for our failed it family to hear how awesome you are. So we're going to get right into it. We're going to get right into failing it here. So, and just for our failed it! Fam at home, I'm going to throw this out there. Normally I record this in my closet, as you all know, and today we are recording because our, our audio has video components to it now. The website we use is Zencastr, so Myles and I are actually looking in each other's eyes and this is a new experience to me. I love it. This is fun. Human to human connection is fun.
(04:57)
The way life should be intended - actually seeing somebody.
Erin: (05:01)
Exactly in real life. But I'll take the screen for now. I'll take a screen. So let me tell the failed it! Fam about you Myles, because you have such an interesting background and I'm going to read your bio. Okay. So Myles Berrio is a published author, a renowned photographer and real estate investor having started his entrepreneurial journey in college to escape from working three jobs can't even as a full-time student. Myles has learned the art of it's not about what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you. So having been the personal photographer for celebrities, the official photographer for commercial brands, like Uber Eats, which is on speed dial on my phone, okay, as well as Netflix traveling the globe to countries like Belize, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, and many more generating a hundred thousand dollars in six months investing in real estate during the COVID pandemic, Myles continues to endure through failures and setbacks as a new amputee from a drunk driving head on collision. Myles is a father, a husband, mentor, and more importantly, a friend that encourages and empowers! Myles - welcome to the show.
Myles: (06:26)
Thank you.
Erin: (06:27)
When you hear that bio.
(06:29)
Yeah. It's kind of crazy to hear that.
Erin: (06:32)
What comes to mind to you?
Myles: (06:33)
You know what comes to mind to me is honestly, really just staying humble. Uh, I think, you know, um, my mentors would always tell me that you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with who you hang around. And a lot of my friends, you know, they're, they live life to the fullest for, you know, for sure. So when I hear that bio, it just reminds me of the importance of living life to the fullest, because we really just never know when that last day is. And, um, you know, one of the things I would always tell my wife and, you know, tell my kids as they grew up is I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the things I'll always say is the greatest trick the devil plays on us is thinking that we have more time. So a lot of times we procrastinate on a lot of things in our life, whether it's, you know, wanting to publish a book, whether it's traveling, whether it's building a business, whether it's better relationships, whatever it is. And you just don't know when that, you know, that day is. And we, we always just assume like, Oh, I'll do it later next day, next day. So, you know, when I hear that bio, it's just more so not like, you know, it's not like any, Oh my gosh, let me pat myself on the back. I'm so amazing. It's more so just, you know, wow, I've lived a lot of stuff. I've, you know, I'm 28 years old, you know? So like still a lot more life to live. And I just want to do the best I can and live it to the fullest, you know?
Erin: (07:46)
Oh my God Myles, you, okay. First of all, I saw you wrote about a post about this on your Instagram. So if you're not following Myles, we're going to have you plug all the things at the end of the show. I am just truly amazed at your spirit. I think you have the kindest heart. I know we, we let, let me tell the failed it! Fam how we met. So I found you on social media right after a Bravo celebrity who I liked. And I feel like should be my best friend, Cameron Eubanks posted about your journey. And it's the journey that we mentioned in the bio after you had this drunk driving collision, you're now a new amputee, which I want I will get we'll get into, but I quickly went to your page where I was beyond inspired about your positivity, your perseverance, your kindness, um, and you have this spirit prior to this accident. So this isn't new. So, but this has, I think just propelled you with such a tragic thing to happen in your life. And I now obsess with your Instagram and you, and I see you push past this new setback, and it's just beyond inspiring to me, which I know our failed it! Fam listening is here for the inspiration, right? They're here to be their best selves personally, professionally. So can you share an and before you do that, I want to get into what happened. I want to know a fun fact about you that are failed it! Fam couldn't find on your resume, your LinkedIn, or your Instagram profile. What's a fun fact about you?
Myles: (09:26)
A fun fact. Um, well, uh, I guess a fun fact would be when I met my now wife, uh, when we met for the first time, um, she, uh, was kind of just always drawn to just my mindset and personality, kind of, like I said, I started my entrepreneurial journey in college, um, and it was network marketing. And actually in that company, she had found me through that company cause I really just sort of, um, just those just really working really hard and kind of leveled up in the company. And she just, as I was traveling and speaking and stuff like that, um, she added me on social media was always following me, but we lived in the same city and she ended up reaching out, wanting to meet up, um, to, uh, really partner with like, I guess like a business partner that she had. And, um, it was really funny cause we're dating now. And of course, you know, there's probably some attraction or whatnot, obviously we're dating for a reason and, um, or we're married for a reason. But when we first met each other, the very first thing that came out of her mouth was, wow, you're short. Which is hilarious! Yes. This is my, my wife today. Um, I, you know, I'm, I'm not like I'm not like crazy short, but I'm definitely not the tallest guy, you know, around a little average below average, my dad's Hispanic. So typically like, you know, my mom's a really short Jamaican girl and my dad is Hispanic. Totally like, you know, shorter family, her family is like completely European. Like she's straight from Germany, Polish. Um, her mom's Polish, her dad's Germany, she's tall. It's just, you know, it's, it's one of those unique, beautiful relationships you'll see when you go out and you go like, Oh wow. You know, they obviously really love each other. Um, because, uh, yeah, she's definitely taller than me. And we first met, that's the very, literally not even hi or hello. The literally that was the very first thing that came out of her mouth is, well, you're short.
Erin: (11:19)
That is a fun fact! Can I ask, what are the height differences? What is your height? What is her height?
Myles: (11:24)
I'm like five, five, she's like five, nine.
Erin: (11:31)
Embrace it. You know, you got to embrace it so much. My younger brother, if he listens to this show, he is, he is on the shorter side too, but him and I both have the world's tiniest hands. Like tiny, I've never met anyone with smaller hands. So anyway, I'm dropping that fact in there, but I want that.
Myles: (11:58)
And we don't necessarily have to go into all the nitty gritty of all that, but it's actually a very powerful story because, um, that was literally the number one thing for her is like she would never ever date a guy shorter than her ever. She, I just cause she's like taller, you know? And she's like, I had my husband, my guy, he, I will never date someone shorter than me. And then I always said, I would never date someone who has a child, um, you know, going into the relationship. So the number one thing for both of us that we said we would never do, we actually both ended up having a change of heart. And I really think it was a beautiful way that the Lord just kind of showed us that there's more to life than the things that we're afraid of or have some sort of, you know, sort of predisposition of what things would be like or, um, you know, how they would, might negatively affect us because there's so much more beauty and a story that God has for our lives and for the union in our marriage. And uh, like I said, that was the number one thing for her. She had a child and I was sure it had been her and we both ended up getting married. It was like the thing for both of us anyway. It's super, super powerful, love, love my wife. She's amazing. And anyway, so that was a fun fact, but yeah,
Erin: (13:06)
Well it's a perfect fun fact that it also goes into just a great lesson learned, right? Like that's never say never, right? Never say never. And I've love that you've ended up in this awesome relationship. We're going to talk about Mila and just sit a little bit to your job or your new job, not new, but she's, she's under one. So still fresh, fresh. So I also know that you're University of Georgia alumni, you know, I went to Clemson, we talked about this and we'll be friends here. We are. You know, I love, you know, when we first chatted, before you came on the show, he gave me this journey of your life. And I was so intrigued if you can't just high level gives a feel that family, a little overview of how you ended up in the South. Cause you're in Greenville, South Carolina right now I'm in Charleston, South Carolina, actually, I don't think on this show have ever had anyone from South Carolina other than myself on this show yet. So how did you end up in Greenville and go to UGA? Give us that high level overview.
Myles: (14:22)
Yeah, absolutely. By the way, I feel very special and a lot of, a lot of first happening between us right now for video South Carolina, I'm honored to bring such value to this, this platform. That's awesome. But, um, yeah, so, um, yeah, just kind of like the journey of life. I mean, I went to UGA because I was, uh, I went to high school in Augusta, Georgia. So I grew up in Augusta for most of my like middle school, high school. I'm actually more of a military brat. My mom served 22 years in the military, in the army special intelligence. She was POW desert storm. Same thing. My dad was in the military. So we traveled all the time, but we finally, my parents finally retired in Augusta, Georgia where I went to high school and um, very competitive high school. Um, it was a private kind of art school magnet school Davidson Fine Arts, and, um, you know, and Augusta Georgia, or just being in Georgia period, everyone kind of does.
Myles: (15:18)
It was like the top, you know, everyone's usually trying to get into Georgia tech, UGA, or like Emory, you know, if you're on that side of the medical, um, the side. So when I was in, uh, art, my high school didn't have any sports cause it distracts from academics. It's so funny. So our, our sports were like academic bowl and swim team and like a chess club and, you know, just very kind of like, you know, what someone might say, nerdy, academic, um, very academically focused. So, uh, we're all very, we're all very super competitive and whatnot. So, uh, I was on, I was on a team model you in, so it's really like modeling like the United nations. You're a delegate for a country. And just the whole experience modeling we model you in, um, in high school. And, uh, the conferences would be held at, were held at UGA university of Georgia for at least the two years that I was doing.
Myles: (16:06)
It was held at UGA. So I was a delegate for country first year was like, cause you have your first year that you can do it is like your junior year because you can do it junior and senior. So my first year was yeah. And, um, I, you know, sort of your soft freshmen, not really, you're not necessarily always thinking about, Oh, this college I'm going to, um, sophomore year. You're kind of thing about junior year, for sure. Like, it's really on your mind. Like, what am I, you know, this is the college I want to go to and you might even start looking at colleges and things like that. But a lot of times, even just your senior year, like the beginning, the middle, you're really kind of looking through like, this is the one I'm going to go through and stuff like that.
Myles: (16:40)
But I ended up actually, um, coming across the university of Georgia my junior year because of our conference that we had. So once I stepped foot at UGA, I mean, it was just a no brainer. I was just absolutely like amazed and just like in awe, like, Oh my gosh, this is insane. You know? Cause he go from, uh, so a lot of people would go to public schools, you know, maybe your senior class has like hundreds of kids, 300, 400, 500, maybe even more. My, uh, my senior class size was 98 people. So you can only imagine, you know, the size, my, you know, my class sizes again in public schools, you know, maybe it's a good 30, 40, 50, maybe more. But, um, we generally would have like in the teens, like 18 people, 15 people, maybe 10 people in that class. So very small setting.
Myles: (17:25)
And then you go from that to like the University of Georgia where it's like, I mean, it's, it's like all of Athens basically. It's like the whole city, you know, is huge. And it's just all of the, you know, I mean you're just selling opinion and all these buildings and just projects going on and clubs and just, just organization, just all this stuff. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. I mean, so anyway, long story short, I ended up, that's kind of why I went to UGA with university of Georgia. Um, but sort of the fast forward, um, moving to Atlanta is where, um, um, well, so I actually went into network marketing while I was in college. That was the whole how I was able to get out of three jobs because, um, I come from a, you know, sort of immigrant background. My mom's from Jamaica, my dad's from Panama.
Myles: (18:08)
Um, I'm sort of first-generation for Panama. So, um, I, um, you know, my parents, you know, they worked a lot kind of the typical lower middle-class, you know, just working, working, struggling financially. Um, so when I was in college, I pretty much had to pay for everything myself. So I picked up three jobs. I worked at the UGA golf course. Um, I worked as a DA, a desk assistant for Russell Hall at the hall. And then I worked at Express Men basically. So it was yeah. Express. I love it. It was like a dream. It was honestly, it was honestly like a dream life because I loved golf and I can never afford to play golf. My parents, I didn't have like daddy's old golf gloves or, you know, we never had money to just go on golf courses and play. So going to UGA, like anyone who goes to college, you know, that there's all these classes and courses and experiences that you can have just being in college.
Myles: (18:55)
And, um, one of the classes you could take was golf. So, um, I took off, but of course it was only a class. I wanted to be able to play golf whenever. And of course UGA has one of the, you know, just a great golf course, great team there. Um, so I applied to work at the golf course and uh, ended up getting the job through a friend that I met, um, on, uh, in my golf class. So, um, I was able to play golf whenever at any time, as much as I wanted to. Um, obviously assuming when it was open, the golf course, um, but then working at Express, you know, I love just, you know, at that time dressing up and just looking, you know, having, you know, having the style going on. So it was just super awesome, but the challenge was, is like, it was insane because I was a biology major and just imagine, you know, taking gen chem and biology and all your classes and then having to get on a bus, you know, I would have to leave the heart.
Myles: (19:43)
It's called a weed-out class. Obviously we know about weed out classes. I would have to leave 20 minutes early from chemistry, gen chem, which is like a weed-out class to be able to get to the bus that would make it on time to get to Express, which was at the mall. Um, you know, and then I would work the next day, early in the morning, opening up the golf course, have my classes, the afternoon, and then later work at the desk. I mean, it was just insane, right? So I was starting to feel what we all kind of feel in that rat race of if we're not really taught the concept of entrepreneurship and not even entrepreneurs, because I know that word is a little overused, but the idea of being able to generate income rather than just earning a wage, the challenge with working an hourly wage, even some of that salary is that it's capped.
Myles: (20:26)
There's only so much time in the day. So even if you're making $50 an hour, there's still only 24 hours in the day. And if you imagine, let's say someone's selling a product online. I mean, there's hundreds of millions, if not obviously, billions of people that can, you know, buy a product. Um, so, you know, I started to experience what it was like to where if I work the job, even if I'm working hard, I'm doing great. I'm not making the income that I want. So what do I do? Well, let me go get another job. But then again, that job is designed to earn money by trading time. So now I'm losing more time. So I'm making maybe a little bit more money, but I have less time, so I need more money. So what do I do? I get a third job. So now you have even less time, you might be making slightly a little bit more money, but you start to realize how, um, the trajectory of the income you're making compared to the time you're losing is just, you know, probably not, um, you know, probably not a beneficial experience, um, when you're, when you're really wanting to live life to the fullest and do other things. So, um, that's where I, I came across network marketing. That's a whole long story. We may not even have time to really dive into all that. So I'm just gonna pass here. A lot of stuff, we would probably have to do like three episodes of like hour and a half to two hours to talk about all this.
Erin: (21:34)
Can I stop you right there too? What I really like is that obviously I'm an entrepreneur. We have a lot of people here who are, have entrepreneurial hearts, maybe they worked in corporate America and have dreamed of going out and doing something like that on their own. And what you just said is you were trading time for money, where as an entrepreneur, you can make a lot of money in however much time you want, but based on the energy that you put in to what you do. So I think that's a really interesting philosophy to think about because you worked three jobs at UGA, right? You're working these three jobs, you catapult it into this network marketing career. And then you've got into, I want to say is the next thing that got you, you went into real estate or has it been from network marketing where did you go?
Myles: (22:29)
It was so it was marketing consulting. And I do want to touch on one thing about, um, because you know, this is a sort of a lesson I had to learn over time, especially being a young kid. And, you know, you want to just really, at the end of day, you want to make money and just, you know, maybe you grew up with not having it. So it's just really a big focus and you feel that entrepreneurship is the best way to do it. Cause you just make all this money in the world and things like that. I think what's more important is self-awareness. So I do want to speak to anyone listening right now that, um, I'm just gonna be honest and, and everyone has their own opinion about it and that's fine, but I don't think that the journey of entrepreneurship is for everyone.
Myles: (22:58)
It's really not. And there's a reason for that is because being self-aware is way more important. And there's a quote that says, um, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it'll go its entire life thinking that it's stupid. And the reason why that's important is because a fish is not designed to climb a tree. So if you judge something like a fish by what it's not designed to do, it'll feel discouraged. Um, it'll feel inadequate and it actually won't live its life to the fullest. It won't, it won't do the best job that it can in it. And just on a more, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it, uh, life just sucks, you know? Um, you just don't feel fulfilled. Um, so the thing about it is if you, there's some people that feel very fulfilled doing work within an organization, within a structure, um, that helps keep a business running, um, that helps to grow a business, but they're not the individual that wants to actually what we would call it, be founder, um, and actually create the idea, develop the idea of starting.
Myles: (23:55)
There's a difference between a founder and CEO. They're two different things. And there are founders, someone who might found, they founded a company, let's say Howard Schultz and Starbucks, but you might find that, especially if you look at different companies out there that the CEO is not the same as the founder, because a CEO is the chief executive officer, somebody can come in and they will help grow this business. They'll help run the business and take it to the next level. And a lot of times you might find that the founder or the entrepreneur will go and start another business and find another CEO to run that because they don't have, they just don't have the, again, they're self aware. They know that there are people who have better skills to be able to run organizations, manage people, do all these things. So the reason I bring that up and bring that up because I just don't want anyone listening right now, if you're in a corporate setting, it's very important for you to just be self-aware right now, are you someone, everyone values their time.
Myles: (24:43)
But I think people tend to think, okay, if I value my time, but I can't work at corporate because you know, I'm working for someone else and my time is valuable and I want to do my own thing. That's not necessarily true because someone can be extremely happy with their time serving an organization or a company out of corporate setting. So just be self aware if you love what you're doing within a corporate setting and figure out how you can be the best that you can be in serve in the best way and develop your skills and talents, to be able to take this company to the next level, the next level, the next level. Um, and really be excited about that. And not just so swayed on this idea of, I need to figure out how to get out of corporate and then go run my own business.
Myles: (25:20)
Because they're both great. You just have to be self-aware to understand where you, where you, you know, where you fall. So anyway.
Erin: (25:27)
I love that you added that because I will say it too. I have one of my best friends, right? She left a corporate job, did something entrepreneurial and realized that it wasn't for her. So she left that. And some of us that same mentality of, you know, if you're a fish swim, right? If you're, if you don't try to climb the tree, if that doesn't feel right to you. And I love that because we're all wired differently or all in this space of let's be our best selves professionally. That's what this podcast is all about. It's taking these things that we hear that happen to people and saying, okay, you you're successful. And I'm looking at you Myles, you are successful, but you've had some setbacks and things in your life that, you know, you've had to overcome. And that's really what that is all about is recognizing where do you find strength, running towards that strength, and then using these testimonies, if you will, the test of the testimony to help other people. And that's what you mentioned with serving. I love that you said the word serving,
Erin: (26:32)
Hey, failed it! Fam want to hang out more? Was that too forward? Okay. Did I jump in too soon? Sorry about that. I mean, okay. Now my cheeks are pink. Okay. What I'm saying is I like you, and if you like me, then let's talk more than just once a week. How about like daily or whenever you feel like opening that app? The app. Yeah, that app. IG the Gram, Instagram. So on my Instagram handle @keepinitrealdiehl, I give you a behind the scenes, look at how episodes are made. And every week we do IG lives with guests from the show, you can also follow @learntoimproveit. That's learn T O improve it for soft skill training, tips and tricks for you and your team on things like vision setting, taking creative risks, virtual communication tips, and more. Now you can DM me directly on either of those handles to ask Qs and to tell me what you want more of from this show. I literally read every single one and it's where I hang out. So let's hang y'all. So give @keepinitrealdiehl and @learntoimproveit a follow on the gram and give me a big fail yeah in the DMs, when you do, I am so excited to hang and hear from you.
Erin: (28:02)
Can we jump forward a little bit? Cause I want to jump forward to the past 90 ish days of your life because, Oh my God, can you tell a little bit what happened to you? And what I really want to focus on here is where you receive your strength and your positive mentality.
(28:25)
Yeah. Um, well, I'll, I'll first say, and then I know I say a lot of these quotes and a lot of these phrases, but because, you know, I think simplification is really important. So, um, I like to just simplify things and just like one liner is a lot of times, so you'll probably hear a lot of quotes, but it's important. You know, one thing I would say, uh, that I was taught as well, is that if you fail to prepare in life, you're just preparing to fail. And the reason why I say that is because you're asking kind of where did you get this sort of mindset and the spirit and the strength is it takes time to really develop that sort of attitude and that mindset, um, and really a practice.
Myles: (28:59)
It's not something that we're born with being able to just have the mindset that will allow you to endure through very difficult challenges. You have to practice the necessary responses, not reactions, but the responses cause a reaction is different than a response. If you think about chemistry and you think about chemicals, they react, right. There's not this sort of innate ability to pause and to really choose the right route of how you're going to go about something. And that is a skill in itself. Um, so I'll just start with that by saying, you know, um, it's really important for us to practice responding to situations well starting now doing that over and over and over as much as we can. Um, so where that spirit and where that energy came from, um, just throughout my entire journey all the way through high school, um, all the way through college, just things that happened, you know, where I learned through personal development, which I'll say would be the biggest thing before really getting into scripture and really understanding that Jesus is really what carves the way I live my life out, because there's just a way of life that I think is very valuable.
Myles: (30:02)
Um, you know, uh, whether someone's a believer in Jesus or not, the important thing is, is that we're called, um, if, if you're a believer to live a certain way, that really just, it brings great fruit. I mean, if you just look at it, I mean the number one command is to love thy neighbor and to love God with all their heart. So whether you believe in God or not, or really believe in Jesus or not, if we actually all just abided by that sort of mentality, I mean, life would be so much better. Wouldn't it? I mean, if you think about my accident, I was hit by a drunk driver head on and you know, I'm not judging this woman. I don't know anything about this woman, but let's just be honest, her drinking and then driving, is that loving her neighbor or is that putting her neighbor in danger, right.
Myles: (30:41)
If you love thy neighbor and you love God, you know, there's just things you're not going to do that will avoid these situations happening, like kind of where I'm at right now, um, with this injury. So anyway, I think, uh, when I was in college not I think, but when I was in college and I got into network marketing, you know, we would always, we'd always teach and train that your level of success is equal to your level of mindset in terms of how you get through a difficult challenge, how you can endure, how can, how you can solve problems and all of that takes development, which what we tend to call as we all know is personal development. So that means the books and the people and the audio is that we read Tony Robbins, Jim Roan, John C. Maxwell, Darren Hardy, Les Brown. I mean, I can go on and on and on because yes, yes, yes.
Myles: (31:31)
Darren Hardy. Yeah. Darren Hardy Compound Effect like, I mean, I noticed this in the back of my head because even when I was 19, 20, 21, 22, I mean, I would be in the shower listening on my phone with this audio of Darren Hardy or when I'm going to bed, I have Les Brown going in my ears or when I'm driving and, um, you know, going to meetings or doing sales and, or going to the gym, I'm listening to music, I'm listening to Jim Roan. Um, and, and you know, the seasons of life, you know, just really developing the mindset that allows you to win in life. So anyway, again, to answer your question, yes, this incident did happen, but like you kind of alluded to earlier in the podcast is that, you know, you really kind of felt I had this mindset before the accident, which is true.
Myles: (32:14)
Again, you want to prepare because if you don't, then you're going to, I mean, you're literally, you're, you're, you're preparing to fail. Um, if you fail to prepare, um, because we don't, we all don't know when a life-threatening life-changing experience can happen and trust me, you don't want to wait. I always like to say, you don't want to wait until the ambulance for you to really start to rechange your life. You know, a lot of times people will eat like, you know, horrible, eat like crap, basically, for lack of a better way explaining it. Um, and, and not really take care of their body. Um, and then when it gets to where they're in an ambulance and they're headed to the hospital, you'll find a lot of times people change their diet and change their life. You don't have to wait, you don't have to wait for the sirens.
Myles: (32:50)
You know, you don't have to wait for the ambulance, you know, to, to, to really prepare, um, you know, for, you know, to, to be able to have the right mindset, to get through challenges. Because like Jim Rohn says, you know, uh, we all will feel the wind of, uh, um, you know, we all feel the wind of regret, the wind of suffer, the wind of pain. He talks about the sailboats that were all these sailboats. And, um, you know, that's where I get that quote, that it doesn't matter what happens to you and matters about what you do with what happens to you. Why not? Because it doesn't matter because it just, you know, it's irrelevant and you know, it's frivolous. But the point is what happens to us happens to everybody. We all feel pain. We all feel struggle. We also, so what we're feeling, what happens to us that that's not the issue, cause we're all gonna feel. We're all gonna feel the wind, we're all gonna feel the wind and pain and suffering are gonna everybody. We're all human beings. So what's important is what we do, how we respond to those things, right. That's really
Erin: (33:40)
Myles. I want to share. I'm going to tag some of these folks that you mentioned in the show notes to our failed it! Family. Okay. And then I also want to just pinpoint something that you said too, which I think is very valuable. Don't wait, you know, before the ambulance, don't wait for, you know, you have to go to the hospital and your diet needs to change the fact that you had this mentality, the fact that you had been a strong person, not only mentally, but physically prior to this accident, and I'm seeing photos of you and you just told me before we hit in the gym and get out, have not worked out in months, listen to this!
Erin: (34:29)
Myles has been given this opportunity to use his accident as a platform. And I think that that is in itself right there such a blessing that you, you were given this, this soul of Myles to teach the world before you even knew exactly how you were going to teach. You are, if you go on my, and this is how I found you through social media, which is a blessing, again, it's a curse, but I'm so glad it's led me to some of the coolest people I've ever met in my entire life, which you are now included in that. If you go on his social, you can see pictures of Myles in the gym you are now an amputee, you've lost a limb and have one working arm.
Myles: (35:28)
This might be a little scary, I don't mean to interrupt you, but that, I don't know if you can really even see my other arm, that's how horrible it is. A bunch of muscle actually torn out of my arm. And these fingers, you can't really move them. They're stiff. So anyway, that's yeah, that's my, uh, part of my life.
Erin: (35:47)
Yeah. That's a part of your life. And if anybody, this isn't going to be the whole thing. This Isn't going to be on video. But, um, we are on video as we mentioned earlier in the show and I, Myles, I just gotta say, you are a fricking rock star. You really are. You are. And you are given this. Nobody wants to go through what you've been through. You’ve been through some horrible, horrible things in the past few months. And I want to just say that the perseverance, the positivity, the mentality that you give all of us is a light. Please continue to shine it. Like I'm this just filled with, I laugh and cry on this show all the dang time. So I'm right now crying and you are a beautiful soul and that you and your story you're so you're still walking through and you're still gliding through this journey of like pain, suffering, perseverance.
Erin: (36:47)
You're still gaining strength. You're still figuring out the next step. And you're, you're talking, I've said this to you. I think, you know, I like to say like a lot of what we do on this show is talk us through our scars. And right now you're talking literally through the open wound, like you are still healing. You're here with us and sharing that with the world and you're sharing it on your social media so people can support you. But also people can look to you as a leader, as someone who is giving the world the opportunity to see the good in it, because what you're doing, you have this, the situation you've had what we'd like to call failed it experience, essentially. And you're not the failure here. It's it's life through your curve ball, and you are taking that and you are running with a, like, you are giving us this beautiful platform to know that we can persevere. You can persevere through this. You can persevere through it.
Myles: (37:49)
No, I love that. And I love that because, you know, um, especially with this accident happening and then just other things in my life, um, you know, I've been interviewed on podcasts or shows or just different things. And definitely questions that are typically asked in general is like, you know, what kind of failures, you know, have you had, and what kind of lessons have you learned and things like that. Um, I'm very particular about words because words really, really affect how you perceive things. And obviously being a believer, we know that the Bible is even called the word, the word of God. And it's really important to understand too. And though, this has nothing. This is not to like, obviously we all understand what you're trying to bring out. And there's only certain ways you can describe things. So using the word failure, I'll just say, allows us to understand where you're trying to go in that direction.
Myles: (38:31)
But I'm just saying in my mind, I don't ever see anything, a failure, and we have to all understand two things that I want to say right now is number one, you might be hearing me, listen to me. And just like, man, this guy, the way he sounds, it's like relation it's mindset. And you might already slowly be pulling away yourself, just thinking I can't be that person. You know, I'm not as cool. I'm not as unique. And that's where we have to stop. Number one is, you know, I love that you're like man Myles, you are so awesome because people need to learn how to believe that in themselves. And I just don't think enough people really believe that they are awesome. And you don't have to go through such traumatic situations to bring light to people in this world and to really guide people to a better place, because what else do we have?
Myles: (39:10)
I mean, we all are going through such, I mean, life is hard. It really is. Which is actually one of the reasons why it helps me get through my situation because I'm not going to lie. It is pretty tough. I mean, I'll even give you if you want to kind of call it a fail to experience that I don't really share on social media that most people may not know is even just my daughter. You know, like I was super bummed being in the hospital, not being able to see my daughter because of COVID and the accident. And I just couldn't see her for over a month and a half. And I just had a baby and I couldn't see her. So I was super stoked to get home, but check this out. I got home and actually ended up being worse than when I was in the hospital, not seeing her at all, but because of my injuries, we actually, she's now right in front of me, she's literally right in front of me.
Myles: (39:48)
And we actually have to keep her away even still to this day. A lot of times we have to pull her up because she's a baby and she can grab really tight. She doesn't know what she's doing. She can kind of, you know, scratch, smack. And of course, I mean, I'd be bleeding all over the place. It's unfortunate. I really can't pick my daughter up. Like I would love to, as a husband, as a father, I can't really grab her. Um, so it's actually even harder, um, being home, but where I'm getting at, I'm getting, this is, you know, there's a quote that says you only fail when you give up. And it really is true. And that's not just a motivational like, Oh yeah. You know, no, no, no. It's really true. Because anything that happens to you, that's somewhat either of a setback or a challenge or some sort of mountain to climb. You only fail when you stop and you give up because the journey to success is getting through all of those things, getting over the hump, being a problem solver. Because if you've been at some, some of you guys might be visual learners. If you think about a mountain and you're at the bottom of this mountain and there's some reward at the top, if you just stay at the bottom, of course you failed. You're never needed that. You didn't get to the top. So I mean, of course that's failure. You just, yeah, you just stop. You just give up. You just stay at the bottom. So nothing happens. But if you look at that mountain, it's not a failure because it may take a lot of effort. It may take a lot of work. It may take a lot of time. It may be hard and swaying and crying and bloody and all these things, but your progression and your progression, and your progression, as hard as it is, you might even get close and then fall back down a little bit more and then get more and just get further and get further.
Myles: (41:17)
But you will finally get to that top. And that's what life is all about. Failure is just when you stop. And that's where my mindset really has helped me through this is that yeah, I got hit with a drunk driver head on and who, you know, I realized as I look around the world, there's really not a lot of people. We're very unique. You're very unique person when you have a prosthetic leg and you know, you go through an amputation. It's like most people you're not walking, they're not walking around amputations and limbs losses, things like that. Um, so it's a very difficult situation and traumatic thing that people experience, you know, that a lot of people experienced that, but there are a lot of difficulties and things that people experience. I mean, this might be a little bit on the negative, you know, kind of on the jury side, but it's true.
Myles: (41:58)
I could have very well been born in Uganda or something and have my wife, my mom, you know, slashed to death with a machete. And then my dad killed and my siblings killed and me, even beaten to death and all types of horrific things. And I'm trying to run away from militia and smaller. You know, I mean, you know, life is hard everywhere around the world. So what I realized is that my, my battle might be a little bit more physical, might be a little bit more visual to people that they can see right away. And it's not to diminish what you go through or what I'm even going through. Cause it's, it's hard. But the reality is, is everybody's fighting a battle and that's the second thing I was going to get into. Once you realize that everyone's fighting some kind of battle, you are awesome because you're still here and you're waiting and you're pushing through because it's when you stop that you actually give up.
Myles: (42:42)
The second thing is, I just really feel like it's our duty to encourage and empower other people through theirs. And that's, I'm not doing this so I could be some influencer and just use my platform to be cool. And all these things, I just understand. Number one, like I said, everybody's fighting a battle and then number two, what else do we have? What else do we have if we're all struggling and fighting and pushing through things because life is hard. And there's a lot of beautiful, amazing moments in life. It's great. But when you wake up and you have all the money you want in the bank account, and you can travel all over the world and you know, you have a great relationship, all these things are great, you know, that's great. And all, but the reality is, is you're going to get punched in the face at some point.
Myles: (43:19)
And the reality is, is when that happens, that's where the real work takes place, because you know, it's easy to have fun, but it's a lot harder to push through and to endure. And if we can teach each other how to do that, I mean, it makes, it makes our community. It makes our world a much better place, less depression, less people blaming others and, and fighting, you know, the other person for this and what you just take your own responsibility to go. I can win. I'm awesome. I can make this happen. I'm going to teach other people how to do this as well. You know,
Erin: (43:45)
That's it Myles you, and that's what failed. And when I say the word failed, I'd want to talk to this too. You know, we I'm the founder of a company improve it. We use improv comedy to train on soft skills and which I know you've done a little bit, but it's essentially the biggest rule of improv is there are no mistakes, only gifts. So that's what this whole show is about, is looking at these obstacles in your path. And you are you're, you're literally, if I could just say failed it! like you are taking this obstacle and you are just allowing that obstacle to guide your path forward, and you're sharing that path with others to let us feel less alone in journeys, like you said, there's not, there's, there's people who are all struggling in some way, shape or form. We just may not see it on the outside, but on the inside really struggling. And I really appreciate you saying that because I think that that is why this platform exists. I think the fact that you coming on the show, you talking to variety of different podcasts and shows you are serving, my friend, the world.
Myles: (45:01)
And you are! Even more than I can, because I can always share my story like this to people when there's a platform provided. So I really, Erin, I mean, what you're doing is incredible. It's amazing. I mean, it's allowing people to be exposed to information that they would not have otherwise. And it's just, you know, it takes effort and time. And again, people might think that what you're doing is great. It was awesome lady and just has a little room and puts her thing in and just, she loves talking. No, it takes time. Dude, you're a mom! Well, it takes effort and time and consistency and work. And you know, and, and it's not like anyone's given you a check right now today to sit here and do this. So it's really, really valuable and awesome that you're doing this. So I'm just honored to be even just on the platform seriously to even share, you know, my story.
Erin: (45:42)
So you're part of the family now, you're not going away. So our family will embrace you. Okay. And we're going to wrap it up Myles, but I got, I got two, I got two important questions. And then we have something called the failure yet lightning round, which is super fun. So let me ask you this. What would you do even if you might fail?
Myles: (46:05)
What would I do even if I might fail?
Erin: (46:08)
Right. You know, the old question, what would you do if you could not fail? What would you do even if you could fail?
Myles: (46:14)
Yeah. Um, again, it might be cliche, but it's just who I am. That's just how it is. What would I do? Even if I might fail, I do it anyway. I mean, the reality is, is like, there's an opportunity for you to fail, but it's an opportunity for that. Like you said, to be a gift in a lesson, and if you don't fail, then you can even still learn from that. You learn what you did well, and you do that again. But if I, if I might fail and then I do, then I can learn from that. And I can, I can, I can grow at a deeper level than I might have if I actually had succeeded right away. So that's why you find that the most successful people in the world are who they are because of not just the successes they've had. It's because of all the failures that they went through that led them to those successes. It was their ability to get punched in the face and stand up, punch in the face, stand up, punch in the face 10 times, you know, and stand up 11, you know, just keep standing up, standing up, standing up, standing up. And it's those incidents, even when they might fail, right? Because you can start a business and it doesn't mean you're going to succeed out the gate. Right. But if we feel like we're going to fail and then we don't, then we've actually already failed because if we don't choose to move forward, then we actually already created what we were afraid of. Because what if I go, man,
(47:32)
I would say this funny, sort of this funny little thing of like, if you're in school and you're like a, you know, maybe a teenage boy or a teenage girl doesn't matter, but you like, think this person's cute. And you're like, you know, you're thinking, man, I don't want to ask this person out because if I ask them out, what if they say no? Right. So you're afraid that they're going to say no and reject you. And because of that fear, which you can just equate to failure, you decide to not lean in and not take an opportunity, not move forward. So you just don't ask them out. Which funny enough if you ask them out and they said, no, then you're obviously not dating. But then if you don't even try, because you're afraid that you, for sure guarantee the fact that you're not dating because you didn't ask them out right, so is there an opportunity for maybe they actually like, totally think you're cute. Totally think you're awesome. Totally would, you know, want to go to date as well. That's the reality just because you might fail is not an excuse to not try because if you don't, then again, you have guaranteed actually feeling because you didn't try that.
Erin: (48:30)
That is it! You don't know unless you ask. I truly believe that so many lessons just for the sake of time, I'm going straight to the failure. Lightning round Myles. A little bit of improv. Okay. No worries. You got it. Okay. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions and you have to respond as fast as you can, but only with one word answers. And if you say more than one word I'm going to give you a big fail. Just like that. Myles, are you ready for the yeah. Lightning round?
Myles: (49:13)
This is awesome. I feel like I'm on a game show. Absolutely. Let's do it.
Erin: (49:16)
All right. My voice changes when I do this. Okay. Here we go. One word to describe your early career.
Myles: (49:25)
Passionate.
Erin: (49:27)
One word to describe where you're currently at in your career.
Myles: (49:31)
Determined.
Erin: (49:32)
Yeah. One word to describe your future self.
(49:36)
Grateful.
(49:37)
One word to describe your favorite boss.
Myles: (49:41)
Um, heartwarming, heartwarming.
(49:46)
That's one word. Describe your least favorite boss.
Myles: (49:50)
Entitled.
Erin: (49:52)
One word to describe your role as a dad.
Myles: (49:57)
Mentor.
Erin: (49:58)
One word to describe your mindset.
Myles: (50:03)
Powerful.
Erin: (50:03)
Yes It is one word to describe this interview.
Myles: (50:08)
Incredible. Did I win?
Erin: (50:15)
You win the fail. Yeah. Lightning round. And I want to say where the failed it fam find you give them all the social links so they can link up to you and we'll put them on the show notes, tell them where they can find you.
Myles: (50:35)
Yeah. Uh, my life has totally simplified now that I'm like I used to have like my website and all of this others tuff, I honestly now just connect to people through Instagram. So you can find me through Instagram, just Myles.Berrio on Instagram. And you'll see, um, I'm very active on it and, or respond and very easy to connect with me through there.
Erin: (50:56)
Yes he is. I will verify I'll verify. That's how this interview went down. It was through a voice message in your DMs. So connect with him, he is so powerful. He will make your day, every day with his posts. You, you are a light Myles. So first of all, I want to just tell you how lucky I feel to have had the chance to chat with you. And, um, just your journey. And I want to say like overall, you have taught me some things and given us some valuable words of wisdom when it comes to failure and it's not only going to make us better, but it's going to make the world better. So thank you so much. I'm now lucky to call you my friend, because you're part of the failed it! family forever, and I want you to know myself and the failed it! Family are rooting for you always.
Myles: (51:50)
Well, I'm rooting for this whole family company, brand organization, everything, all of this that you've got going on, it's super awesome. And it's already winning, but totally pray for a multiple multiplication of magnitude and blessing. Also, I want to do something crazy that I probably, uh, I've done maybe once in the past. Um, but, and, and it's actually been pretty beneficial because I think sometimes people aren't as active on social media. It depends on the age demographic of the market. And then some people just started, you know, whatever. So, um, it's up to you if it's okay. I actually want to give my number, um, for people to just directly contact me because I've realized when I did it before, it was really powerful. There were people that were just, um, I did an interview on real estate actually, because of that, where I say that a hundred thousand dollars in six months, like it was really crazy. And I was interviewed on like multiple real estate podcasts. And I ended up doing that and just amazing people that were just, they just needed someone to really, you know, it was just easier to just text me. And I just got, I just got connected to most people. So anyway, I would love to just, if there's anyone here, that's just like, I want to talk to Myles. I want to reach out to them.
Erin: (52:56)
Yeah. Drop it and we'll put it in the show notes!
Myles: (52:57)
Seven zero six eight one four two eight two onne is my number. So guys, seriously, I am a very open book. Um, you know, I'm super comfortable with talking to anyone, shoot me a text. If you're just like, man, I really want to connect this person. I'm going through this. Or like, man, I really resonated with that. And you know, you just want to chat, just hit me up and definitely get to you as quickly as I can.
Erin: (53:17)
He is a light. If you need some light in your life, send him a text. Myles, thank you so much. And to my failed it! Fam, fail yeah!
Erin: (53:36)
Thanks for tuning into failed. It. I'm so happy we're along for the ride. And if you enjoyed today's show, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. I'll see you next week, but want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time.