For the first 35 years of my life, I wasn`t living on my terms.  I would place other people`s wants, needs and desires over my own.  Before I even thought about who I was or what was important to me, I would allow the feelings of other`s to shape my actions.  As a result, I would drift through jobs, relationships and big decisions.  I didn`t even know the difference between “me” and my people-pleaser, good-guy persona..!

The hardest lesson:  If you don`t have a process for shaping how you see the world, it will be done for you by people who do NOT have your best interests in mind.  Instead of acting you will react.  Every trigger, every loud voice, and every demand from others will pull you further and further away from who you really are.

My own wake-up call was brutal.  Within the span of ten days the company I was working for collapsed and I lost my job, my apartment, and my physical health.  Two months later 2008 happened and I lost my savings, my girlfriend and my mental health.  Six months after that I would receive a phone call from the government, shedding light into what had happened.  It turns out that the collapse of the company I had been working for was due to financial fraud on the part of the then CEO and a senior sales guy.  I was summoned to give testimony by the financial police.  I was not a victim or participant in what happened, I was a witness to one of the biggest white-collar crimes in Norwegian history.  My internal emails were used as evidence to prove that management did, in fact, know that they were manipulating the company's stock price by creating fake sales agreements.

The CEO was convicted and sentenced to two years of house arrest in his summer cabin where he would raise a fresh round of funding for his next shenanigan.  I spent the next decade trapped in a mental-prison of shame for having built the financial infrastructure that was used so maliciously.  Finally, I would ask myself a question that changed everything:  How did I allow myself to get taken away from who I am?

From that day on I vowed to be a weapon for good, rather than as a tool for amoral shareholders and immoral managers.  I became obsessed with how people create their sense of identity in the world, before I knew there was a name for it: mindset.  I realized that how people talk to themselves determines the course of their lives through the resulting actions they take. And with this realization came the ability to trust myself once again. Finally, I let go of shame and learned to direct my empathy like a blade.

I would then spend four years conducting motivational interviews with thousands of people in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I was sharpening my own understanding of how people functioned.  I got to the point where I could hear a person`s intentions based on how they framed their arguments.  The language people use tells you everything about how the see the world and what they are capable of.

After all of that, I was ready to create what would become, Win On Your Terms.

No one can promise you an easy life.  But you can learn how to build a strong mindset that will result in having composure and resilience – no matter how hard life gets.  You, and your loved ones, will then be able to regard you as dependable and trustworthy.

This is the training I wish I`d had as part of my upbringing; as a foundational understanding of how the world works.  It is for anyone who has ever felt the pain of being lead astray, despite their best efforts.  The beauty is, you are always one thought away from living life on your terms.

Again, no matter how far off course you find yourself, your next win is literally one step away.  And that is why you are capable of being who you really are - through fulfilling your potential in spite of the world around you.

I believe in you. And I believe in second chances for people because I know that we are all doing the best we can, given how we were taught (or not) to apply our conscious awareness to the present moment.

Love,

Michael