0 (2s):
Boom. Shake the room. Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today we'll be breaking down how to conquer yourself, overcoming adversity and defeating doubt. To become your best, you to drop these value bombs, I brought Alec Wons into the EOFire Studios. Alec is a passionate and positive entrepreneur who believes that life is what you make of it. Fail often and fail early. Fail because failure equals fortune. There is always an opportunity to grow and learn from every situation, whether it be good or bad. In today, Fire Nation we talking about how to turn failure into success, failure equals fortune.

0 (42s):
Remember that. Create, set and maintain desirable habits and goals. Mold your mindset and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Alec and ours sponsors Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals, business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? VisitThrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's Business Coaching has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability.

0 (1m 23s):
It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com. Alex say What's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 43s):
Hey, fire Nation. So nice to introduce myself. I've listened to this a lot. I really appreciate John for having me on here. It feels like kind of a surreal experience. This is an interesting question, John, but one of the things that I believe that's something successful that a lot of people disagree with, some of the audience may agree with it right off the bat. Other people might have to think about it for a second, but I kind of believe that each person must fail tens of hundreds of thousands of times before they can become successful. A perfect example of this is the household cleaning product Formula 4 0 9. See, the formula didn't get its name from the area code it was created in or by the number of ingredients that it contains.

1 (2m 23s):
It was actually named after two young Detroit scientists who tried to create the best cleaner on the planet. And it didn't take 'em. 101 tries, not even 337 tries, but it took them 409 tries. Ah, see, they could have given up so many times, but they failed 408 times before they finally succeeded.

0 (2m 44s):
See Fire Nation, this is fascinating stuff and that's why we're talking today about conquering yourself, overcoming adversity and defeating doubt to become your best You, and you've already started the theme here, Alec. Let's just continue it. How the heck do we turn failure into success?

1 (3m 2s):
Yeah, this is a really great point and I have heard it from a lot of people and it's kind of what inspired me to write the book, conquer Yourself. A lot of people I've found look at failure as this big negative, this big for lack of a better term, failure that they didn't succeed. And we can kind of change our mind to look at this a little differently. So you can almost mold your mindset to look at failure as a growing opportunity. See, you've already invested time, energy, money and whatever else to just learn a new lesson. You're one step closer to succeeding. So don't quit now, right? You just learned some valuable information that can take you to where you want to go. So one of the things I like to tell people this phase is just to remember why you started in the first place.

1 (3m 47s):
See, there's gonna be so many road bumps that maybe you anticipated a lot that you didn't anticipate, and they're all gonna be in the way of trying to stop your success. But think about something for a second. Like if you have succeeded in something, say it was relatively easy. You didn't have to put much time or effort. You don't feel very fulfilled afterwards, right? But when you have to overcome hardship, adversity, doubt, take on a bunch of risk. When you have that victory in hand, it tastes that much sweeter at the end.

0 (4m 16s):
I'm loving this and Fire Nation, one thing you've heard about a lot on entrepreneurs on Fire are habits, our goals, but there's a lot that goes into creating, setting and maintaining desirable habits, desirable goals. Alec, walk us through this.

1 (4m 33s):
Yeah, so I am a huge advocate for setting habits and goals, and I know some people aren't, but it's really good in kind of developing a process of what you want to do to succeed. So one thing that I like to keep in mind is persistence is power, right? So you gotta push yourself the most, even when you don't feel like it. And success often doesn't come the first time it comes second, third, fourth, I mean even 409th times sometimes. And one of the biggest things that I learned when I was a college soccer player at Marquette is our head coach. Love him sometimes felt like he was off his rocker sometimes, but some things that really stood out to me was he had these acronyms called the three Ps and the three Qs, and these are things that I could apply in my sports life and academics in my career afterwards, in in, in any aspect of life that anyone can use.

1 (5m 24s):
So without further ado the three Ps. So there's plan, prepare, perform. First. You gotta make your roadmap about where you want to go. So planning out the steps, just let yourself brainstorm here. Think of best case scenario, your end goal. Once you think your end goal, then just kind of reverse engineer your way back to find the steps that you need to t take and create those little victories that you can give yourself along the way to keep that momentum rolling. So after you kind of have your plan there, you look to prepare for that. So whether that is talking to friends, talking to other entrepreneurs, kind of starting to take action on those thoughts that you have. And last, you just gotta perform there. You've done the hard work in planning and preparing, now you just gotta perform.

1 (6m 7s):
So whether it's for a dance recital, a sports game, your big presentation, your interview, whatever it is, like I said, you can apply this to you and that's one of the amazing things about it. So three Ps, absolutely. Great. The next one, three Qs fall in the alphabet here is quality, quickness, quantity. So just to make a nice visual example here, if I am a seamstress or something and I'm sewing right first, I need to make sure that I can sew a quality shirt, dress, whatever it is, I gotta make sure the quality's there. And then after I get the quality down, if I can start doing just a little bit quicker right now, I can start to be a little more efficient. And after I get the quality and quickness down, that's when I can ramp up my quantity and start pushing everything outta the market.

1 (6m 49s):
So main thing here when it comes to making habits and goals is just to break 'em down into smaller chunks. We all see a huge mountain that we look to have to climb and it's really intimidating. But if we kind of just take it rock by rock, step by step, we start to build that momentum. You got self-confidence to get us going on whatever you're trying to pursue. Whether it's starting a business, reaching out to someone that you might not feel like you can. When I reached out to you, I, it was very similar, I'd love to hear back from you and use breakdown those things into smaller steps.

0 (7m 20s):
Fire nation already a ton of value bombs being dropped here. A couple things I want to go over. Persistence equals power. I love that thought. Failure equals fortune. Keep that in mind. The p p p plan, prepare, perform, QQ Q, quality, quickness, quantity. Think about these things. These things are what? What's gonna keep you moving forward in the right direction when times are tough, when things are difficult, when obstacles arise. I wanna talk about mindset next. Alec, how do you personally mold your mindset?

1 (7m 54s):
Yeah, this is a really good question and depending on who you talk to, you might hear something different. This is what I found the most productive for myself and other people who I work with is everybody has their most invaluable asset that they could ever receive on this planet. It doesn't cost you anything and it's right up in your noggin. It's your beautiful brain, your mind. See, your mind is the most powerful thing on the planet and it's all about how you program it, right? Whatever you feed it is what it's gonna become. Same with your body. If you're feeding it junk food all the time, yeah, it's not gonna look the way you want it, but if you start feeding it more nutritious food, then you're gonna be, oh wow, like I feel energized, I look better, I build confidence.

1 (8m 35s):
It's the same with your mind. If you're feeding it pessimistic, negative thoughts, you're gonna be a pessimistic negative person. But when you're feeding it those positive growth thoughts about having an optimistic outlook on life, even when adversity is staring you in the face, right? That's where the real growth occurs, is when you can accept the challenge, love it and thrive because you know that you're gonna gonna struggle now, but you're gonna merge victorious on the other side. So it's training your, just like training your body. If you're lifting weights for to be better at physical fitness or running, you're practicing there to train your body. Just you're training your mind here to develop new thought patterns, which might be a little challenging at first, but it is so rewarding in the end. And one thing that I kinda like to do to start my day to just get in this growth mindset is I like to think of five things each morning that I'm grateful for.

1 (9m 22s):
Because I believe gratitude is one of the best things that anyone could practice. Because even if you don't feel like you have a lot, you have more than you can realize. And once you think of the five things that you're grateful for for that day, everything else falls into place and it's a win for you. So like we said before, breaking down those goals, breaking down whatever you want to achieve into those small steps that you can just kind of constantly pick at each day and give yourself little wins along the way. And when you look back in days, weeks, months, even years, you're gonna be blown away by how far you come.

0 (9m 54s):
That's one of the reasons why I love the book, the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. Cuz those little wins add up to such massive success over time. It's so amazing. And I wanna go back to that gratitude thing real quick because fire Nation, if you are willing to wake up and share something unique that you're grateful for every day, like challenge yourself, make it unique. Like you know for Alec, it's five things. Hopefully it's not the same five things every day, cuz you wanna make sure you're not just getting into this rot of repeating the same things over and over again. That's why I say make it unique gratitude on a consistent basis. And we have a lot of cool things coming up as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors.

Hubspot (10m 32s):
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Hubspot (11m 12s):
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ZipRecruiter (11m 30s):
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1 (12m 30s):
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0 (12m 40s):
See testimonials of how Clay Clark's proven business coaching has helped over 2000 clients to increase profitability dramatically. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Sound too good to be true? Go to Thrive time show.com to see over 2000 documented success stories. Because Clay only takes on 160 clients. He personally designs your business plan for you. Then Clay's team of talented designers, videographers, web developers, workflow maps and accounting coaches will help you implement that proven plan. See over 2000 verify success stories and schedule your free 1 0 1 13 point assessment with Mr. Clay Clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com.

0 (13m 20s):
Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and directed through practical plans of action. Become the next success story. Schedule your free 13 point assessment today@thrivetimeshow.com. Alec, we're back. And change is parts of life. That is one constant for sure. How can we fire nation overcome unexpected change when it happens to us?

1 (13m 46s):
Yeah, this is a great question John. And change happens all the time around us. Whether it's switching roles at work, the passing of a loved one, it it just happens on a daily basis. And as much as we like to think we can prepare our minds, financials and anything else for it, it do. It doesn't always work. It happens at the worst times. And the best thing you can do here is to be able to adapt and overcome. So change inevitable. And according to Charles Darwin. So for those of you who don't know, he's kind of an important figure in evolution. Evolutionary biology is that life is a battle of survival of the fittest. So those who can overcome hardship and emerge Victoria are the ones who are gonna survive.

1 (14m 26s):
And the ones who have that fixed mindset and don't grow with the changes around them, they're gonna fall behind. And you don't wanna be falling behind. Cause I know everyone listening to this podcast and entrepreneurs on Fire General is here to grow and has that growth mindset which you need to become successful. So you have to be able to adapt and overcome. And one of the things I will say here, like when change happens, sometimes it is really rough. Rough and you have no idea where you're gonna pivot or go. And you know what? That is completely okay. You need to let yourself feel the way you feel, whether it's sad, frustrated, whatever it is. Don't suppress your emotions or thoughts. You have to give yourself a little bit of time to allow yourself to feel what you feel and then get yourself back out there, right?

1 (15m 10s):
You can't bury those feelings inside cause they're just gonna come up worse even later. So just ties it back to we talked about a little earlier in the episode is remember why you started in the first place. There's gonna be a lot of changes that happen that's gonna try and throw you off course, but just remember why you started. And that's a big thing I encourage everyone to think about is your why. Why are you really doing this? Not just a surface level of, for example, again, if you were working out to lose 10 pounds, why? Why 10 pounds? Are you trying to look better for your spouse? Are you try, do you have a wedding date coming up? There's always a deeper why. So you need to find that first before you start whatever you're doing and never lose sight of that.

0 (15m 48s):
A lot of things I love from that fire nation. Couple things that I really want you to make sure you're walking away with. Feel what you feel. There's too little of that in today's world. Feel what you feel. Release your emotions. Do not keep them bottled up cuz as Alex shared, they will come back to bite you at a bigger point later and all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. Fire nation. So Alec, what are your recommendations for us to challenge the way that we think?

1 (16m 20s):
Yeah, this is a really good thought and John, you're asking some great questions here. One of the ways you can challenge what you think that's really humbling, and it might sound simple, but it's something that a lot of people don't actually do. See, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life of always looking for the next thing and trying to put out fires as they're coming through. And that's no pun intended there by the way. But you just need to think about where you currently are in your life, whether you're on your career, your relationships you have, the business you're currently in, your financials, your mental health, happiness, all of it. You have to think about where you currently are in each of those aspects of your life. And then where you want to be in the next days, months, or years.

1 (17m 2s):
See, I'm willing to bet that a lot of you don't wanna be in the same position you are now that you'd want to be in in a year. And if we want to quote another famous guy out there, good old Albert Einstein, he said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you wanna see change in your life, you have to challenge the way that you think. Because if you keep doing the same thing over and over, nothing's gonna change. So if you're not where you wanna be, you just need to take a step back and think real hard about what you want out of life, where you want to go. Because in my mind, the scariest thing isn't failing.

1 (17m 42s):
See, the scariest thing is to think about is being exactly where you are today and still being in that same spot a year from now. Especially if it's a place that you don't wanna be in. So you might not like it when you look in the mirror sometimes you might not like what you see, what you're thinking, but you have to be your harshest critic and it's gonna take those moments of hardship of really questioning yourself and what you want out of life to be able to take that next huge growth step in your life, in your career, or whatever aspect of your life you're looking to change.

0 (18m 13s):
Fire nation, I know you're looking to take one of those steps. That's why you're listening to this podcast. Somebody that doesn't want to grow, that doesn't wanna take these big meaningful steps in their life. They're not listening to entrepreneurs on fire, they're listening to the radio right now, or they're binging some Netflix show you want to grow. These are great words to do it. And the title Alec of this episode is Conquer Yourself. So how can we conquer our toughest opponents ourselves?

1 (18m 46s):
Yeah. So a lot of time when I ask people who is their biggest opponent, they think about their their sports team. This person who's in the same position or at work, the person they're up against for a promotion. See, you're not competing against anyone else in this world. You're only competing against yourself. See if you can better yourself by 5.21% each day, whatever it is. If you can be better than you were yesterday, then no one stands a chance against you. See if you can be 1% better each day, then you'll leave everyone else in your dust. Now in order to do this, you have to ask some questions to yourself. You have to ask yourself, why do you think that the way you do?

1 (19m 26s):
Why do you do what you do and why do you feel the way that you do? So you're not competing as anyone else, you're just trying to make a little game of it is what I like to do with myself. Think about different ways that you can set yourself up for success tomorrow than you can be better than you were yesterday. So big thing here is focus on your goals and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. One thing that I started doing in high school was I would write down my goals on a note card and I would keep them in my car. I would tape 'em up in my bathroom. So this way I'd constantly look and just be reminded of what I wanted to achieve because I knew there'd be people who would tell me, you can't do that. You're not good enough for that. You're not smart enough for that. Well, guess what?

1 (20m 6s):
No one else is in my head and knows what I'm capable of. So why would you listen to those other people anyways? See, the only thing I'd recommend is, yeah, if there's someone who you value their opinion on, hear 'em out, weigh the risk versus reward of what you're about to do. But at the end of the day, you know what you can live with and you know what you want out of life because it's your life and no one else should be in control of that for you. So you need to ask questions, you need to make mistakes, you need to learn from 'em. That's where the real learning occurs. And you need to set promises to yourself and keep them. Cuz if you can't keep a promise to yourself, how on earth could you keep one to someone else? Because we all know that breaking a promise to yourself feels awful, right?

1 (20m 49s):
And at the end of the day, you have to be your harshest critic and your biggest fan at the same time. So one thing that I like to think of here, especially to kind of just wrap the episode up in general, is there's a quote from the book, the horse, the Boy, the Fox and the Mole. See, the boy says to the horse, I cannot see a way through the forest. Then the horse says, can you at least see your next step? The boy replies and says, yes, then this horse says, then just take that. See, this shows us that it is great to look at the end goal and what you want at the end of the day, but don't let that overwhelm you because it will come.

1 (21m 29s):
All you need to do right now is just focus on taking that one next step.

0 (21m 34s):
Love this message. Fire Nation reminds me of that Martin Luther King quote I've shared on here a few times, you don't have to see the whole staircase to take the next step. And Alec, you've dropped a ton of value bombs. Give us a call to action. Work in Fire Nation, learn more from you, connect with you. What call to action do you have for us today?

1 (21m 56s):
Yeah, so I kind of found my passion in life is just helping people, John and helping them kind of find their passion and what they can do next. And the reason I kind of wrote the book, conquer Yourself is I want to help all of you take that next step, and that's why I wrote the book for you all. So I have my email address, which you can ping me at any time. It's awons, which is awons@conqueryourself.co. If you go to conqueryourself.co, you can learn more about me. You can order the book, conquer Yourself, and be posted on Amazon as well. And you can follow me on Instagram at Juan's underscore Wellness. It's a kind of account that I have where I will post anything from how to improve your physical fitness, certain recipes, certain mindfulness things, certain how to overcome failure, just a whole smorgasboard of stuff there.

1 (22m 43s):
So feel free to reach out anytime. I love interacting with all of my audience members, so please feel free to reach out at any of those.

0 (22m 51s):
Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with AW and JLD today, so keep up that heat. If you have any direct questions for Alec, find this episode on the podcast listening app, Pado Post a comment, get the conversations rolling. eofire.com. Just search for Alec, ALEC in the search bar, the share page will pop up with everything we've been talking about. Alec, one more time. What's that email address?

1 (23m 21s):
It is awons@conqueryourself.co.

0 (23m 27s):
Alec, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (23m 36s):
Thanks, John.

0 (23m 38s):
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Alec for sponsoring today's episode in Fire Nation. What can 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a 17 step roadmap. It's revolutionary and it will lead you to the lifestyle that you've been dreaming about to. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit uncommonsuccessbook.com. I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

0 (24m 18s):
The audio destination for business professionals business made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit Thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business Coaching has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com.