Conquer Yourself: Overcoming Adversity and Defeating Doubt to Become Your Best You with Alec Wons

0:01Boom, 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 are brought to Alec Wands and to EO Fire 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.

0:37And today, FarNation, we'll be talking about how to turn failure into success. Failure equals fortune, 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 our 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.

1:08Listen 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 2 ,000 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. Alex, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, Fire Nation. So nice to introduce myself. I've listened to this a lot. I really appreciate John for having me on here.

1:49It 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 409. 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.

2:22It was actually named after two young Detroit scientists who tried to create the best cleaner on the planet. And it didn't take them 101 tries, not even 337 tries, but it took them 409 tries. See, they could have given up so many times, but they failed 408 times before they finally succeeded. 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? Yeah, this is a really great point.

3:03And I've 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 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.

3:41So one of the things I like to tell people this phase is just to remember why you started in the first place. See, there's going to be so many road bumps that maybe you anticipated a lot that you didn't anticipate, and they're all going to be in the way of trying to stop your success. But think about something for a second. 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.

4:16I'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. Yeah. So I'm 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 got to push yourself the most, even when you don't feel like it. And success often doesn't come the first time.

4:56It comes second, third, fourth. I mean, even 409th time sometimes. And one of the biggest things 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, in academics, in my career afterwards, in any aspect of life that anyone can use. So without further ado, the three Ps. So there's plan, prepare, perform. First, you got to make your roadmap about where you want to go.

5:33So 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 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 got to perform there. You've done the hard work in planning and preparing.

6:05Now you just got to perform. 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 P's, absolutely great. The next one, three Q's, following the alphabet here, is quality, quickness, quantity. So just to make a nice visual example here, if I'm a seamstress or something and I'm sewing, first I need to make sure that I can sew a quality shirt, dress, whatever it is. I got to make sure the quality's there. And then after I get the quality down, if I can start doing just a little bit quicker, now I can start to be a little more efficient.

6:44And after I get the quality and quickness down, that's when I can ramp up my quantity and start pushing everything out of the market. So main thing here when it comes to making habits and goals is just to break them 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, that 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, it was very similar.

7:15I love to hear back from you and just break down those things into smaller steps. Fire Nation, already a ton of value bombs being dropped here. A couple of things I want to go over. Persistence equals power. I love that thought. Failure equals fortune. Keep that in mind. The PPP, plan, prepare, perform. QQQ, quality, quickness, quantity. Think about these things. These things are what's going to keep you moving forward in the right direction when times are tough, when things are difficult, when obstacles arise. I want to talk about mindset next, Alec. How do you personally mold your mindset? Yeah, this is a really good question.

7:55And 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 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 going to become. Same with your body. If you're feeding it junk food all the time, yeah, it's not going to look the way you want it.

8:28But if you start feeding it more nutritious food, then you're going to be, oh, wow, I feel energized. I look better. I build confidence. It's the same with your mind. If you're feeding it pessimistic, negative thoughts, you're going to 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 going to struggle now but you're going to emerge victorious on the other side so it's training you're just like training your body if you're lifting weights for better 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.

9:14And one thing that I kind of 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, 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 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.

9:47And when you look back in days, weeks, months, even years, you're going to be blown away by how far you come. That's one of the reasons why I love the book, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, because those little wins add up to such massive success over time. It's so amazing. and I want to 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 because you want to make sure you're not just getting into this rut of repeating the same things over and over again.

10:21That'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. I remember back in 2013 when Entrepreneurs on Fire was scaling fast. And in those early days of our business, we sometimes found ourselves struggling to keep up because we couldn't find software solutions that were easy to use and that would grow with us. Wasting time worrying about software that's complicated, a pain to use, and that doesn't do what you need it to do is not fun or productive. So what do we wish we knew back then that we know now?

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13:26Become the next success story. Schedule your free 13-point assessment today at 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? 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 just happens on a daily basis. And as much as we like to think we can prepare our minds, financials, anything else for it, 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.

14:08So change is inevitable. And according to Charles Darwin, so for those of you who don't know, he's kind of an important figure in evolutionary biology is that life is a battle of survival of the fittest. So those who can overcome hardship and emerge victorious are the ones who are going to survive and the ones who have that fixed mindset and don't grow with the changes around them. They're going to fall behind. And you don't want to be falling behind because I know everyone listening to this podcast and entrepreneurs on fire in general is here to grow and has that growth mindset, which you need to become successful.

14:43so 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 and you have no idea where you're going to 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? You can't bury those feelings inside because they're just going to come up worse even later. So it just ties it back to what we talked about a little earlier in the episode is remember why you started in the first place.

15:20There's going to be a lot of changes that happen that's going to 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 10 pounds? Are you trying to look better for your spouse? 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. A lot of things I love from that Fire Nation. A couple of things that I really want you to make sure you're walking away with.

15:54Feel 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 because 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? 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.

16:32See, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life of always looking for the next thing, 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 are in 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. See, I'm willing to bet that a lot of you don't want to be in the same position you are now that you'd want to be in in a year.

17:09And 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 want to 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 going to change. So if you're not where you want to 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. 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 want to be in.

17:52So 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 going to 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. 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 want to take these big, meaningful steps in their life, they're not listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire.

18:26They'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? Yeah. So a lot of time when I ask people who is their biggest opponent, they think about 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 0.5, 0.2, 1 % each day, whatever it is, if you can be better than you were yesterday, then no one stands a chance against you.

19:12See, if you can be 1 % better each day, then you will 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? Why do you do what you do? And why do you feel the way that you do? So you're not competing against 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 and 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.

19:46One 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 them 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? 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 them out, weigh the risk versus reward of what you're about to do.

20:19But 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 them. That's where the real learning occurs. And you need to set promises to yourself and keep them. Because 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? And at the end of the day, you have to be your harshest critic and your biggest fan at the same time.

20:56So 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, 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. All you need to do right now is just focus on taking that one next step.

21:33Love 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? 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.

22:07And 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 a wands, which is W O N S at conquer yourself.co. If you go to conquer yourself.co, you can learn more about me. You can order the book, conquer yourself. It'd be posted on Amazon as well. And you can follow me on Instagram at wands underscore wellness. It's the kind of account that I have where I will post anything from how to improve of your physical fitness, certain recipes, certain mindfulness things, certain how to overcome failure, just a whole smorgasbord of stuff there. So feel free to reach out anytime.

22:44I love interacting with all of my audience members. So please feel free to reach out at any of those. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with Adubs and JLD today. So keep up that heat. If you have any direct questions for Alec, find this episode on the podcast listening the app, Podopolo. Post a comment, get the conversations rolling. eofire.com, just search for Alec, A-L-E-C in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything we've been talking about. Alec, one more time, what's that email address? It is A-W-O-N-S at conqueryourself.co.

23:27Alec, 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. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Alec for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, what can 3 ,000 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. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs.

24:04And 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, 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 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability.