Stop Stressing Start Living

I used to stress a lot.

Like hair falling out (only partially from me pulling it out), rapid weight fluctuations, no such thing as a good nights' sleep sort of stress.

I remember going to a convention for my current company in Atlanta, GA and spending a few nights in a hotel there.  While there, I spoke to my wife over the phone who told me about an interesting observation she made.

She said, "so you know how I make the bed each day, and each morning when we wake up the sheets are mangled and twisted and a complete mess?"

"Yes" I reply.

"Well I noticed, that during the last few nights you've been gone, all I have to do to fix the bed is get up, tuck the corner of the top sheet where I slept, and the bed's perfect."

While we both had a great laugh about it, it was definitely a sign that I obviously wasn't sleeping well.  And by 'not sleeping well', I mean I was a violent sleeper.  Tossing, turning, kicking, waking up 3 or 4 times before my alarm.  I should have noticed from the fact that I hadn't remembered dreaming in over 5 years.  Looking back, I doubt I ever reached that deep REM sleep during a typical night.

I can't even begin to talk about how little I stress these days.  Like to the point where if I told you how peaceful and serene my life is, and how great I sleep at night, I'd come off as bragging.

Through this journey of mine, I learned that there are 2 main sources of stress, that once fixed, can make a world of difference.

The first source, is trying to control things we have no control over.

I'm going to say that again.  The first source of stress is trying to control those things we have no control over, and will never have control over.

You're never going to control traffic.
You'll never control what other people think of you.
You can't control what other people say to you or about you.
You're never going to get everyone to like you.
And you definitely can't control the results of anything you do.

I have one piece of advice to immediately relieve your stress in those circumstances.

LET GO.

That's right.  Let go!  Stop trying to control everything and give it up to God, or the Universe, or whatever power you believe in that is superior to your human efforts.

You can't control traffic, stop complaining.  No matter what you do, there are people who will think, say, and do things you don't want them to.  In a nice a way as you can, just tell them to piss off.  Just do you, be you, and if they don't like it, good.  They don't need to be apart of your life anyway and now you know to stop trying to please them because nothing you do will make them any happier.

No matter how strong your efforts, you can't control the results.  Only the process.  No amount of practice can guarantee a team will win a game.  No amount of preparation can guarantee a sale.  So practice as hard as you can, prepare as much as you can, and let go of the results.  That's not up to you.

This goes right into the second source of stress, which is not controlling the things you can control.

You have the choice as to how you react to what other people say and do to and about you.
You have the choice as to what you read and watch and the thoughts that enter your head.
You have the choice to decide what your priorities are and schedule your life around them.

So to that, I say, take 100% responsibility.

Stop blaming others for why you are where you are.  It's not your parents fault. It's not your kids fault. It's not your boss' fault.  It's not the president's fault.

If you're stressed out mentally, mediate more.  Spend more time in self reflection.
If you're stressed out physically, go for a run.  Do yoga.  Go to the gym.  Eat better foods.
If you're stressed out emotionally, call a friend and share a few laughs with them.
If you're stressed out financially, make more sales.  Take control of your budget.  Create a new stream of income.

Most importantly, only do things that excite you.  If it doesn't excite you to do something, find someone who is excited to do it.  They'll do it better, faster, you get the credit, and they get to do something they enjoy. Win-win.

It was a slow progression, but as I steadily learned to let go of all the things I had no control of and just went with the flow, rolled with the punches, I started sleeping better.

When I stopped blaming others and playing the victim and began to take control of every aspect of my life from the books I read, to the people I associated myself with, to sitting down and getting my priorities and schedule in order, I started to dream again.

How cool is that?  

The simple act of deciding to take 100% responsibility for my own life allowed me to control my circumstances and now I sleep like a baby doped up on Benedryl.  It's a beautiful thing.

DON'T FORGET TO LIKE/ COMMENT/SHARE!

Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead life by their own design.  To learn more about Mark, follow him on Facebook.

What I Learned From My Business Failures

I love talking about business. Starting them. Growing them. To me, growing a business is like playing real life monopoly. It's the ultimate form of real life creativity. Sure you can be an artist or a musician, but the actual skill of turning that creativity and turning it into a living as well as a way of life, well, that's the fun part. 

 Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur though. Everybody wants to be their own boss, set their own hours, and do what they want, when they want. But no one wants to be an entrepreneur. That's because people know the sacrifice involved. If we all lived a thousand years ago (or whenever it was before money was invented) and we could just all barter goods and services, being an entrepreneur would be awesome. Instead of creating a piece of art and trying to sell it for food, I could exchange that artwork for the food itself. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, not sure which), we don't live a thousand years ago. We live in 2014. We live in a time where your very self worth is determined by the marketplace. If the market doesn't like what you have to offer, it doesn't pay you and you don't eat. If it does however, then the sky's the limit. 

To date, I've started four businesses. The first one failed within 6 months. I was 21 and my friend turned business partner turned guy I didn't talk to for 5 years turned friend again, had a brilliant idea. At the time, he was working for a company that brokered electronic components. Basically, every piece of electronic hardware in every electronic device you could imagine, he was (and still is) the middle man to between the manufacturers and the companies that sell the devices. The business model is brilliant, and quite possibly the most recession proof business around. Well he realized after working at his company for 6 months that instead of making the sale and getting his 25% cut for it, why not start his own business and keep 100% of it. So he asked me to be his partner and 6 months later I read everything I could about starting a business, left by bartending job, put my entire savings in, and went in full time. He did the same. With dreams of making a six figure income by the end of that year, we felt on top of the world. We would work hard making and processing sales by day, and sit around discussing running the world at night. That soon depleted after hitting issues due to lack of skill, lack of capital, cash flow issues, and eventually, falling into a business scam where $12,000 worth of inventory was stolen from us. Now we were left to pay back our investors, with no inventory to sell, no more capital, and on top of personal issues, no more will to continue. So we did the only thing we could do, which was close up shop, go our separate ways, and return to our old jobs with our heads down and tails tucked, eventually paying our investors back. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. When you start a business, you learn a few things a job will never teach you. Perseverance, strength of character, and what it means to make money work for you instead of work for money. You learn what going 100% really means when you do it whether you get paid or not. 

 Three years later, I was in business once again. This time, a fitness boot camp. Leading up to this, I was working at the bar at night and spending my days getting certified as a personal trainer and working at a private studio. Seeing how "bootcamps" were the hottest new thing around and the perfect blend of personal training and group exercise, I franchised with one of the top bootcamp models around. In the year and a half with them, I learned half the equation of doing business, being marketing and sales. You could have the best product or service around, but if no one knows about it, or you can't close the sale, then it doesn't matter. Well after a Groupon and Living Social offer for my business pulling in close to 200 people in the first 3 months, my complete lack of sales experience meant that I kept about 5 of them as full time paying clients. Usually, they were the ones who said "I lost HOW MUCH weight in 3 weeks?! Sign me up!". I soon learned the basics of sales, being LISTENING to the client and OFFERING them a solution to their problem. But by the end of that year and half, the franchise was asking for more and more money while giving less and less value, which didn't sit well with me. So I left them for another franchise. 

 The second franchise (and what I consider my third business), a group personal training franchise, was a great experience. I learned the value of creating a business driven on systems. I had sales systems, marketing systems, program design systems, training systems, I had systems for everything. For those thinking about getting into business, remember this, SYSTEM means Saving Your Self Time, Energy, and Money. I hired an administrative assistant and assistant coach for a while, and things were going smooth. I also learned the second part of business, which is having an amazing product. All the marketing and sales in the world mean nothing if you fail to deliver. So I focused on delivering an extraordinary experience and soon found myself surrounded by some of the most elite trainers and fitness coaches in the country. But after 2 1/2 years, learned the hard way that a personal training business is quite possibly one of the most grueling business models to be apart of. It takes a real passion to stick in it for the long haul, and by then, my passion and fire had burnt out. 4 years of waking up at 5am and either training clients, writing up client workouts, marketing for new clients, scheduling potential clients, or meeting potential clients until 10pm every day had taken its toll. I needed a new business that would re-ignite my flame. 

Which leads me to my current business. While the core of my work is in a network marketing company, I like to say I'm now in the "freedom" business. I work from home, with no alarm clock (actually set at 7:30 in case I oversleep, which I rarely need), and create my day exactly how I choose. I've found the business model of the 21st century. One that has minimal overhead, unlimited income potential, no brick and mortar to pay rent to, is built around creating success for others and help them achieve freedom in their lives, and no employees to hire, train, pay, or fire. It's given me the opportunity to write and publish my first book, "Think The Fat Away" on Amazon, and unlike a personal training business, has interstate and international potential.  It's the perfect blend of doing what I love, and a sustainable business model that I can leave as a legacy for my children.

So my journey continues, but before this blog post is over, I'd like to leave you with 5 tips about starting and growing a business based on my own failures.

1) Get into something you love. Your business will only succeed to the extent of how much effort you put in, and if you don't love what you do, it will show in your effort.
2) Use leverage.  Leverage the use of systems to save yourself time, energy, and money.  Team up with a franchise or network marketing company to leverage their knowledge, experience, and support.  Read books, listen to podcasts/audios, attend seminars, and leverage the wisdom of people who have reached the heights of success you wish to achieve.  Leverage your money by reinvesting profits into growing your business instead of immediately spending it to "ball out".
3) Build your social capital.  Network like a fiend and build strong relationships with others.  As they say, it takes a village.  None of my success would have been possible without the support of certain individuals.
4) Business revolves around 2 key steps: having the best product/service possible, and making sure everyone knows about it.  If you have the best marketing in the world but a crappy product, you'll market yourself out of business once everyone finds out how bad you are.  If you have the best product but no one knows about it, you're out of business just as fast.
5) Kaizen. The Japanese term for practicing continuous improvement.  It's what made Toyota the highest selling car maker in the country.  While everyone was waiting 3-4 years to reinvent their models, Toyota focused on making small improvements over time.  Focus on being 1% better every day.  That's 365% better year over year.

DON'T FORGET TO LIKE/COMMENT/SHARE/CHECK OUT MY BOOK!



Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead life by their own design.  To learn more about Mark, follow him on Facebook.

What Kids Taught Me About Leadership

I have 2 daughters. One is 8. The other is 4.

Studies show that they are the two most beautiful, precious daughters in the world.

It's been proven. By science.

When the topic of leadership gets brought up, I instantly think of how I am a leader to them.  Now I have to admit, I've never led a massive sales team, or infantry, or anything of great magnitude, though training upwards of 20 clients at a time in my personal training business should count for something.  In fact, the largest "team" you could say I've led was a team of 24 high school boy's varsity baseball players as we put together and managed a course for a 5K race/walk to benefit a charity.  Which some might say is more difficult to lead, considering they were teenage boys doing it on a Saturday morning for community service hours versus a motivated sales team or trained soldiers.

Any who, back to my daughters.

Looking at them, I realize there are few roles in this world more important than a father raising daughters (possibly only topped by a mother raising sons).  And it's in this role that I realize a few things:

1. Who I am and how I treat my daughters is the exact kind of man they will bring home one day.
2. How I treat my daughters is how I should treat everyone.
3. How I raise my daughters is a direct reflection of my own level of personal development.
4. My daughters truly are the future. If they're going to make a difference in the world, it will be based on the values I've instilled within them in their developmental years.

So based on those realizations, I've come up with my top 3 lessons my daughters have taught me about being a leader.  The point of these is to use them in growing and developing your own team as well as yourself.

1. Monkey see, monkey do. No matter what I tell my kids to do, if my actions speak otherwise, they won't listen.  If I tell them every day the importance of telling the truth, and turn around and never uphold a promise to them, they'll do just that in life.  This has really put my feet to the flame because my daughters, I'm sure like most, ask a million and one things starting with "Daddy can I..." and ending with some odd request either for a toy they saw in a commercial, or a grandiose place they want to visit.  I have to be very careful to not just say "Yeah honey sure" to everything and just not follow through.  Which also helps my kids learn to hear the word "No" every once in a while when its the most fitting answer.  The point is, if you want to instill integrity in your team, you have to be it.

2. Empower them.  So many times, I'll ask a request of one of my girls and they'll reply "but I can't."  Now I have a bit of a rule in my household, and kind of a general rule about life.  Never say "I can't." Instead, I make them ask themselves "how can I?"  By doing so, they learn the value of being independent and even interdependent in order to find a solution to a problem.  This is much better than the alternative, which is to do everything for them and raise them in a state of constant dependency. While many leaders are capable of doing all the roles within their team, its much easier to trust and delegate those roles to focus on the most productive and strength-driven tasks.

3. Let them explore their free will.  I've never understood parents who jump at their kids the moment they try and do something on their own (sorry if you're one of those parents).  Children are naturally curious.  They're naturally creative.  They naturally want to explore. (Interesting enough, so are adults) I say let em.  My wife disagrees.  When they're at the park, they have one rule, "be careful."  With those two simple words, they get to run around to their heart's desire and be kids.  If one tries to jump off a slide and gets hurt, they get the "were you being careful?" from me.  They say no, I say "next time be more careful" and then they're off again.  Let them explore their own limits, don't set them for them.  When they're home making pictures or crafts, it's "just don't make a mess", which gives them the opportunity to use up all their creative energy on any project they'd like, as long as they don't make a mess.  Now the opposite of all this is the dreaded "micro manager" who watches their every movement and tells them "don't do that" or "do it like this" at every turn.  My goal is to develop my kids to use up their full potential for themselves and be leaders, not set predetermined limits on them they might never have the courage to explore for themselves as they grow older.

As my kids grow older, I learn more and more not just about myself and what kind of leader I am, but I also get to see their growth as a sort of feedback loop.  I can reexamine how I've taught them life lessons, and compare it to the results.  If I see my kids are polite, generous, respectful, bright, talented, and creative, then I can use that as a reflection of my methods.  If, on the other hand, my kids start showing signs of greed, disrespect, bitterness, and even violence, well, then, maybe I need to rethink the kind of monkey my kids are following and do something to change those results.

Don't forget to Like/Share/Comment below!

Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead life by their own design.  To learn more about Mark, follow him on Facebook.

The Law Of Attraction

Probably my favorite "success principle" if you will, in earning and achieving anything you want, is the Law of Attraction.

Here's Wikipedia's definition:

The law of attraction is the name given to the belief that "like attracts like" and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results. This belief is based upon the idea that people and their thoughts are both made from "pure energy", and the belief that like energy attracts like energy.

Basically you attract what you think about most. For those who are fans of the book or movie "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, you should have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

If you start your morning thinking "Man today is going to be a miserable day! " well guess what? Chances are you're going to have a miserable day.

If, on the other hand, you wake up Monday morning and the first thought that goes into your head is "Today is going to be great!", those thought vibrations will not only get sent out to the universe and attract things that are "great" in your life, but your subconscious will begin to look for things that are "great" instead of things that are "miserable", and your brain will begin to be more open to opportunity instead of misfortune.

I've found there are five ways to use the Law Of Attraction to attract anything you want into your life.

1. Affirmations. I put this first because as soon as I began doing them, I noticed an almost immediate positive effect.  An Affirmation is simply a declaration to oneself a statement that is true.  For example, I have a list of affirmations written on my bathroom mirror so it is the first thing I see and read every morning.  One of them is "I am so excited to be working with hundreds of positive, motivated leaders."  I recommend writing down a list of 5-10 things that excite you, that you're grateful for, or that want to attract more of, write it in the present personal tense ("I am", "I have"), and place them somewhere to see and read to yourself (out loud works best) daily.  Believe without a shadow of a doubt that what you want is already yours. You just need to go out there and get it.

2. Asking questions.  I attribute a lot of my journey and where my life has taken me to the questions I ask myself and the answers I've come up with.  I think it starts with asking the big questions first. "Why am I here?" "What is my purpose?". Yeah, those big questions.  The other part is asking yourself empowering questions, questions that lead you to take more action.  Instead of saying "I can't do that.", ask yourself "how can I do that?" and force your brain to think up of a solution.  And don't be afraid to ask for big requests.  When you ask for something wild and out of your comfort zone and follow with a "now how can I make this happen?", you'll be surprised what comes your way.

3. Be the person.  It's been said that when building a team of leaders, the first step is to write down a list of the top 10 things you want to see in a leader.  Character. Integrity. Confidence.  The second step is to be that person.  Like attracts like.  Lions don't spend their time around the company of rats, and lions can smell a rat from a mile away.

4. Take massive action. In the words of Jim Carrey, "you can't ask the universe for ten million dollars, and then go make a sandwich." Your thoughts and words will attract to you all the people and events you need to succeed at anything you want.  But when that opportunity comes up, its your actions that make it all come to fruition.  Remember, you are 100% responsible for everything that happens in your life.  No one will change it for you.

5. Let Go Of The Brakes.  What dominating thoughts about yourself and who you are is slowing you down? Do you constantly tell yourself "you're not smart enough to do that" or "you're not good enough" or "you don't deserve that"?  What if you instead started looking at all the things you want in life and started telling yourself "yes you are smart enough and talented enough to have that, and you deserve it too!"  Now that would be a game changer.  Before you go full speed and tackle life, make sure to let go of the brakes first!

Using the Law of Attraction as a tool in my journey has been powerful. Empowering, even.  And if you'd like to learn more, definitely check out "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne.

And don't forget to Like/Comment/Share!

Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead life by their own design.  To learn more about Mark, follow him on Facebook.

5 Lessons That Changed My Life

I wasn't always this awesome.

I mean I was always awesome. Just not as awesome as I am today.

I didn't live a terrible life.  I grew up in the public school system in the suburbs of New York State.

My parents are still together to this day.

And except for maybe the very early parts of my childhood, we never really had to struggle.

But like probably many kids, life was its own version of awkward for me.

A shy, first generation Philipino-American trying to find my place in the world.
Trying to find my purpose.
Trying to make a name for myself.

By the time I was 23, life was very different from "traditional".

I had my first child at 19, married that same year.
I dropped out of college after 3 semesters.
Working at a bar till 5am and sleeping until 2pm didn't help.
Neither did the whirlwind of drugs and alcohol that accompany the bar scene.
You work 4 nights a week behind a bar for cash tips.  Then spend the other 3 nights on the other side of the bar donating those tips right back.
(And on the nights you do work, it's usually shift drinks until daybreak)

I tend to think of those years as the low point of my life.
But to be honest, it was fun while it lasted.
It was also an easy way to get trapped in a world that looks appealing from the outside, but soul-sucking on the inside.

I've turned things around since then.

I've since spent the following 5 years in business for myself, in an unending journey to be the best possible version of myself each and every day.

So I'd like to share with you 5 lessons that changed my life.  As you'll notice, I take a lot of these lessons from books as I'm a huge book worm.  So I highly recommend you checking them out yourself.

1. The Compound Effect.  Right around the time I was at my lowest, I picked up and read a book called "The Slight Edge" by Jeff Olson.  That book literally changed my life.  It was based on the simple premise that by doing simple acts daily, compounded over days and weeks and months and years, depending on the actions, could either take you on a downward spiral in life or turn you into a phenomenal success. I decided right then to start cutting out negative habits and start building positive ones into my life.  Many of which I carry on to this day.

2. The Power Of Choice.  The next "ah-ha" that clicked with me was after reading "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.  As one of the habits, he states that we as humans don't have to just accept anything in life that happens to us.  But that we have a choice as to how we react to those events.  And if we can choose how we react, we can change the outcome.  Instead of getting angry every time you hit rush hour traffic, you could choose to get excited that you get to listen to more music on the way to work!

3. 100% Responsibility.  This was a tough pill to swallow, but my life was changed for the better the day I decided to take 100% responsibility for everything in my life.  Instead of blaming others for things that happened to me, or complaining that things weren't going my way, or allowing life to happen to me, I could take 100% responsibility for my thoughts, my words, my actions, my reactions, my choices, the people I surround myself with, and create the life of my dreams, instead of allowing life to push me around.

4. The Law of Attraction.  Another life changing book for me was "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne.  It talks about the Law of Attraction, and how we unconsciously attract what we think of most.  Your subconscious mind cannot distinguish reality from perception, so by creating an image in your mind of essentially your ideal life, you send out vibrations into the universe that attract exactly what you're looking for.  So start today envisioning your ideal day, your ideal life, and watch as opportunities start flowing in that allow that life to take shape.

5. Gratitude.  When I stopped thinking about all the things in life that I don't have, and focused on being grateful for all the things in life that I do have, my life changed.  Suddenly, instead of living a life of never enough, my eyes opened up and I started living a life of more than enough. A life of abundance. A life of gratitude.  So if you haven't yet, just be grateful that you woke up today. That you're alive.

I hope this helps! Don't forget to Like, Comment, and Share below!

Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead lives of success, happiness, and personal fulfillment.  To learn more about how Mark can help you live on purpose, e-mail him at thatninjamark@yahoo.com or follow him onFacebook.