091 – How to be Unstoppable
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Just over 13 years ago, I had a heart attack. Today, I share everything in my brand new book, Unstoppable, and I want to give a sneak peek into how I got through hell, overcame anxiety, and was able to dominate in business and in life.
Top Lessons on How to be Unstoppable:
Lesson #1: When anxiety attacks, get outside. Staying inside only makes it worse.
“Can you take me to the hospital, please?” I asked the driver. Just saying those few words to a total stranger eased my anx- iety even further.
Lesson #2: When anxiety attacks, get out of your own head. Talk to someone. Let them know you need help. Bottling up your thoughts and letting your wheels spin only makes your anxiety worse.
Lesson #3: When anxiety attacks, get connected. Human touch and conversation can go a long way in easing your fears and calming you down.
Lesson #4: When anxiety attacks, breathe. Done properly, breathing can have an immediate calming effect on your body and your mind.
There’s Nothing Wrong with You
Unfortunately, anxiety is like a Black Box. You can’t explain it to yourself, and worse, you can’t explain it to others. My feelings were all too real to me, but I couldn’t show them to anyone else. It’s not like having a broken arm, something that everyone can understand. Instead, anxiety is a crippling, unseen attack on your mind. It doesn’t show up with visible symptoms, nor is it something that anyone who doesn’t have anxiety can understand.
This leaves you in a Catch-22 position, where your anxiety can grow worse because you can’t properly describe it to others. That’s what happened to me that morning, and why it became the moment that finally broke me.
Today I live by this mantra, which you’ll see me repeating in this book:
Action Beats Anxiety. Motion beats Meditation. Work Beats Worry.
Taking the first steps to solve your problem, even if they are small steps, is the right move in the right direction. It’s always better than sitting and stewing about a problem or letting your anxiety build up.
My Secret Weapon: Introspection
Anxiety attacks will serve as a harsh wake-up call if you’ve been making some bad decisions. Up until 2006, I had wandered through life relatively unscathed. Sure, I didn’t have a perfect childhood, but the irony is that I had everything going my way in life when I started suffering from my anxiety attacks.
According to Dictionary.com, introspection is defined as “the examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes.”
It’s a key to success in many areas of life, from growing your business to creating deep personal relationships. But to be introspective, you must make time for reflection. This might be through meditation, talk therapy, journaling, or writing a book about your experiences. Or it can simply mean sitting and thinking. You might resist this, especially as a hard-charging entrepreneur who might think you don’t have time for such “soft” approaches in life. That’s why we’ll dive deeper in this book to show you how anyone, no matter how busy (or skeptical) they are, can make time for these habits that protect you against anxiety and make you more successful in life.
Introspection works because it helps you connect the dots in life. If you take X action, and then Y happens, you can use that knowledge to change your behavior. If Y is undesirable, and it only occurs when you do X action, then you simply change or eliminate X.
Over time, and applying introspection to every aspect of my morning, afternoon, and evening activities, I was able to build my perfect day (for productivity, health, wealth, and my social self) and to build a system to overcome my anxiety and prevent it from coming back.
OK Great, Now What?
There are three vital components in the formula for reducing and preventing anxiety.
The first section, Part One, Attack Your Anxiety: The chapters in Part One are critical to becoming Unstoppable because they provide the focus and foundation you need for the remaining chapters to work.
Next, in Part Two, Mastering Unstoppable Habits: Chapters Four, Five, and Six feature proved approaches to nutrition and exercise, breathing and sleeping, and yoga and meditation. These are the daily building blocks you need to begin eliminating anxiety imme- diately and setting yourself up for an anxiety-free life.
Part Three, Being Unstoppable Every Day: You’ll learn why surrounding yourself with the right influencers, focusing on others instead of yourself, striving to be more generous, and adopting an attitude of gratitude are needed to become Unstoppable in every area of life.
This book holds every tool you’ll need to lead a happy, successful, anxiety-free life. I will be your guide, and I will show you the path to becoming Unstoppable.