Michael V. Ivanov's Blog, page 2

People who do great things have great morning routines.

A morning routine is like a pre-flight checklist. It can set you up for success or lead to disaster. It all depends on what you do.

I used to be terrified of flying and even though I did it often, I could never get used to it.

Maybe it was the fact that every car I’ve ever owned since I was 16 has broken down on me so my trust in mechanical things wasn’t the greatest.

But whenever boarding a flight, the first thing I did was stare into the cockpit for those few seconds as I passed by.

I was always trying to see who the pilots were. If they were young, I knew they were less experienced and that always made me more nervous.

If they were older with the silver hair of wisdom, I immediately felt better about the flight. I was always looking for that “Captain Sully” looking pilot.

That one who’d seen it all and experienced every possible flight situation. The one who’s voice came over the loud speaker completely calm and relaxed as we were bouncing through the turbulence.

I felt like I could trust that guy more.

But young or old, veteran or rookie, first flight or the last, every single pilot does the same thing they have done time and time again. They go down the pre-flight checklist.

Failing to do so could lead to disaster, no matter how experienced you are.

 

Already “successful” or still on the journey, we need a pre-flight checklist.

Just like these airline pilots, we need our own pre-flight checklist, but we call it a morning routine. These are the precious moments we have when we first jump out of bed, they are the difference between success or disaster.

Most people don’t have a checklist and if they ever create one, they don’t follow it for very long.

Brushing our teeth, stuffing a bagel down our throat, washing it down with coffee, and running out the door seems to be our most common routine today.

We don’t take a moment to breathe, to stretch, to read, to sit in silence for a few moments and evaluate our day or say “thank you” for another one.

The first thing billionaire Tony Robbins does every morning is jump into a pool of freezing water. World changing inventor, Thomas Edison, used to sit in his pitch dark room in silence just after waking up. Self proclaimed “human guinea-pig,” Tim Ferris, writes in his journal before doing anything else.

Successful people don’t start their day by jumping into the cockpit of a plane and firing the engines up while still buttoning up a shirt.

A veteran pilot will never skip the crucial process of his pre-flight checklist, no matter how many times he has gone through it in the past. He can recite it in his sleep, yet he goes down the checklist each and every flight.

If a person who has already found much success in his or her life religiously sticks to their routine in order to stay successful, how much more important is it for us “rookies” to create and follow a morning “pre-flight” checklist!?

 

Create a morning routine that will allow you to do great things.

Something as simple as sacrificing that extra thirty-five minutes of sleep, the ones we fight for every morning, can be the difference.

Want a few tips to make better use of that time? Here is a short list of ideas taken from some of the most successful people in the world. Make these things a part of your morning routine.

Read for 15 minutes.


Journal.


Stretch.


Do a few breathing exercises to open up your lungs and blood flow.


Meditate.


Plan your day. 


Reflect on where you have been. 


Evaluate where you are headed. 


Smile. 

The bridge to success

The difference between the successful and unsuccessful people is no secret at all.

There’s no scheme, there’s no unfairness, there’s no “genetics” of success.

People will come up with excuses like “you’re just techy, you’re artsy, you’re independent, your athletic”.

Yes we’re all born with a personality type but even that we can change.

Are you ready to hear what makes the successful people really successful and not just what many people think it is?

They put in 50,000 more hours in than you did.

They studied day and night instead of moping about how difficult it is.

They got up early even while you slept in because “you’re not a morning person”, this might come as a shock but: neither are they.

 

Willpower is what they obtain instead of excuses.

This is why there are so few successful people. Because we all want what they have, but we’re not willing to put in the work that they did.

So we get mad at them, jealous that we’re not there yet and say things out of our own insecurities like, “well eating healthy is not living at all”, “Well they have an athletic build that’s why they’re so successful in sports”. No, they worked their butt off while you sat on yours so you can make claims about them to make yourself feel relevant.

Desperation is what burns in their bellies.

They got to this point where they said “everyone else is putting in this much effort, and this is what they’re getting out of it: mediocrity. If I put in more work than them, naturally I will have a greater outcome”.

This is the part where some people stay on one end of the bridge looking over at the successful ones with binoculars.

 

That bridge is called Desperation.

This desperation bridge was put together not by cement or wood or stone or metal. It was put together by hours upon hours of work, practice, practice, practice, and countless failures.

Don’t let fear of failing stop you. Failing is the only way you will learn and gain wisdom. It’s the only way you build character; living.

Please start living so that the world can gain more greatness.

It’s get overwhelming but take it one day at a time.

Start by getting up at least 10 minutes earlier than you normally do, eating 1/4 less than you normally do. Replacing an unhealthy snack for a fruit once a day or adding a teaspoon less of sugar to your coffee.

Setting apart an extra 30–60min for studying whatever you want to succeed in.

Putting in 5 extra reps into your routine or 5 extra min to your run.

These little tasks will add up and you will keep adding to them. You will start getting endorphins from even the small accomplishments and they will push you to do more.

Soon the things you thought were impossible become your reality.

There IS a better way to live!

 

AUTHOR: Sulamita Ivanov. Sulamita is a SpeakLife contributor who is passionate about pursuing a life worth living. Meet her on INSTAGRAM.

Thank you for reading! We just published a BOOK on extraordinary living. Find it (HERE) and a short video of it ( HERE ) 

Taking action will take the fears away

Over-thinking will always inflate your fears, taking action will deflate them.

By now you’ve heard countless times of the effect fear has on us. Everybody fears something, and this includes people who do amazing things in this world.

We are visual beings living in a physical world so the way our brain keeps us alive is by warning us of what can kill us.

If we see a tiger, our brain screams RUN!!

If we see a fire, our brain screams RUN!!

If we see a crowd we are supposed to speak in front of, our brain screams RUN!!

Everything we think about doing is analyzed for it’s greatest risk.

“Will this kill me? Will this embarrass me? Will I lose all of my money?”

I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my right knee years ago while playing football.

It hurt like hell when it happened and it hurt much worse for the next few months to come.

I hoped my problem would go away by ignoring it because I was afraid to get the surgery required for my knee to work properly.

I thought I was fine until a basketball game months later where my knee buckled and the pain was much worse than when I originally tore it.

I knew right then, surgery was inevitable.

Never having surgery before, I began to imagine all of the things that could go wrong. What if I died while under anesthesia? What if I woke up during surgery? What if the doctor operated on the wrong knee!? What if the surgery didn’t help?

These are all irrational thoughts and may sound stupid but that’s what fears are. Most of the time they are just imaginations.

 

The inflation begins

We start imagining every worst possible scenario. And the more we picture everything that could go wrong, the more the fear expands.

It’s scary to start a new business when every possibility of failure plays through your head.

It can seem overwhelming to go from dream to reality when we have no idea where to even begin and that unknown is frightening.

And so it is, before we can even really dream, before we can allow ourselves the possibility of doing something amazing, we’ve already buried the idea.

Once again, in an attempt to help, our brain has defeated our heart.

 

To take away a fear, you must take action

You won’t convince your fear away so you just have to begin. Just like you show a child how to do something that scares them by first doing it yourself, you treat your brain like a child. 

Are you dreaming BIG enough?

If the biggest dream you currently have can be accomplished in one year, you are NOT dreaming big enough.

If you know exactly how to achieve your biggest dream, you are NOT dreaming big enough.

If achieving your dream does not require you to massively invest into yourself in all aspects of your life, you are NOT dreaming big enough.

 

3 years ago I came to a point in my life that required some huge changes for me. I was living with little direction and had a very vague idea of what a life of “purpose” might look like.

I needed change and achieving a few goals was not going to bring that to me. It wasn’t more money, love, friends, muscles, or relationships that I needed.

For a long time I had neglected to challenge myself or to allow myself to grow.

My choice of “career” was pulled out of a hat, because well… you have to choose something, and I figured I was pretty much set up for success after that.

What a miserable miscalculation that was.

That lack of challenge, growth, creativity, and meaning killed me. I became dead inside as I withered away in my work space made of carpeted, inch-thick aluminum. Also known as a cubicle.

 

There are “basic human needs” and there are “Not-so-basic human needs”

Our “basic” needs are things we need to do every day. Eat, poop, sleep, and eat again.

The “Not-so-basic” needs are the ones that truly keep us alive. These are the things that pull us out of bed every morning, these are the needs that we desperately seek to fill with every moment, interaction, and choice we make.

We all have the need for growth, expressing creativity, connection, contribution, and significance to name a few.

That’s why if your’re only dreaming of more money or things, you will never be fulfilled.

Along my journey, I failed to find something that would challenge me to grow. I was doing nothing that allowed me to be creative, and I certainly was not feeling like I was contributing much.

I failed to dream big, and with that, I failed to fulfill some of my biggest needs.

I knew that if I was going to become the kind of human I wanted to be, I would have to dream big, very big.

 

“Big goals” aren’t always big enough, we need to stretch ourselves

Publishing my first book had been a huge goal of mine for quite some time and it could not have been done if not for the many years of personal growth and mindset shifting that I came through.

But as much work and time as I invested into completing this huge project, it wasn’t going to quite stretch me into the person I wanted to be. Nor will writing a 2nd or 3rd book.

Writing the book certainly filled my need for creativity and contribution. But for me to grow to where I want to go, I would need to reach for something that can’t be attained in under a year.

 

Your dreams have to seem impossible

Someone recently asked me why I am so interested in mastering the art of storytelling and public speaking, which is something I am persistently working towards. I thought about this for a while and could not answer the question.

Yes, I guess it would fill some of my needs, maybe it would give me a sense of contribution and definitely significance, but I knew that I was driven by a need much stronger than those two.

I realized it was my need for victory, my need for growth, and the challenge of being a better me.

You see, I have insecurities, fears, comforts, habits, beliefs, and ideas that limit me in so many ways. For years this was fine with me because when these limitations surfaced in my life, I found ways to avoid them.

This ignorance led me to a dead end and this no longer will work for me.

To master the art of public speaking for me was/is so far fetched from my reality that it is exactly where I knew I needed to head.

I knew that in order for me to be the man I wanted to be, the one who conquered all of his weaknesses, who mastered all of his fears, who defeated all of his anxiety, I would have to get very uncomfortable.

I would have to overcome major insecurity, take risks, invest time, money, emotion, energy, find courage, develop new habits, and learn new skills.

If you are not required to do any of these things to be the person you wish to be, then you are not dreaming quite big enough!

If we wish to be happy, to be “successful,” to live a life of passion, purpose, and meaning, we must become that which we feel like it’s impossible to be.

We MUST dream big. 

No such thing as an “overnight success”

My success happens over nights.

That’s not a spelling error and I don’t mean it happens over one night.

I mean that my success is cultivated over many nights where the urge to relax or go to sleep pulls at me and yet, I choose to empower my ambition instead of giving in to leisure.

Through many evenings and late nights, when others go home, and mentally check out of building their dream, I stay consistent.

I stay faithful to my ‘Why’ of retiring my parents, and not just to retire them with enough money to survive. But so they could live like they’ve never dreamed of living!

 

Find your “Why”

You see, my parents came to the United States as political refugees. With great risk, 7 children, and a small amount of money in the pocket. They were determined to give us a better life than what we would get back in the Soviet Union.

My parents put every second of every day into caring for us, making sure we had everything we needed, and raising us to walk with Jesus. After these two angels raised us into teenagers, they opened up a business so that they could provide for us on another level.

When I think about my selfless parents, working 7 days a week, nearing the age of sixty, doing manual labor that I myself couldn’t fathom, it pisses me off and it breaks my heart. Yet they continued to pour into this business so that we may be fed, and have comfortable lives.

I told myself that I was doing all I could to advance and become independent, while neglecting the fact that they worked tirelessly for me. I’ve always had a fear of taking action, so I was talking, and never doing.

I wanted to be more like them, selfless. But in order to be selfless, you must think about yourself… less.

 

Start tonight

The more I thought about them, the more it created a burning desire in my heart to achieve my goal of retiring them. I know that I will achieve such a thing because it is bigger than me and because I have set my goal with such determination.

I know that the universe will conspire with me to remove obstacles and allow me to reach my goal. The law of attraction is on my side, whatever I will focus on with all my heart, and enforce with all my effort, so shall it become.

So when I am tired, working long days, and I begin to think, “Why should I have to stay longer than others? Why should I work while others have fun?” I remember that it’s because I will achieve greater things than others.

My “overnight success” becomes real the morning I tell my parents they never have to lift a finger again, if they choose not to.

To me, it has already happened, because I must see it in my mind before I can achieve it with my works.

Today I challenge you to create a meaningful ‘Why’, and to not let any fear or obstacle get in your way of achieving your goal. I challenge you to give credit and glory where it’s due, and to start your journey to “overnight success”, tonight.

There is a better way to live!

 

 

AUTHOR: Erik Ivanov. Erik is a SpeakLife contributor who is passionate about becoming the best version of himself and helping others do the same. Meet him on FACEBOOK..

Thank you for reading! We just published a BOOK on extraordinary living. Find it (HERE) and a short video of it ( HERE ) 

The way you speak reveals what you believe about yourself.

Have you ever had someone try to congratulate you but you somehow knew they weren’t truly happy for you?

I once had someone slap me on the shoulder and manage to squeeze out a big “so happy for you man,” to which I responded just as sarcastically, “Thank you… man,” with a shoulder slap in return.

I immediately sensed the lack of authenticity.

Why is that?

Why is it so obvious?

Well… because only a well-practiced bull-sh**er can look you in the eye and say something they don’t believe without blinking. 

6 ways to make motivation stick

Have you ever watched a motivational video and got so fired up that you were determined to kick down every door standing in your way and go earn $1,000,000…

only to drop back to the same desperate thoughts with a very vague idea, and hope, of how you might actually achieve that prized goal, a few hours later?

That’s how “Motivation” typically works.

We see an Instagram meme, or video with a screaming Rocky, or soft words from Steve Jobs as inspirational music plays in the background, and we get fired up.

“Enough is enough,” we say and we swear to make major changes in our lives right then and there.

I don’t mock. I benefit from these videos and memes every once in a while, and honestly… they CAN make you feel like drawing a line in the sand which we often do.

The only problem is, this never lasts.

 

Motivation: the ticking stove-starter

Motivation is a great tool.

Motivation can be likened to the ticking of a gas-stove flame-starter. It’s a jolt of electricity, a spark of fire that, if fueled by the release of propane or gas, can start a very hot flame.

It’s a reminder, a thought, an idea, that allows you to lift your eyes from the daily grind.

And that is why we constantly seek it. We love the way it makes us feel, even if it’s for a few hours.

Just the thought of success will actually release endorphins to our brains and change our mood immensely.

It allows us to dream of other possibilities again, to not feel like such losers.

Unfortunately, we may spend hours and hours on motivational videos or speeches but I’m here to tell you, it won’t last.

 

It is only if your spark of motivation is met with a brilliant idea, that can be acted upon immediately, will you benefit from “motivation.”

Real motivation comes when the fuel hits the spark and that spark turns to a violent flame that burns deep within.

This is when motivation will take you to new heights.

The only way to make it stick is to use the “sparks” of motivation to start a bigger fire.

Why “doing what you love and not working a day in your life” is a myth

Myth: “If you do what you love you won’t work a day in your life”

 

They say that following your passion is effortless, requires no work, creates no stress and is otherwise easy. No they don’t normally say that word for word but there’s some insinuation, isn’t there? You’ve all heard it before, the cliche statement. The one that says “If you do what you love, you won’t work a day in your life.

 

If you’re like me, (and you probably are to some level,) you’ve fallen victim to this myth. Allow me to explain. You find something you love, something you’re “passionate” about. You go in head first and begin chasing that passion.

Almost instantly you run into trouble, an obstacle or an issue. That of course leads to stress, which leads to anxiety, which removes the joy from your “passion,” which finally leads you to the conclusion.

The conclusion that you no longer love doing what you’re doing, that you are no longer passionate about it. This will likely result in a departure from your passion. I have been here before, many times!

 

So what happens here? Did your passion fade? Do you conclude that you are evolving, and due to this evolution your dreams change and your passions come and go?

Maybe it’s because you found that passion was hard. Doing what you love was work after all. Not only would you have to work but you would have to sacrifice for it!

 

Reality: “If you do what you love you will work every minute of your life”

 

Now that we’ve addressed the myth, what is the reality of following your passion? Can it be that following your passion will actually lead to stress, anxiety? What kind of sacrifices will you have to make for it?

Let’s explore a few examples.

Take for instance Hollywood actor, Sylvester Stallone. Most famous for his Rocky and Rambo series this man is a pinnacle of career accomplishments.

Go ahead and google him for some specifics. Thumb through a couple tabloids. You will find countless achievements, award nominations and winnings, many of them. What you won’t find just as readily is the pain, stress and sacrifice Stallone endured.

In pursuit of his passion the actor recalls being tossed out of agents offices over 1500 times in search of a movie role. He found himself broke, hungry, cold and miserable as he was met with denial after denial. At his lowest point he was forced to sell his dog, his best friend at the local liquor store, because he couldn’t afford food for both himself and his dog. I think it safe to say that Stallone’s passion was a lot of work.

How about a mother? My wife and I recently became parents to a beautiful baby girl.

If you ask Tanya to name her number one passion, she will state without hesitation it’s being a mother! It is her life’s purpose, her passion and deepest love (next to being stuck with me, of course)! In pursuit of her passion she went through the excruciating pain of childbirth. In pursuit of her passion she endures countless sleepless nights feeding and caring for our baby.

Her days are filled with dirty diapers and thankless efforts to raise our child. It’s safe to say that Tanya’s passion is a ton of work!

 

Jesus Christ has a passion, doesn’t he? His passion and love for humanity resulted in stress, ridicule, betrayal, pain and suffering. All this followed by the ultimate sacrifice, death. I think it is safe to say that his passion was a ton of Work!

 

So what’s to gain from the radically contrasting examples I have provided?

How does an aspiring actor compare to a nursing mother, compare to the son of god?

There are several common factors I want to highlight. First off, each holds a deep passion, desire and a love for something.

Furthermore, regardless of the passion, there is much pain, discomfort and sacrifice endured in pursuit of the passion. Passion does not discriminate based on age, gender, color, cultural background or any other factor.

Passion can be described in many positive words such as exciting, exhilarating, fulfilling and downright fun. But make no mistake about it, passion is tough, passion is demanding and passion will make you Work Work Work!!

And… it will always be worth it!!!

 

There IS a better way to live!

 

AUTHOR: Igor Ivanov. Igor is a SpeakLife contributor who is passionate about inspiring change in the lives of others. Meet him on FACEBOOK.

Thank you for reading! We just published a BOOK on extraordinary living. Find it (HERE) and a short video of it ( HERE ) 

How watching the success of others can hurt you

Have you ever paid attention to a horse’s eyes in a race?

You’ll notice they often wear something over their eyes called “blinders.”

One reason for this is to help protect their eyes from dirt and dust…

But the main reason is a bit more important.

They are often strapped with these eye covers to keep them focused straight ahead.

Horses have peripheral vision, they can see behind them and all around each side. This can cause a problem in a race because if a horse gets scared or distracted, it may run off course, or worse, collide with another racer.

For the jockey, it is important to ensure that the horse looks only straight ahead.

It does the horse no good to see what the others are doing. In fact, it does not matter what the others are doing. In the race, it is entirely up to each animal to win. What the others do makes no difference.

It must only do everything in its own power and strength to win. It must stay in it’s own lane, and run with everything it’s got.

 

Stop watching what everyone else is doing.

Unfortunately we often find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the scared horse. The one in the race that can’t keep it’s eyes on the track.

We look around, wide-eyed, watching everyone else run their race and we lose hope.

We see others success and we get discouraged. We see people do things that we want to be doing and they have progress and we ourselves seem to be spinning in circles.

I am that scared horse more often than I am the leading horse.

I catch myself often feeling completely discouraged when I see the stampede of others roar by, seemingly with ease, while I myself have to try with everything I have to see little progress.

When I do this, I immediately put myself in last place mentally.

 

Comparing our life to others is useless.

Everyone finds their success at different times of life. Each one of us has our own race to run and at the end of our days, it won’t matter what everyone else accomplished.

We have to stop putting ourselves in last place, justifying why others deserve success and we don’t.

Our life feels like this horse race but the difference is that in life, you don’t “win” by beating others.

You “win” by beating yourself. Your own doubts, fears, and obstacles.

Your race is against you.

There is no last place besides the one you put yourself into when you focus on others, causing yourself to stop running your own race.

You will have won when you can look back at your life and genuinely say that you ran your race the best way you possibly could,

…when you left nothing in the tank.

Stop putting yourself in last place and run YOUR race! Shift your focus on what YOU can be doing and not what others are doing.

There IS a better way to live!

 

Thank you for reading! I just published my BOOK on extraordinary living. Find it (HERE) and a short video of it ( HERE ) 

Give yourself permission to do great things

The other day I received my proof copy of the book I have been working on for the past 6 months.

My hands were slightly shaky when I first opened the package, delivered by the FedEx guy with questionably short shorts.

The anxiety and the excitement came together in a blend of emotions that quickly turned into one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment I have had yet.

I felt victorious holding what was first created in the mind, visualized daily for over half a year, and now, physically sitting in the palm of my hand.

Out of the mind came a manifestation of what was once only an idea.

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” -Napoleon Hill

 

Give yourself permission 

I don’t believe that we give ourselves enough credit when it comes to thinking big.

Because when we first birth an idea in the mind, and before anyone ever gives their approval, we’ve already allowed our minds to wander and dream so big that our ideas actually scare the hell out of us. We can already see the finish line.

I know there are things you have imagined doing or creating that you have never told anyone about, but have thought about endlessly.

That crazy business idea, that new invention, that book you’ve been wanting to write for so long.

But when it comes to doing it, we tie and bound ourselves so tight in our minds that we choke any action out of existence.

We want permission before we can proceed.

We subtly hint at the idea around others in a hope that they will give us a big, “YEAH, AWESOME IDEA…. DO IT.”

We’ve given ourselves the permission to dream it, but we wait for permission from others to go do it.

The quote above, by Napoleon Hill, has been a building block of a belief in my mind that only grows stronger each day.

“Think & Grow Rich” was one of the first personal development books I read and it was Mr. Hill’s quote that gave me all of the approval I will ever need.

It allowed me to understand that there is no thing, and no one, that can ever stand in the way of a mind that believes a thing it has conceived.

It gave me the permission to silently get my butt to work. To quietly dream. To persistently visualize a thing I wanted to create, and wait for no one to tell me it was OK.

Don’t wait for a bandwagon of people to cheer you on when you dare to dream of a thing. It will never come.

Read and re-read Napoleon’s words until they become a part of your entire belief system because you will never get permission from the rest of world.

In fact, here is another quote from this brilliant man, one that I used to have pasted in my cubicle wall, and in every journal I have ever kept:

“The world will hold you back until they see you refuse to quit, then they will step aside and watch you go by.”

Give yourself the permission to do great things.

There is a better way to live!

 

Thank you for reading! I am nearing the release of my BOOK, based on living the extraordinary life. Find it ( HERE )