15 Dec New show for the underdogs

Have you noticed that almost all the great ones in history and now were underdogs before they began their greatness journey? Have you appreciated how they turned their misfortunes and inadequacies as fuel to attain greatness? What about you? Have you stopped and identified yourself with the right underdogs, underdogs who broke the limits themselves and others put on them?

I consider myself a typical underdog. I have disadvantages in many areas of life and found myself as an underdog in many places and times. Let me just give you some examples for now. To start with, I was born and raised in one of the poorest villages in Ethiopia. Second, no one from our family ever finished high school, let alone go to college. I grew up without access to libraries and basic communication media such as TV.

Education, success, greatness, and concepts like these weren’t the ones I grew up hearing. We were very happy and enjoyed life one day at a time because we didn’t compare ourselves with others nor have access to know what is happening in the rest of the world. Retrospectively, we were even reckless. We chewed Khat- a green leaf illegal in the US, on a daily basis, drinking alcohol, and doing other crazy stuff. Looking back, I wonder how I even survived to tell the story. Many of my friends couldn’t…

If you never had experience with this substance before, let me give you some background just for fun, not for you to try it 🙂 Don’t try this at home!!! When you chew chat, within an hour or so, you begin to experience euphoria, which may last for a couple of hours where you are happy, excited, talking, daydreaming, and fantasizing. Afterward, you start to be quite, experiencing mild depression. When we hit the latter state, that was when we go out to drink so that we could break the depression. And, you can imagine what one does when he drinks too much alcohol and at night. I leave that for your active imagination 🙂 Life looked beautify back then because we didn’t know better. We didn’t have clarity about where we were going. We didn’t have hope for the future. We didn’t have any clue about the rest of the world, about our human potential, and what the future holds for us.

Forget about where I started. When I stepped into the shore of the US in 2005, I had many disadvantages. On top of the cultural shock I experienced, I had difficulty to adapt to the system and felt inadequate. I had never used a credit card, metro, and had never driven a car at all (though I had a license). My accent was so thick that people asked me to repeat myself again and again even if I had an advanced degree 🙂 In short, I found myself inadequate, disadvantaged, and on the wrong side of the fence. You may not have my kind of disadvantages but you know what I’m talking about if you’re an underdog like me:

• You could be an immigrant away from home and experiencing culture shock or
• You could be someone who is familiar with continual failure, rejection, and defeat or
• You could be someone who never had a chance to go to college or live in a nice home or drive a new car or
• You may be someone who has been told you cannot make it, you don’t amount anything or
• You could be a person who beat yourself up because of the countless mistakes you have made and the stumblings you have been experiencing or
• You may be someone who faces insurmountable challenges and goliaths and not sure when you are going to experience your next break or what have you.

By the way, you wouldn’t have heard of me and read this blog if I stopped there, blaming my fate, other people, circumstances, and indulged in a pity party. Of course, it isn’t a comfortable place when you find yourself an underdog. It is scary, painful, and full of uncertainty. You may ask, how then could you be able to come out of that? How come you are now having multiple degrees, your own show, five books, coach and train leaders in government agencies and major corporations in the US? You may wonder what helped me to turn my misfortunes into advantages and now inspiring other underdogs?

Well, I don’t think it is because I’m special, highly intelligent, bold, or strong than anybody else in my situation. The only thing I had during those dark hours was hope, vision, and undying commitment to persevere and grow continually. These helped me to outlast the setbacks I was experiencing and kept going by turning my disadvantages into advantages. What about you? Do you have hope, vision, and the right mindset, and commitment to outlast your setbacks by growing constantly? If so, that is what you need. And this show is designed for underdogs like you. It Transforms underdogs into greats; it turns underdogs into great ones…

Of course,

• If you are reading this blog and wondering what a hell I’m talking about;
• If you felt bad for me;
• If you never felt left behind, failed, or intimidated because of your inadequacies;
• If you have great connections and every major need of yours met before you even ask;
• If you’re well educated, with a nice family, and comfortable in life throughout your life;
• If you don’t have any physical, mental, and/or spiritual struggles at all, well, you cannot relate with people like myself, underdogs.

However, if you identify yourself as an underdog, I honor and respect you. You didn’t give up on yourself and your loved ones and withdrew from life’s fight. But rather, you are working on yourself to become better. That is why you are reading this blog. Many of your peers gave up too quickly. Not only you didn’t quit because of the enormous disadvantages you are facing, but you also didn’t get mad in life, others, and circumstances. You took responsibility to grow and in turn, beat the odds. Congrats! To play my little contribution in your growth as you turn yourself from an underdog into one of the great ones of the 21st C during your lifetime, I have good news for you!

I’m going to launch a YouTube channel with a Podcast for people just like you. Each 10 – 15 minutes weekly inspiration session will be filled with great stories, insights, soft skills and leadership tips. I’ll share with you what helped the underdogs turned great ones whose stories I narrated in my latest two books. Not only that, but I also interject my own little stories- what helped me to turn my own inadequacies into strength to pursue my passion for empowering underdogs through leadership development, and more.

If you are excited, do me a favor. Please sign up below if you haven’t yet and be part of my family of underdogs so that I could send you updates including when the show becomes available and other great contents that empower you to turn you from an underdog into one of the great ones of the 21st C. You may also please share this blog to friends and colleagues who may benefit from this golden opportunity to grow with me and you on a consistent basis. Thank you in advance!