How To Come Back From A Crisis

People are burning others in a cage. 21 people got their heads cut off because of the religion they practice. St. Louis was basically burned to the ground because a cop did his job. Our police are being targeted for execution. The jobs that we were addicted to for generations are gone and they aren’t coming back. You found out that college, after paying $100,000 for it, was a complete waste of time. One news channel says the world is coming to an end. Another says you’re a racist. Your church seems more and more like a self-help seminar designed to sell books.

Politicians spend twice what they take in. Then they tell you how to spend your money. You listen and do as they say. You’re broke.

Those same people have been talking about “creating jobs” for decades. “We need good, middle class manufacturing jobs” they say. And even though you know that they’re wrong, the middle class is gone, and your job will either be replaced by a robot or outsourced to China within the next 5 years, you still hold our some hope.

You signed up for a gym membership and went once. That was January 3rd. Now you’re in collections with them for $500. But really who cares? What’s another $500 on top of the $50,000 of debt you already have.

You were just served divorce papers. Your kids are being cyber bullied or at least Al Roker is telling you they are. Because they are being cyber bullied (according to Al Roker) they’ll probably end up killing themselves. Even if they aren’t cyber bullied, Christians hate gays and your kid is probably gay so they’ll kill themselves anyway.

You get robbed. Someone breaks into your car and steals your stuff. You can’t call the police because, well, some internet news guy told you that police just kill black children for no reason so why would you ever call them?

The internet is a great thing but porn, murder, gambling, viruses, hacks, and identity theft is everywhere. You have 500 TV channels to watch but nothings on. You download app after app on your $500 phone that you financed through some “Edge” program but nothing keeps your attention for more than a half hour.

Then Your Day Starts

You throw on some clothes, grab “breakfast” that is wrapped in plastic, put it in a box that sends electrical currents through it to heat it faster, and run out the door. You stop for your $5 cup of coffee with 10 sugars. The radio is on but it’s 7am so your choices are limited. You can listen to “the world is ending.” Maybe the “you’re a racist” guy would be better. Actually, I think “who Taylor Swift kissed last night” would be the best option. We’ll save the “who’s screwing who in Hollywood” show for the ride home.

Traffic is horrible. Everyone is miserable. You cut someone off simply because you think that by doing so you’ll be able to get to where you’re going a few seconds faster. Then it’s time to merge. But not you. You want to WIN so you stay so close to the bumper of the car in front of you that you are now high as a kite from the carbon monoxide flowing through your vents.

After an hour it’s finally side street time. You’ve been driving this route for years but for some reason you always seem to forget about that camera on the traffic light. You make a right on red without coming to a complete stop. You see the light flash and instantly know that you just provided some well needed but horribly spent revenue to your local “leaders.” Maybe this time they’ll fill that pot hole that gave you 4 flat tires in the past 2 months. Who knows.

Finally you’re at your destination. A place you hate with people you despise and a boss that hates you. Yes, your boss hates you. Not only does he hate you but he probably wants you to die too. You sit there doing mindless tasks looking forward to one thing – LUNCH!

After cursing out your boss under your breath for 4 hours you head out to a local McDonalds for some “power food.” Even though you’ve been doing this for years you are still amazed at how there can be bumper to bumper traffic at noon. Back to winning. No merging. More cut-offs. And today you’re really on point so you throw a few middle fingers out the window just for good measure.

You get to McDonalds and your lunch break is practically over. Drive through is the only option. So you get a “number 4” and throw it down in the car on the way back to the office.

You feel like you’re having a heart attack but that’s just the unchewed “burger” and plastic fries that are eating away at your insides. The 42 ounce Coke isn’t helping either.

You finally get back to your office. You feel like complete garbage. Fat. Gross. Sick. Your boss gets on your case about some stupid report you have to file the second you walk through the door. It has to be in today. You haven’t even started it yet because you really have no idea what the hell you have to do.

You rush, stressed, still feeling sick from lunch, but you get the report done. You proudly walk into your bosses office, hand the report in with a smile and your boss hands you something back.

You’re FIRED!

Pissed off, depressed, wanting to murder your employer, you get back in your car. If you did actually end up murdering your employer it would be the guns fault anyway so you’re good. More traffic, more “winning,” and now there’s a lot of fingers flying around. After 2 hours you’re finally home. The divorce papers are still sitting on the table. Did the kids kill themselves yet? Who knows. You haven’t talked to them in 3 weeks.

You think to yourself, “what should I do,” and you come up with the only viable option.

Head over to Facebook and tell everyone how great your life is. Post a picture of you smiling like a champ in front of a mountain. But wait, you don’t have any picture of you smiling in front of a mountain. Who cares. Fake a smile in front of a white wall, photoshop the mountain in the background and you’re good.

After you brag about your greatness on Facebook it’s back to the box. You pull a box out of the freezer and rip it open. You throw that thing into another box. More electrical currents cooking your “food.” Then you sit down and turn to the other box and flip it on. Is the world ending or are you a racist? Your choice. Don’t be a bitch and put on American Idol. That would be cheating. It’s either the world is ending or you’re a racist. Pick one! It can’t end there though. You aren’t occupied enough. So it’s over to the hand held box to post more “greatness” on Facebook.

While you’re posting all the great stuff about your life you can’t help but to see all your “friends” and all their greatness. Now you’re depressed. Maybe you should see a doctor and throw some unknown chemicals in your brain. It has nothing to do with what you eat, how you think, how you react, and the choices you make in your life. It’s a chemical imbalance. That’s it. We need pills. The pills cause suicidal thoughts but who cares. I hate my life and want to die anyway so what’s the difference.

Maybe This Isn’t You

But if you’re honest with yourself you could probably relate to at least half of what you just read. In a nutshell, this is the typical American life. Sadly what I just described is not considered abnormal or bad. What I just described is the average American life. I’m totally guessing here but I’d say that I described about 80% of people living in this country – if they’re honest with themselves.

So is this you? If it is, GREAT! You’re in an amazingly awesome spot. Seriously. You really are. If it’s not you but you can relate to some of it, not bad. You’re not as good as the “I want to die” guy but you’re close.

The question now is how do you come back? Nobody actually wants to live this way. The problem is that nobody is ever taught how to overcome anything. We’re taught from birth that everything will be ok. Everyone gets a trophy. You’ll be taken care of. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. Blame the rich guy. They’re out to get you. Actually, everyone is out to get you. You need to get good grades, get into a good school, get married, have children, and buy a house SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE I JUST DESCRIBED!

It’s all BS. If you’re in this spot, GREAT. If you aren’t then maybe you “have a friend” who might be so you should keep reading anyway. Remember the old “oh this is for a friend” thing? Yeah, I just did that.

So you (or your friend) wants to die? Awesome! Here’s how to come back to life.

Step 1 – You want to die anyway so who cares!

One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I was unable to join the military. I guess it’s not really a regret. I had no control over it (and I hate saying that but it’s true). I have bad eyesight and even though I can hit a dime at 50 yards all day long, the military has standards and I didn’t meet them.

One of the scariest things about the challenges our military faces today is that they are fighting an enemy that actually wants to die. You can’t really run around with M4’s throwing lead at people who want to die and expect to get anywhere. You’re threatening to give them what they want.

I’m currently being mentored and trained by two Navy SEALS. One helps me forge unbreakable self-confidence. The other helps me forge an unstoppable mind. Both would agree that fighting an enemy that wants to die is the worst thing ever.

But why?

The reason is because they have nothing to lose so they’ll take chances. If you truly feel like you want to die my first piece of advice to you would be to go crazy. Don’t hold back. Did you ever want to jump out of a plane? If so, do it. What’s the worst that could happen? You die! But you want that anyway so who cares.

Do you have someone in your life that you hate and you’ve been dying to give them a piece of your mind? We all do. So go have at it. What’s the worst that could happen?

Maybe you have a girl or a guy that you’ve been wanting to ask out on a date. What’s stopping you now? You want to die anyway so who cares what they say?

Hold a ball in your hand. Bring it up to eye level. Now drop it. Think about what’s happening. The ball will continue to fall until it hits the floor. Then it will BOUNCE and come back up. If you do the same thing over a black hole (and since you want to die you might as well head to the edge of a black hole and check it out…why not) it will just keep falling.

In order to come back from anything you must hit bottom. I know a person who was heavily addicted to cocaine. He’s actually a really close friend of mine and has been for years. One New Years Eve night he did a little too much (ok, actually a lot too much) and was clinically dead for 3 minutes. This was about 10 years ago and now the guy won’t even take Advil for a headache. Dying was his bottom and when he reached it he said “screw it” and he want crazy. He could have just stopped putting deadly chemicals in his body but instead he cut out everything. Now he’s healthy, happy, successful, living in Australia and eating shrimp (or whatever they do in Australia).

Once you hit bottom you have nothing to lose. Start taking chances and go crazy. You’ll NEVER end up getting your wish (dying). But something much better will happen. You’ll start to actually live life. You’ll experience the freedom of having nothing to lose and everything to gain. When you hit bottom there’s only one way to go – UP!

Step 2 – Know Exactly What You Want

Ok, so you went crazy and lived a little. You didn’t die right? Good, because if you did you wouldn’t be reading this part.

Start with why? BS. It makes a great book title but no sense what-so-ever. Ask yourself this question:

“Why am I doing this?”

Now try to answer it. You can’t. It’s impossible. In order to understand why you are doing something you must first know exactly what it is that you want to do.

This past Christmas I was sitting down with my daughter to do her list for Santa. She’s 7 and at that age people are the greatest they’ll ever be. Most people anyway. Why? Because she went crazy. Her Christmas list included things like horses, houses, princess castles, a houseboat, about 10 different pets. She actually wrote down that she wanted Elsa from the movie Frozen. She wanted to own her own princess.

This is a beautiful thing and if there’s one thing I hope my daughter never loses it’s the ability to create MASSIVE targets, goals and dreams.

When I work with business people on a one-on-one basis I always ask them to clearly define their goals and targets. Usually I get things like “I just want to make money” or “pay the bills” or “have a little left over at the end of the month.” Some other common responses I’ll see are “survive” or “stay in business.”

We’re taught by our parents, teachers, coaches, and whoever else that we should be safe. Be reasonable or else you’ll be disappointed. Again it all leads back to “good grades, good school, good job, marriage, house, debt, 500 channels, pills, sessions of talking, more pills, stress tests, more pills, etc.” Work 40 years, get your healthcare, invest 10% into a 401K, then get a gold watch, a cake, and live on social security (which is essentially bankrupt).

Where did all the princesses, castles, horses, and houseboats go? I want some of that!

Step number 2 is simple and it’s really fun! What you need to do now is sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and write down everything you want in the next 10 years. Don’t worry how you’ll get it. Just write down everything. Design your perfect life. And I mean PERFECT. You want to have babies with one particular actor or actress, write it down. You want a Ferrari just for the weekends, write it down. Maybe it’s a house in Florida for the winters, a house in New York for the summers and a house in Italy just because. Maybe you want to write novel, a play, or even a movie. Could you star in a movie? Why not! Whatever it is, even if you think it’s impossible you need to write it down.

Focus on the 4 key areas of life: Financial, Relationships, Personal Development, Health.

START WRITING.

Step 3 – Pick 1 For Each Area and MODEL

People always freak out when I talk about modeling because it’s an NLP thing but whatever. It works so I use it. NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programing, a technology created by Dr. Richard Bandler. I’m not going to get into what it’s all about but there are a lot of people who think it’s a joke. It’s not. It’s used (whether they know it or not) by every successful person in the world. And you use it every day.

So what we’re going to do now is pick 1 thing for each area of your life. Remember, Financial, Relationships, Personal Development, Health. Pick one of the things on that list for each area that you would like to achieve within the next year. Write it down on a different sheet of people.

Now it’s research time. You’re going to head over to the old Google machine and type in whatever it is you want to achieve. Your goal here is to find 3 or 4 people who’ve achieved whatever it is you want.

For example, if you’re a single mother who wants to write a book, your job right now is to find 3 or 4 single mothers who wrote a book.

Once you find your 3 or 4 people you are going to reach out to them and ask them to tell you a story. Their story. Their journey. What they did to accomplish the goal you are looking to accomplish. They will tell you – I promise! I’ve never met a successful person in my life who isn’t willing to share their journey. But you have to reach out and ask.

Once you hear back from these people (whoever they are) you are going to use some common sense and look for patterns. There’s patterns in everything. If your goal is to lose 40 pounds and 3 out of the 4 people told you that they walked for at least 30 minutes a day, you have step 1. If all of them said they cut out carbs, there’s step 2. You get the idea.

This is modeling and it’s, BY FAR the best way to get things done. As a society we think it’s weird when it comes to accomplishing life goals. Then we hit YouTube to figure out how to put together that Ikea dresser we just got. Pretty crazy huh? Modeling is no different than reading an instruction manual when you buy something.

Now you have the 4 things you want to accomplish in the next 12 months and you should have some sort of plan of action starting to take form.

 

Step 4 – MOVE and Drink

One of your top daily goals should be to pee a lot. Our body is made up of mostly one thing – WATER. We need to drink like crazy. The more you drink the more you pee. And peeing is great! So drink a lot so you can pee a lot.

The next thing you need to do is MOVE. The first thing you do in the morning shouldn’t be brushing your teeth, showering, or electrically shocking your boxed breakfast to death. It should be some sort of movement (drink while you move).

We just moved for the first time in 8 hours. We’ve been lying flat on a board for a pretty long time. Keep a pair of sneakers next to your bed and the second you open your eyes, put them on and move. I don’t care if you walk around your yard, run 20 miles, or hit a stationary bike– you must MOVE right away. I usually choose either the bike, sit ups, or jogging when it’s nice out. But it really doesn’t matter as long as you’re moving. It gets the blood flowing and pumps cerebral fluid (gross) into your brain. It makes you think clearly and warms you up for the day ahead.

Movement is also an easy win. It’s an early success. It’s also a little uncomfortable for most people and that’s a good thing. One of my SEAL mentors says to start every day “Cold, Wet and Sandy.” Those guys take that literally. Run to the beach, dive in, roll around in the sand, cover yourself head to toe, then run 20 miles. No thanks. The point is to start the day with something uncomfortable that will be seen (to you) as a win right away.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be anything major. A light walk, a short ride on a bike, rollerblading, whatever! Just start moving.

Step 5 – You’re Clueless But You’re Going To Do It Anyway

You’re going to royally screw up almost everything you do. That’s awesome! I absolutely LOVE screwing this up. And I’m being serious. See, here’s the thing – true knowledge is created by failing over and over again. It’s impossible to gain knowledge from a book. Yes, you can learn facts from a book. You can also learn information or a plan from a book. But knowledge only comes from getting out there and DOING IT!

Think about this. You’re the coach of an NFL team. You have a choice between 2 players. Player one knows the playbook inside and out. You shout out a play and he can tell you where every player on the field is supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do. Player 2 knows the basics of the playbook but he’s still a little lost. Player two also screws up from pretty regularly.

If you had to choose one who do you want on your team?

Most people would choose player one, right? But there’s one thing I forgot to tell you. Player one has never stepped foot on a football field in his life. Yes he knows the playbook but he has no idea how to turn those drawings into action. Player two doesn’t know the playbook as well but he’s on the field. Yes he screws up but he’s actually out there playing the game.

You always want to be the one playing the game. Never be on the sidelines because you’re afraid to fail. Failure is GREAT! It gives you the opportunity to say “Well, that didn’t work” and move on to the next thing.

Alex Rodriguez is #5 all time in both Home Runs and Strikeouts. If he was so deathly afraid of failing (striking out) he would never have the opportunity to hit home runs. He also had quite a few singles, doubles, triples and walks mixed in. All of those would be considered a success. But who knows, maybe it’s the drugs.

You have your plan. Your models gave it to you. Now it’s time to ACT, screw up, change something, act again, screw up again, change something else, and act again. You are going to continue this process until you achieve the result you want to achieve.

Same thing as Alex (minus the drugs), you’re going to keep stepping to the plate and taking a swing. You’ll strike out often. Sometimes you’ll hit a home run and feel great. Other times you’ll get a single and be a little better off than you were when you started.

Remember This

The key to success in anything comes down to 4 things:

1. Know exactly what you want
2. Find a model (a proven plan)
3. ACT
4. Raise your awareness so that you know what’s working and what isn’t
5. Focus on what works and change what doesn’t until you achieve the result you’re looking for.

Failure IS an option and it will happen often. As long as you give yourself the ability (and we all have it) to realize something isn’t working, change it, and continue to act, you’ll always win.

One more thing. Always focus on domination. This past Super Bowl was a great game, For The Fans! But if I’m a coach I want to be up 41 to 0 at the end of the first half. I want the other team to be embarrassed to even come out for the second half. I never want to win 1-0. I want to DESTROY everything in my path.

Competition is a joke so never participate in it. One of the slogans for my company is the old Latin term hupernikao. It means to destroy beyond recognition. That’s your job, your duty and your obligation. When we go to war (and yes, life is a war) we don’t make sure the enemy is awake, full mag, chambered round, before we start fighting. We hit them at night when they’re sleeping. Bomb after bomb after bomb. They wake up, if they’re alive, to pure wreckage. We won before we even started.

That’s how you have to look at life. I’m not saying to hurt anyone. I’m saying that you must be focused on WINNING and winning by a lot. My clients are the only option for their service in their area because we put their competition out of business. We don’t do it maliciously. We do it by being the BEST at everything. The best product, service, support, pricing – Everything! There’s no other option.

You have to think the same way with everything you do. If you don’t, someone like me will come in and walk all over you.

Start acting. Start failing. Start gaining knowledge. Start dominating. And never stop!

You’re still alive right? Good!

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