How to Help Young People Rise Up from Rock Bottom and Thrive with the Author of ‘Now What’ Ahmard Vital

Dr. Brad Miller 0:00

Our guest today is Ahmard Vital. He is the author of several books and has an organization that helps young people to navigate life in some healthy ways. He is the previous author of Awaken The Baller Within, and I Am More Than Enough. And his new book, published in January of 2023, is Now What: Five Steps To Get Up And Create The Most Of Life. Ahmard Vital, welcome to Beyond Adversity, my friend.

Ahmard Vital 0:32

Thank you for having me on.

Dr. Brad Miller 0:35

It's indeed a pleasure and a privilege to have you here. And we're going to talk about your book here and a little bit in the context of what you are all about a lot. But we really know that had to be some motivation for writing this book out of your own life experience. And we know some, you and I've shared a little bit about how your life experience has had some challenges to it, as well as some successes to it. But give us a synopsis of your life experience, including maybe a pivotal, difficult experience, which may lead to many things that you do now.

Ahmard Vital 1:09

Well, first, thank you for having me on. I was a guy from a small town and you know, born to two amazing parents. But as we know that sometimes relationships don't work out. And I think by the age of 11, or 12, my parents have split up. And so my biological father went his way my mother went another way out, she was remarried, and I was introduced to another man who, who raised me all through my preteen through, you know, till his death. And it just, it really was one of those situations where, you know, someone basically mentioned, it's like a tale of two fathers. And obviously, my biological father still here, the man who raised me is is no longer with us. But, the balance between the two of them. Obviously, there's been a lot of push and pull between my biological father, not to say that there wasn't any stress with the man who raised me as well. But I know that the common denominator was that they never allowed me to use excuses.

Dr. Brad Miller 2:14

Let me interject all you said to give us a little context here, Ahmard, about when did this transition take place? Your parents split up about what age did the new gentleman come into your life? So as you say, you had two fathers, let's get a little context on your life situation at the time.

Ahmard Vital 2:30

So it probably was around 11 or 12. When that when that switch happened. So basically going into Now sometime between middle school and high school, that split happened.

Dr. Brad Miller 2:42

So you're these two father figures your life had a formative time of your life?

Ahmard Vital 2:46

Absolutely, absolutely. And obviously, you know, you know, we know we know biology, that's around the time when puberty is kicking in. So you know, the attitude coming, and all of those things like that, and I was an athlete. So all the aggressiveness that you can think of was all present. And these two men were able to, to navigate through all of that, and really, that that really propelled me through and I was able to do a lot of great and amazing things. Obviously, I've been a writer since I could walk. And that's always been a great thing. I've been able to cultivate that over the years, took it all the way through high school as a newspaper editor all the way through college, I majored in it in school and started doing it as my first couple of jobs out of college as well. But along the way, I realized that like I said, not only did they put the no excuses in me, I developed a work ethic through that, that there really was profound, they really kind of propelled me into even what I'm doing today. And it's been a beautiful thing. And I know that we'll get more into specifics as far as that's concerned, but both of those men gave me and created in me what, what the audience is and my clients and different people work with today. And it's been it's been a great ride up to this point.

Dr. Brad Miller 4:02

So they helped form you and you said one of their things that these two men did that was even though they had different perspectives was no excuses. What would you say was some other aspects that really was burned within you, besides No excuses, that they gave to you that now you start to pass on to your, the people that you work with?

Ahmard Vital 4:25

It's pursue really pursuing what you want. Right to you know, when it comes to the non excuses, obviously, the entitlement is not there. And that creates a delayed gratification type of mindset, which is what I teach my youngsters today that you know, we live in a society now where you know, you order something in the package is there within two days? You know, I always tell them I was like, back in the day you had to write a check, put it in the mail and wait eight weeks for anything to come in. Now that's the turnaround time is so quick. And that creates the idea of things are going to happen quick for you. And delayed gratification is one In a greatest things you could ever embark on in life. And with the way things are set up now with the internet with smartphones with Siri, Alexa, you know, name your quick information now, like, I don't even somebody's kids don't even know how to like do research in a library, because they don't have to because it's just too assessable it's too easy. And so that creates, I need it, and I need it now. And so the grind the the push the fail, succeed, the fail succeed, the fail, fail, fail didn't succeed, and then you start back over, a lot of them don't get that it creates a real, a real interesting scenario to happen when especially when they hit like their, you know, late teens, early 20s. They just don't know how to endure. And this is a very tough thing to, to try to instill in someone. And so I try to do my best to create opportunities where those type of things can happen and helping them understand that like, it's no you can't use the microwave way of doing things when it comes to life.

Dr. Brad Miller 6:04

Also says like you tell me if you think as part of your experience here, like some folks, whether they be young people or not, when they do if they have kind of this entitled mindset when they do crash and everybody does. They crash hard and they crash? You know, long and hard. It's hard to get up? For some folks, if they're if they haven't had some experience of dealing with difficulty long along the way. Do you think that's part of what's going on as well? With a crash your crash hard?

Ahmard Vital 6:32

Oh, yes. And they and like I said, crashing hard is a light way of saying it, some of them, you know, total meltdowns. That's why, you know, if you look at the numbers, they you know, mental health is through the roof right now. And I'm not dis discarding the idea of mental health. But sometimes what mental health is just written off as or written in as is just a bad day, it's, you're having a season, like we all have those seasons, where it's just, you know, life is just not so awesome. Maybe you're going through a period of time, when you're when it's just, you're down many days, you're down more days, and you're up. That's called life. And I'm not saying that that's not on the mental health spectrum. But that's not something that's worth medicating. That's just meant to just dig deeper. And, you know, just understand what we're going through here. This is the caterpillar to the butterfly, this is C time, harvest time, all of those types of things are at play here. And we need to, you know, teach our youngsters and put them in opportunities to where they get the get the chance to grow. And, you know, when there's too many things in place to where they to where they can.

Dr. Brad Miller 7:35

We all have wilderness experiences at tough times. But I'm picking up a little extra senior Ahmard it's maybe just maybe people in general and young people pitch particular, don't always have the tools or the guide or the roadmaps to, or coaches perhaps to help them to navigate those things. And I know in your life, you'd have mentioned that. One of the tough times you had to deal with is when one of those men, were those two fathers that you had you lost him is that right? Was that a tough time for you?

Ahmard Vital 8:06

It was an extremely tough time for me. And it was at a very pivotal moment in life. happened the night after my 33rd birthday I, the book awaken the bottle within was just published. And for all of our authors out there, they understand how it works, your book gets published, and your publisher send you the author copies. And so I had some copies ready and I had one ready for ready and signed for my father and I was taking it to him that weekend. I celebrated my birthday on that Monday or Tuesday. And the next night, I looked down at my phone while I was in the other room speaking to my fiancee at the time, and it's my mother screaming into my voicemail talking about your father's dying and I'm like, what? Like no heads up no nothing. And so, you know, I'm driving to the hospital. I got the messages an hour later because you know, sometimes your phones away from me. And we're driving in and I'm literally in my feelings. But I'm also in the idea that you know, God said he's going to make a way and so I remember praying before I got there I was like alright, God All I'm asking you to do is you know make sure my father walks out of his hospital. That's my prayer nothing else right. I went into the situation with that almost to a level of arrogance. And I have no problem admitting that because I'm like okay, he says it all things are possible so do this and will be everything will be all good. Yeah, you know, soon as I walk in the hospital it's like Trail of Tears now living in the Shuttle Columbia and exploded all at once and my family always just lined up with relatives and.

Dr. Brad Miller 9:41

So it look total chaos, wow.

Ahmard Vital 9:44

Just dismal. It just felt like the like there's the air out of the balloon and then there's the balloon wrapping and sitting on the floor. That's about the time I walked in there.

Dr. Brad Miller 9:54

And all this time when your book is just published, which for a huge accomplishment in and of have its own right. And you probably your mind was probably thinking a lot about that before that phone call came in. And then boom, you're thrust into this incredible drama. So what that duty did, you know, were you were you crushed yourself? What did you do? How did you react to this scene a total chaos.

Ahmard Vital: 10:24

The first thing I did was rally all my siblings together and was like, hey, you know, our father needs to come out of here. And we need to be on one accord with this. And of course, there was a time when the nurse had come up to me and was like, Okay, we got a countdown coming in. It's not looking good. He's got about a 4% chance. And I was like, Oh, that's not too good. But I still was like, this is going to happen. And then I remember there was a time when a nurse was like, There's nothing more we can do. And then my mother came up to me, it was like, hey, they're saying that he can be alive, but he's only going to be alive on machines. What are we going to do? And I remember in that moment, I said, My dad's a fighter, take him off the machines and let him fight. And we'll just let God's will take it from there. And I remember doing that. And I remember just my system just churning like, what am I doing?

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:11

Yeah, did you feel was it kind of your call to Ahmard, I've just asked you what you're doing?

Ahmard Vital: 11:16

He was because my mother was at a point where she didn't feel like she can make and so she came to me. And I said, our dad's a fighter, and let's, we're gonna put this in God's hands and let it go from there. Wow. And of course, he, he fought for four more hours. I was excited for that. And I remember just going outside screaming at God, like, hey, you know, what happened? You didn't get my message? You know, you didn't. And so yeah, it was.

Dr. Brad Miller: 11:42

A tragic circumstance. And you have all these different emotions going on. You have the book thing, and you're dealing with family stuff, your mom, your, your, your siblings, medical situations, your dad, I don't. And your dad, were you able to have any communication with your dad at all before he passed? Or was he pretty much out of it?

Ahmard Vital: 12:04

He was, his eyes were open. And I could tell he was looking at me, but there was nothing. And that was, that was a tough visual for me. Because, again, my dad is the strongest man, I've known up to that point.

Dr. Brad Miller: 12:15

Yeah. So all I'm sharing with you and not not trying to drink too much of the detail, in the sense of for any sense of morbidity, but also a sense of the drama, human drama is here for all of us, who we have difficult times, and it is an emotional, you know, tornado that goes on. But if all of us when we have those situations, I've been both blessed and a little bit traumatized myself to be with those situations in my own family, and as a pastor, being with people a number of occasions about that. And, and it's, it's tough, it drains you and takes it out of you and and yet I take it you took this experience somehow or another and it became a part of the process for you to give back to others. So let's go there for a minute amount of how did us take none of this compared to other experiences in your life, to begin to motivate you to serve, especially young people? What were you take on your life that you said, Okay, here's a light switch for me, I got to give back something to young people. Some of this comes out of your athletic background, is that right?

Ahmard Vital: 13:26

It does. And obviously, that was the basis of awaken the ball. Within that I basically did the same thing Napoleon Hill did with thinking Grow Rich, I just did it with athletes with high end football players. And so I started getting into their mindset and started seeing behind them. Over time as I was doing all this. And these were just, you know, interviews I was doing as working for the college football recruiting sites I was working for, okay, once you start connecting with them, then you're just like, Okay, I'm starting to understand them, see what's going on. And then I started, you know, then I went to California, got my mental performance coach certification, through Dave Austin with extreme focus. And then I was like, Okay, so now I'm coaching these young men, from a mental standpoint on how to be better on the field. And I have to be honest with you, Dr. Brad, I obviously I went the, the sports route. You know, I started at that time slightly dipping into ministry, I was doing some things that, you know, nonprofits and community centers, and I was sort of finding my way in my career when it came to a speaking standpoint. But I started realizing after about eight years, while I was trying to figure out what was my demographic, you know, am I going to talk to large corporations, small businesses, schools, where am I going to go? I started realizing that the common denominator was young people, young adults. And so then I started just leaning in on that and realizing that you know, what I need to become I need to become the young man I needed when I was 17 years old. And I just said I had two fathers.

Dr. Brad Miller: 14:52

So you kinda, it was your aha moment was it? Your kind of your light bulb moment? Is that right?

Ahmard Vital: 14:58

It was it was It was to awaken to that.

Dr. Brad Miller: 15:03

So that became your calling and your passion to speak to young people, especially since you had come out of athletic background, you're working for these football recruiting services and basically talking to high performance athletes. But about the if I'm understanding you correctly, it also the integration of the mental and emotional aspects to achieve high performance, you need to you need all of that, right? Is that a fair thing to say?

Ahmard Vital: 15:30

Well, it's a risk to get done. And at a high level, the mental must be there. Because I knew many guys with more talent. I used to call them talented casualties. Guys who have all the talent in the world, all the natural abilities, the speed, the the height, the weight, the just the talent, but they can't keep their emotions in check. They're maybe they're, you know, they can't keep things in check on the football field. And a lot of guys are not playing ball anymore. Let's just say there's probably some of the greatest athletes I've ever seen. Didn't even make it past the college level. Because they didn't have the mental capacities to be able to hold themselves together emotionally and that's such a tragedy because someone's left on the table with them.

Dr. Brad Miller: 16:10

Well, everybody's every community has their has their sandlot legend legends, don't they, you know, their their dirt, dirt bowl to the you know what I mean? The park basketball court guys are the football guys, you know, the legends who never made it, they end up being, you know, on the sidelines somewhere, sometimes they got caught up in, you know, substance abuse or any number of things, crime and other things can happen too. But whatever happened, they crashed and burned. And that, and let's talk for a minute by what you are all about in terms of helping people and what you were did in your own right, about helping people to not crash and burn, not only yourself, but others. What do you think are two or three actions that people could take, perhaps you took to kind of break out of a place of being kind of stuck or a place of being not productive to be in a place that is productive? What are some of the actions that people can take?

Ahmard Vital: 17:10

I would say the first thing is to to really take it from a mental standpoint, obviously, the more action has been taken, but to realize that like this thing called the thing we call the call life is it's not about you. We're called to serve, right? And service. For me, it comes at the ground level of gratitude. My whole career changed when I met a mentor who taught me the value of service and gratitude. Like, because once you have the idea that like, I'm here to serve the greatest number of people, and I can raise my level of intellect, my level of service to a certain point, you'll be you'll be taken care of. On the other hand, now there obviously are strategies to go through that you need to have your planning going, you need to have all these things going. But when the mindset is that I'm here to serve first, that to me, The Game of Life changes all across the board. And in a lot of people, a lot of people miss that. Because it's like, they're always like, you know what, when I get more, I'll give more. And if you never give, you'll never get more like I mean, there's so many principles that come around that, I will say that that is the foundation of everything I do from a business, a service, a philanthropy, it doesn't matter. Service comes first, what can I provide, to make other people's lives better first, and then we get into the nuts and bolts. Because of the mindset, if the mindset and the attitude behind what you do is not already established, you're going to crash and burn like we already talked about the sunlight and different things of that nature, right? So I will foremost, get your mind together and understanding that you need to develop the skills. And you need to develop an attitude of gratitude and service. And when you get to that point, now you start building on that now you start finding out what your niche is, what is going to be your method of service, what's going to be what I like to call even your ministry because no matter what you do, the service you provide does end up becoming a ministry whether you want to believe it or not.

Dr. Brad Miller: 19:10

So here at least I've heard at least two actions here we've talking about here. One of them is kind of sharpen your skills, whatever they are, whether it's a football player or an accountant or a student or a doctor or a ditch teacher, whatever to develop your ditch digger as much as you need to develop your skills and then the mental attitude, a service service attitude. One things I have liked to share in my own ministry of things is let's have an attitude of of service instead of serve us you know, as it may serve, you know some of you have a service as it served me instead of you know, instead of let's an act of service to others and so, a part of that I believe though and transformation or mod is is the connection to something greater than itself you know, we would you say you know, have an attitude where I can serve others and sometimes you have to we cannot serve, I believe out of an empty cup, you got to be fulfilled in some way or another. So what role if any, do you think some sort of a spiritual connection or connection to something greater than self via spirituality or mental health or anything else along this line? What role does this play and helping people to transform from being, you know, crashing and burning to being productive? The mental the spiritual life here?

Ahmard Vital: 20:28

Dr. Brad, that's the fuel. Nothing in life is fulfilling, without, you know, some level of spirituality. Obviously. I'm a Christian, Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, God gives me the fuel every day to be able to do what I do. Which is why every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is give things. Right. The first, the first, the first thing I always tell people, my morning ritual is make my bed up, I pull up my Bible in my mail, doing my man devotional, and I read both of those before I do anything, right, the beds made up. And now I'm in the word, I'm in prayer, I pray for my, for my guys who are on my my prayer list for that day. And that's, that's my morning ritual. And that is the, that is the fuel. That is the reason that is the fulfillment of life. For me another thing along the time with the with the service, and the gratitude, and even now, probably in the last two to three years, I've doubled down on how much more time I'm spending with God. That was not a practice that I was heavy into, from the standpoint that like, Okay, this is a requirement every day. Right? I would, you know, obviously, you pray here, there, but it was like, I'm very much more intentional about it now. And it is the fuel of every work I do, whether it's in the gym, whether it's in a school, whether it's in the church, whether it's at my job, whether it's in my business, it does not matter, the fuel, and the energy, and the love that comes from what I do come from God, because all of my gifts are from God. And that is that is my strength, that's my rock, to where.

Dr. Brad Miller: 22:05

So you've used a daily discipline is what it sounds like, to me getting of, of statements of gratitude, prayer, getting into the Bible, you the Word of God, and also your devotional guide, it sounds like a book or something like this, that you use. And that's all awesome. What's something you've learned recently out of that, especially perhaps the cumulative effect of doing that on a discipline basis, that's to tell you something that's come to you recently.

Ahmard Vital: 22:37

You know, it really has strengthened my faith, because because I'm a, I'm a sort of a, I'm a thinker, who thinks all the time and I got 9000 thoughts going on in my head, but I'm also very, very system oriented, I still have a planner I write in, and people mock me for having a written plan, or I got an ad sit next to me, while I'm talking to you, you know, I'm very, I'm very kind of regimented in that way, when it's something that I'm committed to what what this practice has done is given me room to allow God to move in my life, to to leave that space for him to bless something that I'm not thinking of, because like, it's like, okay, I need to lay everything out. So he can bless it. But it's like, what my thoughts are not going to be nowhere near as high as what God could have for me. And so now I've learned to have more faith. And let's just say in the unknown of, of something that I've not yet thought of, to where I can be blessed with within what God is calling me to do. So I will say that that would that's the main thing I've gotten out of this is to let go of some control, which for somebody like myself, drives me almost crazy. Because I want to know, I want to know, but you know.

Dr. Brad Miller: 23:50

You turn it over to something greater than self, I think that's one of the things we do when we connect it with something greater than itself, the ad God or whatever. Some of our listeners may have some other aspect of that, but to to be fulfilled by that in the hopes and guides us and lead us to the next step. And there's a level of surrender to that, that you need to do. It control freaks like myself, I'll speak for myself, sometimes have to be broken have that habit, then that leads us though, than a mod to creating new habits. At least that's one aspect. And I'm big believer, as we talked about, I like to follow what I call the ACTS plan. The A is for action, and that's some of the things we talked about some of the actions, we take the gratitude and so on, and that C is connecting with a higher power. And I believe that's important part of that as well. But I believe when you do that, that leads you then to Okay, what do I need to actually do? Here's what I need to not do. But here's my what is my new habits? What are my new things and that's where I like to the word ACTS and that word S has to think strategically. So let's talk for a minute about what are the new habits the new actions the new things needs to do. And I know you've laid out a few things in your new book called now what you talk about five steps that people can take, what are some of the steps that people can take either yourself or others can take to start to implement a new way of life that is going to be productive and fulfilling and meaningful, not only to themselves, but to make a contribution to the greater good?

Ahmard Vital: 25:22

Well, first and foremost, I one of the big things that I'm big on is actually writing things down, not not typing in on your phone, I'm talking about actually pen and pad, writing things down, getting away from the technology, right, picking up a physical book, not an e book I'm talking about where you can just steal away, have that time to yourself, and read and write, like, and get your thoughts down. Like, every, every morning, I have, let's just say I have a big three every morning, where it's like, I have all these things laid out. But it's like, okay, of these things need to be laid out? Because I'm sure you have as well, there's probably 12 things that need to be done. But what's the big three? What are if, if, if nothing else, I get done? What is that that needs to be done? Right? And it can be small, right? It can be, hey, fold up that pile of clothes over there. Right? Um, it can be send out this email. Because I think sometimes we always think that, like, everything has to be a big and major accomplishment is we put together a proposal, we, you know, finish that business plan and things of that nature. And all of that stuff is important. But I want people to get into the point where they're, they have action steps out there. And they can and they can see that something is completed. That's why I love you know, whether it's Jordan Peterson or the whether it's the Army General, I can't think of his name right now where he's just like, make your bed up.

Dr. Brad Miller: 26:43

Oh, yeah. Make your bed up. Manage your bed or something like that?

Ahmard Vital: 26:51

Yeah, clean your room, you know, wash them like, because sometimes, for somebody who's out there listening, it might be one of those seasons, where you just don't feel like you're getting anything done. And nothing's getting done, right. And it's like, you know, I teach a lot of my people, if you're in a rut, and things aren't going well for you go to that place, and everybody has it in their house, where there's that that room or that closet, this a mess, is 100% junk. And there's some things that need to get rid of remember, we remember I like to do the addition, the addition by subtraction, I say go find one box, I can put a shredder on one side and put a trash bag on the box, and you start tossing things out. And if you think twice about, hey, do I need to keep this Remember, it's been sitting away from you for months or years. And you've lived life without whatever's in that box. So 990 5% of the time it needs to go. But you'll feel so much fulfillment and releasing things that no longer that no longer serves you when you have a cluttered environment. And I'm speaking, I'm thinking from a guy who absolutely was looking at his office this morning, just frustrated. That's why I decided to step away from my house today. Because I need to clean out some spaces, I need to clean off the desk, get the jump out of your life, because when you take care of the physical surroundings, it clears your head up mentally to be able to do greater and, and good things in your life to be able to just be able to laser like focus when there's nothing on your desk. You know, I'm not saying you gotta go all out and be a minimalist, but let's start getting more towards that. And those type of things will clear your mind and clear your your spirit to be able to allow room. Remember, we talked about making room making something greater.

Dr. Brad Miller: 28:32

So in order to make room you got to clear some junk out, you sell it a little bit by my wife now about some of the right behind where I'm sitting, those are added because piles of boxes in there need to be gone through from decades and in my case decades. But is your right? It makes a big difference. When you when you do that you make room? What do you make a room for now? Let's go to the next. What are some of the things that you do here? What do you make a room for?

Ahmard Vital: 28:55

Well, for one, you're making room for new for new and amazing ideas, or it helps you solve a problem that you haven't been able to solve. Okay, whether it's whether it's starting to write a book, whether it's a new career, whether it's launching a business, because you know we have, we have a lot of ideas that have been on our goal sheet for years, or even bigger than that we haven't put the goals on paper yet. We haven't put it down on playing tablet yet. So we're up here trying to make major moves without even having a blueprint. And you know, we obviously outline that. And now what when we're looking through everything, and I think we do that and in between the design and the planning phase, because obviously we open up with reflection, which we've talked about that enough already. It's like, Hey, where are we? How do we get here? And that's your reflect stays, and we're going to decide, okay, we see what's going on here. Now what is it that we want? What do you want from your life? Because if you can't define it, you can't. You can't be blessed with what you don't have anything, nothing written down that you want to do with your life. And then we go into our planning phase. When we start going into the goals, it's like, alright, we decided, okay, I want to be a landscaper. Okay? Now the planning stage, what do we need to be a landscaper, we need tools we need the equipment we need the LLC we need, start listing out all the things you need, and then start looking at how, how do I acquire this? Is it going to cost money for these things? What what what do we need a crew? Can we do this on our own? What is the business aspect of things and you start like lining all those things out. And once you take care of the reflect the side and planning stage, then now you go into action. You go into action and say all right now, what is this right here? How long? Is it going to take me over to acquire the skills to do this? What do I need for this? How much money do I need for this? Because you may need some steps you need to do in before, let's just say something you need for the business is $10,000. And maybe all you have is four. Okay, so now how are we going to get the other 6000, meaning you might have to do something that's not part of this goal, to gain the resources to take care of the guy wants to do all of those things. And of course, the last point after act is to seek and that's a huge, that's a huge component that we haven't yet gotten into. But the main thing is, is that life is not meant to be lived alone. You need a community, you need mentors, you need accountability, allies, I know we hear all of these things. And we've and we've, society has really pushed us away from the family aspects so much these days to where it's like, you know, I did this on my own, nobody helped me, which is just a, you know, a falsehood, that's a lie. No one No one acquires success of any kind, alone. And life is not meant to be lived alone. It's supposed to be meant and community and family and villages, right? The reason why we have so many issues now with our young people is because society is successfully broken the family and just decimated it. And there's a number of reasons why we probably don't have time to get into those today. But we know many of the things that are happening that is killing the family. And

Dr. Brad Miller: 31:56

it's got to reboot. It sounds like you've outlined rather well there the five steps that we just did there the five steps from the now what book, so let's just kind of go over them again, just succinctly now, you know, you've kind of gave us the paragraph version, give me the bullet points for what they are. So we can put that just have a little more clarity, what the bullet points are there of those five things.

Ahmard Vital: 32:20

Right. Yes. So reflect, reflect is the is the is the starting point for everything, no matter where you are in life, boom. How did we get here? What is going on? Reflect? All right, gotcha. Reflect, look around at your surroundings. And this is where I'm using Napoleon Hill word is where we take personal inventory. All right, what's going on?

Dr. Brad Miller: 32:42

Alright, second part of the five seconds decide

Ahmard Vital: 32:45

to decide you see where we are and where we need to make a decision. Where do we want to go?

Dr. Brad Miller: 32:52

So you can't reflect forever? You can't say, you know, stand at the grocery aisle decide between seven or seven different seven different types of cookies, you got to pick out a cookie, and go. I want to know why I'm thinking about cookies today. But no, you got the idea. So just a good cookie. That's right, that cookies are cool. So

Ahmard Vital: 33:09

basically, what you're saying is you're sitting in a grocery store and you're reflecting and you're hungry, but you haven't chosen something to eat.

Dr. Brad Miller: 33:14

That's right. That's right. So what's what's the third? What's the third one here?

Ahmard Vital: 33:18

The third one is to plan, plan, Mike, reflect, we decided what we want? How do we do it? Yeah, how do we do it that you you plan? You start laying it out? What's the game plan? What's the blueprint, a mind map, a business plan,

Dr. Brad Miller: 33:33

you got a goal sheet and, and you're saying write it down, make it a written plan, write it down is good. It's not just a plan of good intentions, or someday I'll get around to it. You know, you got to actually make a plan. Okay,

Ahmard Vital: 33:50

what's next. And actually in the book, if I may, just please, please, please. When when you when you when you write it down that because there's a section, there's a section in playing Where does say write it down. And what I mean, what I want you to do is I want you to write it down pen, paper. And then I want you to read it out loud to yourself, Okay, think about what was going on here, you got the pin, you're moving it, that's an action, you're reading it, you see it, you say it aloud. So now it goes now to your order goes into your ears and hear in your brain gets to hear. So it's a full circle, type of mental activity. You write it, you're reading it, you say it back to yourself, you hear it and now it comes back full circle. That's a very important step in that because now you get to hear you get to hear the vision that's laid out to you. So that was what we do in the planning stage. Then of course we go into like next one will be action act.

Dr. Brad Miller: 34:40

So that's the implementation stage right?

Ahmard Vital: 34:42

Implementation, get up and start moving. You know what to say God can't steer a parked car, right? You got to go you got to make some moves. And some people say well, maybe I'm not ready. Even if you don't have all the steps laid out. I want you to get moving because sometimes in your moving you will learn some things It's kinda like people who make marketing plans forever, but they never try it out to see if it works. I want you to go out and try it out. I want you to run into roadblocks, I want you to run into a dead end, I want you to fall into a ditch, maybe sprained your ankle along the way. All of that is part of the process and understanding anybody out there just starting the business and laid out their business plan, every one of them will tell you that nothing went like they wrote down initially. Not a single thing. Yeah,

Dr. Brad Miller: 35:23

well, if you, if we all quit, if we failed, we'd all none of us would be walking, because the first time we fall down, when we were toddlers, we would never get back up and walk again. So you know, we got to, we got to keep keep going. So one more thing that you're playing into your, your process or your five steps.

Ahmard Vital: 35:39

The last one is to seek, seek counsel, seek guidance, seek wisdom,

Dr. Brad Miller: 35:45

and that's your duty. That's people in your life and how you serve people and that type of thing.

Ahmard Vital: 35:50

Like one of my one of my one of my guys said, Dr. Greg Reese said, The most successful people are the most available people. That is one thing that the internet has done for us, it has made the world smaller. Yeah, somebody who's in your industry, who does something great at the level that you're trying to do it at. They're on LinkedIn, they're on social media. And they're assessable, whether you want to believe it or not. And there's a method I teach in there on how to reach out to people who are maybe 810 steps ahead of you, as far as what's going on, reach out to them, get you a mentor, get you accountability allies, find a top three to five people in your industry, and reach out to them and ask them one single question, tell them that you want a little bit of their time.

Dr. Brad Miller: 36:31

So you've reached out to people now and they're reaching out to you through your book. So who is this book for and how's it served them?

Ahmard Vital: 36:39

It was written mainly for young adults, I say 17 through 28, though it can work for somebody who's older, because really it's about is making a major transitional move in your life, you know, maybe changing careers because we know people who change careers in their 40s. Right. But it's mainly for those who are coming out of college, and haven't figured out what life looks like it because you've been insulated. You've been in dorm rooms, you've been in your parents house, you know, but it's also for the person who maybe has had some legal issues, and maybe stuck in a certain situation, maybe somebody who's in a broken home.

Dr. Brad Miller: 37:17

So yeah, so you've got this group targeted and it's been the main focus of your of your life, it seemed like to me further to your writing and through your organization. Tell me about a person who you have served in one form or another either through your writing or through your organization's you're involved with who you've seen this impact this turn around, give me some sort of a story here about a person or maybe perhaps a group of people that you've served.

Ahmard Vital: 37:45

You know, this, this, who would have so many to choose from, but I, I think I would like to use a young man I worked with about 10 years ago, he had a great story. He was a football player in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And he was pretty good, but not like your high end, guys. And I'm a guy whose name was very known. And his dad hired me to help him out through the process. And we were looking over everything and I take an athlete at a totality, I take their playing skills, I take their grades, and I'll take their financial and family situation. And I put it all together and almost like an almost like into a formula. And the way we marketed him was to tell him like, Hey, here's a young man who's going to come on your team. He's going to be a good ambassador for the team. If you need him to play, he can. But he's going to be a good locker room guy. He's going to be a team player, and he's going to do what's needed for the team to win whatever you ask him to do. We marketed him that way to the school, he ended up going there. I think he played about three years and his last year, the coaches and him decided that maybe it was time for him to move on. But he was able to use football as a catalyst for much bigger things. By the time he was 22 years old, he had already had his degree, he had he had made it to where the money his father has saved for him to go to college was taken care of because we found them enough academic money for him to be able to get through school. So now you can go take that money and use it towards something else. When I last checked in on him, he was 2223 years old. And he was he was making $81,000 as a as an engineer. And so and I look at that, like I look at that from a straight success story because now it is showing that you can use all the gifts that are given to you to be able to make something happen. And he was I've worked with athletes for many years and I got plenty of success stories but that one was one that was particularly impressive for me because of the because of the nature of we use. We use sports and academics and merge those two together and live with where he was strong. He was a marginal athlete, but he was an exceptional student and he went to school as a student athlete. But notice that

Dr. Brad Miller: 39:55

athlete and that feels good when you have been a part of that process. one form or another, because not everybody is going to go and you know, be starting safety for the Dallas Cowboys or that kind of thing. They're going to more people have the opportunity if they want to, to leverage whatever the wilderness experience they have into something greater if they if they choose to. So, a great stereo there a moto mod, if there's people out there listening at our listening audience, who have resonated with what you've shared here today. Yeah. How can they learn more about you how perhaps can they get your book now what, let's find out more about how people can make a connection with you.

Ahmard Vital: 40:34

Well, thank you for that is a Moby tall.com, that's H mar de vi t a l.com. That's the hub for all of my services, all of my products. Now what is available on all the major platforms that sell books, I think last time, my publisher told me some 33 Different places too. So whichever one is your favorite, by all means, go go check out the book, if you want to get a quick preview of it. And and see and see some of the points book now. what.com. That's book now what.com, for your radio guests, they can get a free copy a free preview copy of it, and check it out before they go make a purchase. We'd love for you to be able to get that purchase product there. The audiobook will possibly be done by the end of the year publisher does not want me to get in the lab yet. I'm really looking forward to doing that. But the ebook and the paperback is available now. We'd love to get their feedback on it. We've gotten a lot of great feedback and results. Thus far. It's only been out about two months. But we have gotten some great, some great feedback on it up to this point. And so I'm grateful to be able to share that with the world.

Dr. Brad Miller: 41:42

Well, so you've shared with us some good things here, Ahmard and we'll put connections to everything you've shared, your website at our website, Dr. Brad miller.com. And people could find out more about your book. Now what and what you're all about. Good stuff here today. Appreciate you sharing your story. I know it takes a lot to share some sensitive parts of your story, but you've shared it and as to be a gift of gratitude to give to others who have that need. And I thank you for doing that. And taking that risk. Our guest today on beyond the adversity of Ahmard Vital from ahmardvital.com, our guest today on the beyond the adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller