Cade Courtley was born in Columbus, Ohio and raised in Boulder, Colorado where he spent much of his early life in the outdoors. He graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Business Administration and was commissioned (ROTC) into the United States Navy as an Ensign.
A standout from the beginning of his military career as a Naval Officer, Courtley was the Class Leader in his BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL) training. After 19 months, two Hell Weeks, broken left leg (twice), a broken right leg, and a fractured skull, LT Courtley graduated (CLASS 202) and became a Navy SEAL. He was then chosen to attend the elite SEAL Sniper school, privilege only given to a select few.
His strong background in military Special Operations made him the obvious choice to Host and Produce the Spike TV/Discovery International original series “Surviving Disaster” (2010) that to date has aired in over 150 countries. Author can now be added to Courtley’s list of accomplishments when the folks at Simon & Schuster decided to publish SEAL Survival Guide “A Navy SEAL’s Secrets to Surviving Any Disaster.” (2012) As well as Host of the original TV series “America Unplugged” (2014) Cade is also the founder of Victory Coffee.
“If it was easy everyone could do it”
“You have to get your ass kicked every once in awhile”
1. You Need to Constantly be Challenged
One of the reasons that Navy SEALs are the best of the best is because they are always being challenged and forced to grow. Obvious from their motto “The only easy day was yesterday” Seals believe that to be the best, you have to push yourself beyond your perceived limits, and they do this every single day of training.
Whether or not you want to be a SEAL, the lesson remains the same. Men need challenge, they need adventure, they need to do something other than sit in a damn cubicle.
Start challenging yourself today. Get outside, exercise, take a cold shower, give up a bad habit, learn a martial art; do whatever you need to do to get out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself to new limits.
2. You have to Find a Strong Why
At BUD/s there is an attrition rate of nearly 80%, meaning that for every 10 recruits who show up on day one of training, 2 will graduate. Although there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason as to who makes it and who doesn’t physically, the one thing that all successful SEALs have in common is a strong why.
You have to have a strong enough reason why you are doing what you are doing to get you through the inevitable shitty times. Whether you are in entrepreneurship, fitness, family or war, you have to have a reason for what you are doing and it has to be strong.
3. Train in Peace so You Don’t Bleed in War
One of the core principles of SEAL training is to sweat hard in peace, so you bleed less in war. In layman’s terms, this means that you have to put in the work before the shit hits the fan.
You must develop yourself into a grounded, self reliant man before you meet the woman of your dreams, you must save up and be financially intelligent before recession hits, you must work hard at your fitness before some sort of physical disaster arises.
Prepare now so that you have peace of mind later.
4. Find Your Passion and Follow It
Life is freaking short. Too damn short to waste in a cubicle doing something that is uninspiring and boring. Find your passion and follow it, because God only knows when your last day is.
You might not have another tomorrow and the worst thing in the world would be to get to the other side and think to yourself “Damn I really blew it, did I even matter?”
Do yourself a favor. Follow your passion and make your life count.
Ex-Googler Filip Syta left the tech world to write books and his debut literary novel tells you why — in a satirical, true and unsavory tale, revealing the savagery beneath the shiny veneer of Silicon Valley.
In 2011, Syta graduated with a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from Lund University, Lund, Sweden. He aspires to make readers identify the truly important things in life.
“Find what you love and let it kill you”~Charles Bukowski
1. Never Allow Life to Rob you of Self Reliance
Often times it is easy to become complacent and allow life to rob you of your self reliance. You find a job with great benefits, you find a wife who takes care of all of the chores, whatever happens, life becomes too cozy.
As a great Persian general once said “Soft lands make for soft people”
Never become soft. You need to be able to take care of yourself and get things done, if you can’t be dropped into a new city all by yourself, find a job, run a household, and build a social life, then something needs to change.
2. Focus on Your Passion not Your Paycheck
People often spend so much time following the money, doing things that make the miserable, doing things that take away from their family lives, that take away from their health, and destroying your relationships.
While money is important and necessary, doing things that you love and making an impact is far more important. At the end of the day, the cars you drove and the houses you lived in won’t matter. The 0s at the end of your paycheck won’t matter, but what will matter is how you lived your life, the people you impacted, and the passion that filled your days.
3. The Rewards are There
Whenever people talk about passion and pursuing your dreams, there is also an inevitable conversation about “the grind,” because greatness doesn’t come without struggle. Following your passion is hard, doing what you love is hard. It is much easier to simply find a safe job that you don’t hate, get into a comfortable relationship that you know will, at best, be mediocre, and not get fat.
Putting it all on the line and struggling through low income, loss of love and friendship to achieve a distant goal is difficult. However, the rewards are there. Once you put the work in, you will see results. Don’t stop 3 feet from gold.
Keep pushing and pursue your dreams because the rewards are there.
The CEO of Global Equity Finance, Cornell Ho is a prolific entrepreneur and former top salesman currently responsible for one of the fastest growing mortgage companies in the world.
“Success only comes when you cut the chains of excuse and blame”
1. Be Completely Focused Sunday through Thursday
One of the keys to success is to master your energy by showing up to work at 100% everyday of the week. This means showing up well rested and not hungover Monday through Friday and letting your hair down and going crazy on Saturday and Sunday.
If you get 8 hours of sleep throughout the week and show up to work fully charged and focused, ready to kick ass and take names, you will out perform every other person at the office. However, if you are up late, drinking or fooling around after work, you will show up the next day lagging and your performance will suffer.
Work hard? Yes. Play hard? Yes.
2. Learn to Master Time Management
Nothing will impact the end result of your life more than one thing; how you manage your time.
Every single one of us are given exactly 24 hours in a day, nothing more, nothing less. How you manage those 24 hours will determine the quality of your weeks, months, years, and ultimately your life.
The key to mastering your time is to master your focus. When you are working, work. When you are relaxing, relax. When you are with family, be with family. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by external stimuli and thoughts about other tasks. Focus 100% on the thing at hand.
3. Find what Motivates You
One of the keys to achieving highly is to find what motivates you. Cut and dry.
Do you enjoy competition? Recognition? Financial Incentives? Impact? Advancement?
Figure out what makes you tick and create a reward system centered around it.
Megan Tull is a master business strategist specializing in assisting entrepreneurs in turning their passion into a highly profitable business they love and the author of The Passion Belief Method
“Be courageous, take action, and share your gifts with the world”
1. Your Why is One of the Most Important Parts of Success
In the interview, Megan talked about how losing her husband and becoming a single mother became the fuel for her to succeed. With a strong enough why, anything is possible.
If you desire success on any large scale, having a powerful ‘why’ is a must. You have to know why you want what you want and why you are willing to make the sacrifices that you will inevitably have to make to succeed.
2. Don’t Settle
Today, so many people settle for living lives that they aren’t passionate about they ascribe to the old adage that “Life’s a bear and then you die.” If you are living a life where you feel you are settling, something needs to change.
If you are struggling to figure out what it is that you want to do, what you are passionate about, what you could make of your life, then ask yourself these three questions.
1. What do I love to do
2. What do I do that I cant help but do
3. What do people tell me that I am good at
3. Learn to Set Your Intentions
One of the most essential habits of success is setting your intentions each day. Start your mornings by reminding yourself of what you are grateful for, what your goals are, and what you want to do with your life.
By doing this everyday, you will ensure that you remain focused on the positives of life and the goals that you have set for yourself and your future.
In the last 28 years, Akash has recovered from a life of drugs at a young age to now living a full life. Since then he has been skydiving, cave diving, ice diving, scuba diving, He spent 7 months in a war zone with the US Marines, climbed mountains all over the world, climbed vertical cliffs without the safety of a rope, started two businesses, spoken on a stage at a fortune 100 company, spent one month dragging a 190 pound sled 350 miles across the second largest icecap in the world and is now training to run across every country in the world.
He has also authored the book The Other Side of Fear which launches in Spring 2016.
“Earning success is hard. The process is laborious, tedious, sometimes even boring. Becoming wealthy, influential, and world-class in your field is slow and arduous.”~Darren Hardy
1. Learn to Suffer Well
Suffering is inevitable in life. No one makes it through without some pain, however what determines your capacity as a man and as a world changer, is your ability to suffer well, to laugh in the face of adversity and smile in the face of death, to, as Rudyard Kipling put it “Hold on when there is nothing in you, save the will which says ‘hold on.”
If you can learn to embrace suffering as an inevitability in life and, instead of avoiding it, seek to turn it into your asset by learning and growing from the pain… there is nothing that you cannot do.
2. Learn to Change Your Mindset Around Stress
One of the keys to mastering stress is mastering your mindset around stress. Learn to make the sh!t storms of life a game that you play with a smile, seeing how high of a tolerance you can build for pain and discomfort. Learn to view stress as an opportunity to grow and you will find yourself growing more than you ever thought possible.
3. Harness the Power of Psychology
You need to understand that your brain is not always your friend. It wants to keep you safe and alive, and as such, it does not always have your best interest at heart. If you want to become a master at the game of life, you need to learn to harness the power of psychology.
Learn to reduce the amount of choices you have to make in a given day and to build a spiral of upward momentum that will carry you through challenging times.
Throw out your junk food, but your gym clothes next to your alarm clock, avoid bars and ABC stores, do whatever you have to do to program yourself for success. Use the power of psychology and momentum to ensure your success every day.
4. Create a Powerful Environment
Environment always trumps willpower, and as such, it is important to create an environment conducive to success. Plaster your walls with success quotes and inspirational pictures and people, throw out your junk food, build a home gym, toss out your TV, do what is necessary to create a home base that is constantly reminding you of your goals, dreams, and ambitions.
Dr. Robert Glover, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life (Running Press, 2003)
Dr. Glover is an internationally recognized authority on the Nice Guy Syndrome. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has been featured in numerous local and national publications.
Through his book, online classes, workshops, podcasts, blogs, consultation, and therapy groups, Dr. Glover has helped change the lives of countless men and women around the world.
“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun”~Audrey Hepburn
1. Nothing Hidden Nothing Half-assed
To stop being the nice guy and unleash your inner badass, you have to stop hiding and stop half assing. Stop hiding what you are thinking because you are afraid of what other people will say about you. Stop hiding your thoughts and feelings towards women because you are afraid it will upset them and cause tension. Stop bull shitting people to make them happy. Be you
Once you stop lying and keeping things hidden, you must stop half assing things. If you are going to do something, go all in, hold nothing back. If you are half assing, it is probably a sign that you are doing something that is incongruent with who you are and your mission in life, and you should likely reevaluate your reasons for doing it.
2. You Already Have Enough Information
The problem facing most guys today is not lack of information, but rather a lack of action on the information they already know. You already know everything that you need to know to begin taking the action that will help you achieve your goals in your dating, physical, and financial lives. It’s simple.
To be healthy, eat whole foods and exercise everyday. To get good with women, talk to more women. To become rich, work hard on a side hustle until you can quit your job and then save and invest at least 15% of your income. Simple right?
But are you taking the action?
3. Women Need Emotional Tension
Something that most men do not understand is that women want positive tension in their lives (why do you think they enjoy those damn soap operas?). They want a man who will challenge them and tease them. They want a man who is completely unafraid of their reaction.
The best ways to build emotional tension are to touch, tease, and tell.
Touch her playfully throughout the interaction. Touch her arm, spin her, hold her hand, break the touch barrier, the sooner the better. Tease her in a kind hearted way that shows you are a challenge and may even get close to crossing the line every once in awhile. And finally, just freaking tell her what it on your mind. Don’t play games and don’t bullshit.
Build the tension and be brutally honest.
(Touch tease and tell)
Raised on the South Side of Johannesburg, South Africa, Rodney King has been fighting for nearly his entire life. Rodney has been practicing martial arts since a young adult, using his skills to protect himself from violence in his school and community. At 17 Rodney was kicked out of his home by his abusive, alcoholic mother.
Now, many years later, Rodney coaches and trains special forces soldiers, entrepreneurs, and other high performers in martial arts and self management. He has written a book called “Full Contact Living“ and is completing his PHd in embodied leadership.
“The principles of success are easy to understand but hard to master”
1. In Order to Have Success You Have to Put in the Work
Success does not come without work. No matter who you are or how good you believe you are, success does not come without work. You have to put your nose to the grindstone and work, sometimes for years before your goals will come to fruition.
You have to go through the phase of being at the bottom of the totem pole, being completely incompetent before you can become the master.
In order to have success, you have got to put in the work!
2. Perfection is an Illusion
No matter how good you become, you will never be perfect. Perfectionism is a disease that prevents you from living your life to the fullest. If you want to perform at your best, let go of perfectionism, you will never be perfect, but you can be excellent.
You will never be perfect, but you can become a master.
3. Your Body’s Attitude is Crucial
Managing your state is an essential part of success. If your body is slouched and appears weak, you will also feel weak. However, if you have strong posture, stand up straight, smile, and take deep breaths, you will feel powerful and in charge.
Your state helps you to manage your life and take better charge of your emotions and mental state. Learn to master it and there is nothing that you cannot do.
4. Learn What You Need to Learn, Set the Intention and Take Action
The simplest formula for success is this. Learn what you need to learn, set your intention, and take the action.
If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, read, get mentors, and take course until you have the knowledge that you need, set your goal, and start taking massive action to achieve it.
No matter what your goal is, this formula will be the same whether you want to gain muscle, get better with women, become a great father, or start a billion dollar business.
Mark Palm, the president of Samaritan Aviation was raised as a pastor’s son and from a very young age has had a passion for people and aviation. Mark currently holds a Commercial Pilot’s license with an Instrumental Float-plane rating as well as an FAA Aircraft Mechanic’s license.
January, 2010, Mark and his wife Kirsten moved to Wewak, Papua New Guinea to begin Flight Operations in the East Sepik Province. They currently live in Wewak with their three children Sierra, Drake, and Nolan where they run Samaritan Aviation, a company dedicated to providing medical and missional help and support to the people of Papua New Guinea.
“Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you”
1. We are Here to Make a Difference
So often, it is easy to get caught up in making a name for yourself that you forget why we are really here. It’s easy to get caught up in making millions of dollars, having the beautiful wife, the white picket fence, and a safe, cozy lifestyle, that you forget we aren’t here for ourselves. We are here to make a difference.
No matter whether you believe in God, the Universe, or Mother Nature, whoever and whatever put us on this earth didn’t do so arbitrarily, and your existence isn’t an accident. You are here to put a dent in the universe, but that can only happen when you take your eyes off of yourself and start looking towards others.
Even if you believe in no higher power, there is no life better lived than a life of service and impact to others. And the wonderful thing is, living an awesome life full of fast cars, amazing relationships, and travel and living a life of purpose are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you approach it right, they are often the two most inclusive lifestyles you can live.
2. The Things That Bother You Are Trivial
In the west, we get angry when our wifi is slow, or when we have to slow down our $30,000 car by 20 miles an hour because of traffic. And we allow these petty little things to bother us and we carry them with us throughout our day, never once thinking about how incredibly unimportant these things really are.
You are blessed if you have the means to listen to this podcast. Realize that and quit allowing trivial “problems” to run your life.
3. Listen to Those Who Have Been there Before
One of the best investments you will ever make is into your relationships, particularly your relationships with people who have come before you and can guide you along the best paths.
Whether you are looking to become wealthy, have an amazing marriage, incredible health, make an amazing impact, or have an impeccable spiritual life, find someone who has done if before you and has the results that you want and learn from them. It could be a father or a mother, a friend, a stranger, or even a book. But be sure that you have mentors guiding you through life, because only a fool doesn’t learn from the mistakes of others.
4. Make Your Word Mean Something
One of the most underrated characteristics of a modern man is integrity. Make your word count.
If you say something, you do it. Period.
There are no ifs, ands, or buts. Be a man of your word always. People will respect you more, you will respect yourself more, and your life will become more meaningful and worthwhile when you become known as a man of integrity.
Mark Manson is a professional blogger, entrepreneur, and former dating coach. Since 2007, he’s been helping people with their emotional and relationship problems. He has worked with thousands of people from over 30 different countries.
“One day in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful”~Sigmund Freud
1. What Struggle Are You Willing to Face
One of the best questions that you can ask yourself in life is not “what are my goals” or “what am I passionate about” but rather “How much pain and struggle am I willing to go through?”
Because the simple fact is this, there is no great achievement in life without pain.
You will not become successful at business without going through the pain of sleepless nights, losing money, and having products fail. You will not have a happy fulfilled marriage without first going through rejections, marital struggles, and painful self work. You won’t get a great body without getting off your ass and hitting the gym.
There is no achievement without pain, so the question that you need to ask is “How much pain am I willing to endure?” There is no right or wrong answer, but if you tell yourself that you want to be a bodybuilder, millionaire, playboy and you aren’t willing to get up, go to the gym, do work on your business, and go out on dates, then you need to reevaluate your pain tolerance and adjust accordingly.
2. It’s Important for Life to Suck Sometimes
Many self help gurus would have you believe that life is all sunshine and roses and that nothing bad ever happens to you if you just say this one affirmation every morning. But that’s a load of bullcrap.
Life is going to suck sometimes, if you do things wrong, it’s going to suck a lot of the time. However, this is not a bad thing. No great man was ever forged without first facing some adversity. It is the times where life sucks that you will have your biggest breakthroughs and learn the most about yourself.
Embrace the suck, and use it to make your best life.
3. Happiness Comes from Problems
In continuing with the theme of pain being a positive in life, an important realization to come to is that hapiness and fulfillment do not come from a lack of problems, but rather from solving worthwhile problems.
For some people, this means solving problems in business and figuring out how to impact more people with a limited budget or how to launch a new product when the last one failed. For others this is how to build and raise an amazing family when your marriage is strained and your children don’t respect you.
If you are unhappy in life, chances are the quality of the problems that you are fixing is very low, or worse yet, you aren’t actually taking action to fix the problems you have in the first place.
Realize that solving problems is what brings fulfillment and if you are feeling a sense of lack in your life, simply find better problems to solve whether they are physical, relational, financial, or spiritual.
4. Screw Finding Your Passion
Guess what? You are not entitled to anything. So many people today will tell you that you somehow deserve to make millions doing what you love as if that is one of our “God given and inalienable rights” but the cold truth is that it isn’t.
Instead of focusing on finding your passions, simply do more of what you enjoy doing already. If you can find a way to build it into a business and monetize it, then great, if not, then work a job your enjoy and follow what you are passionate about on the side.
Just because you’re passionate about playing Jazz flute doesn’t mean that you should pack up from your high end executive job that you enjoy, pays well, and allows you to be around for your children to pursue a career as a professional musician, because the simple fact is, even if you do that, there will come a time when playing jazz flute sucks.
No matter how much you love something, there will come a day when you simply don’t feel like waking up and doing it that day. Passion or no.
5. Do Something
Feeling lost?
Do something, anything.
Feeling stuck?
Do something, anything.
As Churchill once said “The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
If you are struggling to find the motivation or passions in your life, then just do something. Take a trip, start a new job, launch a blog, just do something.
Jason is a top business and executive coach. He’s a leading expert on human behavior, influence, sales, networking, and leadership. At the heart of his strategy is the understanding that people and your relationships are your true “wealth.” Everything we accomplish in life is with or through other people.
He works with experts, entrepreneurs and executives to help them get known and stand out by building key skill sets and right relationships, creating their brand platform and purpose (including helping them get to the next stage in their business/career), and improving their business strategies/processes. You can reach him at www.BeExtraordinary.tv and to get free networking, personal branding, and other free guides.
If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.”~Brene Brown
1. Align Internally
Before you can truly begin down the path to mastering your relationships, both personal and professional, you must start by mastering the one relationship you have total control over; your relationship with yourself.
To truly become the social genius that you have the potential to be, you must first align internally. This means that you have to be grounded and on purpose, moving your life in a positive direction. It does not mean you have to be perfect, it means that you have to love yourself and constantly work on improving yourself.
Gain control of your emotions, take care of your body, feed your mind good information, do things that light you up with a passion. The more aligned you are internally, the more aligned you will show up externally and the better your relationships will be.
2. Emotions are Key
Whenever you are in any social situation, you must remember that emotions are key. This is true of your emotions and the emotions of others.
Understanding what people are feeling, and what they want to feel will allow you to properly assess your actions and maximize your social value within each situation. Everything people do is based on emotion, learn to understand and harness this power, and your social life will sky rocket.
3. Find Your Sweet Spot
No matter whether you are an employee or entrepreneur, your life will be improved drastically if you work within what Brian Tracy calls your “Area of Genius.” Everyone has a unique gift that can almost always be used in the company they work for or run, it’s up to you to find it.
If you are miserable at your IT job because you love working with people and hate the office, consider switching to something in sales. Find what makes you light up, and crush it.
4. Become an Introducer
One of the most powerful social skills that you can learn is the art of the introduction. Even with people that you just met, if you can increase someone’s social circle while speaking their praises in front of them, you will become instantly liked and appreciated in every social circle you work in.
Although it may seem daunting at first, it’s really as simple as selecting two people that you know (or even don’t know) and simply telling them that you would like to introduce them to someone. You will rarely if ever get turned down and it will add obscene social value in any situation.