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Tag: How to Overcome Life’s Setbacks & Hardships

Millennials, Say Goodbye To Feeling Stuck: 3 Tips To Overcome Setbacks

Abruptly, you feel stopped in the middle of your career path. The way ahead appears hazy and uncertain, with no clear opening in sight. You’re not sure what to do or where to go, so you stay put where you are — but your resources are running out.

Perhaps you’re struggling to make a difficult decision, your finances are getting tight, you lack motivation, or you’re afraid of failure and making a big mistake.

No matter the reason, the experience is the same — you feel stuck. And it can be incredibly challenging to muster the strength, confidence, and clarity to move forward.

If there’s one man who knows this particularly well, it’s Steve Martel. He’s a real estate wealth expert who influences more than 100,000 entrepreneurs annually and has helped investors acquire over $350 million worth of real estate in the past three years alone. He also knows what it’s like to feel stuck and lose $47 million overnight, yet he hasn’t let it stop him.

I spoke with Martel about his uncanny ability to get “unstuck” and keep moving forward on this week’s podcast episode, “How To Get Unstuck: The Secret To Overcoming Million Dollar Setbacks w/ Real Estate Mogul Steve Martel.”

Martel’s drive stems from the battle with cancer he began waging at age 16. Doctors told him he had a 90% chance the cancer would persist, so he decided to start living like he was dying.

“I had no choice, because I had built in my mind that I only had 5 more years to live,” Martel says.

Instead of going to college, Martel began selling homes. At age 18, he sold 78 homes, while the average real estate agent sells 4 to 6.

At age 21, he sold 250 homes and earned $4 million.

From there, his trajectory only went up and up, but not without plenty of setbacks. Anyone who plays a big game knows it involves big risks.

Martel’s gotten stuck more times than he can count. He’s declared bankruptcy, lost millions on deals, and even had business partners screw him out of contracts. Yet he is where he is today because of his commitment to persistence.

“I counted, as an actual positive blessing, that I did go through cancer, because today I am living the most awesome life ever with my children, with my friends, with my business that I can’t even count as work,” Martel says.

Below, Martel shares the secrets that have helped him get out of sticky situations and proceed to generate personal success.

Live like there’s no tomorrow. If you believed your time was quickly dwindling, you wouldn’t wait to get started on doing the things you love, or creating the life you dream about. You wouldn’t make excuses for why you aren’t ready yet, or why you can’t get back in the game. You would possess the unparalleled drive of a dying man. You may not actually have a deadly disease, but you can choose to operate from this mindset to ignite the burner beneath your actions and hold yourself accountable to moving forward.

Burn the bridges behind you. When you’re stuck in a rut, it can be tempting to backtrack and cling onto what feels safe. But this massively hinders your progress and keeps you in a state of fear. To ensure you avoid doing this, make it impossible for yourself to turn around. “The science behind momentum is burning the bridges behind you, share your passion and story with other people,” Martel says. “That now obligates you and commits you to actually moving on forward. You’ve got no other choice but to succeed and that’s how you have to see it in your head.”

Be willing to take risks. The number one reason Martel became successful was because he didn’t shy away from taking risks. He dealt with enormous sums of money, reasoning that the only difference was “an extra zero.” Play a bigger game, and you will reap bigger rewards. When you can’t decide on your next move, take a risk and see what happens — if you happen to make a mistake, you will only learn from it and become wiser.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
The Single Trait That Leads To Success, According To NBA Champion Ronny Turiaf

Success is unpredictable — there are very few things we can do, if it all, to guarantee it.

Whether you are trying to start your own business, training to run a marathon, or working on your own side hustle, life tends to throw things in our path that challenge us, provoke us, and test our commitment. Hardly anyone who’s reached the top will tell you that the road was easy, but they all have one thing in common: perseverance.

Take it from a former NBA champion, who weathered open heart surgery, financial hardship, and a host of other injuries, for the sake of pursuing his dream.

I’ve never met anyone quite as dedicated as Ronny Turiaf — he’s played basketball for the LA Lakers, Miami Heat, and the NY Knicks, to name a few. He’s also the founder of the Heart to Heart Foundation, which provides medical care for individuals who lack health insurance and can’t afford the care they need.

I spoke with Ronny about his inspiring journey on this week’s podcast episode, “The Single Habit That Leads to Quantum Success, According to NBA Champion Ronny Turiaf.”

Not many people are forced to choose between their life or their dream, and choose their dream. That was the position Ronny found himself in when he was about to be drafted for the LA Lakers in 2006, but was suddenly denied contract.

A medical examination revealed he would need to undergo open heart surgery, or never be able to play basketball again. To make matters worse, he didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t pay for the surgery.

Growing up in poverty, Ronny had always been motivated to play basketball with the hope of one day being able to provide for his family. Over the years he sacrificed birthday parties, family gatherings, and quality time in order to practice basketball.

The medical situation was devastating to Ronny — not only could he lose his life, but everything he had hoped for in training over the last eight years. Fortunately, others came to his aid to help Ronny finance the surgery, and he opted to go through with it.

The operation was successful, but it was Ronny’s perseverance and focus that really stood out.

He remembers saying: “You are going to have to kill me because I will make it back to the basketball court. There is no alternative.”

He could have succumbed to fear, and his journey would have ended right there. Instead, he summoned the courage to keep going and proceeded to shine in the NBA, making his childhood basketball dreams a reality and winning the NBA Championship in 2012 with the Miami Heat.

Through Ronny’s story we see that success is defined by the choice to persevere through the moments that test us. When we commit to overcome every obstacle life throws at us, we become unstoppable, and success is inevitable.

Consider applying the following tips to master the art of perseverance:

Listen to your inner voice to help you make crucial decisions.

When you find yourself at a fork in the road, check in with yourself and honor what your intuition or “gut feeling” is telling you. Sometimes, your own voice will say something different than what others say. Remember that you know yourself best and therefore have the best information set to determine what’s right for you. Regardless of what you do you will always make someone unhappy. Ronny says, “the only thing I can control is that it feels right in my belly, and that’s the only thing that can make me at peace and at ease with everything I do.”

Push through the pain by focusing on your goal.

Having a successful mindset involves accepting that it’s not always going to be easy. You will encounter trials that test how bad you want it. In the ten months leading up to winning the NBA championships in 2012 Ronny broke his hand twice. His advice? “Whether the storm.” When you find yourself in pain or challenged, remind yourself why it’s worth pushing through. Reaffirming your goal and the “why” behind your actions is the greatest fuel to empower you to keep going when it gets tough.

Apply the same drive to every aspect of your life.

It’s difficult to feel successful when you are only pursuing success in one aspect of your life. If your job is going great, but your health is another story, you’re bound to feel like a walking contradiction. To truly feel success from the inside out, you’ll need to apply the same drive you currently have in one area… to all areas. Ronny says, “I gave myself too much in one category and the others suffered. I asked myself, Ronny how can you find balance in all areas of your life? And yes, you are asking yourself to do something that is very difficult, but something that is worthy in your eyes, because I want to be great in everything that I do.”

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
One Millennial’s Open Conversation About Body Image As An Actress Turned Health Coach

In today’s world, we face a tremendous amount of pressure to conform to body standards. We are constantly bombarded with messages to ‘lose 10 pounds fast’ or ‘get in shape for bikini season.’ The implication of these messages is that we are not skinny enough, not in shape enough, and not sexy enough, as we are.

It can be challenging to navigate these ideals while honoring yourself and your unique body. No matter what your body looks like, you have probably experienced some form of self-scrutiny or questioned if you have the “right” body. You simply can’t avoid the matter in a body-conscious world.

Unfortunately, the body image conversation is often a silent one, between a woman and herself. It is generally considered taboo to voice the concerns you might have about your body and your relationship to food, especially as a woman entrepreneur or in a highly competitive workplace when you are being evaluated constantly.

Until now, that is.

One millennial is stepping up and giving a voice to the silent struggle billions of women know so well. She had a particularly rough journey with her body as a former TV actress–but now, she’s a women’s health coach and the youngest author at publisher Hay House, with her book, The Goddess Revolution, launching in June.

Meet Mel Wells, creator of The Green Goddess Life, who I spoke with on this week’s podcast episode, “The Anti- Diet: How To End The War On Your Body w/ Hay House’s Youngest Author Mel Wells.”

At age 18, Wells began her acting career and found herself immersed in a competitive environment that led her to make tough decisions. “When you’re in a world where you and your body is the difference between you getting the job and you not getting the job, you put immense amounts of pressure on yourself,” says Wells.

For her, this meant going on crash diets and, ultimately, developing body issues as she tried to stay employable. One time, her producer met with her to discuss her body size. Wells reflects, “I was completely overwhelmed and turned to using food to control elements or numb feelings.”

It took witnessing her dad get cancer to finally wake up to the reality of the damage she was doing to her body. Watching her dad fight for his health, Wells says she was confronted with the potential consequences for abusing her own body and resolved to become a health coach.

Through working with clients, she was able to heal herself and put together a method that works to resolve body issues, encourage healthy eating, and restore body freedom.

The Goddess Revolution seeks to take over as the new ‘anti-diet’ by sparking a new way of thinking that will help women end the war on their own bodies. By attacking modern issues like ‘fitspiration’ and the obsession with perfection caused by celebrity glorification and magazine airbrushing, Wells hopes to break the cycle of negative talk that keeps women from feeling fulfilled and fully self-expressed.

For any woman, it is important to learn to honor yourself by honoring the relationship you have with your body first. When you have that strong foundation established you can more easily stand up for yourself in the workplace and say ‘no’ to objectification and discrimination in your career based on your looks.

Relieving the pressure of body image starts by loving yourself. When you love yourself by loving what you are creating in the world, you can overcome any adversity.

At age 26, Wells has certainly made waves and evolved into her true self despite challenges. Consider these three powerful lessons for navigating your own path.

Lesson #1: Just go for it, even if you don’t feel completely ready yet. Wells says the best advice she ever got was to “start before you’re ready.” That means to summon the confidence to take action even if you don’t have everything figured out. Everyone makes mistakes, but they tend to be the best reflections for improvement.

Lesson #2: Use your personal story to your advantage. The lessons you have learned along your own journey are the best source for credibility and experience. People will connect to your story and want to work with you because they know you’ve been where they are and have overcome it. Don’t be afraid to share any mistakes you’ve made as they can actually testify to how far you’ve come and show people there’s hope no matter where you are.

Lesson #3: Don’t let your age stop you. When you’re young, it’s easy to perceive age to be a limiting factor to your success. Wells can empathize: “when anyone starts business in the coaching world it can be daunting to assume anyone wants your advice,” she says. But the notion that you’re not old enough to achieve what you want is simply false. Don’t apologize for your age; let your experience and results speak for how qualified you are. You never know, your young age may become your biggest asset someday.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018