LESSON: As Leaders, we must stop whining about our problems, bad breaks, and the people holding us down, and instead focus 100% of our energy on maximizing success in our current station. Then, that success will miraculously fix our problems, make the bad people irrelevant, and create more new opportunities and miracles than we could have ever imagined.
The below lesson is an excerpt from my Amazon #1 Best Seller, When Not If: A CEO's Guide to Overcoming Adversity, Forbes Books, 2024.
Today on February 1st many of our New Year’s resolutions are starting to fade, I haven’t made any progress on losing my 10-pound winter coat, and I see so many of us settling back into our learned negative behaviors. But we need to use 2025 to have major breakthroughs and let me tell you why.
The picture today is one of my most prized possessions – The Federal Correctional Institution Ft. Dix 2014 basketball league All-Star Team (for our readers, I’m the second one from the left!).
As I have spoken about in keynote addresses and our writings, I take incredible pride that while surrounded for seven years by tremendous violence and despair, I embraced my station and befriended tremendous men on the basketball team, as well as tremendous men on the softball team. My legendary stories of dropped balls in centerfield and multiple times running into the chain linked fence are probably still getting great laughs, today.
But this acceptance of my current position in life and the 100% effort I gave to maximize my experience, eventually turned into small victories, greater security, and an ever-rising tide which turned into miraculous legal, family, and business victories.
Did you know that numerous psychology studies find that if you keep claiming your back hurts, humans will subconsciously avoid you because their brain views you as actual pain?
If you whine that you are overwhelmed, business A-Players will avoid doing business with you because they subconsciously view you as a weak C-Player.
Bad luck, bad people, and bad organizations are simply what everyone must deal with, but unfortunately most people allow it to dramatically reduce what they think they are possible of achieving, and, worse, gives them all the excuses they need to be a victim. And remember, leading a business or personal life at a fraction of your capabilities is just another way of being a victim. It’s just commonly accepted because we fit in with everyone else.
Use 2025 as a milestone to shock yourself into greatness. Be tougher, more educated, more productive, and more successful than everyone you hang out with. Don’t be like a sports team that always seems to play down to the level of their competition. Don’t be like the majority of my 4,000 fellow inmates who slept on their metal bunk most of the day.
Be wildly optimistic, wildly energetic, and only use positive language. On Mondays, when a co-worker reflexively asks how was your weekend, respond with, “Fantastic, Unbelievable!” They will certainly say they are tired.
Success, positive energy, and hope, even if it seems unrealistic, inspires others and inspires yourself when you actually start believing it. People crave to be around it, want to be on that team, and, if you happen to have had some terrible setbacks, people definitely love great comebacks!
This week, please focus your energy on sucking it up, maximizing the opportunities you do have, never speaking of all your challenges, and watching the Universe gradually start to increase your success. Most importantly, lead by example so you have an exponential positive effect on your organization and family!
Have a great week!
Order Amazon #1 Best Seller When Not If (Hardback, Kindle, Audio): https://www.amazon.com/When-Not-If-Overcoming-Adversity/dp/B0CKWTYSFF/r and on Audible https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D2LQ6QNC and Chirp When Not If by John Kador & Jeff Martinovich - Audiobook (chirpbooks.com).
Just One More: Just One More: The Wisdom of Bob Vukovich: Martinovich, Mr Jeffrey A: 9781790554850: Amazon.com: Books
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