Michael Anthony, aka “Michael Unbroken” overcame unimaginable trauma as a child. Now he empowers people to love themselves, to choose discipline over instant gratification, and to tell the truth no matter what.
His brutal childhood:
“I grew up in Indianapolis in the 80’s and 90’s. My mother was a drug addict and an alcoholic. She actually cut off my right index finger when I was 11 years old. I had multiple surgeries and multiple skin grafts and I’m missing half of it. She married my stepdad who was super abusive. This guy was 6’4”, 220 pounds, and beating up a 7-year-old. A real coward of a man. I spent most of my childhood homeless and deeply in poverty. We lived with over 30 different families from when I was 8-12 years old. My mom was in and out of rehab and in and out of getting locked up. All kinds of craziness.”
Money was not the answer:
“By the time I was 26, I had made almost a million bucks. But I was 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep. I was high from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I’m cheating on my girlfriend, my little brother won’t talk to me, my car gets repossessed, and I’m $50,000 in debt.”
Why telling the truth is everything:
“People have got to get to that moment of looking at their life when they refuse to accept the reality. … The very first thing I did was to stop being a liar. But here’s the thing, if you would have been like, ‘Hey, if you want to change your life, stop lying.’ And then you told me the consequences of honesty, I don’t know if I would have done it. There was so much truth to be told. So much to honor. So much to lay out on the line. So many wrongs to right. For myself, for my family, for everything that I touched. And what’s really interesting about that is you always hear, ‘The truth will set you free.’ It’s honestly probably the most accurate statement ever created in the history of the world.”
Invest in yourself:
“I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on myself. I should have, like, four Ivy League degrees at this point. And all that has done for me is reinforce my ability to become the person I’m capable of being. And there are people who won’t spend ten dollars on a book and they’re like, ‘Why does my life suck?’”
Michael’s mission is to help others thrive:
“Thousands of people have gone through my programs over the years, millions of downloads on the podcast, tens of thousands of books sold. … The people who come into my program, their lives are completely different on the day they decide to walk away. Because I don’t want people in my program forever. I’m like, ‘Get out of here, man. Go do your thing. Let’s get you to where you need to be.’ And so, when I look at life today, I’ve come to realize that I’ve just turned my pain into purpose, my trauma into triumph. I’ve become the hero of my own story because I was willing to do the difficult thing and look at myself in the mirror and fight the dragon in front of me.”