Moving Through Walls

By Israel Ellis

When a boy's childhood is deeply traumatized by abuse, nothing is predictable.

In a world turned upside down, his innocence is marred by the injustice of his life. He becomes a shadow of unrealized potential until he discovers an internal voice…a knowingness that reveals an inner drive…the possibility for a future. At that moment he recognizes the gift that is his life and that he alone has the power to choose the outcome. Ultimately, he realizes his greatness despite the tide of circumstances working against him.

In Moving Through Walls, Israel Ellis shares a lifetime of learning and conscious action that allowed that least-likely-to-succeed boy to transform himself and discover a life of love, peace, and success. Illuminated by personal and professional stories of pain, struggle, perseverance and triumph, Ellis distils the practices, philosophies and attitudes needed for anyone to achieve their personal best.

Ellis demonstrates, through his own experience and compelling examples, his belief that we all have a choice to either move through the walls that limit our potential or be trapped in an endless pleasure-in-pain cycle.

We all have the capacity for greatness; all that's preventing you from realizing it…is you.

Are you ready to gain clarity and succeed in your gift of life?

That journey starts here. Now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grammar Factory Publishing
• Release date: Jan 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999010522

Israel Ellis

ISRAEL ELLIS persevered through childhood trauma and personal struggle to realize his personal dreams and entrepreneurial success. Over the past three decades, he has launched, grown, and managed successful companies in varied industries including entertainment, technology, and real estate.

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Moving Through Walls

Copyright © 2019, 2022 by Israel Ellis.

All rights reserved.

Published by Grammar Factory Publishing, an imprint of MacMillan Company Limited. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief passages quoted in a book review or article. All enquiries should be made to the author.

Grammar Factory Publishing

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Ellis, Israel, 1965

Moving Through Walls: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Adversity, Taking Ownership of Your Life and Unleashing Your Personal Greatness / Israel Ellis.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-99901-050-8

Hardcover ISBN 978-1-99901-051-5

eBook ISBN 978-1-99901-052-2

Audiobook ISBN 978-1-989737-71-2

1. SEL027000 SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Success. 2. BUS025000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Entrepreneurship. 3. BUS107000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Personal Success.

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Interior layout design by Dania Zafar

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Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances, and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

MOVING

THROUGH

WALLS

A Practical Guide to Overcoming Adversity,

Taking Ownership of Your Life and Unleashing

Your Personal Greatness

ISRAEL ELLIS

To Limore and

our children; Arielle, Eitan, Dov, and Dean.

You are the beats to my heart

and helped to heal the boy inside.

Eliasz Rubinowicz

1919–2009

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: Look Up

PART I: THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS

Chapter One: Be Open

Chapter Two: Have Faith

Chapter Three: Visualize Your Future

Chapter Four: Forgive

PART II: IN THE PURSUIT OF GREATNESS

Chapter Five: Fuel Your Confidence

Chapter Six: Find Your Purpose

Chapter Seven: Accelerate Toward Your Greatness

Chapter Eight: Build Your Self-Worth

Conclusion: Moving Through Walls

Acknowledgments

PREFACE

WHEN I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD, I HAD AN EPIPHANY THAT CHANGED the course of my life. I was a skinny, lanky kid in ill-fitting hand-me-down canvas shorts held up by a string around my waist. Mismatched socks rose over scrawny, bruised legs. In this uniform, I spent hot summer days trying to stay under the radar in a desperate, unhappy place. Every day was a lottery of the unpredictable. The chaos of life out of control. I might have been able to handle it all, but for the emotional and physical abuse that would deeply traumatize me and steal away the innocence of my childhood. I liked to imagine turning into a bird and flying away.

I can’t remember if that was what I was thinking about that day as I stood, my eyes shut tight, arching my back and lifting my face to the sun, bathing in its warmth, feeling a few brief moments of peace as its heat penetrated through me and then, unwittingly, unknowingly—quite suddenly, opening my eyes. The pain in my retinas shocked me into a sudden understanding of the insignificance of my own unhappiness in the face of that big ball of fire. For some reason I cannot explain, in that moment, I was a boy trying to make sense of my beginnings. I realized my life was my own, and that it could—no, it would—be different. I somehow realized then that I alone had the ability to make the outcome of my life. My life started with me. As I stood in the middle of that overgrown lawn, I made a commitment to take control of my life as soon as I could. That would be my true escape.

I didn’t know then what I know now. Simply surviving was not good enough for me; what I hungered to achieve would require a real and sustained engagement with my own desires, agency, and power.

♦♦♦

This book is centered on one simple tenet: You have the capacity to become your greatest self. We have no control over the circumstances in which we start life—the advantages or disadvantages we are born into—but regardless of who we are, what our backgrounds are, and what we have endured, we have the ability to access and realize our greatest selves. I know this because I’ve lived the journey. My credentials are the road I have traveled.

No one would have blamed me if I had stayed the victim or had I been happy to achieve the bare minimum that would give me the basics for sustaining life. No one would have been surprised if I had replicated the past in my own life as an adult—in fact it would have been expected. But there was some innate drive within me that made that path unacceptable. I don’t want to give you the impression that my struggles were without challenges; the pull between the constructive and the destructive were very much a part of my journey. There may have been some luck and good timing, but what is certain is that there was the tenacity and drive to achieve something better than the circumstances into which I was born. I have come to realize that there are forks in the road where you have the conscious power to choose between discipline and desire, pain and pleasure, being a victim or being a victor. If where you want to land is a better place, then getting there will ultimately come down to the choices you make.

The poverty my family struggled with prompted within me the dream and drive for a future of financial freedom. The fervent, fundamental religious dogma I was brought up into repressed me. And yet, somehow, I found a place of peace. A place where I did not have to give up my faith in a loving God or become an angry cynic of humanity. The trauma of childhood abuse and the accompanying emotional depravity created within me a complex inferiority and self-esteem deficiency that had me longing for love and approval in all the wrong places. And yet, I was able to find the agency to forgive and the fortitude I needed to create a healthy, confident future. I can safely say the deck was stacked against me, and yet I persevered and discovered the sweet nectar behind the bitterness. I pursued an education, grew financial security through a variety of business ventures, and had the good fortune and blessing to build a family with a willing partner. I willed it. To achieve a life despite all that was wrong with my past. This wall was not mine alone to move through, but I was the only one who could navigate the course.

Long ago, I heard a story about a boy who noticed a trickle of water seeping through the dam that protected his village, and so he poked his finger in the wall of the dam to plug the hole. To every person who passed by he would cry out, Please sir, there is a hole in this dam and my finger is plugging it, but I am weakening and need help—can you please help me? But the passing villagers would laugh at the boy and say, This is such a big wall, and you are plugging but a small hole. Finally the boy grew tired and withdrew his finger. The hole soon grew in size and more water seeped through until the entire village was flooded and the dam had given way. No one but this boy could understand how a small hole could bring down a wall that has been there throughout time. His pleas fell on deaf ears; the permanence of the wall was an illusion that only this boy recognized in finding its weakest point. Years later, in July 1990, I was in Berlin not long after another wall came down. I held a small hammer to what once seemed a wall of impregnable permanence between freedom and slavery. Between liberty and tyranny. Between the haves and the have-nots. For nearly thirty years this wall stood in defiance of its polarities, separating completely different worlds and yet, at its weakest point, in a nexus of timing, the wall came down in what seemed like moments.

I chose the title of this book—Moving Through Walls—because these words became my life mantra. Each time I have been confronted with what seemed an impossible challenge, a crisis in confidence, or a backstep in my emotional health, I would visualize the ability to move through something that would otherwise seem impenetrable.

I was on the twenty-third floor of a friend’s condo in downtown Vancouver when, for a few scary moments, everything physical seemed to liquefy. It was the strangest experience. The walls shuddered; what seemed solid only seconds before changed form in an instant. When it stopped, we realized we had been through an earthquake. In that moment, I was reminded that what we think we know is not necessarily true or real or definite. Walls are not permanent; we are just conditioned to see them as such. Yes, it is counterintuitive to look at a wall and think "I am going to move through that". But that is the point. Thinking and acting against conventional notions and ingrained beliefs has got me to the other side of that wall on many occasions.

I see my earlier life as a time when I was confronted by these metaphorical walls, but I also had an innate belief that I could move through them. From a young age I refused to accept the status quo, and intuitively knew that I could create the future I wanted. Here is what it all comes down to. We all have the choice of watching walls grow and shadow our aspirations, or we can confront the walls and move through them. Once you believe that you have the power to move through any wall, there is nothing that can hold you back.

In the pages that follow, you will find practices, philosophies, attitudes, and anecdotes that I hope will form a story that will change your life. Or at the very least, open the conversation around your choices and outcomes. Much of what I say in this book may have been said by others, some of them philosophers or visionaries who have devoted their lives to studying these topics. I won’t claim to have their level of mastery; rather, I will offer my personal perspective. I am the empirical evidence of the ideas and practices in the pages that follow.

I wrote this book because I found a purpose in sharing what I’ve learned. Through this book, I hope to give you a roadmap to becoming your best self. In turn, I ask you to pass along what you learn to others. Our existence is circular. Our deeds, attitudes, and energies circle back to us. So many people and their ideas have provided inspiration and aided me on my journey; I hope I can help you on yours.

This book is founded on the principle that all of us can enact positive change in our lives. With that said, I want to express great empathy for those who suffer from mental illness and acknowledge that mental illness cannot be remedied through strength of mind alone. But this malady does not preclude you from becoming your best self; it may just alter the path you need to take to get there.

Writing this book has taken me back into the far recesses of my life. It has reminded me of where I came from, where I have been, and where I want to go. I am richer and better off for having gone through this process. I am grateful for the opportunity to share what I have learned, and I am so very grateful to you, for hearing my words and taking the leap to imagine a future where you will move through walls, take ownership of your life, and unleash your personal greatness.

Introduction:

LOOK UP

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

–VIKTOR FRANKL, MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING

THE IDEA TO WRITE THIS BOOK CAME FROM A QUESTION THAT WAS asked by my son—it was a simple question but required a complex answer. Dad, he said, I get where you came from and what you went through when you were my age, but how did you get to where you are today? Of course, that journey began on the day I stood in my backyard with oversized socks pooling around my skinny ankles, looking up at the sun and into a realization of my potential. I started to answer my son, and at that moment nothing but the truth and wholeness of that truth would do for him, and perhaps more importantly for myself. But how do you explain this to a thirteen-year-old? How do I explain to anyone, let alone myself, the journey I traveled, and what has brought me to this place where I am today? Am I pretending? Am I hiding? Am I someone I am not? These self-impostor questions of doubt rang deep within me, and sparked a quest for the answers. In that moment, I suddenly felt the weight of the importance to answer this simple question with accuracy, with accountability, with transparency.

I wanted my son to know that his table may have been set for him, as mine was set for me, but that does not mean we cannot rearrange the plates. People have the choice to strive and live by their choosing, not by the circumstances they are born into. I thought and I thought, How can I articulate the tools I have used to achieve my personal greatness? The following pages became my answer.

Athletes strive for peak performance, artists for perfection, and entrepreneurs for that elusive idea that will light the world on fire. At a more basic level, I believe that most people want to strive for greatness. But like water flowing downhill, pulled along by gravity, it is easier to seek the path of least resistance. It is simpler to believe that life’s ups and downs are inevitable, rather than to accept the part we play in creating them.

Imagine a graph; the horizontal axis represents time. If you were to chart the level of happiness and success you feel at any given moment on the vertical axis, what would your graph look like? A rollercoaster of highs and lows? It is easier to become complacent with acceptance; we assess our quality of life by taking some sort of average—a normative middle ground. Nothing more and nothing less. As long as our graph doesn’t deviate from the norms surrounding us, we are satisfied with settling for that average. It is easier to think of the myriad responsibilities, accountabilities, decisions, and challenges we face every day as a thousand tiny weights that are there to hold us down, rather than as a thousand opportunities to live bigger and better lives. As tempting as it is to try to shed these weights, success comes from having faith and embracing the opportunities they provide. My question to you is where do you belong on this graph? Are you one to be swept up by the current or are you prepared to swim upstream?

Many people have overcome incredible odds. Some famous, some not. Some you may know, others you may not know. Einstein did not speak at all until he was four, and his teachers and peers doubted him. Helen Keller was blind, deaf and could not speak as a child—and yet she attended Harvard and became a prolific author, educator, and speaker. My youngest son tells me about UFC fighter Francis Ngannou from Cameroon, orphaned at age six and homeless, who against incredible odds has become a champion competitor and achieved wealth, honor and respect. Throughout this book I talk about heroes, some of whom we never hear about. Your neighbor could be such an outlier. There are hidden gems everywhere; you yourself may be a diamond in the rough or a polished, fully realized person with a list of accomplishments. The common denominator is often the same. People who started out in unlikely places, survived extreme injustices, and then overcame immense challenges to reach the heights of success in both their professional and personal lives. Just to have survived their circumstances might be considered success, but they did far more than that. They achieved greatness. We hear their stories and think: "What is it that drives these people? What makes them get up every day and become their best selves? What is their secret?"

What I’ve come to realize is that what makes other people great exists within all of us. Each of us has the potential to find our personal greatness. We just need to understand what stands in our way.

BARRIERS TO GREATNESS

The first barrier is the inertia of reactive living. Reactive living places events and circumstances outside of our control. When something is out of our control it helps to void our responsibility for what is happening to us. It’s like playing a video game; we move forward toward goals others set for us, dealing with problems as they arise. This way of life is simple because we are not in charge; we have placed the power over our lives in the hands of others. Inertia takes hold.

When we live by the laws of reactive inertia, we give in to the cards we are dealt. Reactive living saps our power to effect change. It limits our possibilities and creative powers. One of the greatest gifts we have is the ability to make choices, which ultimately define our outcomes. When we exercise this privilege, we can make the changes and commit to the goals that results in us getting closer to our personal greatness. The best of what you can become requires proactive actions that are made from choices you make and these choices come from a strength which is your agency. Your agency is that energy, strength, commitment, tenacity, and every other word you can think of that drives you forward toward a greatness within.

The next barrier to achieving personal greatness is the pleasure we take in causing ourselves pain. Woah! What did I just say? That is right, and get ready for this one. As living beings we are instinctively driven to achieve pleasure and, in some off-Broadway neurotic romance story, it can be a story of pain. Plainly said, there are choices we make determined by our agency which could result in painful outcomes. But, why would we do that?

Edmund Bergler was a Freudian theorist who believed that many people experience a phenomenon he called psychic masochism. In his 1954 text, The Revolt of the Middle-Aged Man, Bergler wrote, Psychic masochism, while still largely an unknown disease, is one of the most widespread of human failings. To define it briefly, it is the unconscious wish to defeat one’s conscious aims, and to enjoy that self-constructed defeat.¹ In other words, Bergler argues, we derive pleasure from the anxieties and unhappiness we experience, and that is why we keep putting ourselves in situations and behaving in ways that cause us pain, continually feeding a destructive cycle of our own making. In plain English, we derive unconscious (emotional) pleasure from our own pain.

When I discovered this idea, it was like a light bulb went on in my head. When I openly recognized the ways in which I was creating and sustaining, and—perversely—enjoying pain, I could finally start to develop a set of actions that would ultimately change my life. Self-destructive