There will be days, especially in the beginning, when you’ll feel like throwing in the towel and simply calling it quits. You will continually get punched in the mouth; you will frequently question whether you have what it takes; and you will likely watch as family and friends lose their faith in you, letting you know in no uncertain terms that they think you are crazy.

But despite all this, I believe that if you can weather the storms and move forward amid the adversity crossing your path, you’ll be in a much better position to win and come out victorious. Regardless of your journey, it’s imperative that to be a successful entrepreneur, you’ll have to overcome adversity and learn how to thrive in times of uncertainty. When the going gets incredibly tough, that’s when you become that much closer to creating transformational breakthroughs. It’s in the struggle that amazing breakthroughs are to be found, waiting to erupt.

Given this theme of adversity, I recently sat down with Lorenzo Marquez, former vice president of marketing for Cosentino and now the founder and president of Marqet Group, a full-service marketing agency servicing the design and construction industry and stone fabrication in particular.

Marquez not only made the jump into entrepreneurship and successfully started his own business, he also overcame an astounding number of hardships and setbacks throughout his journey when the unthinkable happened. Houston-based Marqet Group was growing in exposure, client base, team members and — most important — revenue, he told me. “All of those start-up fears started fading away,” he said.

The team had expanded to ten people in just five months, including graphic and web designers, account managers, copywriters and event and merchandising coordinators. “Things were going the way any aspiring entrepreneur would dream of,” Marquez said.

Then, the night of August 26, 2017, happened. As Marquez told me, “Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast and completely shattered every sense of security, not only business wise, but also personally as well.”

The next morning, he and his wife and their five children, with the youngest being only three months, plus their dog, had to be evacuated by boat to an apartment complex nearby with very minimal food and water available. The food and water that was available had to be shared by all of the families evacuated from nearby homes. The children were terrified, and, Marquez said, he began to let doubt win the battle in his mind. “My sense of stability and security was shaken to the core,” Marquez said. “The fear of losing everything had now become a reality.”

He and his family experienced the complete loss of their home, belongings, and cars. “Everything was swept away, as our home sat with 5 feet of water inside for close to two weeks.”

Marquez knew that he had to stay strong for his children. Not only was his family counting on him; so were his team members at work.

With his back against the wall, Marquez made sure his family was safe, then turned to his employees and clients. Things were bad there too: His office building was flooded for weeks and employees were scattered, trying to deal with their own losses.

But Marquez refused to put his business on the back burner. Facing the hardest time of his life, Marquez was able to regrow his business and achieve extraordinary heights.

Here are three things that Marquez said he executed on to turn an extreme tragedy into an incredible breakthrough while at the same time growing a majorly successful business. These are three actionable ideas and strategies that you can implement into your own life and business to help you turn failure and adversity into a gift.

1. Feel the fear; then take action.

Fear is real and will always be present in your life as an entrepreneur. If you don’t ever experience fear, that means you aren’t consistently stepping out of your comfort zone and going after your biggest goals and dreams.

Where many people go wrong has nothing to do with fear itself, but with how they react to the fear. As Marquez told me, “Fear attacked me when I first wanted to start my own business; then it tried to completely take over my life when Hurricane Harvey hit. I was more scared than I have ever been in my life, but I also knew that this major adversity carried a monumental opportunity along with it.”

Marquez’s message is, the next time you feel a lot of fear, don’t fight it. Acknowledge that it’s there and then take action. The best way to fight your fears is to use consistent and massive action, even if you feel that you aren’t ready to do that.

Marquez told me, “Looking back on that horrific experience, I can honestly say that the most beneficial thing that I did for both my family and business was to develop the courage to take action despite all the fear that was attacking me.” In other words, breakthroughs occur when you look your fears straight on and develop the courage to take action.

Here are two exercises that have greatly helped me overcome my fears and not let them paralyze me from moving forward.

2. Create a crystal-clear vision.

Vision is everything. If you can’t see yourself achieving it, it will never happen. Not only that, but creating a crystal-clear vision is critical in being able to overcome the short-term disappointments. Marquez told me: “There is no way that my business would have survived if it wasn’t for the clear and massive vision that I created. Every single time I felt like quitting, I pictured my family happy and safe while my business was thriving and serving the community.”

Whether it’s overcoming a personal tragedy as Marquez had to do, or moving forward despite the hardships you encounter in entrepreneurship, a clear vision is the starting point for all high success.

If you haven’t done so already, visualize what your ideal business and life looks like this week. Write that vision down, share it with others, then work the vision every waking moment. There is nothing more powerful than getting clear on what you want your life and business to stand for, then making that that a reality.

3. Develop a strong and positive support system.

Building a business can often be a lonely experience, especially in the early stages. Marquez told me, “I never knew how important a strong and positive support system truly was until my family and I were being rescued by boat when we lost our home.

“As the days and weeks went on, it was the support system that I had developed over the years that ultimately kept me going.” He continued: “It was everyone, from friends and family to customers, who were constantly in my ear reminding me how powerful I am and that my family would without a doubt overcome this tragedy. They really helped me to believe that this negative experience would somehow turn into a positive.”

Marquez is a perfect example of how critical a support system is for entrepreneurs. Not only is building your business daunting and challenging, but that happens amid the hard times of life that also unexpectedly pop up.

The School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo has expressed ideas on why a strong support system is so important and how to cultivate one. Something that has worked exceptionally well for me, personally, is to try to pick one specific support person for each area of my life. I have people to whom I can turn when it comes to business, health, relationships and spiritual support.

The story of Marquez and his family overcoming devastating loss in the face of Hurricane Harvey is just one example of thousands of brave Houstonians who exemplified what true courage and strength look like. Theirs was an example that we as entrepreneurs can all learn from.

What impressed me the most about Marquez’s story is that he didn’t stop growing his business even when he and his family lost absolutely everything they owned. That’s the type of obsession, perseverance and courage it takes to achieve greatness as an entrepreneur.

How has life changed for the Marqet Group since the hurricane? The business just moved into a new 3,000-square-foot office, continues to grow its team and has seen its revenue hit a record high.

The post Turning Hurricane Harvey into a Breakthrough appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

The one and only secret to crushing your goals and experiencing the success that you always dreamed of is to take relentless, persistent and massive action every single day of your life. Every peak performer knows the importance of this truth. The reason why the majority neglect it is because of the ridiculous amount of work required of them. What’s more, there is absolutely nothing exciting and sexy about that workload.

Persistence may not always be the “fun” thing to do, but it always will be the right thing to do when you are in pursuit of greatness, when you’re looking to maximize business success or achieve a game-changing goal. Being persistent requires you to get out of your comfort zone most of the time and force yourself to take action, even when you may not feel like it.

The following icons certainly understood this:

• Henry Ford massively failed and went broke five times before he finally got his major breakthrough.
• Beethoven was ridiculed for how he handled the violin, and his teacher told him that he was hopeless as a composer.
• Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor for an alleged lack of ideas. He also went bankrupt multiple times before he built Disneyland.
• Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching.” Wrote Darwin in his autobiography: “I was considered by my father a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.”

More such stories? Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 years old and didn’t read until he was 7. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was eventually expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. The University of Bern declined his Ph.D. dissertation as irrelevant and fanciful.

The script for Star Wars was rejected by every movie studio in Hollywood before 20th Century Fox finally produced it. It went on to be one of the largest grossing movies in film history.

When former University of Georgia and NFL running back Herschel Walker wanted to play football in junior high, but the coach told him he was too small and recommended track instead. Never one to quit, Walker ignored the coach’s advice and began an intensive training program to build himself up. Only a few years later, he won the prestigious Heisman trophy.

These are just a few examples of all the wildly successful people who failed before succeeding to such heights that they could rewrite the history books. Remember, we all fail at one time or another. That’s life. And no matter whether our failures are large or small, we have to persist and keep fighting. We’re all a “work in progress.” Even the geniuses.

Here are two actionable ideas to help you keep fighting and pressing forward when the going gets tough.

1. Study the greats. 

I am an avid reader. I read a new book every single week, but one of my favorite types of books is autobiographies. I enjoy reading about the incredibly successful who went on to change the world with how they lived their lives.

When you pick up an autobiography of one of the greats, you quickly realize the amount of persistence and fight they possesed, even in the face of extreme uncertainty and hardship. When I find myself going through a difficult time, one of the first things I do is pick up an autobiography of a world-class achiever.

Reading that individual’s story reminds me of the power of never giving up, and passionately always fighting for what you believe in and desire. The next time you find yourself going through a difficult period in your life, pick up an autobiography, watch a documentary or find some way to study the greats. Success leaves clues.

2. Never lose sight of your major goals. 

One of the first things that happens when people gets knocked down and come face to face with adversity is that they lose sight of the original goal or vision.

Instead, these individuals let the negativity they are currently experiencing come to the forefront of their minds, which prevents them from taking action and moving forward. I myself carry a notecard with me everywhere I go that has all of my major goals written on it. When I get knocked down, experience a negative curveball thrown my way or just lack the inspiration to keep fighting, I look over this notecard and am immediately connected to the grand vision I have that keeps me going.

Do the same thing: Put your major goals into your phone, on the front of your computer screen and in your purse or wallet. All throughout the day, especially when the going gets tough, read over those major goals and remind yourself of the great vision that you have for your life. When you make it a priority to never lose sight of your major goals, there is nothing that can permanently hold you back.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post How to Keep Fighting When the Going Gets Tough appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

To turn failure into a gift and grow through the tough times instead of just casually going through them, you must begin to start focusing on ways to actually resolve the situation. Many people let their minds wander toward the negative, which then prompts them to focus on more problems instead of searching for ways to resolve the situation and grow from it.

The individuals and companies that are able to get through tremendous setbacks and actually grow because of them are the ones who focus on solutions, not more problems. Look at Thomas Edison for a quick example. His persistence in continually searching for solutions after facing one failure after another is a prime example of the utter importance of focusing on ways to advance.

Failure is never a final end result unless you make it so. Edison used every experience to get one step closer to where he was trying to go all along. This is the same type of mindset that we need to apply to our own lives and businesses when failure and adversity strikes.

Taking the time to fully analyze your situation in solitude, while focusing on solutions instead of problems, can revitalize your mind and help you focus on where you are headed, how you feel, and more important, how you view failure from that moment on.

If you do what’s easy, your life will be hard. If you do what’s hard, your life will be easy.

This applies to basically everything that we do. What’s easy is to focus on the negative when tough times occur. What’s easy is to focus on the problems in our lives instead of directing every bit of our energy towards the solutions.

We have to remember that what we focus on expands. If we focus on problems, we will get more problems. If we focus on solutions, we will get more solutions.

The next time failure, adversity or a setback knocks you down, make a list of possible solutions for the problem at hand. You don’t have to know the ins and outs of every single thing, but right when a solution of some sort comes to mind, immediately write it down.

The essence of capturing solutions and then putting them to paper activates our brains. We start to think of more ways to overcome our current hardships and how we can grow from the situation at hand. Once we have a list of 20 to 30 solutions, the next objective is to decide which solution is best and getting to work on putting that solution into play.

If you think long and hard enough, regardless of how bad your situation may be, the solutions are there. This type of thinking can be a total game changer for you and your business.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post When Faced With Adversity, Focus on Solutions appeared first on Matt Mayberry.