Ep318: Using Adversity as a Tool for Growth With Create Your Own Life Podcast Founder Jeremy Slate

Big dreams and big ideas are part of the mix, but most of the things that we know about success are wrong. Hard to believe, but 95% of it is just about your willingness to work and how many times you’re willing to show up.

Having interviewed over a thousand successful people and being a founder of his own successful company, Command Your Brand Media, Jeremy believes that being extraordinary is not a place you arrive at, but a continuous pursuit.

“We’re all born unremarkable, but it’s the things we do and the work we put in that makes us extraordinary.”

There are days when you feel like you’re not in the right place: losing inspiration, motivation, and everything else in between. This phase is just something that you have to work your way through. The key is to continue creating because done is better than perfect. Putting it out there is the most important part. Growth requires one’s willingness to learn and get better, and most importantly, to accept imperfection.

Following versus Finding Your Passion

Following your passion is a bad idea. By doing so, you just hope things work out. Finding your passion, on the other hand, means you’re open to trying more things and working towards something and not just passively waiting for life to happen. In the process you learn more about yourself, learn what you like doing, and what you’re good at.

Growing and Scaling: What’s Worked, What’s Working, and What Hasn’t

Founders who encounter barriers must realize that not everyone they hire will be as good as them. However, the only way to expand is through people. The best course of action is to set them up the right way, put together better training, and write better processes.

Pipeline. Don’t put somebody in a position that doesn’t exist. It’s best to look for people who will take on an inherited position. A role that you or someone in the company does that is just ready to be passed on and delegated to another person. Write down everything this position does, how you do it, and how you want it done. When somebody fills in for you, they could just take it and improve on it.

Training. Work on the development of your team and invest time in creating good processes, and train your people on it well.

Mindset. When faced with adversity, there are 3 kinds of people, each with a different viewpoint:

1. 1. 1. The one who encounters adversity and takes a different, easier way out;
    2. The one who dabbles in self-pity, complains, and blames everyone but themselves; and
    3. The one who evaluates, and comes up with a plan to end up on the other side of it.

Get the habit of changing your perspective and looking at adversity as an opportunity to become better and understand that it’s usually a process of metamorphosis waiting to happen.

Goal Setting

Prepare a battle plan. Picture the end in mind and work your way backward. Imagining yourself with the end goal helps put you in flow – and being in flow makes everything else come easier.

Make smaller sub-targets. Celebrating small wins on the way helps keep you in a great mental state and it stops your goal from being a perpetually moving target. If you celebrate more, you are bound to win more.

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