Deep Dive into Overcoming Adversity: Lessons on Self-Leadership and Mindset Change

Hello my fellow humans and welcome to the Multiverse Leadership Podcast. If you could solve one supply chain or packaging challenge, what would it be? Today we're excited to have Randy fairs with us. A global award winning consultant, keynote speaker, and the founder of Dr. Box Consulting. Randy's experience spans from supply chain innovation, packaging, business improvement, health, having saved companies millions and led a major turnaround for Fortune 1000 firms. He's also, he's also a sought after expert witness and coach for executives looking to accelerate their careers and achieve work life balance. Randy, welcome to the podcast today.

Hey Justin, it's a pleasure always to be here and have opportunity to be on your podcast. You know, you're a great person and you have a lot of value that you provide to your audience and it's a pleasure to hopefully be able to give a little bit to your audience and help them with a little bit of value.

Thank you. Oh, Chucks, I'm not crying. You're crying. Thank you so much. I'd love to dive into your journey that you've been on, how you're helping other human beings out there.

Okay. Well, you know, Justin, I started at rock bottom, literally digging ditches with a pick and shovel for $4 an hour. I have Tourette syndrome, so if you see me twitching on this side, that's my Tourette syndrome, adhd. I never earned a college degree, which makes everything a little more challenging when you're trying to climb the corporate ladder. When you have any type of a disability, you really can either let it define you or you can decide to not let it hold you back from what you're willing to or capable of accomplishing. And so many people take the victim mentality and they just decide because I have these limitations, they then they just kind of give up and put a ceiling on themselves. But I've seen amputees, I've seen blind people. I've seen so many people that have accomplished absolutely incredible things in their life because they decided to not look at themselves from that mindset. But hey, what can I do within my capabilities? And they use that as a drive and a springboard to launch them forward. And you should always do that. Never have that victim mentality. So from there I worked as a janitor, juggling multiple low paying jobs to make apartment rent with a couple of roommates, and then became a general laborer at 21 in manufacturing. However, there was a pivotal moment during a disastrous interview early in my career that really kind of changed my trajectory a bit. Cause I was nervous and I could barely speak My hands were shaking, I was sweating and completely fumbled. Simple question about my experience and walked out feeling humiliated and certainly didn't get the job. So that experience kind of lit a fire in me and I became obsessed with understanding what separated successful candidates from those who failed. So I studied the psychology, communication, sales, storytelling, anything that could, like give me an edge. And I developed what I call the fearless achiever method. And I have a book coming out before the end of this year. It just came out of editing called the Ultimate Interview guide, How to out interview everyone else and get the career of your dreams. And I have a foreword written by Frank King, who was a writer for the tonight show for 20 years and is the record holder for the most TEDx talks in history with 13. So he wrote my forward and the transformation once I started doing this really was remarkable using these techniques. I attended an interview that ended with me being called into the executive vice president's office. And he said, we don't want you to leave our building before agreeing to work with us. What will it take to get you to run our plant and not take a counteroffer? So I essentially wrote my own offer, resulting in a 60% increase in my salary. And they were excited to have me for that salary. And that's when I kind of realized that I didn't just learn how to out interview everyone else. I pretty much had cracked the code on career acceleration. I soon thereafter, when I changed jobs the next time, I became the youngest but highest paid general manager running a multinational business unit for a Fortune 1000 company on the Forbes most admired list and won a global award for business improvement, beating out thousands and thousands of other companies. So, and then at that point I decided I'd always wanted to do some other things. I actually became a CEO of a executive recruiting company and now I'm running my own consulting company. Been doing that for 15 years. I was on BBC for improving the entire economy of the Republic of Georgia in Eastern Europe. And I was asked by the US and Afghan governments to help launch four different industries in Afghanistan, which I accomplished prior to the Taliban takeover. But despite my success and rapid career advancement from labor to CEO, I've had the same concerns and problems and fears as everyone else. Am I prepared enough for the next level job? Especially when you're going up rapidly. It's like I only have a couple years of experience here and I'm going up against people with 30 years of experience at this level. You know, what if I fail? What if they don't like me? What if My company finds out I'm looking for a better job. I've never liked bragging about myself. How am I going to be the best candidate? But. But I learned that it's not about bragging. Cause bragging is never gonna get you the job. It's about proving that you're the best for that position and not telling. Because people fool us with their words every day. They tell us something and they don't follow through. What matters is where the action is. So you don't wanna tell somebody you're good. Cause if you do, you're probably not. You wanna prove it to them. And I have special format, you know, special things that I teach my clients that help them prove it in the interview as opposed to trying to brag about themselves or trying to be disingenuous.

That is one amazing journey there. Thank you so much for sharing that. Because a lot of us find ourselves there. Especially going back to. About the disability part. Early in my life, I'd always put myself in the box. Oh, I have ADD or I'm on the autism spectrum. I can't learn like other people. And sometimes I find myself kind of going back to that, using it as an excuse or the story that I tell myself. So I can't move forward how I want to in my life or career. And I feel like a lot of people out there really do that same thing. But not realizing you're putting yourself in that box, but you're. You think you're thinking outside of it, but really you're just. You're cluttering up where you could be and not really getting there because you're holding yourself back.

Yeah. God has only given us one life, and every day we get to choose what we want to do with it. So, you know, why not do the most that you can with the limited amount of time that we have? There are so many people that spend so much time watching television, playing video games, watching YouTube, thousands of hours after hours of stuff that does not add any value to their life at all. Not learning, they're not growing. And if they took that time and just focused it on something that can improve their life, it is incredible the amount of difference that their life can take. Because, you know, a lot of people even that are great at something, they're very imbalanced people that are elite, experts at work or their own business now. Their family suffers, their social life suffers, their relationships suffer, their religious studies suffer, their health and fitness suffers. Their brain's always on whatever their focus is, and everything else falls to the wayside. And it's hard to be happy when you're only focused and only doing well in one area. Even if you're one of the best in the world at this area, that doesn't mean you can't be great in other areas of your life. I'm one of the top experts in.

Doing forensic work for packaging failures and things. I've been involved in more than 35 different legal cases as an expert, but I also am a supply chain expert, and I help save millions of dollars. I'm also an interviewing and career acceleration expert. But I have pretty good balance in different areas of my life. Now. Do I always have as much time as I want to put in each one?

No.

But if you don't have all that time, you need to be intentional with what you choose to do. So when. Especially when it has to do with people you choose, okay, I'm going to be intentional. I'm going to. Even if you're married for a long time, we're going to go on a date three times a week, and we're going to go do different things that are fun. I'm going to spend this time with my kids. I'm not going to miss their events. I'm going to make sure that I'm in church every week and, you know, reading out of my Bible. If you happen to be a believer like I am. If not, whatever you're reading, whether it's whatever your religion is, the religious study is a good part of your happiness in your life. And if you're neglecting your hobbies, you were talking about before we hopped on here, that you've been kind of neglecting your playing of music, right? Being able to play guitar and, you know, all you need to do is be intentional. Pick 30 minutes twice a week and say, hey, as soon as I wake up, before I do anything else, I'm playing my guitar for 30 minutes. And that'll have an impact on your life. You might not see it now, but if you just keep a goal and keep touching every area of your life, your finances, your health, everything, and you just be intentional, set goals and all of them, and at least do something to move those forward every week, you'll be amazed at the transformation that you'll have in every aspect of your life and how you feel as far as being fulfilled in this life.

That is so true and so well said. I love how you touched on being intentional because I, at first I thought it was intentional with everything else, but I take on so many things sometimes or Like, a lot of us don't really know where to start or how to even get from A to B sometimes with that intentional part. My calendar is flow with things I'm intentionally doing. But at the same time, like we were talking earlier, I neglect my playing the guitar. I miss music in my life. I was good at music in my life. It was a part of my life. And it's just understanding how to implement that more into my life. And I also like how you were talking about the intentions of being able to do everything because so many of us think we can do everything, but we can't, or we do nothing because of that. Some of that we're holding ourselves back by not understanding how we can get there intentionally to do the things we want to do or should do in our lives or what's important to us.

Yeah. And the vast majority of everybody doesn't know this. And it took me many years to learn it myself. Don't teach it. But do you know what holds all of us back more than anything in this world?

Ourselves.

Ourselves, right here between our brain, right here in our head.

That's powerful, man.

It is our own limiting beliefs, our own experiences in the past that kind of shape our paradigm and shape the way we view the world. Just because we view the world that way doesn't mean it's right. Because all of us view the world differently. Every single person in this world views it differently. So there's a whole bunch of realities and a whole bunch of right. So if you can just let go of that and open your mind instead of saying, you know, there are a hundred reasons I can't do something, well, let's see if I can find one reason that I can, and if I can, let me focus on trying to do that. And if there are things that are limiting me, what is the absolute worst that can happen?

You do nothing.

Can I live with that? I mean, this is a Dale Carnegie teaching here. But can I live with that? And if I can live with that, then why not go out there and be scared and be. You know, there is no courage without fear. And that's why I call my programs the Fearless Achiever Method. Because I'm not saying we'll eliminate all your fear, but all of your growth happens on the other side of fear. If you sit in your box of fear and you're uncomfortable, and I might be embarrassed, and I might look stupid and I might fail. You know, let's take Thomas Edison. He has more, you know, inventions than anyone in the history of the world. And he said, I learned early in life that I failed nine out of ten times. So I tried ten times more things, and if we can just apply some of that type of mentality that it's okay to fail, so what, what's the worst that going to happen? The worst thing that could possibly happen to us is we die, right? So if it's not going to kill.

Us, it makes us stronger.

We can live through it. So get out there and fail. Get out there and try. Because the reality is, most of the time, the failure isn't really a failure. What happens is people run into the.

First obstacle, oh, that's it, I'm done.

And then they say, I can't do it. That's why they fail. Not because of the obstacle, but because psychologically and mentally they gave up. Instead of saying, well, can I go around it to the left? Can I go around it to the right? Can I climb over it? Can I dig under it? Can I blow through it? Yeah, there's. There's almost always a way to get around the obstacle. It's just not easy. You got to set out the plan. And sometimes if you run into an immovable block, then maybe you alter your path. Because there's always more than one way to get to your destination. And even if you have a super lofty goal and you don't hit it and you come up a little bit short, you're still so much more of a developed person by the time you get there. Because it's not about the destination. It really isn't. It's about the journey. It's about what you learn and you grow along the way, who you become as you go on that journey. If you become the person that should be in that spot, you will be in that spot at some point. But if you don't go through the process to become the person that's right for that spot, then you're going to get stuck behind those boulders that are in your way.

I was so. Well said. Love that. Become the person who's worthy of your dreams. That's what comes to my mind. Become that person. You know, in life we're not taught these things. And it's interesting because as children, we're resilient. We want to figure things out. We go up, we go down, we do whatever it takes to get there. But as we get older in life, it's like we lose that capability or lack of understanding that things can be done differently. We forget that so much. How we're taught, how we're raised things we See, it's like our creative thinking and rational thinking kind of just goes out the window, and we just become like this numb, silent creature moving through life, not understanding where to go, what to do. It's crazy.

Sure. Like, my son's about ready to go off to college, and he has autism. He's on the spectrum as well. And he has adhd. And he's probably going to get into an Ivy League school, which. Which no one in our family in its history has ever done. Hell, yeah, he's probably going to get in. He's got a good shot. He's in the top 99 percentile on his tests, and he's done a lot of different leadership. He's competed in world championships in percussion and some other things. So, you know, you don't let things limit you. You make that choice. But what happens is, let's look at our educational system. What is the purpose? If you ask most people, it's going to really prepare you for a great job. It's going to give you everything you need. So let's assume you graduated with a PhD from Yale. Just pulling something out of the sky. Okay. Do they really teach you how to excel in your career? They don't.

They teach you how to do it.

They teach you all the foundational building blocks so you can adapt and pivot and have some strength in a lot of different areas. That gives you a strong educational background. So when they throw curveballs at you, you can adjust and you can pivot, but they do not teach you how to outperform all of the other workers. That's not something they teach in school, and they don't teach you that at work either. So you have to figure all of that out. And so that's why I am so passionate about teaching that to people and coaching people. And it doesn't matter whether you're doing it on your own business. I've done it in my own business. I've done working for Fortune 1000 corporations. I've done it helping other large companies. But it's. You need to know how to outdo your competition. And they, like you mentioned, they never teach you that it's something you have to figure out on your own or you have to have a mentor or a coach or somebody tell you, or you got to figure it out. And it's. It's not that easy to do when nobody's teaching it.

It's not. I've had. I have friends where I try and help them to understand these concepts sometimes, and they just look at me like they've seen a ghost or like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, because, like, they feel that who they are now and what they've learned to now is going to get them through the next step in their life and they're going to excel. But that's not necessarily true. It only gets you to where you are and what you know. It's not even next level what it takes.

Let's just look at working for somebody. What makes you a great employee doesn't make you a great manager.

So true.

So you have to learn a completely new set of skills because managing is getting the most out of your team and coordinating a lot of different projects, not just excelling at doing something. And then what makes you a great manager is not going to make you a good executive. Now you have to switch all that thinking and now you have to switch to the strategic mindset and leading, you know, the leading edge in customer service and growth and innovation in and, you know, trying to get breakthrough and cost reductions and efficiency and the human aspect. How do we, you know, because if our people want us to succeed, we're probably going to succeed. If our people want us to fail, you can probably hang it up because they'll make you fail no matter how much you try. If you are a bad leader, you're going to fail because your people will not be fighting for you to win. They're not going to fight to help you get to the top of that mountain. They're going to be fighting against you in the shadows without you even being aware of it.

That is so true. And I've experienced that on many different levels with different employers trying, trying to help them understand, lead their company a certain way because they're not a good leader themselves. But they're not even listening or paying attention either. That's kind of, that's how a lot of these companies lose their good people, you know, for sure.

You got to appreciate them. They need to be challenged, appreciated, and feel valued or why would they stay?

Yeah, there's a lot of old thinking where it's like, I'm giving you a job, you're helping, you're in my company, you work for me. That's it. Like, that's not it. There's more to it.

People don't know what they want either.

That is true.

If you, everyone, you know what they want in a boss, almost all of them will tell you, oh, I want a boss that just lets me know what needs to be done and then gets out of my way and leaves Me alone and lets me do it right.

I've actually asked people that question. Some of the like, they give a lot of different answers, but a lot of it's rooted down into. They're very unsure still.

But all of that is wrong. Nobody wants that boss. Nobody. I don't care who you are. If you say that's what you want, you're wrong. Because if you have a boss that doesn't recognize when you're doing poorly and bring it to your attention and they don't recognize when you're doing well and pat you on the back and give you appreciation so you don't feel appreciated when you do good, do a good job when you're doing poorly and you know that you're not doing well and they're not even recognizing it, how can you enjoy your job? How can you.

Why the hell do I care then? At that point, you can't.

It's impossible to like your job with somebody that just leaves you alone and lets you do what you want to do. You need a strong leader that's going to set goals, hold you accountable, and make sure that you can grow and you can get to that next level and help prepare you. Because you're always learning. You should always be learning and growing, not only in work, but outside. And if you're an entrepreneur, it's even worse because you jump out there as an entrepreneur. Now it's all you. And now you not only have to know how to run a business, but you have to know how to market and you have to know how to advertise and you have to know how to write copy, and you have to know how to get efficiency and how to manage people and how to budget and how to file taxes. Even if you have an accountant, you still have to understand it to be effective. You got, you know so many things. You have to learn to start your own business, and that's a small business. And a small business is only capable of growing to a certain level. And once you get to a certain level, the whole level of sophistication of your thinking process has to go up and mature and grow before you can expand past that first plateau. Because the thinking that got you there cannot get you to the next level. You have to be able to manage now larger groups. You have to manage managers that each now manage groups and be effective. It's just you have to keep growing regardless of whether you're doing it on your own, doing it as a side business, doing it within your job and your career, doing it within your Family, doing it within any aspect of your life.

That is so true and so well said. I know, like a lot of our listeners, I find myself there a lot now and just trying to figure out self leadership is so important. It's like a foundation to all of this. Once you can learn to really lead yourself, know what you want and what you're looking for, have an idea what you, your purpose is and how to fulfill that, that really helps kind of level you up to understand that you're not going to get there on your own. You got to build teams like you're saying, build those different levels to scale and go up. But you got to start with yourself first. So when you know what you want, then you can have more of an idea of what you need, what the others around you want as well.

When I think back on my career, there were a bunch of different pivotal moments where if somebody didn't say something at a certain time, my career could have done something completely different. Just one decision that I made or that somebody else mentored me on changed my trajectory. And I might not have recognized it at the time, but when you get there and you think back, it's like, you know, things could have been completely different if I didn't learn that lesson, if somebody didn't, you know, nobody gets to the top on their own ever. It just doesn't happen. And the reality is that the people you work with and your friends and family most of the time don't really want you to get there. They'll tell you they want you to get there.

Hell yeah. Good job. Yeah, keep going.

But then if you get there and they're still here, they don't want that because then they feel, well, how come you did that? Well, you just must have got lucky. You just must. It wasn't luck. You had a different plan, you had a different. You set your goals, you had accountability, you had people coaching and mentoring you. I spent 40,000 plus on my own coaches in the last 12 months, and I'm pretty happy with where I'm at, but that's not my ultimate goal. I'm still growing, I'm still trying to go forward. So all the mistakes that I don't have to make because I have people that have been there and done that saying, hey, yeah, I see what you're doing here, but you're wrong. I am? How so? And then they tell me and it's like, you know, you're absolutely right, that makes sense. But I don't have the 30 years of experience, 20 years, 10 years doing exactly this. So I don't have that experience there. You know, what works for this group doesn't necessarily work for that group. What you know, every scenario is different. And when you're starting out, if you're getting advice from people that have one vertical, that philosophy may not be careful.

That's dangerous.

So you need. And your friends and family say they want the best for you, but when you really start taking off and they're not, because they're not making choices that you are, then they start to get, in some cases, resentful and things like that. They may not tell you to your face, but they don't really want you to skyrocket all the way up to the top while they're still sitting where they're at, because they're not being intentional. Setting the roadmap, getting the mentors and the coaches and making an investment in their own knowledge and skills to make sure that they continue to grow and improve their life.

Ooh, that is so powerful. I feel that right now, really hard. I've experienced that recently, too. It's like, no matter how much you try and bring them with you, there's always so much you can do for other people because they will hold you back eventually. If they don't want to come with you, they don't want to go on that journey. You have to be careful with that.

And that's the reason that I pay my own coaches, because they can champion my dream, and they want me to succeed, and they want to do everything they can to try to help me succeed, and that's invaluable to me. And so that's why that's what I do to my clients. And I'm able to deliver incredible results. Helping them. Does it mean that I know everybody, every answer to every single problem out there? Nobody does. But I do know through all of my knowledge and experience and skills and the knowledge and skills of my clients and their knowledge of their situation and their roadblocks, that between the two of us, we can figure out a way to overcome just about any obstacle.

That's so well said. There's so many limiting beliefs that we have sometimes that we don't know. We don't know what we don't know to overcome them. And they can just lead us in a really bad place, and we can be feel stuck so much, and it.

Causes people to procrastinate all these limiting beliefs, and they don't do it. And so their mind says, hey, I want to be here. Yeah, but their subconscious says, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's too scary. No, no, no, you haven't done that before.

Comfort.

What if you're not good enough? What if you fail? What if you fall on your face and that's not a bad thing and people look at it and you know, they're so conflicted because, well, I say I want this, but my actions aren't getting me closer every day. But the reality is your subconscious is trying to protect you based on its history and its.

I don't want protecting anymore.

Well, that's paradigms. So what we need to do through like a coaching process to help get over the limiting beliefs is we don't eliminate all the fear because you're never going to eliminate all of it because you're going into the unknown. But if we can just get that fear below your desire.

To get to your goal. Now you can make a step. And when you look at the mountain, it looks overwhelming. How am I going to get to the top of that mountain? Well, stop looking. Set the goal. That's where I'm going now. Set your goal and your eyes on the next step.

And when you complete reframe here.

Yes, the next step. And then you look, where is the next step that's going to get me closer to the top of that mountain? And you make the next step. And you make the next step. And before you know it, if you do this every day with a intention, before you know it, you look down and I'm halfway up the mountain already. It's not so daunting. I'm going to get there. And you just keep going. You may not know exactly how the path goes. If you've ever tried to hike up a mountain, sometimes there's multiple paths and not all of them go to the mountain, but you may go down a wrong path. Having to come back and go. But eventually you'll get to the mountain if you just keep taking the next step and you keep your eyes on the prize and you have someone championing your ideas. So when you aren't strong enough to make the next step, that's when your coach steps in and says, hey, you are strong enough. You can do this. You have all the skills and the knowledge and the abilities. Basically. You know, Zig Ziglar used to say fear was an acronym for false evidence appearing real. And in so many times that's the case. How many people are scared or worried every day. And 95% of the things they're afraid never happen.

The stories we tell ourselves are so powerful. Okay, they are.

And it's like interest you're paying in advance on something you're never going to own because it's never going to happen. But because it could happen, you're not making that next step. And so, you know, there are a lot of different methods and things that can be done to help overcome those type of mental boundaries. But. But the reality is those are the hardest boundaries to get over, because once you get over those, all the other boundaries usually can be broken down.

I love how you put that, because there are some days where, like, you feel like you're growing and going the right direction so much, but then if things just seem off and weird because your homeostasis is not where it used to be and you want. Like you was talking about the comfort, but you just feel like you want to do nothing that day, or things don't seem like they're going the right direction, and you just gotta give yourself that space to just kind of understand things are changing too. I find myself there sometimes.

Excellence is never comfortable. It isn't. If it was easy, everybody would have already achieved their dreams. Yeah, it's not easy. It's not comfortable.

It's not.

It's not. You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You have to learn to be courageous in the face of fear, not let fear make you stay comfortable. Because as long as you stay comfortable, you're never going to grow. Yes.

And I'll never be able to achieve what I want and know that I'm fully capable of achieving. I'll just be stuck right there. Now, that sounds just like more miserable than not doing something. But this seems like it's a constant struggle. Sometimes you want to go grow a little bit, but you kind of want to stay a little bit. It's almost like this shift that needs to happen, a mindset change that you need to grasp, a limiting belief that you have to overcome in order to really get there. And it's a struggle.

Sure. And you'll get some areas of comfort. When you struggle and you have that discomfort and you're able to overcome it and you get to that next objective, you'll have your little sigh of relief. Wow, this is great. I got there, but the mountain's still up there, so this is great. I'm happy we're doing good momentum, but I want up there, so. All right, let's take a breath. And tomorrow we make another step.

And that's why I'm finding myself that you taking that breath, this breathing, take it one day at a time. Because, like, A lot of us, we have this. This energy to want to go up all those steps in one day. We can make it up there. But that foundation, it'll be so broken and unstable.

The reality is you won't be unstable when you get there, because every step you make, you become stronger, you become more knowledgeable, you become more skilled. Staying in comfort is what's going to kill you. Staying in comfort is why so many people can barely get out of bed and walk to the mailbox when they're my age. Because, I mean, I'm old enough where I can get senior citizens discounts at some places. But when people just stay comfortable, that's not what God intended for us.

No, that was very well said. Love how you said that. Because as I get older, too, that's why I really take my fitness and health seriously. Because I don't want to be that person that's just on the couch and can't get up or I can't move. I want to be 70 years old and knowing that I can lift my wife and my kid with both arms still and not hurt myself. You have resilience.

That's how we get to 80. If we're lucky enough to get to 80 and 90. We want to be able to do stuff. We want to be able to live a life. Because living a life where you're stuck in a chair or a bed isn't much of a life.

It's not.

But the reality is, if that's where you're at, and it's not because of severe medical things, and a lot of times medical things are because you didn't take care of yourself. But the reality is, it doesn't matter which area of life. Look at every area of your life. You are where you're at because of choices you've made 100%. When people blame anything external, they can no longer grow. They can no longer move forward because they've now given up the control of their choices to the world and said, nope, I just, you know, it's not my fault. It's not my fault, and I don't care what it is. Yes, bad things happen to people.

Yes.

You can't may. You may have, you know, been abused. You may have had something happen and that was not your choice. And you're absolutely right, it sucks, it's horrible.

But.

But you get to choose where you go tomorrow and where your mind is. Now that I've had this happen to me, I'm just going to be defeated my whole life. Or, no, hey, I'm not only a survivor, I'm a thriver. And yes, this shitty stuff happened to me. Excuse my language, but these bad things happened to me. But I am not going to let that define my life. And I am not going to let these bad things destroy what I'm capable of doing in my life, in every aspect, in my health, in my fitness, in my hobbyist. Even if you had the horrible things happen to you, if you are intentional and making progress on your career, whether it's entrepreneurship or working for someone else, and your health and your family and your friends and social and your religion and all of those different things, you can be happy regardless of what happened in the past. Because what happened in the past is over. And if you can't, you cannot move forward until you can let go. Now, yes, what the Bible will teach you is you have to forgive. And what a lot of people don't understand, forgiving does not make it okay. Forgiving does not mean that you are accepting what happened and that it's okay and that you're okay with it at all. Because forgiveness is not for that person, that terrible person. Forgiveness is for you. Forgiveness is your ability to. To say, that's done. I'm going to stay away from that person and anyone like that person and I'm going to carve out my own path and I'm going to learn from the bad things that happened to me and bad things that happen. And I've had a lot of bad things happen to me too. I haven't been abused, but I've had bad things happen intentionally to me by other people. And those can be stories that can help somebody else in a similar situation overcome their own trauma and their own issues so they can continue to move forward.

That is so well said. I love that because we were talking before we got on this call is accountability. So many of us are not accountable for ourselves, our actions at all anymore. It seems like it's becoming less of a thing each day. And people are always blaming external circumstances on everything and anything that they can without taking accountability. I'm still learning about the word accountability because I feel I hold myself accountable for some things, but not the things that I need to and should to, to go forward more in my life. You were saying earlier there's a story I would like to share that this may actually help other people too. We've had things happen to our lives and I've never shared this story, but I feel like it's very important to this conversation to help other people understand how you can Overcome things. And that was in my life. When I was 18, I learned I was adopted. And from that I learned that my adoptive mother was raped by her father. And then they had me. And finding that out was really weird and confusing. I was angry, I was frustrated. But just knowing that also throughout my life, it stayed with me a little bit. But I was able to really understand as I got older and worked on myself, that I needed to forgive my father and my mother for giving me up and for doing that to her. Because it cannot control my life or who I am. I cannot allow that to happen. You know, I just thought I need to share that to help people understand. These things happen. Life sucks sometimes, but it's not the end. All, be all. We are human beings. We are resilient. We have to give ourselves that space, that understanding to grow.

And what happened to create you has absolutely nothing to do. God created you.

Yes.

And you are your own person. You are not just a product of whatever happened before. You are you. And you get to make the decisions and the choices going forward. And somebody else's bad choices does not mean that you need to make those types of choices. You can learn from those choices and make better choices on your own. You can't change the past, but the only one that can control your future is you.

Yeah, and I don't want to change the past. If I had that past was changed, I wouldn't be here now. I wouldn't be on this podcast. I would be having these conversations. I would be able to help other people. I would be non existent.

You know, you're absolutely right. And your story can help somebody else that's dealing with a similar situation learn to overcome that. And that's part of the value you bring to your audience. And in addition to bringing on guests, just your own knowledge and your own skills and your own background of overcoming many things to get to where you're at.

Yeah, I still got a long journey to go and I'm excited for it majority of the time. Some days I'm like, man, okay, it's another step or another thing, but I have to just realize what I'm trying to achieve within myself. That it's not just about me anymore. This is about other people out there. I'm trying to help them with what's going on in their lives. Also, it's not just about me anymore. That can be really hard.

It's also very rewarding when you help somebody else and they're able to overcome challenges they didn't think they could overcome. And they get that victory. When you're helping somebody do that, you get to share in a piece of that victory. You don't want to take any credit, but you get to know, hey, maybe what I did is making a difference. I'm trying to make a good, positive difference in this world, in my coaching. It's my goal, and I'm not happy. And I will do whatever I need to do to make sure that my clients are successful in reaching their goals. Whether they need me to do something or they need to change their mindset or they need that accountability. They're not looking for a friend. They're not looking for. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not friends. You want someone that's going to hold you accountable and that you're going to respect first. Not, hey, this is my friend. Because the friend, a lot of times isn't going to look you in the eye and tell you what you need to know instead of what you want to hear. And when you have someone coaching you, you have to have a cheerleader is not going to get you to your goal. Someone that's going to say, hey, no, you screwed up. You were supposed to do this. You didn't do it. But you know what? Don't fret over it. Nothing is going to crash and burn because you messed up here. Today's a new day. Look at the step you need to make now. Let's make that step and forget about the one you didn't make. Let's make that step now and don't dwell on our failures because we all have thousands and thousands of them.

Them.

We need to focus on where we want to go. And when we get into setbacks, we just need to fight through them. And when we make that next step forward, forget the pain and the things we went through, just remember the lesson and continue moving forward.

It is hard sometimes because we're emotional creatures, some of us more than others. And like, that's all we see, know, learn, understand is our emotions. Sometimes we can't get past that to really see the light and understand things past being so emotional. But that's also. It builds that resilience and that eq.

Sure. And being emotional is not bad if we can find a way to channel some of that from just emotional feelings to passion. Because there's a fine line between a fragile emotional state and passion. And when we're passionate about something, we may be crying. And that's okay. I cry.

It is okay.

We need to know our emotions and feel our emotions. There are not bad. Even the emotions we think that are bad are not bad. They're there for a reason. But what we need to do is we can get in our emotions for a little bit, then we need to be able to wipe it off, step out and use our emotions as a passionate drive. I had somebody ask me, you know, when I'm doing all the, you know, I'm a top expert in packaging, and they're like, well, how in the world can you get so passionate and excited about boxes or packaging?

They're boxes.

What you don't understand is I'm passionate about everything that I do. And it doesn't matter if it's mopping the floor or cleaning the toilets, I'm going to be passionate about what I do, because all of that has an impact on my life. If I don't clean my toilets, then I'm not going to feel good about the rest of my life, especially if I have company come in because I've been to people's houses and you can't use the toilet without wiping the seat and cleaning it before you even use it. And that's not going to be me. So I'm going to be passionate about all the silly things because it's all about a part of who I am.

I love that. And I feel that one actually every day myself. You know, even with, like you said, cleaning the toilet. Those little things make a big difference in your life.

They do. Making a bed in the morning.

Yeah.

Now, do I always make my bed now? No. But I can tell. I can tell you that most sometimes I do. I used to every day. I can tell you that when my daughter was abducted by my ex after my divorce and I got full custody and she abducted her and hid her away, that was a very low point in my life. And getting up every morning and making my bed to start my day and get rolling helped me keep moving forward. Yes, I was still trying to find her, but I was also trying to move forward in other areas of my life. Because you can't let one thing, no matter how strongly you feel about it and how emotionally and how difficult and debilitating it feels, there's still going to be a tomorrow and life still goes forward. And I can only control what I can control. And I can decide to be defeated and do nothing and not make any income and be kicked out on the street or mooching off other people, or I can decide, you know, this freaking sucks, but I'm going to get up and I'm going to still fight to make sure I keep everything else moving. And I'm going to do everything I can to find my daughter. But if I can't, it's beyond my control. And I need to continue to have a life in this world. Even going through those types of really gut wrenching emotional situations. My step kids were taken from me.

Well.

Because I was not. They were step kids. And so in the divorce, basically I was told by the courts that I absolutely had to let them go. And I didn't want to. I raised those kids. I love those kids. But sometimes we have to reinvent ourselves over and over again. And no matter what happens and what our challenges are, we can't let them destroy the rest of our life.

I love how you said we have to reinvent ourselves. We were saying earlier from that that happened to you. I see other people in that same kind of pattern, that cycle. They'll just let everything unravel completely. But you will, you can't do that. This is your life.

That part is unraveling and it's all going to be unraveled. But if you don't hold the other parts together, like you said, everything will unravel. And in order to get you through, you got to have something that's not unraveling.

Yeah.

In the middle facility.

Yeah. And I see this with a lot of different people out there in the world where their emotions unravel by the slightest little things, let alone their daughter being abducted for just the smallest little thing that gets them unraveled. But they can't function the real world anymore, as in a functioning adult, whatever that means. But.

Right? Yeah. No, life is not easy, but it is good.

Yeah.

And we can still put a smile on our face every day. Even in the midst of terrible things going on. We can still choose each day that even though today's gonna be hard and I might cry a few times today, I'm still gonna have a smile on my face too at some point. And I'm going to power through and not let the rest of my life unravel.

Very well said. There's a lot going on in the world too. There is. There's always something going on on the news, always some negativity. But regardless of all that stuff, you still got to take care of yourself. You still gotta get up in the morning. Like you said, you gotta get on with life. You have to live. Maybe it wasn't your choice, it wasn't my choice to be born and many others, but we were born, we are here. And we need to figure out how to rearrange our mindset so that we can do and be better and create better and have a purpose out in the world?

Sure. Do we want the world to be better because we're here?

I think so.

Or to be worse?

I think we want it to be better.

Absolutely. And some people make choices to make it worse. They do bad things to people. They do other things. You know, every day we wake up and we're blessed with another day and we get to choose what we want to do. So let's make it a positive impact in this world. World.

I agree. I've been on both sides of that. I've done some bad, terrible things in this world to myself and to others. But I had to make a conscious decision that I'm not going to do or be that person anymore. And I'm sure there's tons of stories out there, people will tell you who've known me over the years, and, you know, that's fine. That was then, this is now. And this is what I'm trying to accomplish, do and create, you know, and.

Your past does not define who you are.

It does not.

Who you are is defined by the choices you make today. We can't do anything in the past and we can't do anything in the future. We only have this moment.

Yeah.

So what are we going to do in this moment that we have?

Hopefully something and not.

Yes.

Yeah, I feel that. Randy, it's been amazing having you on here today. This has been an insightful conversation. I've been really deep. I wasn't sure which way it was going to go, but wow. Definitely want to have you back on here. We enjoy these types of conversations. Great.

Yeah, I'd be happy to come back, maybe talk about my book when it's going to be released.

Yeah, I would love that.

You know, really game changing things that I've put in there that you're not going to be able to find in any other similar book to help people accelerate their career and basically take the escalator to the C suite instead of the stairs?

Yeah. Those stairs can be tough on your thighs, let me tell you. Is there anything you'd like to leave our audience with to kind of help push them along in their journey that can just kind of help them understand that there's more that they can do and there's ways to get there without doing it all by themselves?

Sure. You can do anything in this world that you really want to do if you put your mind to it. You get the proper knowledge and skills and advice and accountability to get there and you put in the hard work. So if you're learning from the right people to do the right things and you're doing them to the best of your ability, it's incredible how much faster you can get to wherever you want to go. The reality is if you're stuck and you're having a struggle to make that next step that you know you should be better off or further along in your life's goals and you really want to get there, then you need someone to be able to champion your goals, hold you accountable, figure out what the mental and psychological roadblocks that you're dealing with and all the real ones and help you overcome each one of those so you can achieve your dreams. So basically, you can do anything you want if you have the right people helping you and the right goals and you're willing to put in the effort and you're willing to learn and grow in the process.

Very well said. I like the last part. As long as you're willing to learn and grow. Sounds so simple, but it's not quite easy to implement.

Yep. And if you want to find out any more about me, you can go to my website, which is just randyferris r e n d y p h a R-E-S.com for like speaking or if you're interested in getting some coaching either to help you accelerate your career or improve your work life balance or anything else, then I'd certainly be happy to help and we'll get you to where you want to go.

I'll definitely put that down the show notes. Yes. So one last question for you before we go. What does it mean to you to be a human being?

Well, to me, I believe that God created me and he created me for a purpose. And though I don't always know exactly what that purpose always is, I'm trying to follow that path and trying to make sure that I'm a good person, that my family are good people, that I'm trying to move forward and in the path that he wants me to go down. So my meaning is to be able to help others, help them grow, help them become who they need to become, to be able to achieve their ultimate goals and live a happy and healthy life.

Amen to that. Thank you so much, Randy, for coming on here again. It's been amazing. I appreciate your time today. Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here, Justin. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you and share ideas back and forth.

Hell yeah, brother.

I really appreciate you.

Appreciate you, too. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend.

Thank you. You as well. Bye.

Bye.