Shaun T’s “T Is for Transformation” offers a powerful roadmap to personal growth. This bold guide challenges you to dig deep, embrace change, and unlock your hidden potential. It’s not just another self-help book; it’s a call to action that will shake up your world.
Ready to revolutionize your life? Dive into Shaun T’s transformative insights and discover how to unleash your inner strength.
Table of Contents
Genres
Personal Growth, Exercise, Fitness, Health, Ab Workouts, Motivational, Self-Help, Personal Transformation, Personal Development, Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, Adult
Summary
Shaun T, renowned fitness trainer, shares his personal journey and seven key principles for transformation. He calls these principles “superpowers”: self-realization, trust, transformation, transparency, team, testimony, and time. Each superpower is explored through Shaun’s experiences and practical exercises. The book emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, honesty, and perseverance in achieving personal goals. Shaun encourages readers to confront their fears, embrace vulnerability, and build supportive relationships. He stresses that transformation is a continuous process requiring patience and dedication.
Review
Shaun T’s energetic personality shines through in this motivational guide. His raw honesty about his own struggles adds credibility to his advice. The book’s strength lies in its practical approach, offering concrete steps for readers to apply in their lives. However, some may find the constant enthusiasm overwhelming. The “superpowers” concept provides a memorable framework, but occasionally feels forced. While the book offers solid advice, it doesn’t break much new ground in the self-help genre. Shaun’s personal anecdotes are engaging, but some readers might want more diverse examples. Overall, it’s a solid choice for fans of Shaun T or those seeking a boost of motivation to kickstart their personal growth journey.
Shaun T, the popular fitness icon behind the Insanity workouts, has helped millions of people transform their lives. In his first book, “T is for Transformation,” T outlines a motivational program for fitness and mental strength. His program is based on the premise that happiness results from overcoming the mental obstacles that impede a positive life and creating a healthy and engaged lifestyle.
Become the best version of you.
READ THIS BOOK SUMMARY IF YOU:
- Want to feel empowered rather than victimized
- Want to transform your life but don’t know how to start
- Are overwhelmed by how challenging and unpredictable life can be
Introduction
Whether you’re stuck in a dead-end job, keep getting into bad relationships, or are wrecking your health with bad lifestyle choices, a lot of your harmful behaviors come from past events that shaped your beliefs about how the world works and what you’re capable of. Shaun T, the iconic fitness trainer, TV personality, and choreographer, understands from personal experience the power that your past can have over your future.
T grew up in a crowded, one-room apartment in West Philadelphia with a violent, alcoholic stepfather who began abusing him at eight years old and offered little guidance on how to live his life. This difficult upbringing caused T to make a lot of mistakes on his journey to self-fulfillment. From gaining 50 pounds in college to keeping his sexuality a secret for too long, T had a hard time doing the right things for himself until he addressed the lingering mental obstacles to creating the healthy, engaged life that he lives today.
As a motivational mastermind, Shaun T has shared the lessons from his personal journey to help millions of people transform their lives for the better. He’s turned his traumatic experiences into a gift: the ability to seek out the right kind of relationships and take care of himself, all while helping others do the same. In this summary, you’ll learn how you can turn a painful past into a bright future by learning seven “superpowers”:
- Be uncomfortable.
- Be full out.
- Be creative.
- Be flexible.
- Be selfish.
- Be passionate.
- Be bananas.
Whatever your painful memories are — whether they include an abusive relationship, a humiliating failure, or a struggle to get the resources you need — you can address them and commit to developing these superpowers. Then, you’ll be ready to move on to the best part of your life.
Be Uncomfortable
Shaun T learned the value of discomfort when he joined his high school’s track team in 1992. His coach pushed him past his limits, making him run sprint after sprint, no matter how much his lungs ached. Until that point, Shaun had enjoyed running but had never pushed himself to the point of discomfort. When he joined the track team, he learned how amazing it felt to pull off something he didn’t know he was capable of, and that he must practice at every opportunity if he wanted to reach his full potential.
For example, his coach challenged Shaun to get better at driving his knees high and pumping his arms during the last 70 meters of the 400 meter race. Shaun started practicing as often and as hard as he could, sometimes even running in place for 30 second “sprints” in the bathroom. It paid off: He made it to state championships in the 400 meter hurdles, but more importantly, he learned that if he put in the time and effort, he could see massive improvements.
Think of a challenge in your own life at work, home, or the gym. Are you afraid you’ll fail, look stupid, or feel uncomfortable? Now, think about the challenge differently: It’s a chance to surprise yourself and move your life into a new space, where you know you can do hard things. When you tackle one challenge, you’ll acquire superpowers that will help you for the next challenge. Get used to being uncomfortable. It’s the only way to create a life worth living.
Be Full Out
To improve your life, you need to embrace every aspect of who you’ve been in the past, who you are today, and who you want to become. If you don’t do this, you’ll feel like you have something to hide from the world, regardless of how much you improve your exterior.
When T began his fitness and dancing career, he was distracted by resentment and shame for the past versions of himself — the versions that were 50 pounds overweight, poor, or too scared to speak up for his rights. Although he was fit and successful in everyone else’s eyes, he felt like a fraud every time he looked in the mirror. However, by embracing radical self-acceptance and honesty, Shaun T learned to stop resenting the person he was during previous chapters of his life. Today, he loves the past versions of himself because that person enabled him to become who he is today.
Being full out also means being open with others about who you are. T experienced a huge personal breakthrough when he took a risk and told his mom and brother about the sexual abuse his stepfather made him endure, as well as the fact that he was gay. He’d worried for years about how his family would react when they learned about his sexual orientation. But he finally decided that enough was enough, and he needed to be full out about who he was and discuss the traumatic events that had shaped him into the resilient and caring person he’d become. It turned out that his big news wasn’t so big after all. His mom listened without judging him, and his brother was totally unfazed. By being honest with his family, T was able to fully embrace who he was and start focusing on what mattered most to him rather than on pretending to be somebody else.
There might be elements of who you are that are easy for you to identify and either embrace or address. However, there are probably elements of your identity that you’re in denial about. To be full out about who you are, you can take these steps:
- Have a doctor or therapist help you identify the areas of your physical or mental health that need to be improved. Together with a professional, identify a concrete goal, such as losing or gaining 10 pounds, committing to a sleep schedule, or addressing a specific psychological issue. Then, come up with a plan to achieve the goal.
- Review the meaningful relationships in your life. Who has bullied or abused you? Who has provided you with unconditional love? Catalogue the positive and negative and think about what made certain moments and relationships great and others painful.
- Release resentment you hold for others by making a list of people who held you back, didn’t believe in you, or hurt you. Consider why you let them block you, how they exerted their power over you, and how their influence still affects you today. Write them each a letter about how you really feel. Gather the letters together and then burn them, flush them down the toilet, or rip them into a million pieces. By doing so, you’ll send your brain the signal that it’s time to let go of the resentment and never look back.
- Let go of regrets. Learn from your mistakes, forgive yourself for them, and move on. Everyone has something they would do differently if they could go back in time, but if you focus on missed opportunities and mistakes, you won’t be able to see the opportunities ahead of you.
Be Creative and Flexible
When uncreative people are in a tough spot, they use their circumstances or personal limitations as an excuse to accept failure. But on the flip-side, when creative people find themselves in a tough spot, they brainstorm numerous paths to achieve a goal and often turn to others for help.
To cultivate a more creative mindset, give yourself permission to goof off. Doing things like drawing, reading magazines, or surfing the web can lead you to think differently and come up with ways to get unstuck and overcome the obstacles in front of you. Steve Jobs, who famously attributes his design of the iPhone to a calligraphy course, shows that creativity, combined with hard work, can make you wildly successful.
Things don’t always go according to plan; that’s why it’s important to both creative and also flexible. Accept that your “plan A” may not work, and instead of giving up, move on to “plan B,” “C,” or even “Z”! You can improve your mental flexibility by doing physical exercises like yoga or deliberately ditching the status quo for something new from time to time. For instance, you could take a new route to work, order takeout from a restaurant you’ve never tried before, or book an Airbnb in a nearby neighborhood you’ve never visited. By giving yourself different experiences, you’ll become more flexible and adaptable over time.
Another way to be more flexible is to get out of your small circle of friends and do something for someone who’s different from you. The more you see and understand other people’s problems, the more you’ll understand beyond your own prejudices and preconceived notions. Shaun T gained tremendous perspective as a teenager when his grandfather took him to deliver food to people in need. Even today, as a mentor, he is constantly learning from the people he helps.
Be Selfish
When Shaun T was 14, he did something that he felt was selfish: He went to live with his grandparents, abandoning his mom and brother so that he could escape his abusive stepfather. On his first night living with them, he sobbed with joy because he realized that he could finally sleep without worrying about being abused during the night. In that moment, he knew that he’d rescued himself, and that he was no longer a victim.
Selfishness gets a bad rap, but sometimes, you need to put yourself first so that you can help others in the future. If Shaun had stayed with his mom, brother, and stepfather, he would’ve remained a victim, and as a result, couldn’t have helped other people in the future. If you aren’t happy, thriving, and on your way to becoming the best version of yourself, nobody in your circle will be happy either because you won’t carry the necessary positive energy with you.
Being selfish in a good way doesn’t mean trampling over other people or forcing them to do something against their will. It just means setting aside the time, energy, and resources needed to take care of yourself and your goals. To be a little more selfish, identify areas of your life in which your concerns for others are trumping your ability to take care of yourself or make your dreams a reality. Then, create a plan to protect your goals, whether that’s by turning off your phone in the evening, putting your “me” time on the family calendar, or saying no to additional commitments.
Be Passionate
Identifying your passions and feeling them at their fullest is ultimately what determines success. If you’re truly passionate about what you’re doing, nothing seems impossible. To make new plans work and push through when challenges arise, you must be completely on board with what you set out to do. Here are three suggestions for how to get in touch with your passion:
First, figure out what really makes you mad. List four or five things that wind you up and see if there’s a theme that connects them. For example, if you absolutely hate your commute to work, your neighborhood, and the public transportation in your city, maybe your passion is efficiency and order or creating safe, livable public spaces for people. Or maybe your passion is making a lot of money, so you can live in a nicer part of town! Whatever you think your passion might be, build an action plan, such as volunteering for a neighborhood organization or changing your financial strategy so that you can afford to move in the future.
Second, locate other passionate people and spend time with them. If you’re hanging out with passive people, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle as you try to improve your life. But if you hang out with passionate people, you’ll be on a neverending journey to achieving your goals. Shaun T moved to Los Angeles because he wanted to be surrounded by people who are passionate about dancing and exercise. Once there, he built a close circle of friends who, to this day, constantly push him to try harder, do more, meet new people, and live a better life.
Third, fill in the blank in this sentence, “I can’t help it, I’m obsessed with _______.” Your nutty obsessions say a lot about who you are and what you like to do. For example, if you’re obsessed with the Kardashians and read every tweet, Instagram post, and tabloid, maybe you’re passionate about marketing or the future of entertainment. Do some research and find out if there’s a way to align your career and life with your weird obsessions. Then, build an action plan on how to test that out.
Be Bananas
When you’re in the process of pushing your life forward, there are bound to be surprises, disappointments, eye-openers, and other moments that make you scratch your head in disbelief. Being bananas means accepting that no matter how carefully you plan your life, there will always be a bit of chaos. Change isn’t just uncomfortable because it’s hard — it can also be uncomfortable because it’s crazy and unpredictable. Accept the craziness of life, enjoy it, learn from it, and move forward because of it.
One way to get better at embracing life’s chaos is to reduce a crazy situation down to individual elements and understand which components make you feel unsettled. Reach out to others who have been in your shoes before and take notes on what they can teach you about how to navigate the insanity.
Another way to deal with chaos is to concentrate on what you can control. When Shaun T was trying to launch his dance career in Los Angeles — a chaotic enterprise if there ever was one — he stuck to what he was good at in his spare time: teaching exercise classes. By doing so, he made enough money to stay afloat during the early years of his dancing career and kept himself in shape. When his dance career finally took off, he had the body to make it work!
Finally, you can deal with chaos by doing something that forces you to focus on your body and a rhythm, such as dance, exercise, yoga, or playing a musical instrument. These things force you to take a break from an obsessive focus on problems or worries about the outcome of a tough situation.
Chaos can be exhilarating once you begin to understand and resolve it. So be bananas and accept that chaos is part of what makes life worth living.
Summary
Shaun T’s story shows that no matter who you are today or what your past has been like, with the right mindset and determination, you can rescue yourself from damaging thoughts and victimhood in order to win big. In this summary, you’ve learned how to do just that through Shaun T’s advice to:
- Be uncomfortable.
- Be full out.
- Be creative.
- Be flexible.
- Be selfish.
- Be passionate.
- Be bananas.
Most importantly, remember that you don’t have to become an expert at these superpowers overnight. If you can commit to getting a little better today, your efforts will be multiplied over a year, 10 years, and beyond. Eventually, your life will be transformed. Now that you’ve identified the superpowers you must possess in order to do that, you must commit to developing them, so you can handle whatever life throws your way.
Shaun T is a fitness icon, businessman, television personality, choreographer, and motivational mastermind. He’s helped millions of people transform their bodies and their lives through his T25, Hip Hop Abs, Insanity, and Cize workouts. In addition to helping people take control of their fitness and health, Shaun helps people build their inner strength through transformational master classes, publications, and his podcast Trust & Believe with Shaun T.
Table of Contents
An Invitation to Transformation 1
Chapter 1 The Seven Superpowers 3
Chapter 2 My Black Buddy 10
Chapter 3 Learning How to Breathe 21
Chapter 4 The Rule of Seven 34
Chapter 5 Coming Out (Not That Way … Yet) 47
Chapter 6 The Freshman 50 60
Chapter 7 TransformaShaun Time 80
Chapter 8 Learning to Live In the Eights 100
Chapter 9 The Hot-Doo-Doo-Mess Career Plan 118
Chapter 10 Shaun T, The Musical 133
Chapter 11 My Audition in the Bedroom 154
Chapter 12 Look Good Naked 172
Chapter 13 Before the “Before,” and After the “After” 188
Chapter 14 Loving (And Hating) Shaun T Live 210
Chapter 15 The Last 70 Meters 226
Chapter 16 Running Straight Through the Finish Line 240
Appendix: Feel the Work! 252
Index 259