From Worrier to Warrior: Elevate Your Business Success!

way through life or worrying your way through your business? If the answer is yes, then you will certainly appreciate the episode today on Cash In On Camera. I'm your host, Cheryl Plouffe, and with me today, Martin Salama, who is going to be helping us understand how we can go from worrier to warrior. Martin, so great to have you on the show today.

Cheryl, I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank you so much for having me.

I want to know a little bit about the backstory of how your book came to be. I mean, we're going to talk about a little bit more about the book that's coming out and all of the different assets that you've created around this particular topic. Why are you so passionate of helping people in business and in life to, to really go from worrying all the time to being in a place of empowerment?

So I think I have to go back to the summer of 2008. If, if the people out there don't remember, that was right before the world fell apart financially. But leading up to that, for 5 years, my wife and I were working on a project to build a multi-million dollar health club and tennis center in New Jersey. And by that time, we'd put in over $3 million waiting for all the approvals to come through. The 5 years took finding the location, deciding if it's the right thing to do, everything that you could imagine. Going to the city, and the city saying, "Oh, you got to do a civil engineer. Make sure it doesn't affect the parking, and it doesn't affect the driving around." All that. And if I went in 2006 or 2007 to the bank, which I had gone to, and I said to them, "Okay, we're moving along here." They said to me, "Great. When you're ready, we've got money for you. We're ready." I'm like, "Fantastic. I can't wait." Comes to the summer of 2008, finally get all the approvals, going to the bank, and they go, "Yeah." We're not lending anymore. Like, what, what are you talking about? I was like, I was dumbfounded. Last year it was like, you know, if I was going to Costco and I asked for samples, you were giving money out like it was Costco, you know. But here, yeah, it's not that way anymore. Things are slowing down. Little did I know, in a month from then, September 2008, Bernie Madoff subprime loans, the entire financial world crashed like a house of cards. And you know where I was? I was, I was the joker on the bottom of the deck, right? And, you know, it took me about a year to get out of that. And that, during that year, I worried like crazy. I went into a depression, a situational depression, saying, what the heck am I going to do now? I lost $3 million of my money, family money, investors' money, over $3 million. What am I going to do now? So I went through some therapy and I went through some coaching. And after about a year, I said, okay, I've been a businessman my entire life. By then I was 46, almost 47 years old. It's like, okay, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? And I thought about it and I said, you know what, here's a chance to reinvent and start fresh. And I looked back and I said, the things I love doing most— I was always involved in community events. And there I was a leader. And as a leader, people would come and say, I don't know how much I can do, I don't know, I don't know what I can give you. And I would talk them through it and show them with it, just even a couple of hours, their effect that they could help. I realized I was a life coach. So I said, oh, that's an idea, let me do that. And about 2 months before I started life coach training was my 24th wedding anniversary, which happens to fall out on the day after Valentine's Day. And my wife said, I'm done. I want a divorce. I'm like, oh my God, why does everything keep happening to me? But there was this little voice inside, and I think it might have been God to say, saying to me, you know what, you're planning to do this life coach, do it. You need to reset. You need to figure out what's going on. Figure out what's wrong within you that's coming out that's not working for you.

But Martin, did you know when, when everything was crashing down, your wife asked for a divorce, the financial collapse. Did you know that there was a greater plan at play? Because you were going through, as you put it, a situational depression at that moment. You had to work on yourself in order to discover that there was a maybe purpose behind it.

I did not know. Don't you wish you knew those defining moments, right?

We never do.

I could look back and show you many defining moments that I look back and say, wow, That was a turning point in my life. But right before I went, they sent me a list of books to read. And one of the books on the list was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. You know that book? I don't. So he says, bring it down to four agreements. One is be impeccable with your words. Number two is don't take anything personal. Number three is don't make any assumptions. And number four is Always, uh, uh, it went out of my head just now. That's okay. Always be true. Do what you, you know, always say what you're gonna do. Do what you— you know what, I got the book right here. Why am I killing myself? Always do your best.

Always do your best.

But that second one hit me like a bolt of lightning. Don't take anything personal.

Oh, that's tough. Yeah, that's really tough.

I realized that that's who I was my whole life. I was a people pleaser trying to please everyone. And pleasing no one. And as a result, I would take it personally.

Yeah. So take us then to the moment where you're going through the therapy, you're coming to these realizations, you're reading these really great books, and it hits you that, okay, I'm on a different path. There's a path before me, and I have to find the courage now to walk down this path, which leads you to the books, the Course, the card deck, all these things.

Yeah.

How did that all come about?

So as soon as I finished with coach training, uh, uh, I— it was also happened to coincide with when my divorce was finalized, and I wasn't sure what kind of coach I wanted to be at that moment. And I got a message from a friend on Facebook saying, now that you're divorced, are you ready to start coaching? I'm like, Kelly, you're married. She goes, no, no, no, I'm your matchmaker. I'm like, what? What is this, Fiddler on the Roof? I come from a very small Jewish community.. And when there's somebody single, no matter what stage of life they're in, there's this group of women and some men too, but mostly women who work on getting you dates if that's what you want to do. So we spoke and I said, I don't know if I'm ready. And we talked for an hour. She goes, oh my God, I never met a guy so ready after a divorce like you. I said, I guess it's the coaching. She goes, well, maybe you should coach people around that. So I became a divorce recovery coach. And after a few years of doing that, I started to develop into who I wanted to be. And I looked at myself, I had just lost 65 pounds because at one point I realized I need to change what's going on. So I lost all that weight in 9 months. I had done that and I was doing things like reading the right books, being coached, uh, eating right, feeling right. And I was doing something— I was ADHD, I was meditating. And one day I had this download of information that I loved my life and I wanted to show other people how they could too. I finished the meditation, which always was hard because my ADHD had me all over the place, and I wrote for 2 hours, and out of that came LIFE: Live Incredibly Full Every Day.

And now this is your life's path. This is your life's work that you've put into the book I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about the book, and we're going to get into one of the specific aspects of that book in a moment. Right. But tell us a little bit about the book and why you decided that you needed to put this in this format.

Okay. So the book is called Warrior to Warrior. Thank you for putting up that graphic there. And it's coming out June 14th, which is about 2 weeks from this live broadcast. And what happened was the way the word the warrior to warrior came in was that was me. I was always a warrior, but I had turned that corner. I recognized that I'd made that transformational shift in my head. And I was dating and I met a woman who I fell in love with. And I'm very happy to say in a few days we'll be married for 5 years. So now imagine if I had gone through COVID alone, not married, but I was married. We were married for about 2+ years at the time. One day I told her, let's take the kids, she has 3 kids of her own, and go to the city. Let's drive in Manhattan. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was actually a rainy day, but it was still a sunny day, a Sunday, and we drove to New York. We were able to drive straight up 6th Avenue and straight down 5th Avenue without missing a traffic light, which is impossible in New York. But I looked around, I was like, what is everybody so worried about? Where is everybody? Put your masks on, put your gloves on, go outside. Everybody had been so afraid that still, this is 2 months in and people are still not coming out. And I realized, why wasn't I worried? Because the last 10, 12 years going through my divorce, losing everything, losing the weight, doing all those things, transforming myself, I had gone from being a warrior to a warrior. And I went on to Facebook, I said, let me show you how to do that as well. And that's where the Warrior's Life Code came in because I took the warrior saying, a warrior is somebody who's gone through the tough stuff and come out the other side stronger.

Yeah, I love that. It's this resilience that I think so many of us can benefit from, especially in business. I mean, I know on Cash In On Camera, we talk about marketing, we talk about business. What is it, Martin, that you think is lacking in most entrepreneurs today as it pertains to worrying? You know, what could they do to help themselves stop worrying so much but also still accomplish the business goals?

You know, it's so funny that you use the word lacking in there because what I help people do is shift their mindset from lack to abundance or on a deeper level, self-conscious to self-aware. So what's happening is everybody, but let's talk about business owners here for a minute, are always that are not succeeding. They're in their own way being self-conscious about what's going on. And to me, there's a big difference between self-conscious and self-aware. Many people think they're self-conscious, I, self-aware. I thought I was until I totally understood what self-conscious meant and the difference between the two. All right? And part of my course, part of what I have here you mentioned, is a card deck. All right? And this is in the book as well, but here's a quick idea of what they are. Self-conscious comes from a place of negative energy: guilt, conflict, and doubt. Self-consciousness is more outward-directed. It's being more concerned about what others are thinking of you and how the situation is going to affect you. You probably react to uncomfortable situations instead of respond. Self-awareness comes from a place of positive energy: acceptance, contentment, self-assuredness. Self-awareness is more inward-facing. You have an accurate and realistic understanding of how you're responding to situations and how you feel about things. It's about taking care of yourself instead of taking care of others or worrying about others. Okay? Being concerned for yourself and moving forward in a good way, as opposed to worrying about everything else around the world. And when you put it into business, worrying that, oh, the business isn't doing well. Are you doing everything you can to be inclusive, to be a leader, to to make sure that everybody don't be— don't hide your feelings. Be vulnerable.

That piece around being vulnerable, I think, is one of the key, most important things that you can do is to show that you're a human being, right? You're not immune to all of the challenges of life and business. But vulnerability, I think, is something that we ought to all do more of and be willing to be vulnerable. I know that you have this in the Tools for Success section of your book, you talk about the Cycle of A's. Right. And I'd love for us to dive into that because I think that as an example of all the goodness that's in your book pertains to this topic today of going from warrior to warrior, elevating your business success. So can we go through the Cycle of A's, Martin? Absolutely. And give our viewers and our listeners some tactical, tangible things they can take away today.

All right, so there's a reason I have it as a cycle. It's in a circle the way it is, okay? And the 3 are: ask, act, and attitude. Ask the universe for what you want. Ask God for what you want. That could even be, oh, I've come up with a great idea. That's the ask, right? I have this great idea, what am I going to do with it? So if you— most people think, oh, that's the law of attraction. That's the law of attraction on a very basic foundational level, but you've got to build on that. And that's where ACT comes into play. Start doing the work to get the things that you want. You want to get a million dollars? What are you doing to get the million dollars? And if you don't believe you could have a million dollars, then don't ask for a million dollars. Ask for $10,000. Then when you get $10,000, go to $50,000, $100,000. You know, they say millions got— millionaires say the hardest money they ever made was their first million. It's easy to make $10 million, $100 million. It was getting to that first million. A lot of that had to do with their own belief in themselves. So that's the act. Start doing the work. And then the third one is probably the most important. It's have an attitude of I am detached from the, from the outcome. Because if it's not supposed to be, God, the universe is telling you make a course correction. And don't say, oh, I failed. Oh, it's never going to happen for me. It's that want that you're putting out there, that attitude of lack that's holding you back.

Yes. And I like that you demonstrated with the visual aid that this is all— this all plays into itself. This is a cycle that one feeds into the other. They're not independent of each other. They all work in tandem with one another.

Right, right.

I love that.

And once you get the concept, it's easy to get into the cycle. It's a perpetual motion. You keep asking, and while you're asking, you're acting, and while you're acting, you're attituding. And while that's happening, you come up with something else, and it builds upon each other. And here's the important part. When something good happens and you go, oh, okay, it's a coincidence. No, no, no. That's the magic of the cycle of ACE starting to happen. Accept it and grow and take from it.

There's so much to take away from this, right? Is that we— self-awareness is really where it's at. So many people are self-conscious about themselves, about their business, and there's a lot of worrying that comes about as a result of that. And they're not stepping into their warrior mindset. And growing their business and be detached to the outcome because we are just, we're so close to what we do. I think if you're a coach or a consultant, you're an expert at something, you're so close to your own business that you can't see the forest for the trees. And so, the advantage of having an external person helping you, whether it's a coach or getting a book or having some support around that. As opposed to going it alone, right? Can you— should you go it alone, Martin? Like, when it goes to— when, when it comes to warrior to warrior, do you need help? Do you need support? Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that.

So first thing is, I have this saying that I learned from someone that I now don't remember who it was, so I take advantage of it. You go alone, but you don't grow alone. You need to have a team around you. I have at least 2 or 3 coaches in my business, in my life, in what whatever's going on at all times. And when you don't, you start to rationalize that things are going the way they are, for whatever reason. But what I've come to learn is that the word rationalize is really two words: rational lies. You lie to yourself that it's rational to do these things that you know, go against your core belief.

Yes.

And it gives you the permission to say no.

Oh, so good, so good. Martin, how do people get in touch? And tell us about the book, uh, because I know as of the recording and live stream of this particular conversation, we are early June 2023, book's coming out mid-June 2023. How do people sign, you know, with the release? Tell us how we get the book, all of that.

Absolutely. So the book, as we said, it's called Warrior to Warrior, and you can see here I am as a warrior, and here I am as a warrior. The reason it's got the little thing on it, because this is the first copy, it's called the author's copy to make sure that there's any mistakes, and I found a couple, so we fixed them. So that— I haven't gotten the regular copies yet, but June 14th, 2023, it's going to come out. It's a great Father's Day gift, right?

That's good timing.

Think about it. But, um, So that's when it's coming out. And I'm very excited about it, because it's taken the things I've learned over the last 15 years between myself and my clients, and put them into practice, like the cycle of ACEs and other things in there. And what's great about this book, and it's just, it's not just theory, it's practice as well, practical as well. When you get the book, there's a QR code right in the beginning to download success activities for you to do throughout the book to keep you motivated, to keep you inspired. And that's what's great. You can keep going back. And that's why I created the cards, because the cards are an adjunct. It's like the principles of the little things that I talk about, just in snippets of it. And of course, my course and my, you know, coaching one-on-one for the ones who want to go that much deeper. And I made it very simple for people to get in touch with me. Go to connectwithmartin.com.

Perfect. That is so easy to remember. Connectwithmartin.com. Connect, send a message, get in touch, buy the book, get free gifts, get free gifts, like the resources. You know what I really appreciate about the work that you're doing is not only the topic, which is super important, but these visual aids. I like the physicality of that and having a tangible card deck and a book, you know, because of so much of what we do today is digital. I like that you've actually, you know, gone that next level with the tangibility.

Carry them around with you, pull out one each day. For example, pull out— tell me a number between 1 and 32. 7. 7. Oh, look at you. Number 7 is act of the cycle of ace. Put in the work and act towards getting what you want. Put the work in.

Martin, can I do one more number? Sure.

17. You like the 7 area. Okay, so 7— 17 is Navigate, which is part of my UNCOVER, um, acronym that's in the book. And Navigate how your emotional roller coaster is holding you back. Once you start to uncover, unlock, and unleash the things that are holding you back, now it's about navigating through them, uncovering them, and allowing yourself to work through them. And don't beat yourself up if you take two steps forward, one step back. That's the navigation. And it's about learning how to control your emotions as part of it instead of the emotions controlling you.

Yeah, which is most people's realities, right? Most people's reality is that the emotions are taking over, and we overthink everything, and we worry, and the chitchat that's in our brains, and then we can't sleep well, and then we can't be at our best the next day, and, and it causes this downward spiral and downward cycle of negativity, of lack mindset. And we have to find a way to shift that and start going up instead of going down into the cycle.

Yeah. A simple way to start is start to removing the words "I can't" from your vocabulary. Even if it doesn't go to "I can," change it to "How can I?" Yeah, these are—

they see there's, there's shifts, but they can be really challenging shifts for people to make if they don't have, to your point, the right attitude. You know, if they're, if they're not asking, if they're not acting, then it can be really challenging to get. So I love that we've talked about this today, and there's so much more to explore in the book, obviously. So do Be sure to get Martin's book. There's a card deck, there's other resources available at connectwithmartin.com. And Warrior to Warrior is releasing mid-June, uh, June 14th to be precise, 2023. 7 steps to uncover the warrior within and live incredibly full every day, which is the LIFE acronym. Thank you so much, Martin. This has been an enlightening conversation and we really appreciate your insights.

Today. Thank you so much, Cheryl. It's been a pleasure being here. Thank you.

And for those of you who are wanting to connect with me and learn a little bit more about Cashing on Camera or the work that we do to help coaches, consultants, and experts to scale their businesses, you can connect with me. There is a QR code on the screen if you want to take a picture of that. If you're watching the video, you can take a picture and find out all of the resources, free and paid, that I, that I and our team offer, as well as all the speaking opportunities and events that I'm taking part in. And if you are listening to the audio, you can connect with me on social media, any of the social platforms, and you'll find my profile link in the bio. Thank you so much for listening and watching today's episode, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.