Overcoming Addiction and Limiting Beliefs with Michael Dash
Happy Friday, tribe! What a week! Hard to believe it, but we’re at the start of summer — a fresh new season, and if anyone loves a fresh start, it’s me!
If our COVID-19 lockdown was a time for slowing down and focusing on personal growth, coming out of lockdown has been a whirlwind of change. But change is usually a chance to grow. If anyone knows what it takes to dig deep and change, it’s this week’s guest on Episode 87 of The Jenn Kennedy Show. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Michael Dash, another new friend I picked up at Chris and Lori Harder's Fast Foundations Mastermind.
For the majority of his life, Michael chased money as his sole definition of success. He built a $5.5 million dollar company but started resenting the very business he had built. After 11 years, he was not fulfilled so he made a change. Today, Michael is the author of the bestselling book Chasing the High and founder of F.A.T.E., a program born from his own experience as a recovering gambling and drug addict.
Michael and I talked about his struggle with addiction, how to have a healthier relationship with your money, and the importance of not letting ego make your life decisions. What I love about speaking with Michael is how candid he is about the limiting beliefs that held him back from finding true success. There’s a lot of solid truths in this episode that you can take with you as you develop your business, think about what success means to you, and start the summer off with fresh new energy.
Michael Dash and His Story of Addiction
Michael got his start in the world of entrepreneurship at a young age, working with his father, who owned an import-export retail operation selling fine china and Swarovksi crystals. took some key lessons from his father — even if they weren’t the lessons that would serve him well in the long-term. Michael’s father instilled a belief that hard work, success, and money were all that mattered.
“From an early age I really loved working and I loved money, I just loved making money. So I chased money throughout my entire life. That led also to 11 year-old-me making my first bet in gambling at Thanksgiving with my uncle. I won my first bet, which was probably the worst thing that ever could have happened to me. I was 11 years old and I borrowed $10 from my parents. I lied to them to get the money and then I made a bet and I won a hundred dollars off of that $10.”- Michael Dash
Michael was hooked: he started gambling nonstop, aided by his father’s employees with whom he worked in the warehouse each day. They would help him gamble on horse racing at the Meadowlands racetrack in New Jersey, despite being underage (and younger than 15 at this point – crazy!). He made it through high school, but things got worse for Michael when he left home to attend the University of Maryland.
“My roommate got shot with a 357-Magnum and, sorry for the graphics here, but it blew out his tricep. He had to have surgery. When I came back from spring break, he had all these pills and all these drugs in the dorm room and he would tell me, ‘you should try this, it'll make you feel like this. Hey, try this one a little, take the edge off of that one.’ I was just like, yeah, okay. And then I just started trying everything. That led to cocaine, and cocaine and gambling for me were really a lethal mix. They really created a lot of destruction in my life from that point on.” – Michael Dash
You’d be right for thinking this sounds like a recipe for disaster. But for years, Michael never hit so-called “rock bottom.” He said at first, there were small events that made Michael curious enough to take a step away from his addictive behavior. Michael’s brother revealed after one Thanksgiving he had been attending Gambler’s Anonymous meetings. This piqued Michael’s interest, and after going to one GA meeting he never gambled again. That’s not to say it was easy: Michael went to meetings every single week, got a sponsor, and worked at it.
The drug addiction was a bigger problem for Michael. He says he was addicted for eight years, and the only way he was able to quit was through blunt force. Literally.
“I was out with a friend at the bars and we were doing Coke and drinking. He got in an argument with somebody. I went over to like break it up and this stranger swung at my friend, and ended up punching me in the face and broke my nose. I had a broken nose and I needed to get it fixed. The doctor at the end of it handed me a bill and he told me it was $10,000. I turned to the doctor and I said, I will never put anything up this $10,000 nose. And from that day forward, I never did Coke again.” – Michael Dash
As Michael told me his story, I kept thinking about all the things we chase that we think will make us happy. For some of us, it’s gambling, relationships, or drugs. For others, it’s our physical appearance, social status, and material things. At the end of the day, those things never lead to happiness.
Chasing the High of Entrepreneurship
Michael was able to beat his addiction to gambling and to cocaine. But there was one thing he never stopped chasing: more money. “I equated things to money and I was so driven to accumulate every single dollar I possibly could because I wasn't at one with who I was. It was like an ego thing.” - Michael said. Sound familiar to anyone?
He eventually left New York City to start a business in Salt Lake City, Utah. On the surface, things seemed to be looking up. But, in reality, Michael says his addictions had shifted to Adderall, GHB, and marijuana.
It took a conflict with his business partner for Michael’s house of cards to fold. Michael shared a story with me about a six-year legal battle that he says was driven by his ego and need for money.
“I was just so in it that I couldn't step out of it to look at myself and realize from the outside looking in that nobody cares if you win or lose this lawsuit when you're dead and buried. Nobody's going to give a shit. That was my biggest lesson.” - Michael Dash
Michael ended up having to pay out nearly $1 million as a result of this lawsuit. In doing so, he was forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: he was not a happy person. He said that he was completely miserable, even suicidal. He decided to take a retreat to Bali and do something he had never done before: rest.
That retreat was the start of something amazing:
“I heard people talking about flow and living in a state of flow by making decisions through your intuition and not the conscious mind, but more the energetic force of where the intuition pulls you to. On the flight home, I thought this one phrase over, over and over: would it be so bad to live a different way?” - Michael Dash
Michael had been chasing the high of entrepreneurship, but for the wrong reasons. All his life, he had pursed more money, which, don’t get me wrong, money is amazing — but it became an addiction. After taking a step back, Michael began to see his addiction for what it was.
Get Rid of Your Limiting Beliefs
That phrase stuck: “Would it be so bad to live a different way?” Michael started to write down his limiting beliefs — the belief that change is difficult was a big one for him.
“Most people think change is difficult. They convince themselves of it, they equate it to the result of the change that they want, not the actual act of changing. If you want to change something, we could today say, okay, we are no longer eating after 8:00 PM. When I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to commit to it tomorrow. Every morning I wake up, that's what I'm going to commit to. Then, that change is very easy. But when people say, I'm never going to eat after 8:00 PM, then it becomes an overwhelming thing.” – Michael Dash
Sounds amazing, right? Commit to making a small change every day, and see how your limiting beliefs break down. These small changes build momentum until one day, you wake up and you’ve accomplished something HUGE. That’s powerful stuff! If you can set your ego aside, challenge your limiting beliefs, and just let go — you’ll start to attract a healthy relationship to money and success.
The retreat really opened Michael up to a whole new way of thinking. He says without that guidance and support, he would have been stuck in his self-destructive cycle for much longer:
“We don't have the answers and there are specialists who do, and that's why I feel like it's so important to take courses. To have mentors, but also to have coaches. I mean, what do we have growing up? How do we learn everything? We have coaches in sports, we have teachers in class, but then when you leave school, you have nothing. Maybe you have a good boss who will take you under his wing. Maybe.” - Michael Dash
Having people to support him made Michael feel less isolated, which in turn empowered him to start changing his values. He says he didn’t like asking people for help, but what that meant was in reality, he couldn’t help himself. Today, Michael says he has tribes who supported him in finding his flow and abandoning his ego.
“I was able, after going through another year of consciously making decisions, to finally start releasing, releasing my ego, releasing my conscious mind of having to control every decision in my life and try to control every outcome. Releasing that, and flowing with the fact of knowing that everything is happening for a reason – and even if Zen isn't here now, the reason will present itself at the right time, it will be for the right reason and it'll all make sense, right when that happens.” - Michael Dash
Bottom line: release the control, listen to your gut, follow that intuition, and get the support and guidance you need! What limiting beliefs are you holding on to? Are you afraid to charge more than your worth? Are you holding onto a scarcity mindset? Are you, like Michael was, equating your self worth with your net worth? If this sounds like you, remember that
Why You Should Listen to This Michael Dash Podcast Episode Right Now...
Guys, there’s so much good stuff in here – we talked about moving through the discomfort of dissolving your limiting beliefs, how to have a healthy relationship with your money, and how to embrace what the universe is trying to show you. It’s hard to find a silver lining in the COVID-19 lockdowns, but this conversation really reminded me that everything happens for a reason — something good always comes from big moments of change.
If you want more from Michael, check out his book, Chasing the High. In this memoir, he writes more about his mindset as an entrepreneur through addiction and lawsuits. There are some great chapters in there about following your intuition, creating habits, and finding your flow that I think you’ll get a lot out of. Download it on Amazon or listen to the audiobook version on Audible. You can also find Michael on Instagram and on his site.
I hope you guys enjoy this episode! Michael’s story is a great reminder that it’s never too late to start over – and start somewhere, even if it means making one small change every day. I hope it inspires you as we head into the season of change. And as always, share this episode with your friends and tag @mdash1 and @thejennkennedy if you loved it!
See you here next week — Can’t wait!
