[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Some people go their entire lives not having faced incredible struggles. Those are the few. But the rest of us, we've faced such deep anguish. Have you ever faced that? Have you ever faced trials that you didn't even know if you'd survive? Whether they were physical, emotional, mental, spiritual? I know I have. And sometimes you wonder, why, why is this happening to me, you just want it to end. You don't wish it on yourself. Sometimes you don't wish it on your worst enemy. But here it is, here we are in the midst of the trial. It's a hard thing. And sometimes you just need to breathe, take a breath. You don't know what tomorrow will bring living in the moment just surviving. It's okay to just survive. Sometimes it's okay. When you don't have enough faith, to carry it for yourself.
[00:01:02]
Sometimes you need a friend to help you carry it a mile or two. Sometimes you're just being beaten by the day, beaten by the week beaten by the month beaten by the year you need to rest, you need a reprieve you need to take some time to reflect and remember that it's temporary. Remember that what we see sometimes isn't exactly the way things are. And we need to take some time away, get on the balcony refresh. Sometimes it's just a night of rest. Maybe I shouldn't say something, maybe I run a little hot. Sometimes I see the world around me, I think these are the way things should be. But they're not. So then I become angry because I had an expectation of what the world owed me. Friend, if you've lived long enough on this planet, you know, the world owes us nothing. If you're a person of faith, God, I say this with love.
[00:02:01]
God owes me nothing. God owes you nothing. Those are hard things. And in life. Sometimes you can't prepare for the hard things in life. Sometimes you can't prepare for the ailment, the loss of a employment, loss of a relationship, loss of life, but we can do what I can do. We can prepare through our struggles, we can do hard things in such ways that strengthen our struggle, muscles, not just the physical ones. Those aren't non-essential. But it can be the other muscles. How and why do we do hard things? Well, it's because we want to grow. We want to push our limits. We want to develop new skills, gain deeper self-awareness, we want to do hard things. I want to do hard things to build resilience, to build grit to overcome difficulties if we are not preparing for the great what if we will not be strengthening our mental toughness, our perseverance, because when we do we make it easier to face the future challenges we have with some level of confidence.
[00:03:28]
You know, doing hard things means working hard. Think about the hard things you've done in your life. How do you see them? Do you see them? As woe is me throwing your arms up in misery? Burning out, disengaging? Or on the flip side? Do you see them as a test of your meter? Do you see them as a way to explore not misery but mastery, not burnout, but engagement not undisciplined, but disciplined. If you want to be successful, if I want to be successful in our careers and our education or personal lives, I want to tackle those difficult tasks. Because every new way that I achieve, I increase my problem-solving my critical thinking, my creativity, my self esteem, my learning my growth, hard tasks, hard things are often the most educational when I was teaching in person for many years, I would teach a night class and that night class was adult accelerated. What that means is minimum age of 25. General 25 to 65 people were working all day.
[00:04:42]
They were coming in at night, six o'clock, six to 10pm. And they had been working and they come and see the instructor because they're working on their night school bachelor's degree or master's degree in business in the first night of class I would tell the students I know many of you are taking this course because As you think it's gonna be pretty easy, but it's not this course is a hard thing. This course is a very hard thing. In fact, you I consider academic Navy SEALs because SEAL training is hard. It's one of the most difficult military training is on earth. And students would inevitably say, Professor, Nate, I don't want to be a Navy SEAL. Well, you don't have a choice. But I can tell you this, you don't have to be it alone, I will walk alongside of you every step of the way. All you have to do is continue to move forward. Because I want you to learn to do hard things. Want you to strengthen your struggle muscles, and I will do those hard things with you.
[00:05:41]
I want to set that positive example. Are we setting a positive example for those who are leading whether in our businesses whether in our families, are we inspiring and motivating our children, our co-workers to show how to adapt and grow whether a task is easier not to help to persevere with dedication, they're watching us? You know, when I was working on all my educational degrees, I wasn't gonna give up. Why? For many reasons, but the chief of them was so that the ones I love could witness the power of perseverance, the power of pressing on, the power of believing in the possibilities to believe is to be living my friend, because the future is coming. Whether we are planning for it or not, whether we are doing hard things to prepare ourselves or not, don't be a sloth, don't be lazy. Don't wait for something difficult to happen. Without preparing. You get blindsided. You may not be able to recover easily. Sometimes people don't recover at all.
[00:06:47]
You have to be strength training, strength, train your mind, strength, train your body strength, train your emotions, your spirit. How do we do that? Well, one way that we strength train our bodies is by that do we do the exercises, I do taxes as you know, if you've listened to the show, and during tax season, it's a busy time. This tax season was different than every other 29 of these seasons of it. This season, I decided to exercise every single day of the seat every single day non stop. That's a hard thing to do. Because I'm tired. Plus, my time is limited. I need to focus on doing as much efficient work as possible, but I knew that I would be better for it. So I set out and every single day, I went down to my home gym, and I worked out exercise. I went for a 45 minute walk my dog in the morning and exercise for 45 minutes. By the time was over I was stronger but not always stronger. Physically. I was stronger mentally. I was sharper, believe it or not.
[00:07:45]
Even though I was more exhausted, sleep-wise, I was sharper mentally because my body was working more efficiently. I was eating healthier. I was giving my body good nutritional Energy Go figure. How about that for a novel concept. You want to end type two diabetes, you want to reduce heart disease. You want to not have to go through such expensive medical procedures at that that's going to end immediately. But the what we put in our bodies has an impact. How we treat our bodies as an impact for you might be different. I challenge you, I challenge you to do hard things. I did triathlon for many years marathon so that when I am faced with high challenge situations physically, I could remind myself, the Salah, you're an Ironman, you can do this 70.3 Ironman, I'll take 70.3 miles in one day without any type of help from machines like bicycles, well, motor bicycles, you've seen those right now just human energy because a 70.3 Ironman is 1.2 Miles swim openwater a 56-mile bicycle ride and a 13.1-mile swim.
[00:08:59]
That's a long day you had to prepare for that. If you're going to be successful marathon 26.2 miles. That's very for and in preparing. You will find that you will become strengthened. That's just physical. There's mental toughness, mental strengthening. Are you strengthening your mind? Are you spending time in focusing your mind disciplining your mind reading can do that cetacean crossword puzzles, chess, I used to buy those mental games when I was young. Those those little games that you'd buy that head had to unhook all of the nails and different things always constantly challenging my mind challenged my mind, education challenges your mind. That's why I loved to be in school. I don't go to school anymore. So now I just take day classes or I do a seminar and just challenged my mind. Talk with somebody who is smarter than me and challenge my mind. Keep your mind Strong.
[00:09:59]
Keep it sharp, keep it doing new things, learn a new language, spend some time in having a way to just sharpen that mind. What about emotionally? How can I do hard things strengthen my emotions? How can I strengthen the emotional capabilities that I have so that when hard things come up, my emotions are stronger. Emotional resilience is so critical, or facing hard things. I mean, the emotional center, because there's so many uncertain things, so much change that happens when we're facing hard things I had to accept years ago that change is just a part of life. You know, I had to view my challenges, not from the perspective of Oh, no, here's another change. What's the opportunity for growth?
[00:10:49]
How can I adapt to a new situation, okay, and developing a mindset that is growth oriented. Oftentimes, it means reflecting on my past experiences, think about all the challenges I've already overcome, because small victories build courage, and what I did, who I needed to help me to succeed, you can boost your confidence in facing new difficulties right now. By simply identifying and understanding our emotions and recognize it, it's okay to feel sadness, it's okay to feel fear. It's okay to feel anguish. It's okay to feel pain, sorrow, give yourself permission to spend a moment recognizing how you're feeling, what you're feeling, why you're feeling because if we can understand our emotions, it can help us to manage them more effectively, and then set the kind of goals that are realistic so that we can make these daunting challenges less overwhelming.
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One of my ways to stay in an emotional state of health is to practice gratitude. I can't tell you how foundational regularly acknowledging and appreciating the positive aspects of my life can be their game changers, gratitude can improve everything in our lives. I recently was looking for a car, and it might seem trivial, but I found one, I thought it was gonna be perfect. And I got everything together, spent a few days researching, went down and saw the car, spent a lot of time I was getting ready to go to the dealer with my payment, I got a call from the dealer said, Hey, can you be here soon? Someone else is looking at the car. This particular dealership did not accept any holds. And I said, Well, I have to head your way. So well, I'll call you in 20 minutes, because two people are looking at the car. I got a text, but half an hour later.
[00:12:47]
So the car has been sold. Thank you for the opportunity. Now, the old Nate would have been angry and upset say, oh my goodness, I spent all this time. I'm so angry. I lost the deal. Why me? No gratitude responds with I'm thankful thankful for the people I met. I'm thankful for this response I'm about to give. That's not snide, that says, I appreciate that. It was pleasure to meet you. God bless you and your family. That's the text I sent. And there's a freedom in that release. Why? Because that vehicle was not for me. It was meant for someone else. You may not believe in that. You might say no, you should have tried harder you should have left earlier. That's fine. But I'm not going to dwell on that I'm not going to live in the past because I want to set my sights on what can be rather than what can't that's over a deals done.
[00:13:37]
There's something else out there for me. I'm not upset about it. It just freed me to find what is meant for me, this happens to me, it's happened to me before I was so upset, I was having a triathlon, and I wanted a bicycle, the new bike and it was an eBay bike and I wanted to win the eBay auction. Now in those days, there wasn't an automatic bidding, you had to physically bid all the way to the last second. So the bidding was over about three in the morning. I woke up at 3am Just before and I was bidding toward the end and I lost and when I lost I was so upset. Oh God, this was my bike. I should have won this. You don't care? Well, I slept angry. That night. My emotions were all balled up. And I was angry for the next day, next day. And I said, I'm just gonna forget about eBay. I'm gonna go buy a bicycle from a bike shop. So I was $2,600 I bought a bike. And when the bike got to the bike shop, the bike shop owner called me said, Nate, I'm sorry, man, I got some bad news for you. Your bike had a part that was defective and we went to send it back.
[00:14:43]
And the bikes said that they're out of that particular part for your model. So they're gonna send you a different model. They're gonna send you get this the next model up at no additional charge, so they're gonna send me a $4,500 bike for the same as my $2,600. So I was very happy About that, wow. And then the bike came, and the owner of the bikes have called me against it, Nate Sorry, I've got some news for you, the bike shop sent a different model, they sent the $10,000 model, the full Ironman model, Oh, beautiful showpiece of a bicycle. I say that to say, You know what, maybe it's not always like that. But I believe that there is better than what my expectation is. And if I'm upset because I didn't get my expectation, maybe I'm setting my sights too low.
[00:15:31]
And this is the mental resilience in the emotional factor of life, because I'm just grateful. I'm grateful to be alive and focusing on positivity, replacing those negative thoughts with positive affirmations, reminding myself of the strength and the achievements that are possible. And the people who are you surrounding yourself with is an important aspect of your emotional well being Are you spending your time with supportive optimistic people who encourage inspire you or negative pessimistic people who be little and tear you down? People who are critical, judgmental, that has an effect on your motion, friend, learn to apply the type of boundaries that allow people to come into your purview who are good for you, that doesn't mean people who don't tell you the truth and love people who are good for you.
[00:16:24]
And then through it, you're gonna learn to apply better Stress management techniques, time management, breathing techniques, I just breathe sometimes. Just breathe, stay committed, stay persistent, do hard things. And if you're checking the box with your emotions, you're checking, checking the box with your mind checking the box with your health. The last of these that I've mentioned is your spirit. do hard things that are spiritual, do hard things for me, and my man, have committed faith, spend time doing hard things in my walk with God. Reading more scripture, learning more scripture, spending more time giving, I have so much more distance to go and loving my fellow human being not just loving those who love me, but loving those who don't praying for those who persecute me doing good to those who seek to harm me, Man, that's a game changer.
[00:17:14]
That's radical love. That's a place that I'm growing in. If you're not doing hard things in the spiritual realm, I challenge you do hard things. Because as you do hard things, you will elevate yourself, you will prepare yourself, you will exert the kind of physical and mental effort to develop the skills, the knowledge to persevere, to face with courage, your fears, to overcome your obstacles to grow and learn in such ways that you can build your character, build your confidence, build your achievement, so that when hard things come, you will be ready. Well, my friend, we did it, I'm so honored you were able to join me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. Now, this might not be for everyone, because you really have to be in a certain place in order to take the kind of steps to level up your leadership.
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And I want you to be taking steps. And for those of you who feel like you're ready for something like this, there's a place you can go. You can go to our website. Great summit.com. I'll make sure that's in the show notes. But here's the cool thing that we have. We've got a masterclass. We have all different kinds of events. We even have our Leadership Club, where you can meet other people just like you to go deeper in your leadership journey. You and I will get to spend some time together and really focus on aiming for greatness. I can't wait to see you there. I'm Dr. Nate Salah and this is A Call to Leadership
