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Most of us desire to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. However, no one ever knows when we will discover our life’s purpose. Finally, however, there comes the point in our lives where we find it out, on our own. My guests today are two gentlemen who help the entrepreneurs in living out their purpose and legacy. Nikhil Agharkar, a serial entrepreneur and business development executive, and Casey Berman, entrepreneurial strategy executive, researcher, and a former attorney, join us today to discuss how to figure out your North Star and why that matters while ensuring that you are not just creating a hamster wheel for yourself.
Everyone has struggles. No one’s life is more challenging than anyone else’s. Besides, nobody wants and deserves to be on average. Yet, only a few know how to be great. My guest today is someone who works to build a world in which every individual sees themself as the hero of their own story, dares to turn that story into reality, and has the confidence to share it with the world. After being diagnosed with a life-shortening disease, being told that he would have a life expectancy of 30 years and never have biological children, yet by today, he has built an award-winning career, fathered two amazing sons, and accomplished physical feats unimaginable for medical experts.
Ryan Shekell, a delusional optimist and podcaster, joins us for today’s episode to share how he challenges his predicted life and creates the legacy he wants to leave behind.
Show Notes
Ryan’s Story – We talk about Ryan’s background, how he invalidated each assumption others had about his life, from playing baseball at the collegiate level to running a 50km ultra-marathon with less than 70% lung function.
Mindset Matters – Ryan reveals his secret behind his unbelievable tasks, naming it the delusional optimist mindset. As he explains, it is the mindset of believing that he can do anything.
Delusional Optimist Mindset – You can do anything you desire. Your belief had full potential to lead you to either success or failure. Ryan emphasizes the importance of having such a mindset in every aspect of our life.
Overcome Adversity – If you determine to achieve greatness, you need to leverage your strengths and weakness. Ryan talks about overcoming his adversities by building them to his workouts and forcing him to practice fortitude daily.
Inner Circle – Ryan classifies the people in our close network into 3C’s as cheerleaders, challengers, and champions and points out the necessity of having champions in life out of the categories mentioned above.
Build the Network – In life, we meet different people, and it takes much reflection to realize the right people to have in our network. As Ryan says, we need to go out from our comfort zones and find the people for our network who help us grow and succeed.
Start Your Day With Success – Ryan shares how he challenges himself, plans his daily schedule, and, most notably, how he gets the victorious start for the day with his alarm clock.
Optimize Your Life – We should define people with something they can fully control. We all are capable of building the legacy we want to leave behind. Although we may not control what happens to us, we can always control our reactions. Be self-conscious. Put focus and effort. You will get the best results.
Contact with Ryan Shekell
Website: everybreathcountspodcast.com
Instagram: instagram.com/ryanshekell/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanshekell/
Mentioned in the Episode
Bobbi Kahler was a guest on the Every Breath Counts podcast:
everybreathcountspodcast.com/potential/
Atomic Habits:
goodreads.com/book/show/40121378-atomic-habits
Bobbi's Takeaways
Here are my three insights for thriving.
Create a delusional optimist mindset at the heart of this is the belief that I can do anything that I set my mind to think about it for a minute how this one belief contributes to our success or to our failure. If we believe it is possible, we tend to work towards it. If we believe it is impossible, we probably don't put the work in.
I love how Ryan talked about building an adversity to his workouts so that he can build up fortitude, sports, or athletics are a great way to do that. I know I've talked about it before on the podcast, but you guys know I'm a cross country skier and avid cross country skier. There are times when I get to the top of the mountain, and it scares me to death. When I think about skiing down. I mean, I am terrified. I'm shaking. Sometimes I want to cry. It's scary. But here's the thing, every time I ski down it, even if I fall, I'm building confidence.
Start your day with success. I loved Ryan's example of the alarm clock right beating the alarm clock. I've also heard people talk about that's why making your bed in the morning is so important. Because it's a win. It allows us to create the momentum early and let that carry us through the day.
