The idea of having a baby can be joy-filled with the idea of how wonderful life will be. The arrival is anticipated and celebrated. The pure love we feel holding the child and the smell of a new baby’s skin can make the world feel right again. As it well should.
Then reality sets in for many.
Sleepless nights and fatigue start to be the order of the day. The demands of what seems like never-ending attention for the child’s needs. And then the constantly changing personality of the new baby starts to show up. And more and more of that personality shows up as they get older and there isn’t a manual to decipher that personality or tell us how to deal with it.
Most of us who become parents tend to follow the examples of the parents we grew up with. I mean if it was good enough for me then it’s good enough for my kids.
But sometimes, “good enough,” isn’t really good enough. What if there is a better way? What if I could do some things differently that make raising a child better than what I experienced. What if we could help them more and be frustrated less.
Author and teacher, Paul Prendergast outlines six qualities to focus on as we raise our children. The qualities are meant to reduce Painful Parenting and turn it into something that gives parents a solid foundation to launch their children into the world. It gives children the solid character needed to live in an ever-changing world.
It is possible to reduce Painful Parenting and turn it into a more positive experience for everyone. Take a listen here.
There have been times I felt like I was ten feet tall and bulletproof. And for a period of time, it felt very much real. Some of those times, shortly after I had the thought of being ten feet tall and bulletproof, I was given a reminder that I wasn’t. Other times, it took a while for the lesson to catch up to me. Unfortunately for me, I had a high level of pain tolerance, an equally high level of being comfortable with ignorance and a fair amount of emotional hard headedness.
Not learning very quickly from good information when I got it, I would ignore the obvious, which was to change direction.
There have been times when my gut told me to go one way and my mind talked me out of it with a mental follow up a statement like, “What the hell, why not?”
I’m here to tell, if you choose to act on the “What the hell, why not?” thought, after your gut, or your conscience, told you to do something else, you will find out “Why Not!” And you won’t like it.
My wife, on the other hand, has lived a life for the most part, that when she got the right information, she didn’t question it. She simply followed the right path and frequently avoided landmines that would have gotten in her way.
Me, I’ve been a little more thick headed at times.
We’ve all don't it to varying degrees. Made the wrong call. Got kicked in the teeth and made adjustments later. Sometimes, it gets very expensive to not pay attention to what our parents told us, our body told us or our bank account told us.
Today’s episode is a powerful lesson in paying attention and following through on information when it shows up. Not later. Not paying attention to the information received, literally became a matter of life and death for Robert “Cujo” Teschner.
Cujo was an Air Force fighter pilot and squadron commander with a wife and children. He was given a bit of a medical heads up but decided it wasn’t important at the time. Ten years later, it would leave him fighting for his life.
It doesn’t matter how smart we are, or how skilled we are or how many millions of dollars we have. If we don’t act on what our gut, or our doctor or our boss is telling us is in our best interest to do so, It can lead to devastating outcomes. Or dodging the proverbial bullet by the skin of our teeth.
Take a listen here to find out how you can dodge that bullet and write a happy ending for your own story.
While Cujo had all these responsibilities and skills as an Air Force Pilot, he neglected to pay attention to some indicators that things weren’t performing at such a high level in his body. Actually, Cujo noticed things weren’t quite right but thought of himself as bulletproof so he chose to ignore them. And that nearly cost him his life. Plenty to learn in this episode so let’s get to it.
A couple of things about this episode that I found fascinating. This idea that sometimes we think we are bulletproof, and it serves us and other times it can literally be our undoing.
Flying missions to defend our country takes a skillset and mindset that is very unique. Yet that same mindset, applied to his body, eventually derailed his Cujo’s career and impacted his family and especially his oldest son in a dramatic way.
The second thing that I found especially useful was the idea Cujo shared about how his mindset of, how can I still win? Rolled right into his personal life. He took his health problems and applied that mindset so he could heal and also build a new career taking all of his military experience and his challenge with his health and turn it into something that is helping others.
Cujo, in my mind, is a hero for more than one reason. His commitment to finding a way to not just overcome but to succeed and thrive is something we can all model.
That’s it until next week. See you then and remember to Live, Learn and Love.
It’s easy to get our lives focused on keeping ourselves entertained. There is a massive marketing machine out there everywhere you turn not to mention how the human mind is so willing to cooperate.
Buy this and you will feel great!
Go on this vacation and your kids will have memories for a lifetime!
Drive this car and people will know you are somebody!
Own this, buy that. It never stops. And it is all too easy to be sucked into its energy to consume, consume, consume.
But life wasn’t really meant for us to be constantly entertained or on a quest of consumption. There is no lasting value or meaning there for us to build a fulfilling life.
Damion Lupo is a guy who took consumption to an extreme for the average person. He regularly spent $75,000 dollars a month on fun, food, housing. Can you imagine that? He spent more money in a month, every month than most individuals make in a year.
Eventually, his life bottomed out though. His fortune was lost and his family was gone.
Once the ability to consume and be entertained went away, he, in turn, felt an emptiness inside of him. And that brought the pain.
Luckily life is filled with new beginnings. Opportunities to learn and bounce back from tragedy or mistakes.
Damion decided to get help for the next part of his journey. He found a trusted mentor. Damion, in turn, started to ask himself the same question every week. “What is True?” And that went on for two years as he rebuilt his life around values and purpose, contribution and connection.
Damion showed us, once again, what life is all about…
This hero’s, or heroine’s, journey to come to grips with what truly matters most in life. Overcoming our weak spots that trip us up, greed, self-serving behaviors, the desire to take short cuts. And in turn, find wisdom from our experiences to bring us to the next part of our life. A life of Connection and making Contribution as a way of life.
If you’re married, you can probably agree with me, there are going to be problems.
I’m not negative on marriage. Quite the opposite. But with expectations of each other, the addition of children, money issues, different sexual needs and levels of desire, there is no shortage of challenges once we have tied the knot.
I’ve found nobody is immune to the Class 4 rapids, whitewater river raft ride we call marriage.
Many, if not most of us, buy into the American Dream of the big house, the job with the big paycheck and the big life of vacations and the perfect home. Because we can’t help but drag our own baggage into this big new married life, all of the above eventually leads to big problems, big fights and the day when we ask ourselves, “How did I get here?” and “How do I now get out?”
Yet we got into this marriage for a reason…
“I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person.”
For those of us who don’t want to give up on the commitment we already made, it frequently makes sense to get help.
Help with clarity.
Help with communication.
Help with healing.
Help with a unified vision.
Help moving forward together.
Lance and Brandy Salazar are my guests on this episode. They have hit the rocks more times than they can count and were ready to divorce. A frank conversation between Brandy and a friend of hers led Brandy to reconsider the wisdom of divorce. Instead, she talked with Lance and they chose to begin to rebuild their marriage together one step at a time.
They did it! Not only did they do it but Brandy and Lance now help others to build their failing, so-so or even good relationships into what they call Legendary Couples.
This episode was full of honesty, transparency, and SOLUTIONS! If you want to rebuild your marriage, regain trust and be able to rely on each other again or more, the first step is to click on this link and listen to this episode.
For the most part, if we get those positive experiences early in life, we can better learn how to handle the negative moments and experiences later in life.
But what happens if early in life you have experiences that teach you insecurity, that the world isn’t a safe place or that you aren’t loved? You can spend a lifetime feeling like you don’t fit in or you can never have what you want or measure up to those around you. The negative self-talk from those experiences can create handicaps in our lives keeping us away from much of the best parts of life.
Fear, while frequently seen as a negative can actually work to our advantage if used correctly.
Fear, when worked in the positive, can be used to drive us and our lives, away from the negative or harmful and to the positive and helpful. In my own experience, not wanting to be the type of father I had in my youth drove me to make different choices than my father. Choices that helped me to make an experience in my son’s life very different than the one I had growing up. Those choices helped me be the kind of father I wished I had.
My guest this week, Mary Shores is a fine example of overcoming childhood trauma. When I asked her, what helped her overcome the adversity in her own life, she said it wasn’t positive thinking or empowerment. It was straight up fear. Fear of not being able to have the type of life she believed others were having. And that fear came directly from her experiences growing up.
Mary believed she was handicapped to some degree by the circumstances she grew up with. Yet she found a way to use her fear to drive her to success, happiness, and fulfillment. And she did it one step at a time. Growing into a powerful woman, mother, CEO, and author.
Take a listen.
It can be a challenge figuring out business and life.
We are all on a Hero’s Journey as we walk this earth although sometimes it seems as if we are just stumbling along. With ever changing roles and responsibilities in our modern culture here in the United States, transforming ourselves has become a necessity. With technology changes and expectations in a state of flux, it feels like a full-time job just keeping up.
As we change and grow into different roles at work and at home, we have to become a new, upgraded version of ourselves. We literally have to become a new person, leaving behind the older model that can no longer support the latest version of who we are.
I ignored that idea years ago and it turned around and bit me. I accomplished a major goal but didn’t upgrade my skillsets to grow more. I got stuck at that spot and stayed there for years. Eventually I got back on track and the new goals and skills I pursued gave new meaning to my life and what I do each day.
Even if we are conscious about what we are doing, where we are going and how we are going to get there, the external forces of our life and culture can come out of nowhere and blindside us. The complicated issues of men and women and what our natural strengths are is being debated daily across the country.
One thing that can’t be debated is the crisis men are feeling as the roles and responsibilities of men and women are in such a state of flux. Men have not developed the skills of communicating their feelings and sadly, men are 3-4 times more likely to die by suicide than women.
Mental health, be it male or female is something that can’t be overlooked or minimized in this day and age. If you know someone who might be in pain, please reach out to them. If you are in pain, please reach out to someone you can trust. In spite of not wanting to please do reach out anyhow. You are important. You are needed. And if someone knew you were hurting that much, they would want to help you. Reach out.
What if you could develop a Navy Seal Mindset? Who wouldn’t want that? This week we dive into a SEAL mindset with Larry Yatch. Larry is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served ten years as a Navy Seal officer. He was medically retired due to battle incurred injuries and is now helping others outside the military to develop a SEAL Mindset in life in order to overcome challenges and succeed in business and life.
Larry offered up amazing ways to get more out of life and about learning how to overcome obstacles, challenges and failures. One of the powerful distinctions Larry made was to consider the words we use can help us or hinder us. That applied to our self-talk or when speaking with another person. That was really just the tip of the iceberg. The entire episode is filled with useful, actionable tools to help you and I become the best version of ourselves.
This episode it helped me to see the idea of persevering so much more clearly and usefully in my own life. Persevering frequently felt like a load I was carrying. Like just trying to make it through the day many times. With the distinction Larry made, persevering now it seems more like an open door, an invitation to rise up and not just endure.
There was a time when my heart was heavy that I didn’t want to be on my path mostly because it was so damn hard.
I didn’t want my son to have to go through with his challenges and his challenges, by extension became my challenges. Looking at the car accident as an event that derailed our destiny wasn’t serving me or Josh. Seeing that event as a destiny that is bringing about a lot of good is way more powerful and useful to Josh and I aw well as the world.
I guess you could say me seeing things differently has caused a change in my heart. Maybe that is what life is all about. Living, Learning, Growing. Changing towards the positive where we can. Allowing our hearts and minds to change where needed and where we can in turn serve the world and ourselves in a bigger, better, more complete way.
Live. Learn. Love.
Philip McKernan joins Mark on the podcast today to discuss his latest book called "One Last Talk." This episode showed a more personal side of Mark and encourage you to listen all of the way through to get the full perspective of this powerful episode.
Join the Facebook Group to discuss Finding Your Strength Through Your Struggle.
If you’ve ever been married, you know it can be a challenge. From miscommunication to misunderstandings. From unfulfilled needs to disregarded opinions. It can be a jungle out there. Our guest this week, Larry Bilotta, is here to tell us why the problems exist and it isn’t what you may be thinking.
Larry takes us all the way back into the past to enlighten us as to why the dynamics in marriage are playing out the way they do. I like how he put the root of the problems into three separate categories with two types of problems in each category.
Traver Boehm had a great life: a wife, a kid and a great job until he lost it all. He tried to heal himself by going into isolation for 28 days without contact from the outside world and no electricity.
Traver discusses his journey with me during this episode.
Enjoy the Podcast!!!
Steve Roy joins me on the podcast today to discuss how he got himself out of a bad state in life after realizing his marriage was not what he initially expected. He gained weight which led to a loss of confidence.
He didn't get out this losing himself until a friend of his sat him down and told him the truth.
This interview is his journey to finding himself after being lost.
This episode was fun for me in that I was familiar with the culture of the Philippines as I served there for 3 years in the Air Force. I was also married to a Filipino woman for seven years. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
This weeks guest is Philip Lomboy who grew up in a home that I would say was culturally intact. Both parents were born and raised in the Philippines. However, Philip grew up here in the United States as a military dependent once his father joined the US military.
There were challenges of being from a different culture and having to navigate life here in the US. Additionally, from the age of two, Philipp also had to deal with frequently moving which led to a great deal of insecurity.
Can you imagine moving every six months to 4 years of your life? I can’t. I grew up in the same town for the first 20 years of my life and it was a small town to boot. There were aunts and uncles and cousins within blocks or just a few miles of my house.
It takes a lot to feel rooted physically or emotionally. It is difficult to understand but I can only imagine what Philipp, and others like him to go through. Definitely something we can learn from and in turn develop some understanding and compassion for those who have had to do the same thing.
Phil Randazzo joins me on the podcast today to discuss the way he had to rebuild his life after burning out at work. He succeeded and shares his process with me and you in this interview.
Phil works with military veterans to get back on their feet after they return from active duty.
I found my next guest by watching a Tedx Talk entitled Because I Said I Would. I immediately went to his website to get his promise cards about which he discussed in his talk.
I was very impressed by what Alex had to say and you will be as well.
Today on the podcast, I interview Chris Natzke, a speaker, coach and corporate leadership trainer who has extensive experience is corporate sales and owning multiple martial arts businesses.
Chris has had a tough past, but tells me he focuses on the future instead of dwelling on the past to give his kids the best life they could have.
Dave Kovar is a great friend of mine and I am happy to have him on the show. Dave owns one of the largest multi-school martial arts organizations in the country. He is on the podcast today to discuss a little bit about martial arts and a lot about living life.
Raul Lopez Jr. – Is a man with a story about how childhood impacts our lives as adults. I believe this works in the positive and in the negative. As children, we don’t always understand why our parents do what they do.
Even though Raul had a loving mother and loving father, he couldn’t understand how or why he was no longer able to see his father and Raul grew up angry which led to fighting, crime and jail. Luckily that isn’t how the story ends but I’ll let you hear this amazing story of change and redemption yourself.
I loved doing this interview. And what I loved most about it was how Raul was so transparent and raw about his own experience. To go from thinking Love = Pain to realizing Love Sets you Free is freedom indeed. The idea that things happened to me turns us into victims. When I choose to see it as things happened for me it empowers me to serve the world and myself in a positive way… Good stuff.
Len Wright refers to himself as a Mental Alchemist. This is the second time Len has been on the show. I had him back on because he has helped me with how I see the world and myself. In this episode we talk about how sometimes when I think something is right for me, it doesn’t mean it’s what is best for me and that when I think I know something, I shut off my capacity for learning and nothing improves in my life.
I really loved how Len showed that we can turn the lead and iron and straw of our life, the negative and painful experiences into the silver, gold and platinum of learning and transformation. And in the moment, in the midst of the storms of life to be able to ask the question “What would love do?”
I challenge you, in the midst of a storm in your life or challenging experience, How do I take this lead and turn it into Gold and “What would love do?”
Is there a time in your life when you had a similar situation? Let me know in the Facebook Group.
Mark speaks with John Williams to discuss how he lives and works with children to become better people as they grow up. John talks to Mark about working with kids to lean on strong relationships at home to help them get through any type of struggle.
John focuses on communication as a big aspect to his motivational speaking and to understand where his clients are coming from.
He tells Mark how he has a strong relationship with his wife and kids that can get them through anything.
Check out Mark's Facebook Group and Tell About Your Struggles
Samantha Skelly specializes in shifting the conversation of dieting and restricting foods to being comfortable with your mind and body and thinking in a different way. She works with people to get at what are the underlining issues that drive her clients' hunger as a way of coping with life's problems.
Mark has Vince Molinaro on the podcast to discuss why it is important to have accountability among leaders. They discuss the formulas of success in life and beyond.
Mark talks to Tracy Winchell, host of the Reboots Podcast, a podcast that tells stories about people who had to start over in life due to some change in life.
Tracy tells Mark about her story of rebooting and how overcame her struggle.
Mark shares a personal story between him and his son where his son apologized for always needing his father (Mark) to help him. Mark's response was touching. It's a story of dedication and love. Take a listen and let Mark know what you think about it in the Facebook Group.
Click here to join the Facebook Group.
Logan Tyler Nelson is on the podcast today to discuss the thoughts that led him down a dark path and eventually to trying to end his own life. This is a must hear episode!!!
Mark gives a powerful speech about how his life changed for the good when his son was born and then changed again when his son was in an accident, where he suffered brain damage at the age of three.
This speech is a can't miss.