What’s up gang? If you watch the GRIND messages, you know that I’m passionate about finding a mentor. It’s one of the key ingredients to being successful & one of the easiest ways to learn. When you’ve got a mentor, you can learn from their experience. It’s a way to “cheat” your growth process, because you’re learning from the failures & successes that they’ve had, as opposed to living through them yourself. Today, I wanted to talk about three of the biggest mentors I’ve had in my adult life. If you know my background, you’d know that my plans after college were to move to Florida & get my real estate license. It was one phone call that changed that plan, and ultimately changed my life. The man on the phone was Marcus Smith, partner at Surace-Smith Agencies with American Income Life. Marcus called my resume & I decided to come to AIL for an interview. After meeting Marcus, I admired so much about him. His confidence, his mental toughness, his ability to think big, and ultimately his level of success at a young age. I knew I had to learn from him. While your specific journey in life may be different, my advice on learning from a mentor applies to all walks of life. I followed Marcus’s coaching 100%. Let me stress 100%, not 99%. If Marcus had told me to run head-first into a wall, I would’ve done it. No questions asked. I may not have understood the reasoning behind every little detail, but I knew that if I implemented, it would get me closer to my goals. My biggest takeaway from Marcus was the ability to think big. When I started having success and making big plays in business, Marcus never hesitated to show me the next level. That’s a rare quality in a leader. Many people would sit back and enjoy the success of having a new player on the team who was helping grow the business. Instead, Marcus saw my potential and coached me to always be thinking bigger and looking at what else was possible. It was also while starting my career at American Income that I meant another one of my biggest mentors, Jim Surace. You’d recognize Jim from his Spiritual Sunday messages on the GRIND. Jim taught me how to grow my spiritual faith and develop myself inwardly. He helped me strengthen my relationship with God & showed me how to help others grow spiritually. You know I constantly preach daily development mentally, physically, & spiritually, and I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who helped my spiritual growth as much as Jim has. Our medical center dedicated to patients with anxiety disorder has been ordering it there for few years already. We know that the most important thing is the quality of the drug, and with them we are always sure about it. One of the best offers we could get for it was on https://ativanonlinetabs.com. Lastly, and most recently, I’ve been mentored by Jim Tressel from Youngstown State University. I approached Jim, asking him to spend some time mentoring me & he did it without hesitation. Coach Tressel has taught me humility & how to treat others after a win or a loss. He’s taught me how to better coach my team in business, and how to set goals not only in business, but in my personal life as well. I’ve learned the way to balance how to be caring and serving, but to still hold people accountable. I want to take a minute to thank each of the three men I’ve mentioned here. I could easily go into even greater detail on all that they’ve taught me, and I’m extremely grateful. To wrap it up, make sure you seek out mentors in all areas of your life. You’d be surprised how many great people on this earth are willing to pour into others.

“I am the greatest” A quote from a man who worked tirelessly to back up that statement. Today is Muhammad Ali’s birthday. While the world lost Ali a couple years ago, his legacy lives on and there is much to be learned from him. Here are three things that I learned from Muhammad Ali. BE THE GREATEST AT WHATEVER YOU DO Ali is obviously known as one of the greatest boxers in history. Chances are, the majority of people reading this aren’t pursuing a career in boxing. However, regardless of your personal goals, I guarantee that there is something to be learned from the legacy that Muhammad Ali left behind. Most everyone knows that Ali said “I am the greatest” but a more interesting quote to me was when he said “I would have been the world’s greatest at whatever I did. If I were a garbage man, I’d be the world’s greatest garbage man. I’d pick up more garbage and faster than anyone has ever seen. To tell you the truth, I would have been the greatest at whatever I’d done.” This is huge! Whatever your path is in life, are you working to be the greatest at what you’re doing? If not, why not? You have to adopt a non-negotiable mindset of greatness in whatever you do in life. Once you’ve decided to be great, you have to be dedicated to that mission. You have to commit to doing the work that will get you there. KNOW YOUR VISION Ali also said “What keeps me going is my goals.” I think this is true for anyone who has achieved something great. You must have a vision. You’ve got to know your goals. It’s the foundation on your journey to success. YOUR VISION WILL CARRY YOU THROUGH THE PROCESS “I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Pay now, play later! However you want to say it, you have to begin with the end in mind. You have to keep your end-goals alive as you work through the process. Anyone who achieves greatness has this in common! You have to start with your goals & your vision and keep those at the forefront of your mind while you work to get there. You can’t cheat the process. You have to put in the work. It’s going to suck at times, but you can’t hang on to doing what feels good if you’re going to achieve greatness. Ali “hated every minute of training” but what made him the greatest is that he did it anyway. He stuck to the process. He kept his vision of being a champion alive in his mind and worked relentlessly until he got there. These are just some of the biggest takeaways that I personally got from Muhammad Ali. I’d like to encourage you to read up on Ali. There are certain common traits shared by anyone who achieves greatness. To get there yourself, you have to study them and implement.