Tag Archive for Ask an Expert

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD: Turning a Negative into a Positive

October 11, 2012 Achieve Success Academy No comments

neg pos Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD: Turning a Negative into a Positive
We all have problems but you must always remember, someone has it worse ~ John R. Salkowski

The first person you must take care of is yourself. If you have ever flown and listened to the flight attendants say in case of an aircraft decompression situation, put the oxygen mask on your face first, than onto the people that depend on you most. When it comes to being a sufferer and a survivor of PTSD, you must take care of yourself. Do not depend on anyone to turn your negative into a positive. I know it’s easier said than done, but you must continue to fight.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting a new client at their home. When the gentleman opened the door, he introduced himself as did I. Nice man; however he seemed to have the wind taken out of his sail. As we sat down, I began asking him questions about himself. I knew there was something occupying his mind. His appearance was neat but he just didn’t seem to be himself.

As we continued to talk, he mentioned he had a son and that would have been 16 years old last month. I wanted him to share more because it appeared that he needed to get things out his chest. I said, “Would you mind sharing more with me if that’s okay”. He shared with me that his then 14 year old son was killed in a car crash along with 3 of his friends. All killed instantly on a dark and narrow road. The car had left the roadway, striking a tree. He began to cry. I told him to let it out, crying was okay. I told him that it was his pain leaving his body. This heart wrenching news just tore me up inside and of course I immediately thought of my little girl. I could never imagine or fathom the idea of losing a child.

He began telling me that he hasn’t been able to work for about 2 years. He said he lost his mojo, his purpose, his success achieving mechanism. He said in order to get this back, he needs to move on, start a new life and be around people that will support him. He was suffering from a bad case of PTSD.

I shared my story with him. Not to compare mine to his but to let him know he wasn’t alone. He reached out his hand with tears coming from his eyes and shook my hand. I felt his pain coming through his hand. I told him that recovery was a process, not an event and that he had to work toward getting better, getting motivated and making his son proud by turning this tragedy into serving others who are in the same situation. It was very hard for me to tell him this because I know how hard it is to get motivated on certain days. All you want to do is stay away from everyone, tucked away in bed and not deal with the world. Seclusion is the worst thing for a PTSD sufferer. It is one of the toughest struggles you will ever experience. But you must do it for you first than for the people that care about you most.

The advice I gave him this very day to help motivate him into action and to living a fulfilling life once again was to start and end his day with reading something uplifting, motivational, inspirational. It could be a biography of someone that has overcome something similar, the bible or anything that puts you in a happy place. To keep a journal beside his bed. You must journal your thoughts. There is something powerful in journaling what is on your mind. The thought to pen to paper puts you in a place like no other. Listen to relaxing music while breathing deeply through your nose and out through your mouth slowly: meditating. The most important thing a PTSD sufferer can do is to share his or her thoughts and feelings by talking with a trusted friend, relative, spouse, partner, and/or counselor.

The worst thing one can do when suffering from this illness is to keep it bottled up inside. It’s like holding a stick of dynamite, lighting it then swallowing it.

About the Author:

I’m John R. Salkowski, Founder of AchieveSuccessAcademy.com™, Retired Cop, Survivor of PTSD stemming from a shoot and kill robbery incident. Expert on Leadership, Success, Overcoming Adversity, Fear & PTSD. Entrepreneur, Speaker, Author of 3 books; Leadership in The Line of Duty™: 50 Leadership Lessons for Making Split-Second Decisions from a Cop Who Has Been in Life and Death Situations, Leadership in The Line of Duty™: Success Thoughts and Quotes for Leaders and Best seller: Nothing But Net: Top Secrets to increase your bottom line, Health, Wealth & Success.

Copyright © 2012 Achieve Success Academy™. All Rights Reserved.

The Top 3 Qualities That Are Essential For Your Success

April 17, 2012 Achieve Success Academy No comments

In order to be successful, these three words are paramount to your success. If you don’t live and breathe by these three words, your success is virtually impossible.

 

Here they are: Passion, Push, and Perseverance

 

Passion:

 

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you ~ Oprah Winfrey

 

My definition of Passion is the burning desire you have inside you to achieve more, be more and do more. Whatever you are passionate about should keep you up at night. Whatever you are passionate about should be on your mind 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. Passion wants success just as bad as you need the air you breathe. This is Passion.

 

Push:

 

I always wanted to be the best I could be at whatever I did. I didn’t want to be the number one golfer in the world. I just wanted to be as good as I could be. I work hard, I push myself hard, and I probably even expect too much of myself ~ Greg Norman

 

You must push yourself to the breaking point when you want to achieve something. If you want something so bad you must be willing to run through a brick wall to get it, achieve it, and accomplish it. Sounds crazy, huh. Well guess what, if you don’t feel this way then you is leaving it all on the table for someone else to grab. If you cheat yourself one time, this will carry over into everything you do in life. For example, if you are in the gym and you have a goal of doing 30 minutes of cardio and you quit after 20 minutes, you just cheated yourself. Cheating in the smallest task will carry over in to all you do in life. To push you need discipline. By cheating yourself, you are failing to create discipline in your life. In order to succeed in anything you do, you must have the discipline to push through the feeling of giving up. It takes 21 days to create or break a habit. Over the next 21 days, push yourself to the limit in everything you do and watch and see what happens in your life.

 

Perseverance:

Football is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority~ Vince Lombardi

Perseverance is the steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. You must possess the mentality that failure is no option. You must encourage failure. You must persist through failure because failure is guaranteed along your journey. Learn from it, embrace it and persist through it. If you lack perseverance you will never be successful. Did you know that Thomas Edison, the world’s greatest inventor failed over 10,000 times. Where would this world be had he quit.

I’m John R. Salkowski, Founder of AchieveSuccessAcademy.com, Entrepreneur, Author, and Speaker on Leadership, Success and Overcoming Adversity. Retired Police Officer, Survivor of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) stemming from a shoot and kill robbery incident.

Copyright 2012. Achieve Success Academy. All Rights Reserved

Top 10 Must Have Characteristics of a Great Leader

February 21, 2012 Achieve Success Academy One comment
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better~Jim Rohn
Do you have what it takes to be a great leader? I bet you do. I believe everyone can attain the great qualities and characteristics needed to be an effective leader. The objective behind being a great leader is this: Helping people and/or organizations who are doing poorly to do well. Helping people and/or organization who are doing well but want to get better. The whole idea of great leadership is to get results. To bring them to a whole different level of success.
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already~ John Buchan
Being a great leader means bringing out the best in people. Everyone wants to be the best they can be. It’s our job as leaders to do that. We need to find and focus on the strengths of people not their weaknesses.
In my previous career of Law Enforcement, I was surrounded by good and bad leaders. The good leaders focused on making people better while the bad leaders would focus on making people worse. It was astounding to me that the bad leaders would come to work everyday and do nothing but negative leadership. What do I mean by negative leadership? They would focus on the mistakes of people. Instead of making them learn from their mistakes they would punish them and never give good advice and/or training to make that person better. They would lie in wait like a lion hiding from a zebra getting ready to attack. This would happen day in and day out. Just waiting for their people to make mistakes. Being totalling reactive instead of proactive. They would focus on the negatives and not the positives in people. This type of leadership is a sinking ship. This will make any organizations morale go into a tail spin. And if you were ever part of an organization withe horrible morale, you know exactly what I mean. If you want a successful organization, no matter what industry, you need to have great leaders that focus on the strengths and not the weaknesses. To learn, grow and achieve results a great leader must focus on making their people successful by focusing on their strenghths.
Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it~Dwight D. Eisenhower
Here are the TOP 10 Must Have Characteristics of a Great Leader:
1) Be a Role Model- You must lead by example. You should never ask someone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You must be seen by your people, and the public as being an expert in your field and an expert in leadership.
2) Have a Mission-Leaders know what their mission is. They know why the organization exists. A great leader has a well thought out (often written) mission describing the purpose of the organization. That purpose need to be descriptive, clear and understandable. Every employee should be able to identify with the mission and strive to achieve it.
3) Have Vision-Where do you want your organization to go? A vision needs to be descriptive enough to encourage people to imagine it but concrete enough for followers to see it, understand it and be willing to climb onboard to fulfill it.
4) Be Goal Oriented-How is the organization going to achieve its mission and vision and how will you measure your progress? Like a vision, goals need to be operational that are specific and measurable. If your output and results can’t be readily measured, then it will be difficult to know if you have achieved your purpose.
5) Have Integrity- Do the right thing all the time. Not sometimes but all the time.
6) Be Passionate in all you do-You must love what you do. You must want success for the organization and the people more than you want the air you breathe.
7) Be Compassionate-Successful leaders are comfortable relating to other people; they easily create rapport and are more extroverted than they are introverted. These factors help leaders seem approachable, likeable, and comfortable in their position. Those qualities contribute to staff wanting to interact with their leader. They also help motivate employees to do a better job. When workers can relate to their boss, they believe that their boss is more concerned about them, with their performance, and with their output. Furthermore, they believe that they can go to their boss with problems they encounter on the job without fearing consequences for not knowing how to resolve issues.
8) Great Communicator-It does little good to have a strong mission, vision, and goals if the leader cannot easily and effectively convey his ideas inside and outside of the organization. He must regularly be in touch with key individuals, by all forms of communication. Of course, the best way to ensure other people receive and understand the message is with face-to-face interactions.
9) Be Inspiring-Employees need someone to look up to for direction, guidance, and motivation. A great leader needs to be that person. Nevertheless, there are times, when many employees need the boss to inspire them by word or action.
10) Be Ambitious-Nothing builds a picture of success more than achievement, and achievement is the number one factor that motivates just about everyone across all cultures. When employees see that their leader can lead and direct, has a clear vision and attainable goals, and actually gains results in a timely manner, then that person’s credibility increases throughout the organization. Great leaders must modestly demonstrate their skills to give their constituents valid reasons to appreciate and value their efforts.
I’m John R. Salkowski, Founder of Achieve Success Academy, Leadership Expert, Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Retired Police Officer and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) Survivor.
I can be reached via email at John@JohnSalkowski.com
Copyright 2012 Achieve Success Academy All Rights Reserved

The Top 3 Qualities That Are Essential For Your Success

December 27, 2011 Achieve Success Academy 4 comments

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In order to be successful, these three words are paramount to your success. If you don’t live and breathe by these three words, your success is virtually impossible.
Here they are: Passion, Push, Perseverance
Passion:
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you ~ Oprah Winfrey
My definition of Passion is the burning desire you have inside you to achieve more, be more and do more.  Whatever you are passionate about should keep you up at night. Whatever you are passionate about should be on your mind 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. Passion is wanting success just as bad as you need the air you breathe. This is Passion.
Push:
I always wanted to be the best I could be at whatever I did. I didn’t want to be the number one golfer in the world. I just wanted to be as good as I could be. I work hard, I push myself hard, and I probably even expect too much of myself ~ Greg Norman
You must push yourself to the breaking point when you want to achieve something. If you want something so bad you must be willing to run through a brick wall to get it, achieve it, accomplish it. Sounds crazy, huh. Well guess what, if you don’t feel this way then you are leaving it all on the table for someone else to grab. If you cheat yourself one time, this will carry over into everything you do in life. For example, if you are in the gym and you have a goal of doing 30 minutes of cardio and you quit after 20 minutes, you just cheated yourself. Cheating in the smallest task will carry over in to all you do in life. To push you need discipline. By cheating yourself, you are failing to create discipline in your life. In order to succeed in anything you do, you must have the discipline to push through the feeling of giving up. It takes 21 days to create or break a habit. Over the next 21 days, push yourself to the limit in everything you do and watch and see what happens in your life.
Perseverance:

Football is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority~ Vince Lombardi

Perseverance is the steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. You must possess the mentality that failure is no option. You must encourage failure. You must persist through failure because failure is guaranteed along your journey. Learn from it, embrace it and persist through it. If you lack perseverance you will never be successful. Did you know that Thomas Edison, the worlds greatest inventor failed over 10,000 times. Where would this world be had he quit?
I’m John R. Salkowski, Founder of Achieve Success Academy, Businessman, Entrepreneur, Motivational/Transformational Speaker, Real Estate Expert, Retired Police Officer, Survivor of PTSD (Post traumatic Stress Disorder) and the World’s Leading Authority on Overcoming Adversity and Achieving Success.
I can be reached via email at John@JohnSalkowski.com
To Your Success,
John

Suffering PTSD: The challenges I faced

September 25, 2011 Achieve Success Academy No comments

When I was going through my internal torment with PTSD I felt that the outer world was just plain cruel. It seemed to me that no one cared about anyone or anything but themselves. I realized that we live in one egotistical & self centered world. Everyone was out for themselves. If it didn’t involve or affect them they didn’t care. They turned a blind eye to it. I was calling out for help in so many different ways now that I look back on it and no one was there for me. You sure can tell who your true friends are when you need someone the most. I was suffering PSTD for christ sake. They thought, “he’s faking it”. Everyone turned their back on me. They never returned my calls or emails. They acted as if I no longer existed. Why? I ask this over and over again in my mind. It made me crazy angry knowing that I had to face this battle alone. It made me bitter, resentful to a point where I hated everyone including cops. I was a cop. I hated myself for choosing this career. Then I ask myself why did I choose this career path. The only answer that would come to my mind over and over again was because I cared about people. I wanted to make a difference in someones life. I wanted to make a difference. Period! I than discovered that 95% of the cops I worked with didn’t feel the same way. It was an ego trip for them to carry around that badge and gun. They were macho. They felt like the shit. 95% of cops in my opinion during this difficult time were insecure human beings.