Turning tragedy into purpose

Keywords

Resilience – Grief – Identity – Loss - Image – Changing the narrative – Labels – Vulnerability – Connection – Purpose – Rebirth Day

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled J R Martinez shares his journey from the battlefields of Iraq to ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’.  J R talks about how he joined the military and went to war at 19 but was injured after just one month, suffering 34% burns and inhaling so much smoke it was thought he might not survive. He was in a coma for 3 weeks and, when he came out of it the reality of the injuries and scars to his body left him thinking there was no way he could live in society. Eventually though he realised there were a lot of things that he could still do and he turned tragedy into purpose, sharing his story and expanding his career into acting, advocacy, non-profit work raising awareness for injured military personnel and writing his memoir.

Main topics

• Why resilience needs to be conditioned and exercised

• How our early life conditions us for the difficulties we meet later

• Grieving for the loss of an old life so you can accept the reality of a new one

• Losing your sense of identity

• The difference between being alive and living

• How we can all have a ‘rebirth day’ when roles evolve and change

• Choosing to jettison parts of your old identity

• Creating a new image and changing the narrative

• Negative words and embracing the labels given to us by other people

• How society and culture conditions men to be tough and avoid talking about emotions

• Why vulnerability needs to be expressed in different ways Seeing the individual, not the injury

• How connecting as humans beings can change the narrative and the way you look at anyone else you come into contact with

 Action items

You can find out more about J R at https://jrmartinez.com/ or through his social media Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.     

A work in progress. Resilience to evolve and succeed.

Martha Aviles is a marketing executive based in Austin, Teas. She has 20 years of high-tech marketing experience in SaaS, semiconductor, networking, and network security at start-ups, private, and public companies and has focused on impacting high-growth companies with innovative, measurable marketing strategies. Martha’s dynamic background is in leading and building high-performance marketing teams that include demand generation, integrated marketing, product marketing, digital marketing, public relations, brand management, analyst relations, and crisis communications.  

Martha parents were Nicaraguan immigrants who arrived in Miami Florida in the 1970s. They didn't speak the language but they both worked really hard and became college graduates with her father becoming an electrical engineer. Martha was born and grew up in Miami before moving to southern California and then Austin, Texas in the early 90s primarily because it was developing into a tech hub. She didn’t want an engineering career for herself so became involved in technical marketing, the career she has pursued for the last twenty years.

When she was a child many people didn’t know that Nicaragua was a country let alone where it was. People would ask her if it was in Africa and when she said it was in Central America she would be told there was no such place. She got very tired trying to explain it so often just said she was from Cuba! Martha felt she didn't really fit in anywhere. In Miami she grew up with many Nicaraguans. Her first language was Spanish and she didn't even speak English until she was six but she always felt there was an American edge. Now though she feels she is a third culture child – she doesn't totally fit in either Nicaragua or the US but rather can fit in anywhere.

In Miami a lot of Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Nicaraguans stayed together. There were Nicaraguan restaurants that had been run by families for generations and these became gathering places. This was not the case in some of the other places she lived in. Her family moved a lot before she was twelve and when they eventually moved to Austin she realised there were not a lot of Nicaraguans in Texas.  Martha feels that you can’t build that type of community and most of her friends were from other ethnicities such as Philippine or Vietnamese with immigrant parents and being a first generation American.

Houston is a very diverse ‘international’ city but other parts of Texas are far less diverse and are very ‘Texas Proud’. Martha found it a struggle because many people thought she was Mexican and that was particularly frustrating because it felt as if Mexican was only Hispanic culture. When Martha moved to Texas in 1986 she lived in a small town for a couple of years called Harper Heights where she got beaten up at school every day because she was the only brown kid. It was very challenging but she knew she was resilient as a child – she didn't know the terminology but knew she couldn't quit and that there was something better waiting on the other side.  

Martha feels she had tenacity and stubbornness and that this built over time by having to deal with a lot of challenges. It’s something she still work on though - things keep getting thrown at you as you get older although you think you’re resilient enough and don't need another challenge! Children are often very resilient and Martha feels that there is an immigrant work ethic that tells you that you don't quit. She was also an oldest child so knew the pressure was on her to blaze a trail for the family in the US. This was difficult at times because her parents didn’t know what she was going through for the first time. She often asked why didn't they know about this or why didn't they give me the heads up about that until she realised it was up to her to make it easier for her family and sisters. Not wanting to disappoint her younger siblings did help build her character though.

Some parents expect their children to feel gratitude towards them. They say ‘look at what we’ve done for you’ but Martha’s parents used to tell her to remember her name and that she shouldn’t tarnish her reputation. Martha always felt this was very negative and not a good pressure and sometimes when she was a bit down her parents would say she was setting an example her sisters.

As an adult she now feels that what was a difference and a negative when she was a child is now her superpower and that it has given her an advantage in the real world. At college when she decided she was not going to be an engineer she realised she had a knack for people. She grew up feeling it was unsafe being who she was because of her skin colour, her language and lack of English and that to survive she had to figure people out very quickly. She had to adapt to stay safe so now feels that it really helps her in marketing – she can listen to people’s stories and get in their heads at a different level to other people. As she gets older she finds that she embraces her story and finds it empowering – it was a hard road to get there and to understand who she was and that's she’s OK with it.

Martha thinks that it she could go back and talk to her ten year old self that she would say a couple of things. One that its going to be OK because there were many times she couldn't see the path forward and two that she shouldn’t care so much about what other people think. However much you try to be a good person, you’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that you shouldn’t waste a lot of time trying to get people to like you because it's a real waste of time. To navigate this path you need to understand what parts are mine to own and what parts can I lose. Martha still struggles and wants to be liked but different challenges and life has helped her realise that being a people pleaser doesn't work long term and that you will still get through even if everybody doesn't like or understand you.

To try to get ahead some female executives have developed social fluency, others a ‘bitch from hell’ persona whilst others try being a woman in a man’s suit. All are legitimate strategies but social fluency and being able to get on with people in a more adult and honest way of getting on. If you are agreeable it can be easier to get on in life but then people can be shocked when you do disagree about something and find it hard to take you seriously.

Martha feels that life is work in progress. Her background gave her goal metrics and an idea of where she was meant to be going and the points she needed to hit but then she realised that once she hit the goals there were still more challenges. Life is about evolving and facing challenges and continuing to broaden your knowledge to be a better person. This is a process that continues until we die so we need to look at it as a process and try to enjoy it rather than consider it a mountain to climb and once you reach the top its over.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Linking values and identity

Sam LaCrosse lived in Cleveland, Ohio for the first eighteen years of his life before attending university at Ohio State for the next four years. He then took an entry-level job in Boston before moving to Austin Texas in summer 2021.  Since then Sam has written a book called Value Economics. The study of Identity.

The motivation for writing his book came in the summer of 2019 when he was doing an internship. He was talking to his mother about believes and what to put your energy into. At the time there were a lot of different things going on culturally but they started talking specifically about Sam’s generation, Gen Z. His mother said that she didn't feel they believed in anything. Sam thought this sounded a little harsh so he decided to look a little more deeply into what was going on in the world. His conclusion was that there was some merit in what she was saying - he wasn’t sure if she was correct or not but he thought the idea was worth exploring.

Sam thought about his time growing up and, more specifically, the household he grew up in. Both his parents were there and his grandparents lived very close by so it was a tight knit family unit. The one constant was the ethos of values and growing up Sam know they were important but he didn't really know what they really were. Later he started asking what are values and from this the relationship between value and sacrifice. He came to the conclusion that the more you value something the more you will sacrifice to get that something. The less you value something, the less you will sacrifice to get that something.

When Sam was at university he had to take a mandatory economics class. One day in class they were talking about supply and demand and he decided that he would use the model of supply and demand to navigate and map out the value of sacrifice to relationships. Sam’s definition of value is that it is something scarce, rare or hard to find. There has to be a finite resource element to it – there is only so much of something to go around. He links value in an economic sense rather than in the psychological sense of beliefs and values. He does feel though that he is talking about both belief systems and values as the central thing you hold close as a person. He wanted to have a rationale when explaining it to people and he gravitated towards economics for explanation because he saw a clear line between the two things.

Sam feels that a value is something that you hold close to yourself and that it can depend on your culture, family or place you grew up, how people value different things. If you want to look at it from an economic stance, these values are generalised in the market place. You can go and purchase or gravitate towards something in the market place but you have to find values that you find work for you. This can be based on experiences - how you like interacting with the world or other people, discipline, self-awareness or how much you care about these things. You have to take the values that most closely match up with those requirements and use them as the anchoring point of who you are as a person. The sacrifice comes in because these things are so important to you that you have to sacrifice so you can live them and let them work for you.

Many people are fascinated by the idea of identity and it’s become an abstracted question to answer in a lot of different ways. Recently, its been seen as the subject of group identity and classifying yourself with a group of people - black, white, male, female gay, straight. Sam feels there is merit to having that side of identity, the genetic and biological characteristics of a person, but that sense of looking at people is limited. Identity should be composed at the individual level and formed of individual values. The implementation of your values is what truly forms an individual’s personal identity in the most total sense that you can capture in a person.

Sam’s proposition is that you have to figure out what you value and then make choices based on actually living those values by getting rid of the things you don't value and living a life around the things you’ve decided are important to you. Self-help is warranted in some cases but if you don't know who you are and don’t know what you find important then what good is any help going to do you if you go in the wrong direction - if you help yourself for the wrong reasons its not helping at all.

Sam feels you can’t help yourself until you know who you are and knowing your values helps to understand who you are and your identity. We all make a series of choices at certain points in our lives and these choices can change – things we may decide when we are in our 20’s will be different to those at 40 and Sam thinks we need to test our values over time. They are things that are really important and self-identification really matters and should we should live our lives around them but need to be capable of change.

 You can find out more about Sam at LinkedIn, read his blogs on dontreadthisblog.com or listen to his podcast Don't Listen to This Podcast. His book is Value Economics: The Study of Identity.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions. 

Conflict of identity? Remember the mission.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Conflict of identity? Remember the mission.

 In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to James Boardman a former Royal Marine Commando Sniper and Physical Trainer who served for eight years including some time in Afghanistan as part of a 6-man sniper team. He left the Royal Marines in 2011 to pursue a family life but struggled to come to terms with being back in a normal life, away from the military. Conflicting identities caused James to turn to drink and within three years he was divorced, on the verge of loosing his house, and struggling to find a path. Minutes away from attempting suicide James managed to pull himself away from this environment long enough to see a new path. In 2013 he started his first business, a fitness Bootcamp which he grew to a £100k a year business in its first year. In 2017, he started The Man Coach with the sole purpose of helping men become Elite Operators in life.

In this podcast, James talks about how he helps men to rebuild their lives and have a better state of mind through the way they live their lives emotionally, physically and mentally. He calls this an Elite Operating Mindset, an alter ego by which we set our standards to build the character, values and principles needed to perform in life for the four pillars of health, relationships, personal development and business. James originally started working with his clients on their fitness and nutrition but many seemed to fall off the programme. He started to consider why this was happening and realised that the chaos of life – responsibility, conflicting identity, direction – was what was stopping them.  He decided to change his tactics and concentrated on the key root of the problem, the level of control, consistency and clarity of where men were going.

James was in the Royal Marines for eight years and everything he talks about comes from his experiences. The mindset and processes he has are from what he has gone through and what he has used to get where he is today. He really loved being in the Marines but he left because he wanted to be a full-time Dad and role-model. He thought going back to normal life would be easy but he struggled with a conflict of identity. When he left the Marines he was a Sargent who was respected, was part of something, had purpose and mission and knew where he was heading.  When he left, everything from the last eight years was lost. He became a teacher at a college and there was a huge difference between teaching motivated recruits and 16-19 year old students. He didn't really settle in and considered rejoining the Marines but that fell through and within three years of leaving he was divorced, seeing his kids for half a week and suffering financial difficulties.  Things came to a head and one night he thought about ending his life. Instead he went out for a run for three hours and spent the time reflecting on his life. When he came back he had decided he wanted to turn things around.

Male identity can be a real problem. Many men get their sense of identity through their work. James feels you should replace identity with purpose, to ‘remember the mission' and have an emotional connection to an outcome. He feels motivation is an emotion like happiness or sadness that comes and goes and is not substantial enough to drive change. We need to decide what is our mission in life and create a ten-year vision within the four pillars of health, relationships, personal development and business. James also thinks we should work towards a 1% a day improvement so instead of acting emotionally and making changes for a few weeks and then stopping, we should try to reach long term control, clarity and consistency –1% a day over a year gives you a 365% improvement! Along the way there would be big wins and changes but resilience is also built so we have control of a situation and can deal with having one bad day.  The next day we just realign with the mission, we Learn- Grow – Repeat.

James had to rethink his purpose. He became involved in a dispute with the College he was working for and started doing some part-time work as a Personal Trainer. The dispute went through a grievance procedure but the relationship was unworkable so he left with a settlement. He saw it as an opportunity to change so although he knew nothing about working for himself he set up his own Bootcamp business. Six months into his journey he remembered what had happened before and saw how far he had come and how much further he could go in six years. He realised that he had allowed himself to let go of his life as a Royal Marine and that he had taken what he needed from that and become stronger, was happy with who he was and that he had moved on with his life.

James feels that people try to become best version of other people rather than themselves. It is easy to be influenced by social media and celebrity and take traits from each. When you have clarity you understand what success is to you and what is enough. The more you fail, the more you understand yourself and become more secure in who you are. What comes out of failure can be better.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about James here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available. Our full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with James at The Man Coach  where you can access a free five day challenge and James’s Daily Rise to Thrive Facebook Show, his It's a State of Mind Podcast and The Man Coach YT Channel

Jame’s book It's a State of Mind Book is available at Amazon.

How our narrative determines our choices.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – How our narrative determines our choices.

Kimberly Spencer is an award-winning high performance coach and trainer, who is currently based on the Gold Coast of Australia. Originally from Los Angeles, Kimberly is also and Amazon best-selling co-author, international motivational speaker, and founder of CrownYourself.com where she helps visionary leaders build their empire and stand out in their full potential in their bodies, businesses, and relationships.

Kimberly’s uses her personal experience to inspire, motivate, and coach her clients using what she has learned from her personal development to help others to find their truth. She feels very strongly that we learn from different experiences and that in every problem there is an opportunity to grow.  The narrative we feed ourselves is incredibly important - the old adage of whether the news is good or bad comes back to the news being how we view it and what we decide it is.

She feels this also equates to the narrative of whether we see ourselves as a success or a failure. We all have successes and failures but we don't tend to share our failures so other people only see the successes. The link running through all our successes and failures is having the resilience to pick ourselves up and carry on. Our narrative also determines the choices we have and ultimately the control we have over our lives. We might not like some of the choices we are given and would prefer different options but we all have the ability to choose the attitude we take in that space. No one can take away the way we respond to a choice.

This power of personal choice is especially important to Kimberly as she grew up in a household with an addict father, which made her early home life very difficult. She realised she was a people pleaser so had to learn the importance of self-love. The pressure to be perfect can be overwhelming and cause people to blame themselves for just being human.  Often we link our personal value to something tangible. We need to get away from this external validation and external pleasing and not live our lives at the behest of other people.

Kimberly also talks about identity and how people attach it to things such as bank balances or weight. By attaching identity to the number on the scale, we are looking at it as the effect of choices that have been made. Having these choices allows us to be ourselves and, equally, making a choice not to do something is incredibly empowering because we’re cleansing ourselves and getting rid of things we don't want to do.

You can listen to the podcast in full here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available and there is an option to sign-up to receive our podcast episodes on release. Our full blog archive is also available and you can sign-up to receive these on a weekly basis.

You can find out more about Kimberly here.