The Gift Underneath Your Wound

What if your biggest setback is the greatest gift you get to give the world?

Strangers tell me things.

Correction: strangers tell me pretty much everything.

It doesn’t matter where I am. It’s bound to happen. I can be at a Padres game, on a plane, or hanging by the pool. They don’t know who I am or what I do for a living, but somewhere amid the small talk, the person I just met will look at me and say something like…

“I’ve never told anyone this before.”

And then proceed to tell me, a complete stranger, what they’ve never told their best friends or even their spouse…

• “Most days, I feel like I’m messing up my kids.”

• “I feel like I’ve never measured up to my dad’s expectations.”

• "I’m married, but I feel so alone. Like we’re just roommates."

• "I got promoted last year, and I thought I’d feel proud. But I just feel like a fraud.”

For a while, I didn’t know why this happened.

Now, I know it’s because one of the most painful moments of my life became my superpower.

Turning Pain Into Purpose

It happened when I was young.

My parents let me stay with a family friend, someone we trusted. Staying at their house was a blast. They made great pancakes and fried chicken. I got to watch TV and drink soda and eat Big League Chew bubble gum, but all that fun came at a cost.

The trust given to this individual was misguided.

I’ve shared this story in my book, You Rise Glorious, so I won’t go into detail here, but this individual carried out a profound violation of all the rules between an adult and a child. For more than a year, when I went to their house, I was sexually molested. It was gross and wrong and traumatic. It made me very, very afraid.

It emblazoned a question over my life.

My Primal Question: Am I safe?

Not everyone’s Primal Question is imprinted through trauma, but it is often the originator of this question in particular.

It certainly was for me. Trauma on the brain is like having a hundred hidden video tabs open on your computer. It overloads and slows down the operating system. It creates extreme hypervigilance and leaves a mark. Even though I am safe now, it is still a hard concept to embrace. Why? Because trauma lives in the right side of our brains, which is the “eternal now” part of the brain.

To this day, safety is still a driving force in my life.

It’s why…

• I have twenty nightlights in my house

• I participate in zero activities where I could be hurt

• I told my wife to never throw me a surprise party.

I like predictability. Control. Safety.

It is a part of my life, but it’s no longer calling the shots or pulling the strings without my permission. As I like to say, “I’m on to me.” Now that I understand my Primal Question, I can coach myself into living in my Primal Truth. I know what’s going on inside me before my nervous system has time to Scramble. I remind myself often, “I am safe.” I am no longer that little kid, “Skinny Mike” as I like to call him. I have choices. I have resources. I have strength.

Not just for me, but to share with others.

That’s the thing…

Wounds don’t have to stay wounds forever.

They can heal.

Each of us has a Primal Question that drives our lives. It’s not always born from trauma, but it always comes from some kind of wound or imprint. Maybe it was subtle. A moment of being overlooked. A pattern of being misunderstood. A season where you felt invisible, unheard, rejected, or not enough.

The problem is, most of us spend our entire lives treating the symptoms of our wound instead of healing it at the source.

It’s like breaking your leg.

Imagine you fractured your femur when you were a kid, and it didn’t heal quite right. Instead of resetting the bone, you learn strategies to cope with the pain. You buy fancy crutches. You limit your steps. You take Advil every day.

You just try to get by.

That’s what so many of us are doing, just getting by. We build our lives around the limp. But you weren’t made to hobble through life. You were made to run.

That’s what the Primal Question helps us do.

It helps us go back to the break, not to wallow in the pain, but to reset the bone. To heal what hasn’t been healed. To stop compensating and start transforming. To get our strength back.

Once you answer your Primal Question with a clear yes, not just mentally, but with your whole self (body, mind, heart, and soul), something incredible happens.

You move from the scramble of self-protection into the strength of your gift.

You begin to live, not out of fear, but out of purpose. Not from your wound, but from your healing. Even more beautifully, you begin to help others do the same.

This is what I call the Primal Gift—the unique power you carry into the world when your wound has been transformed into a weapon for good. It’s the superpower forged in the fire of your setback. It’s the part of you that can walk into a room and make people feel safe, or seen, or wanted, or successful, not because you’ve read all the right books, but because you’ve lived the pain of not having those things yourself.

You know what it’s like to go without. So now you give it freely.

This is what makes the Primal Question model so special.

It’s not just about the pain. It’s about the purpose it unlocks. It doesn’t ignore the wound, but it recognizes its redemptive potential—that it can become the birthplace of your greatest gift.

For me, the very thing I lacked (safety) became the very thing I now give to the world.

Safety was so hard-wired into my nervous system that I unknowingly became an expert on making others feel safe. This is why people I barely know share their trauma, pain, and most vulnerable thoughts with me in a matter of minutes. My Primal Question equips me to help people feel protected, without even trying.

Safety has become my superpower.

What’s yours?

This is the irony and beauty of our stories. What you once thought disqualified you might actually be your greatest qualifier. What you saw as your liability might be your greatest leverage.

If you’ve ever wondered why you feel so drawn to helping others, maybe it’s because your gift is waiting to be unlocked.

Maybe you’re here to become the person you needed when you were younger.

Maybe you’re here to help others reset what’s been broken.

So today, I want to leave you with this:

Your wound doesn’t define you, but it can refine you. It can shape your mission. It can fuel your gift, and your gift is not just for you.

It’s meant to be given away.

If you want to take a first step, grab a journal and ask yourself this:

• What’s the moment in my story that shaped me the most?

• What question has that moment hardwired into my nervous system?

• How can I create a whole-body “YES” to that question every day?

• And what might be the gift underneath that wound?

Your deepest wound might be the doorway to your most meaningful work.

Let’s do our own work to heal so we can help people stop hobbling through life.

Let’s reset the bone.

Let’s help them run.

To your growth,

Mike Foster

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P.P.S. Do you want to help people with their Primal Question?

I’m working on a new certification to help coaches, counselors, and leaders use this model to rapidly accelerate transformation for their clients and teams.

You’ll hear more about it soon. Stay tuned!