Jessica Stölen
Editor
jstolen-jacobson@cherryroad.com
Jerrid Sebesta, a face many locally may recognize from his years as a TV meteorologist on a Minnesota News Station, grew up in Montevideo under tough circumstances. Growing up in a broken home with his mother, who Sebesta says, struggled to regulate emotion and struggled with depression, Sebesta also had a brother ten years older than he who was in and out of incarceration and struggled with addiction. “I was dealing with adult problems at eight years old. I had to play husband and father at a very young age, against my will. And against my will I was always dealing with the chaos of the world, and so I learned, very early on, to protect myself and the way that I was going to protect myself was that I was going to control all of my situations. I as going to try excruciatingly hard. I was going to succeed. I was going to over-achieve every way I possibly could to try to just tamp down the chaos that was always being presented to me,” he says.
Sebesta says this approach led him very early on to work through a strong willpower to accomplish many things, though not always the right things for him. “I played college basketball. I should have never played college basketball. I was not a guy to play at that level. I played at the University of North Dakota and by my senior year I was on a full-ride scholarship and I was a co-captain. I had no business being that person. None. But it was sheer willpower. And then I got into my TV career and I sold my soul for 12 years for the media and it paid off very well. It got me to Kare 11 and then all of a sudden COVID happened, and I realized I couldn’t control any of that. You couldn’t get away from it. COVID messed me up. It wasn’t that I as afraid of dying, it was like there was uncertainty and scariness everywhere. It put me into a very dark season for two years, and then I wondered why my life was so small. I wondered how i know there’s so much more i have to offer and i feel like I”m only giving the world like 15 percent of me, and my life is such a small expression of what, of who I actually am and that haunted me,” he says.
It was then that Sebesta realized the mindsets he developed from childhood were creating roadblocks to feeling fulfilled in life. “I’m not blaming my parents, I’m not blaming my childhood. It was because of the way that I lived my life. It kept me small. It kept me locked in. It was way too safe, and as soon as I started to change how I think, the cap came off. I realized that if you think your life is only going to get this big, trust me, your brain and your mind will figure out every single solution to make sure that is true. As soon as I started opening up my mind, all of a sudden the world was in color because for years the world looked very dark and bleak,” he says.
That realization led Sebesta on a path to change his own life, and has ultimately led to the publication this month of his book, “Life Undeferred: How to Unlock the Dream Life Already Inside and Discover the Bold, Exciting You”.
In the book, Sebesta challenges readers to consider who they want to be. “I think the very first thing that you have to do is you have to understand who you want to become by the end of 2025 right now. Your success begins now. It doesn’t begin in November of next year. One of the most incredible questions you can ask yourself is who do you want to become? I developed the vision for where I am right now this time last year and it was totally intentional. That was the first time, at 45 years old that I’d ever done that,” Sebesta says.
Sebesta also notes that the question includes nuances such as who do you want to be like? Who are you in your most optimal state? “Forget about logistics. Forget about what has worked and not worked in the past, but develop this vision of who you want to become. Where is your genius? How do you want your own superpower to be showing up in the world? When do you feel most alive? When do you feel that you are walking in the complete, authentic expression of who you are? How much money do you want to make? What do you want to be doing with your time? How do you want to show up for your family? Show up in your marriage? How do you want to be physically? How do you want to feel? If you were able tow rite it down on paper and make it come to fruition, what would that feel like?” he says.
He explains that in the act of envisioning these ideas, an emotional connection is created to the person that one wants to become. “That person hasn’t evolved because we’re all evolving in real time. There’s something powerful in emotionally connecting with that person, so that’s part one,” he says.
The second part to enacting that change, Sebesta says, is to understand that you have a choice. “That is, to me, so empowering. You’re not a byproduct of this election. You’re not a byproduct of the world politics. You’re not even a byproduct of your financial situation. Your life is not controlled by external circumstances. They may affect you but that doesn’t dictate the direction that you want to go. It doesn’t dictate the person you want to become. You need to cast the vision and emotionally connect with it and understand. Find that foundation and don’t buy this lie that the world will tell you. You get a say,” he says.
Sebesta says his own life is a testament to what’s possible through shifting your mindset. “I hit every ceiling in every area of my life, and as soon as I changed how I think, the ceilings came off and even to my physical body. If you look back on my Instagram for the last couple years, you’ll watch a physical transformation even in my body. Literally all I was dong was just changing how I think, and all of a sudden the roof started coming off. So that’s what the book is about,” he says.
The book will be available on November 19th, with the easiest way to access being on Amazon. Sebesta, who now lives in Willmar, is also planning an in-person book signing at the Goodness Coffee House from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on November 19th. He will also be doing a live social media stream to talk about the book the day of launch.
