Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell & Come Out Whole: Be Love Through Growth Farming, #1

By D Grant Smith

Life sometimes likes to throw haymakers. You know, sudden and unexpected events where you find yourself dealing with personal loss that leads to heartbreak. These experiences can break you, leaving you questioning your worth and leading down a dark path of shame and fear.

Too often, we turn our pains and hurts into reasons to be vehicles for hatred, bitterness, resentment, and dysfunctional patterns. That's our society and culture's way. But that's not how it has to be.  

Discover a better way. You CAN be solid and whole.

You'll learn:

• How to build a strong support system to heal and rebuild your life

• How to regain balance when everything in your life is thrown out of sync

• The tools and practices to gain confidence and peace to live your best life

• How to foster and grow healthier and more fruitful relationships that bless your life

• What to do to cultivate health and wholeness in all 4 areas of your life (mental, emotional, spiritual and physical)

• Powerful metaphors and word pictures that will transform how you see yourself and embrace your healing journey

• And much more!

In Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell & Come Out Whole you'll see the journey author D Grant Smith went on after experiencing his own personal loss, divorce. This is a guidebook for healing, recovery, and a pursuit of wholeness in every area of your life to be your best self, regardless of what obstacles and pain you've experienced. Best of all, you'll discover what it means and how to fully Be Solid!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Two Stone Lions Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781623900823

D Grant Smith

D Grant Smith is the Growth Farmer, helping people like you create success through personal development of what he calls your “mind and heart garden.” His work helps people grow in confidence by operating from a healthy and strong mindset practice. Operating on the core principle that what you plant in your mind and heart will be what you produce with your life, his Growth Farming method for success has been transformational in the lives of thousands of people around the world.  Prior to his work in life/personal development coaching, D Grant focused his attention on serving musicians and music fans through media like The Appetizer Radio Show and The DIY Artist Route podcast. He’s the author of The DIY Musicians’ Radio Handbook, Growth Farming Affirmations For Success, and Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell And Come Out Whole. (All products available at dgrantsmith.com/products and besolidbook.com.) When not working with private coaching clients, D Grant loves to help people grow through motivational speaking and seminars. Empowering and insightful, you will experience a wonderful combination of encouragement and clarity from experiencing his presentations. D Grant’s primary focus is in helping the people he works with live their best lives to benefit themselves and others. And when he’s not doing any of these things, he loves reading books, enjoying engaging stories and conversations with friends, superhero movies, being outdoors, and the sports of boxing and football.  D Grant resides in West Texas and loves to travel to meet people and experience new adventures.

Book preview

Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell And Come Out Whole

Copyright © 2019 by D Grant Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address Two Stone Lions Press.

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Published 2019

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-62390-081-6

eISBN 978-1-62390-082-3

LCCN: 2019945249

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Cover & graphic design by Ryan Feerer

Edited by Ryan McMahon for Two Stone Lions Press

Proofread by Peggy Clark for Two Stone Lions Press

Proofread by Elaine Singiser for D Grant Smith

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For information, address

Two Stone Lions Press

1202 Old Agateville Road

Hillsboro GA 31038

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Two Stone Lions Press is a division of Salt Run Publishing LLC

DEDICATION

To those who have experienced loss and heartbreak and done the hard heart work of coming out of your own version of hell into a place of wholeness and peace. Thank you for paving the way and being a forerunner for me and for others embarking on that same endeavor.

To those who are in the throes of pain, heartbreak and loss. Whether it happened to you years ago, recently, or is happening now, this is not the end. While it feels like your world is coming apart and ending, keep your eyes on the horizon. Your life and future are full of peace if you’ll choose to begin this wholeness journey.

To my Strong Circle, friends, family, Growth Farming tribe, and colleagues who loved, supported, and encouraged me and picked me up in my lowest places to help me get to this space in time. Your strength, grace, kindness, and love gave me the hope that has brought a reborn me to life.

To Almighty Love (aka God, the Most High). Your truth, light, love, and grace has carried me through the fires I feared would destroy me. You’ve made me new. You’ve shown me how to lean into the pain and let it transform me. Every day You empower me to be my best and fulfill the mission You gave me to Be Love. All that I am and all that I have is from You.

FOREWORD

The wind is sad and silent today because my mother is no longer walking upon the earth; the moon is dim because several of my friends have committed suicide; the birds are not singing above me because my twin is struggling to speak about the tragedy of his divorce. My heart is weak and the hearts of many others I know are weak because of disappointments, grief, and failures. However, this new book by D Grant Smith inspires me and others who are walking through disasters right now to see a new sun above. Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell and Come Out Whole is a bold, lively, gripping, extraordinary, beautiful, powerful book that needs to be read and studied. While grieving the recent passing of my mother, I simply could not put this book down. This amazing, this life-changing work will truly inspire you, will truly allow you to become solid for another adventure. Whether you are like me in the middle of tragedy or about to face one, this book is a must-read for you.

The rawness, the realness of this masterful book is desperately needed in a world of shallow relationships and façades everywhere you turn. Brick by brick, D Grant tears down each and every house with manicured lawns in order to reveal the honest and troubling hearts residing in them. Removing our masks, he inspires us to tell the truth about the pitfalls and disappointments of life, and he does this by first starting with himself. He deeply moves each reader to the point of tears as he shares about his heartbreaking divorce as well as harrowing defeats in his life. Like many noteworthy philosophers and critics that I have studied thus far, D Grant pontificates and provides profound insights to help readers understand the significance of setbacks in life.

And as an English professor and poet, I definitely love how he utilizes the sport of boxing as a central and powerful metaphor throughout this book. When you think about what we do on a daily basis, there are so many things trying to knock us out cold inside the ring of life: a high school student fighting for acceptance in this sometimes cold, harsh world; a college student fighting to survive the world of academia; a single mother fighting to provide the bare essentials for her two children; a father in his 30s fighting against cancer; a young man from inner-city Chicago fighting to survive the streets. Again, to use D Grant’s metaphor, we are boxers trying to survive in this grand fight of our lives. The world is trying to knock us down at every turn, but this brilliant book written by this fearless author gives us practical, jaw-dropping advice on how to survive in the ring of life. When you make it to the end of this book, you will truly know how to be solid, how to have a new awareness and a new outlook in life.

Again, it is my utmost pleasure to recommend this incredible book to you. D Grant Smith is a fantastic life coach, an inspiring motivational speaker, a popular radio host and a creator who will amaze you with each page you turn. More importantly, you will easily come to know him as a dear friend and as a fellow advocate passionately fighting for you to become a prized fighter in this life.

-Steven T. Moore, Ph.D.

PREFACE

You Are Worth Fighting For!

If that is hard to read, or harder to believe, I understand. It was hard for me to hear, read, or believe for a long time. Mostly because I had experienced the personal hell of heartbreak and lost a relationship that meant the world to me.

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You are worth fighting for!

When you go through that kind of pain, it’s hard to believe you’re worth anything, let alone worth fighting for. Because the person you’d committed to and fought for as you both worked through battling personal demons is gone. And that anguish is devastating.

But there’s something that happens when you experience the agonizing and soul-crushing feelings of heartbreak. It can be something that breaks you, destroys who you are and holds you under an endless cacophony of torment. OR the pain can be used to burn away the stuff that’s inside of you that doesn’t need to be there so that you can become your best self.

What kind of stuff am I talking about? Fears, self-doubts, insecurities, anger, bitterness, resentment, shame, suppressed emotions from past relationships you never dealt with, and a bunch of other things.

None of that stuff is worth carrying around in your heart or your mind. But that’s where it is, torturing you emotionally, psychologically, and mentally over and over again.

If you choose to let the pain win, you give up the fight for yourself and become a victim.

If you choose to lean into the pain, you can purify yourself to emerge as a whole, vibrant person who is made of solid gold from the inside out.

Leaning into the pain instead of running from it is the path I chose when I experienced my worst fear come to life. This is the journey of the healing process I’ve lived and continue to live. And it actually started in an unconventional place: a boxing gym.

This book will show you how to do the hard heart work to heal from heartbreak so you can become your best self. I do talk about some things from my past in overcoming lifelong fears, because those pieces are important in the grand scheme of things.

Since the idea of Be Solid originated in my brief experience in boxing, you will get a few sports references. But this isn’t a sports or boxing book. It’s a transformation resource for you to become your best self.

If you want to heal, become your best self, and transform into a person who can handle the worst that life throws at you, this is the book for you.

Lean into the pain with me and experience what it means to be a solid person.

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You have to fight for a better life

Boxing is more than a sport. It’s more than the nickname of the sweet science, as sports commentators have called it for a century. It’s a teacher, a sage, an illustrator of life lessons, and an outlet for growth.

Boxing is one of the places I’ve learned, through trial by fire, that life can be more awesome than how it’s been. But only if you want it to be. And only if you’re willing to fight for that better life.

How I came to the understanding of a few very core life principles didn’t start with a search for truth, or even a desire to participate in the sport of boxing. It started decades ago as a scrawny kid who was bullied and harassed on a daily basis.

Those experiences fed a lifestyle of fear that would stretch into my late twenties. By the time I was twenty-seven I ran from most people and was scared to death of the potential for someone to jump me on the street, or for someone to take advantage of me in any way.

You can’t go through life afraid.

Let me rephrase that.

You can’t go through life and want to succeed at being a whole person, or be successful in business, and also carry a truckload of fear with you.

What kinds of fear?

Fear of who you are, what you’re capable or incapable of. Fear of confrontation with someone, especially when you’re in the right. Fear of being taken advantage of. Fear of being ridiculed or mocked. Fear of being overlooked or treated as less-than. Fear of losing what you have. Fear of losing opportunities to grow. Fear of confrontation.

There are all sorts of fears. You have yours. I have mine. Chances are we struggle with some similar fears. It’s part of being human.

Learning to box didn’t remove all of the fears in my mind and heart. But it did provide the gateway for me to rise up and face my fears, starting with the fear of getting beat up.

Most people are nervous at the thought of someone hurting them, questioning if they really have what it takes to defend themselves and those they love if it comes down to it. I pray that situation never presents itself to me, or to you either. If it does, the disciplines taught through combat sports like boxing or martial arts can provide the necessary tactics to get yourself out of a tough place.

But that’s not what this book is about.

This book is about how to become a whole person, one who is equipped to foster success and grow into a powerhouse human being. This is a book for anyone who has ever had a fear they couldn’t escape. This is a book for people who want peace and calm in the trials and hurricanes of life.

Everyone experiences obstacles, trials, storms, and loss. These experiences don’t have to define you. They can transform you into the best version of yourself.

Violence is not always physical. The psychological, emotional, and intellectual battles that lie ahead of you will test your mettle and your character.

What kind of person do you want to be on the other side of trials and challenges?

I want to be solid in all things, unshaken by the blows that come from the world or from life experiences. I don’t want the personal giants I face to knock me out of the game.

I want to be first, a person who acts with initiative to get things done to change the world for the better. Even if it’s a small act like a smile or a kind word. Waiting for someone else to initiate is an act of fear in a small way. I don’t want fear to take hold of me in even the smallest of actions.

I want to be uncommon, because there are far too many people following the bandwagons of brokenness, despair, blame, hate, and anger in our culture and society.

Why haven’t we achieved world peace yet, despite living in the greatest time of technology in history? Because too many people are modeling after the herd, the crowd, and what everyone else is doing. Would you consider Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln or any iconic historical figure to be a common person?

As I’ve worked through my own inner struggles to overcome the demons and giants in my life, I’ve utilized the wisdom learned from my time in the amateur boxing gym. These principles have incredible power to transform your life from fear into confidence and peace, from uncertainty into strength and hope, and from failure into success in every scope of the word.

Boxing isn’t easy. Putting on gloves and dancing in front of your mirror like you’re Muhammad Ali is what you do when you’re a kid. But stepping into the ring to fight someone is a different ballgame. The same is true in facing the real-life battles of dealing with your fears, life’s haymakers of loss and tragedy, and sometimes the experiences of dealing with incredible challenges of everyday life.

As you grow in your ability to be solid, life will get more challenging. As you progress as a human being making a difference in the world, you’ll face opponents that are more difficult than those of previous challenges. That’s good. That’s what you want.

Each challenge will make you more solid.

It’s going to take honest commitment to become the solid person you’re destined to be. There will be times you’ll beg for that easy road you used to walk, the one so many people prescribe to. The one where you become the victim instead of the conqueror; the one who blames the world for your problems so you can continue being subservient to the whims of other people.

That’s not the path of champions. You can be one of the greats to walk this earth. But you’ll likely face obstacles that will make you want to quit. Please don’t! Push through. This book will help you do just that.

Boxing is a powerful metaphor for the experience of heartbreak, loss and of overcoming pain to win in life. So are many of the metaphors