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Bryan Hullihen and The path to success

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As many of you know, my name is Bryan Hullihen and I have been in recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction for many years now. Remembering the things that got me to where I am in my success is one of the things that keeps me grounded but it is also the thing that allows me to have future success. The path to the life I always wanted is through recovery. It is a funny thing how often we find that we have arrived at our destination in life through some other means than we had initially anticipated. Recovery has been like that for me. It seems counter intuitive to think that if we want financial freedom we need to be attending to our recovery instead of our careers but that has been my story and so many others. When I was younger I would go headlong into some business venture or career path thinking that all I needed to feel better was to find success the way I defined it at the time; money, cars, Realestate, etc. I truly believed this to my core and so I lived my life as if that were
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Bryan Hullihen talks about early recovery and his early days following prison

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My name is Bryan Hullihen and I am an alcoholic. I have suffered many consequences as a result of my drinking and getting sent to prison was just one of many consequences. During my time in prison I stayed busy and worked a program of action relative to my alcoholism, however, I knew that life in prison was the minor leagues. By the time I walked out of that place I had over six years of sobriety but when I was given my freedom I felt like a newcomer. I had experienced the psychic change necessary to live a life of sober independence and help others do the same but restarting my life and having my freedom restored presented me with some challenges that I hadn't had in over half a decade. Seeing women all over the place was just one of many distractions that I knew could have me placing my recovery in the passenger seat very quickly. There was also the distractions of all the shiny things and an innate desire to keep up with the Jones's. After several years of not having many s
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Bryan Hullihen and the Mental Shift

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Being in early recovery from alcoholism and/or drug addiction is both an exciting and precarious time. I, Bryan Hullihen , know this from personal experience having been in early recovery more times than I'd care to admit. In active addiction we push all our loved ones away, most of us end up broke, and we find ourselves all alone or around other people who definitely don't have our best interest in mind. Then we come to find a path of recovery from this seemingly hopeless state and begin to feel amazing as our friends and loved ones return, we find a little money in our pockets, we surround ourselves with people who truly care, and we are no longer plagued by an assiduous yearning to get loaded. Too many people get to this place in early recovery and mistakenly assume they "got it" which invariably triggers a mental shift. Prior to this "shift" these folks, myself included, had recovery as the number one priority. Our desire and focus were where they need
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Bryan Hullihen Talks About Building Your Early Recovery "A-Team"

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I, Bryan Hullihen , recently watched a podcast by Tim Ferriss where he stated, "You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with." I like to say, "It's hard to fly like an eagle when you hang with turkeys." Although both statements are profoundly the same, their application to those in early recovery does mean the difference between success and failure or life and death. Coming into recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction we are not so far removed from the people in our lives that support our continued drug and alcohol use. This proximity can make it extremely difficult to break away from the five people that make up our average which has resulted in continued drug and alcohol use for far too long. It is important to not only break away from continued drug and alcohol use but also the people who have contributed to that behavior or do not support our recovery. My mentor from years ago had me construct a list of people that I viewed as
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Bryan Hullihen and Applied Learning

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One of my favorite quotes is from Tony Robbins who is one of my favorite personal development teachers. He says, "If you let your learning lead to knowledge you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action you become wealthy." Early recovery is a time of immense learning where it is not uncommon to hear popular "sober phrases" repeated by newly sober people. These phrases are so popular because, when remembered, they make the person in early recovery feel better knowing they are not alone as the very existence of these phrases helps them feel understood. For example, a common phrase is "one day at a time." This simple statement says so much to the newly recovering person because in early recovery many of us feel overwhelmed with anxiety about how to stay sober for the rest of our lives. When we are reminded that we only need to succeed in our efforts today and that tomorrow never comes we feel better. This is an example of taking what we learn,
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