Live on Purpose: Ahmard Vital on Dreaming Big & Thriving Under Pressure

Feeling drained or overwhelmed on your entrepreneurial journey? In this episode, Ahmard Vital shares how to energize your purpose, dream bigger, and navigate stress to stay on track towards your goals and true potential.

What’s Covered in This Episode:

• How to reignite your passion and energy in the midst of entrepreneurial stress.
• Ahmard’s strategies for dreaming big and staying focused on your purpose.
• Practical tools to manage stress and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
• How to embrace setbacks as part of your growth and success.
• The power of relentless pursuit in achieving your business goals.

Motivational consultant, international speaker, and 3 x author Ahmard Vital has empowered people globally with his inspirational guidance and tips for self-development.

Ahmard provides his audiences with the tools needed to achieve personal success, utilize willpower and determination, and develop strategies that will allow people of all ages to achieve personal and professional excellence.

After nearly a decade of studying the performance habits of high achieving athletes, Ahmard has developed programs of inspiration and motivation that are beneficial to individuals, professionals, companies, and organizations worldwide.

For more info:
http://www.ahmardvital.com/

🤝 Connect with Ahmard:
https://www.instagram.com/ahmardvital/

💛Share with a friend who would enjoy this conversation.

Thank you for listening in! See you next week.

Transcript

Ahmard (2): [00:00:00] Once you can decide that becomes the pot of gold you're running towards Even if you're only taking one step at a time and it's 10 000 miles away You are running towards it with purpose when you wake up your life Has a different tenor has a different tone to it because you wake up excited You wake up saying what am I going to do today?

That's going to bring me one step closer to that What's going to change my entire life?

It's time to reinvent.

Priscilla (2): Welcome to the lessons of entrepreneurship, the journey of reinvention. As always, I have an exciting guest for you today. Amad Vital motivational consultant, global international speaker, and three time author. Amad, I'm so excited to have you here because you're going to speak to something that a lot of [00:01:00] entrepreneurs struggle with 

Please introduce yourself.

Ahmard (2): My name is Amarvital and thank you for having me on to share with your audience some of the things we go through as entrepreneurs.

Priscilla (2): . Amad, tell us how you got started, because I think the audience is always interested to know how other people are doing it, so you can have a frame of how you're moving as well. 

Ahmard (2): The start of everything for me I was probably 10, 11 years old, when at the core, I've always been a writer. Whether you're talking about mental performance, coaching, speaking the curriculums and, coaching, all those things just come back to the fact that my pen in my hand and a pad next to me, like I have right here.

Everything jumped from there, working for newspapers, working for magazines doing my college football recruiting analyst with Fox. All of those things start with my pen. Over time, realized that the pen is the greatest weapon God ever gave me to be able to communicate my message.

Even though I speak, I coach and do all these other things. For me, a pen to pad is the foundation for everything. I wrote my first book in 2011, coming off of my work with Fox as a college football recruiting analyst, wanting to [00:02:00] take the sports side along with the spiritual and personal development side that I had developed over that time.

My first book, Awaken the Baller Within was about studying the success habits. of high achieving college football players, much like Napoleon Hill did with Think and Grow Rich. Once I had put the book out there, my mentor was like, Hey, if you want to learn how to sell the book, you go and speak.

And I was like, oh, okay. I guess I should learn how to do that. Started being a keynote speaker, speaking in locker rooms, small businesses, nonprofits working with some of the same principles from Awaken the Bottle Within, which is dream building, goal setting, and a relentless pursuit for both of those things.

That was my platform starting off and, you start small, making a couple hundred dollars here and there to, of course, the pinnacle me, getting called over to a conference in Africa to be able to speak. That was the foundation of how I got into business.

And of course, after speaking, you go into coaching, coaching, you go into, many other things can spin off of a business. You have other products you sell. Like I have CDs that go with my books audio books and different things of that nature. But my first start was my pen and my pen to writing a [00:03:00] book and writing my book to speaking.

That was how I got started 

Priscilla (2): As you're speaking, I was seeing all the things that we talk about with our audience, about skill stacking, it was one skill after another about a journey of excelling at one thing and then that thing propelling you to the next thing. Wow, that's really amazing.

Ahmad, you quickly. Ran through a few of the concepts and awaken the baller within. And I was like hold up. We've got to go back. We've got to go back. You've got to tell us those principles again. What is awaken the baller within.

Ahmard (2): Again, it was based on sports, I'm a former jock, former college football player myself. And, I not just love sports writing, mixing them two together, but during that time, I had really gone through a bad breakup and some really crazy things were going on in my life, which after I look back at it, , every time I wrote a book, there was some tragedies that happened, and I think that fueled a number of things, but with the Baking the Baller Within, was using sports merely a metaphor, because what ended up happening is, it's a book, To teach you how to go through life where Some of the things you use for on the football field or on the baseball field or on the [00:04:00] soccer field or in the pool Or on the tennis courts is the same success principles you need to be successful in life And of course us as entrepreneurs we can't avoid Going through dream building we can become kids.

If my business could be everything it was going to be, what would that look like? It's pie in the sky Oh man, I want to have this many clients. I want to do this many things. Then of course, the practical side of it is that you have to put some real legs behind different things.

, everyone says they want to be a billionaire, but are you willing to make moves billionaires make? And so for some of us, we look at dream building and say, okay, what is the biggest thing that my company can ever become? And then you look at that and we do what's called work in reverse.

It's okay, first, what do people who have these types of businesses, what have they done? And B, what is possible within the confines of where I am? Because has to do with certain things, what type of business is it? You look at all of those things and say, if this was the max of what it would be, then here are the steps that I need to go about it.

. What do I [00:05:00] need to achieve these goals? Start working in reverse and you say, I need this sort of infrastructure. I need this type of equipment. Okay. Now that I need this type of equipment, what are the resources needed to do that? What do I need to do prior to getting my business to that place?

In the dream building phase, you're thinking about all of these different types of things. And once you lay out, I guess you would say the infrastructure, maybe you're talking about mind maps and you're talking about. Those diagrams where you're putting the sticky notes and saying, this needs to go here.

This needs to go here. And what are the building blocks for certain things? Then you go into what I call goal setting. It's okay, I see what the big picture is. I've worked in reverse and I'm looking at all of these different things. Now, what do I do first and next? Then, you start doing the one step at a time, do you have the resources?

Do you have the education? Do you have the building? Do you have the product? Do you have the ideas? All of those things have to come to play. Dream building and goal setting are the first two steps that we worked with, what awakened the ball within, which is the same thing football players and different athletes do going into the next season, [00:06:00] looking at what they want to accomplish, whether it's getting a college scholarship, if you're already in college, are you looking to make it to the professional leagues?

Are you looking to achieve a certain benchmark statistical wise, weight wise results wise. We took all of those different things like that and understanding that. The dream building and goal setting can only happen when you have what I like to call a burn the ships or we got to get after it moment.

That's where the relentless pursuit comes in. Every day you have your planner, you have your pad, you have whatever you need to say. Okay. We see what the big goal is. We see what the monthly goal is. The yearly goal the daily goal and that daily goal is something that you need to be looking at.

What do I want to do today or what can I do today to put me in a place to inch closer to the weekly goal, to the monthly goal, to the quarterly goal, to the yearly goal. Each day needs to be a relentless pursuit, a step forward in what it is you are trying to [00:07:00] achieve.

That's where the three steps come from, taking it from the sports field and into what I like to say is the boardroom or , your office or wherever you do the business 

Priscilla (2): I feel really inspired and have a sense of wanting to awaken that baller within me . Kelly Roach talks about business athletes. And when you're talking about how athletes break down, the weight goal, what they're going to do in a day, it's the same in business , sometimes we see the success of other people, you assume that, Michael Jordan just happened to be Michael Jordan, or you assume that, whoever Mark Cuban just happened to be Mark Cuban.

And for you to break that down to what needs to happen on a daily, on a weekly. Thank you so much for that. You've been sports, you've done the coaching, you've done the speaking, you're building your business. How do you develop that mental performance?

Cause I think that's where, after we have this big goal, sometimes we fall down. I don't know from working with clients, what you've seen.

Ahmard (2): It's interesting that you say that because [00:08:00] sometimes you become your own client. I'm going through one of those seasons right now, if I can be transparent with your audience. I like to be very upfront. My business is going through a major transformation right now. coming off of year where I'm going strong and I'm speaking in a lot of places and doing a lot of curriculum and I'm moving around to a lot of places sometimes when you grow and you're looking at all the ways growing it's not that you get stagnant in the growth but you grew faster than you expected and you don't quite recover and catch back up and throw the next line out into the water.

And so right now I'm in that boat moment where where am I going to expand the business right now? Is it going to be more speaking? Is it going to be more coaching? Is it going to be more working with nonprofits to write curriculums? Is it going to be more schools, more churches, ?

If I flip this camera around, there's a whole bunch of sticky notes right here behind me. with different areas of my life and different goals I'm looking to achieve. It's time to rehash all of those goals and start over. I know we're in what [00:09:00] May right now, , whereas you're supposed to come in with these yearly objectives , but the back half of 223 was so crazy.

To the point where it's like I'm recalibrating in this time right now. The mental performance I'm dealing with right now is endurance. Is endurance in sitting still long enough to be able to put pen the pad. If I showed you how many sticky notes and how many notes in the back of dinner, napkins and planners, I've been laying all these things out and it's like I need to take all of those scattered ideas and I know I'm talking to somebody and consolidate 'em down and say.

What's the big three of all this that I'm trying to do? And then work within that. Cause right now I have 20, 2037 ideas, but I need to focus on what is the main thing of all of these goals. I'm actually in the process of doing that right now. In real time. While I'm teaching others, I'm doing this because right now My business is in a little bit of disarray and trying to hone things back in because maybe I've thrown too many lines [00:10:00] out and I need to focus and bring that pyramid down to that center point so I can be laser focused on the one thing and then expand from there.

That's where mental performance comes from. It comes from endurance and focus, and I'm sure we'll get on this later. But the main thing is get some help say, Hey man, I'm lost right now. I've had some success. I've spoken in five countries. Who cares? Where are you going tomorrow?

And that type of question, I'm going to consolidate all these notes and I'm going to take it to people I trust who are in business and say, help me sift through this right now because I'm all over the place and I need to get focused. Right now, I'm the example of perhaps a scatterbrained entrepreneur who's trying to make a new move and has not quite figured that out yet. So go find somebody who's a little bit further up the road than you, who maybe has been here before and get them to help you. And that's where I'm at right now.

I'm actually vetting a couple of people right now. I'm looking for to help me through the season I'm in right [00:11:00]now.

Priscilla (2): \ There's so much valuable things that you said. I might not get it all, but let me know if I get lost every level we reach that point again, where you may feel like you plateau. In the beginning too, you feel that way. Even when you've accomplished a certain level of success, you get to that point again, and it's interesting that the principles remain true.

Getting a network, a community of people who are further ahead than you'd help you along. Finding time to sit still. Cause that's really hard for a lot of people, because this is culture of do. And if you sit still, you feel like you're doing something wrong.

You should be moving, but you do need to sit still 

For an entrepreneur who's starting out and. It's at, that beginning phase where you feel like either you don't really know what to do, so you're just all over the place or you're just trying to get money in the bank.

there's someone who's listening who's right there at the beginning or thinking about the beginning and someone who's really started a long time ago.

Ahmard (2): If you're just getting started along, then obviously need to know who [00:12:00] your market is, who you're targeting, what product do you have who can benefit from that. And I would say, reach out to those who are connected to the people who are your customers. Let's just say you have a dry cleaning business.

You're looking for those networks and those opportunities to connect with people who are connected with those who are looking for those types of services. Obviously, there's so many different types of businesses out there. And of course you do as much market research you can, but once again, help from someone to do that and understand 

you may have to get creative on how to bring in some money. For myself, I came up as a writer. There may be times when some of my writing is going to be bought from people, whether it's through my books and otherwise, but you may have to go back to something that got you started in the first place.

Think about , what it took for you to get your LLC to get your DBA. When you first started, what was you doing then to be able to start the business? Sometimes we might have to back to things that maybe We've done before that were profitable and we've moved on to other things, but you may have to go back to as some cultural say get it [00:13:00] out of the mud you may have to get down take your suit off and put the coveralls on and get to work In a way that maybe you haven't done before because at the end of the day you do have to still make those payments You still have to make revenue goals you need to be able to run the business, whether it's stuff with your IT side of things, maybe you took out an SBA loan or whatever that looks like.

The bottom line is that those bills have to be paid and the bank doesn't care if you have a down month or not, you have to do what you need to do to be able to make some money. Sometimes it might be going back to things that you did 10, 15 years ago. Or just when you first started to be able to make your revenue goals until you get the ideas and get your client base back up and get some wins under your belt 

but the worst thing you can do is think that there's no way, because there's always a way it's just a matter of how much are you willing to sacrifice and how much are you willing to humble yourself to get the revenue you need to be able to take care of your clients and take care of your staff 

Priscilla (2): it's interesting because, this is exercise that I did some time ago where you check, [00:14:00] where did you make the most money with the least amount of hustle or with the most ease? And sometimes you find it something that, you thought, oh, I don't need to do that anymore.

I'm gonna do something else. And you completely forgot about it. And if you really think about. What do I need to do now? You already have the answer. If you just ask the right questions of what did I do before to get money? How was I getting money through this and that? Amad, if you could please speak to us about the habits that you should have to be high performing.

Ahmard (2): man, , that could be a whole podcast in and of itself. for me, it's getting started as early as possible. First thing in the morning, whatever your housing structure is, the earlier you get up the more you have time to to be able to just think for yourself and have that time.

I think that a big part of being successful is being healthy, being physically and mentally fit. Whether that's reading things that are profitable to your mind. Obviously some level of health and nutrition working out running, doing weights whatever your choice of fitness [00:15:00] is.

I do think that, that plays a big role in it. Just focus a lot of focus, make sure you keep your planner, your goal sheet next to you at all times. Keep. the things that you want to be reminded of that remind you of success. Keep them around you at all time. I believe, this is not necessarily a habit, but it definitely is a principle and strength I work with is get healthy minded, like minded people around you.

I believe community is a major factor in us moving forward having a healthy mindset, keeping people who will keep you encouraged around you so they can strengthen you and empower you, pray for you and just support you through the tough times. Cause entrepreneurship , can get lonely quick, right?

Because it's you and whether you're a sole proprietor where it's just you, or maybe you have a small staff of less than 10 people, or maybe you have up to 50 or a hundred people either way. There is no paid time off for us. There's no I'm going to get that bonus check at the end of the month.

No, that's [00:16:00] not how it works. We eat what we kill and we have to go out every day and make something happen. Habits I just shared to me are some of the primary things and just make sure that you keep As Kobe said, the main thing, which is, the goals you have set for you to move forward and impress make sure those happen.

Priscilla (2): The stats on the survival rate of small businesses that how many make it to the 1st year and how many make it to the 3rd year and how many make it to the 5th year. When you read those statistics, you realize how important it is to dial in from other people who've done it.

And. Not isolate and try to figure things out yourself because, you will fall into the statistics hack what other people have done. I think the other thing that I really appreciate if you could speak to handling stress and pressure, the mindset.

Ahmard (2): One of the things do to handle stress is work out five times a week. So I get to let off a lot of steam. I'm also a fitness instructor. [00:17:00] That sort of is stress reliever and a ministry for me obviously I'm a performance coach and a motivational speaker.

Doing fitness definitely a way of handling stress. And also just really looking back and trying to understand why you're here to do what you do. Why'd you get into this? Not to be fair, some of us, we get into this and I'm sure many entrepreneurs out there can do this.

Sometimes we end up Putting together plans and that marketing plan ends up being nothing like when you get out and test drive all of it. And you just have to stay the course and you stay the course through encouragement. For me it's fitness for me, it's prayer.

My Christian faith is something that keeps me strong daily. My day starts off with that. don't leave my room. I don't leave my house. Until I give thanks and gratitude and prayer in reading and praying at the same time. That for me is the foundation. Fitness would be secondary.

And then just having encouraging people in my corner who will say, when you get knocked down, they're just like, no, VTOL, you got [00:18:00] this. And we have your back. We support you. What do you need? They'll pray for me. They'll intercede on my behalf. And so for me, stress. is dealt with in that way.

Because to me that is the most efficient and the most profitable way for me to deal with stress is to go in prayer and seek the wisdom of my father.

Priscilla (2): Thank you for that because audiences, Christian entrepreneurs, but we do get so caught up in all, The business things that we can sometimes set aside the fact that we have a place where we can find peace. We have a way that we can be strengthened from within, despite whatever challenges that we face, that challenges will come.

But having habits of managing yourself and managing your spirituality and keeping in check that you are a Christian entrepreneur and you have some way , to find that strength. Now, I want to mention that you've also got two other books. You've got a book called I Am More Than Enough and your latest book, [00:19:00] which is called Now What? I'll let you speak to what is the message of your latest book, Now What? 

Ahmard (2): Now what five steps to get up and create the most of life was written in the middle of 2020. Some of your people and yourself were around and there was a few things going on. Globally, and of course, stateside as well the pandemic and went down, things were shut down. People were losing their minds, losing their homes, losing their faith, losing everything.

I put together a book that basically took the profile of if the absolute worst thing happened to you and you had nowhere to turn and nowhere to go, what would you tell that person? As I was doing profiles on a couple of classmates, I went to school with and people I know, profiles of people who've gone through traumatic things and you say, okay, what's the common denominator?

What I ended up coming up with is five steps, . One is , to reflect, decide, plan, act, and seek. That's the five steps. Obviously in the reflect, right? [00:20:00] Stage of it. That will be stage one. how did we get here you start taking assessment of in debt this bad My family's in shambles My house is about to get foreclosed whatever is the worst things going on in your life get it all out on paper and See what they are.

And how did we get here? Once you see You the damage that's done and write it all down and let it all out. Then you move on and say, okay, this is a pretty bad situation. Now you go step two, you decide this is bad. Now, what do I want? If I can have things how I want it, what do I want?

And so you decide, you go through and say, I'm here and I need to go here. Okay, decide, what does that look like? Maybe it's getting a new career. Maybe it's going to Apply for a different type of job. Maybe it's go back to school for more education, whatever that looks like. You decide 

Then you go through the planning phase. You've decided this is where you want to go. Now you plan and put together. What are the steps? You work in reverse as we talked about earlier. I want to [00:21:00] be a physical therapist. Okay. What do you need? You need education. Okay. What else do you need?

You need money. That means you need a job. You go through all of these steps to lead you to that larger goal. And so that plan is the goal at the end , of your situation. And of course, then you go into action. You decided you plan.

Now it's time to go. Go make the moves go Do what needs to be done go to school get the job get the resources Get the people in your life You need all these different things and you're just taking action because a lot of times people put a lot of time into planning and things But they make no moves after that And so that same to do list is still sitting over there in the corner and not Taking action upon and the last one to me and the most important one is to seek So you've reflected You've decided, you've planned, and you've taken action.

Now it's time to seek your tribe. It's time to seek your community. It's time for you now to get mentors. It's time for you now to get allies. It's time for you now to be an apprentice to somebody. It's time for you now to get the people around you who can help you achieve [00:22:00] your goal and make your action steps more profitable by moving in a way To where you have the help needed to be able to move that direction.

That's the five steps that we put together for people to be able to move forward and make a new change in life. , I put it for people who need to make big transitional moves, but it can be for somebody who's just looking to maybe level up with what they're already doing, maybe add another wing to their company, maybe expand the company.

Maybe you're operating in Chicago and you want to do some business in New York. I want to expand out to California. Okay. Boom, you go through those same steps. Whenever you want to make that move from point A to point B, these five steps help people be able to navigate through each step of the process.

And each one of them has different strategies within it, within the seat chapter, within the plan chapter, it's got multiple ways you can do this. I did that because, I'm a guy who was a jock and a C student. I need stuff to be simple. And put it in a way where somebody can look through these things and say, okay, this one works for me.

I like this strategy over here. Let me try this one. [00:23:00] And so each of them have multiple strategies and different points of reference within them to be able to help you get where you're trying to go.

Priscilla (2): I can tell that you're a writer because when I listened to the titles of your books, now what you really get that sense of extraordinary penmanship and awaken the ball within , it speaks to cause someone to want to take an action.

That's really amazing. Being that you are a motivational speaker. What is your main message ? I thought, since I have you here, to my audience that may be listening and needs to be motivated a little bit today, 

Ahmard (2): What do I want you to walk away with? I can't go back mentality. You are at a place where you have to make a decision and you don't have a whole bunch of time to mess around.

You need to get from point A to point B. When you start thinking about Can't Go Back, this is the idea that you say, what is it that I want that will completely change my life? At this moment. If I achieve this, then now [00:24:00] this will completely transform my whole life in the lineage of those behind me.

Decide what that is, when you talk about can't go back, you're talking about burning the ships and saying, either I achieved this or I perish, right? Look at what that is in your life see where it is you're trying to go decide, what am I willing to give to be able to achieve that?

Once you can decide that becomes the pot of gold whatever it is. You're running towards Even if you're only taking one step at a time and it's 10 000 miles away You are running towards it with purpose when you think about things from that standpoint when you wake up your life Has a different tenor has a different tone to it because you wake up excited You wake up saying what am I going to do today?

That's going to bring me one step closer to those 10 000 steps that i'm looking to make to reach that What's going to change my entire life? situation not only my life but the lives of those who come behind me whether it be children or just future [00:25:00] generations who will benefit from the idea or the initiative or the product that I created.

And so I would say that I want everyone to wake up with that type of purpose in mind and to know that along the way this is not at all about you, but it is. I know you said I'm off the cuff here. It's not about you, but it is. It's about you in the sense that you are responsible for the achievement.

Of what you said that you want however It's not about you because what you are called to do is to serve the needs of others Meaning that along the way you need to bring others with you who you can help empower and you empower them to help you reach that goal. What I'm basically saying is that you become the blessing to them by allowing them into your world to help you achieve this goal that they had a part in.

Because see, we don't live this thing called life alone. We are called to be servants. Among [00:26:00] our people were called to provide and give and serve and love one another. And the only way we do that is to bring others along with us. And so the success is shared amongst others, and therefore you can live a purposeful and fulfilling life knowing that you gave all of what you had to empower others and leave the world in a better place than when you got here.

Priscilla (2): The energy of purpose. If you walk away from listening to this with anything, remember these words. Move with the energy of purpose. Ahmad Vital, thank you so much. If you want to learn more about Ahmad, I'll have a link down below, or you can follow him online, which is the best platform for them to follow you on Ahmad.

Ahmard (2): Instagram or Facebook is where I'm most active right now. There's videos and different motivational posts that are going on at both of those locations. And of course, the modvital. com is the hub for everything, but any of those social media platforms, you type my name in and all of those things are [00:27:00] going to show up.

And I'm more than willing to hear from any of your people who seeking any level of motivation, guidance, or just. I'm having a bad day and I need to talk to somebody. I'm here for all of those different purposes.

Priscilla (2): It's not about you, but it is about you. Thank you so much for that.