357: Michael Arterberry: Shake Off The Dirt and Move Forward

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How can you use your struggles as stepping stones to transformation?

Michael Arterberry

As a seasoned motivational speaker, Michael Arterberry has been motivating, inspiring, and changing the lives of teenagers and adults since 2008.

With his background in social work and personal and relational transformation, Michael helps people to use what they have gone through to get to their breakthrough. He walks his audience through the effects of their past and present trauma, including the most recent impact of society’s imbalance, and shows them how to experience a life of peace, fulfillment and possibility.

He is the author of the book, Be Encouraged: 250 Days of Motivation and Encouragement

What We Discuss With Michael Arterberry In This Episode

Growing up in a difficult environment
The story of the donkey and the farmer
Bringing hope and encouragement to youth and young adults
Overcoming the landmines of our life
Relating to others based on empathy and understanding
The Concentric Circle exercise
How you can take part in racial reconciliation
What inspired him to write the book, Be Encouraged: 250 Days of Motivation and Encouragement

Transcript Highlights

Michael’s Transformation Workshops

When he opens up a workshop, he walks people through the house he grew up in to show the participants where he came from and to let them know that the person leading the group was a broken vessel. This disarms them because they’re no longer looking at Michael as a perfectionist coming to make them perfect but rather a person just like them who has struggled with difficult situations and overcome.

The Concentric Circle Exercise

Michael invites participants to gather in concentric circles and rotate asking each other these 5 questions:

Who is the person you respect and why?
What qualities do you look for in a friend and why?
If you had the power to change something in the world, what would it be and why?
When was the time you felt most hurt by someone you trusted?
When was the time that you lost someone you really cared about?

Afterwards, he invites them to sit and allow the feeling to marinate. He then brings to their attention how the room has shifted. When they came into the room and they looked around the circle, everyone was a face. Five questions later, 20 minutes later, each face now has become a person.

When you talk about what’s going on in the world, they now know that the black guy is not just a black guy – he’s a person. You treat a person different than a face.

How You Can Take Part in Racial Reconciliation

Take small steps. When setting goals, you have to break them into small pieces. When you digest something, you have to break it into small pieces in order to take it in.

Read history books. Some whites that are not acclimated to where the history of the African-American community comes from. They see the anger on television and they think the anger is based on what just happened in real-time. They don’t understand it’s based on years and years of oppression. And there are multiple layers that go into that.

About the Book, Be Encouraged: 250 Days of Motivation and Encouragement

What inspired him to write his book was a woman dying of cancer who sent Michael a message and asked him if he could have all of his Facebook posts in one place. So he started pulling his favorites and putting it all together.

Connect With Michael Arterberry

Speaker Website: www.michaelarterberry.com
Youth Voices Center: www.youthvoicescenter.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.arterberry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YouthVoicesCenter
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelarterberry

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