Get Out of a Funk With These Four Mindset Tips
In a conversation with John Register, Paralympian and fellow inspirational keynote speaker, Ramon Ray shares insights on how to get out of a “funk” and have a mindset of positivity. They also discuss the art of becoming a celebrity CEO, making tough decisions, and leaving a legacy.
It’s not surprising to feel a bit low as Covid-19 upends our way of life and it looks like there’s still quite the journey until the end of the pandemic.
Ramon Ray realized that he himself was in a funk recently, telling John Register of a couple of days acting out of Ramon’s normal, more positive, character.
It’s Ok to Feel Down (temporarily!)
“It was about 48 hours where I was watching a bunch of Jason Bourne movies. For us entrepreneurs, sitting on a deck for three hours…that’s unusual if it’s not a weekend,” he says.
Ramon says he found himself mindlessly scrolling through Amazon Prime, until he decided to stop and make a conscious decision to pull himself out of the rut.
“We all get into various issues and you have to move on. You have to make decisions,” he says.
Even without the pandemic, people can feel out of it just from life becoming monotonous, John added. So how do you push through?
Banishing the blues
Ramon says you can follow these four straightforward steps to banish the blues:
- Give yourself the freedom to feel bad.
- Surround yourself with people who understand you and can help you up when you’re down.
- Remember what drives you.
- Make the choice.
It all begins by accepting you’re in a hole, Ramon says. Allow yourself to feel low and don’t suppress it. “I don’t try to fight it. This is the way I am. It’s okay to take a day and sulk, feel bad, be low, and not feel good,” he says.
But after allowing yourself to feel your emotions, look to your support network. “There’s a network of people you can express that to,” Ramon says. Hopefully, you’ve built a good support group.
“You have people around you who can help pull you up. And if you don’t have people around you who can do that [and] they’re dragging you down, well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Ramon says.
“You’ve got to get rid of them, that’s what you do,” John answers.
The next step after looking to your support network is to think of what drives you, be it as simple as being reminded that you have responsibilities to fulfill.
“For some of us, it could be you’ve got to pay your rent, or your mortgage, or your bills,” Ramon says. “That’s a motivation for some people.”
People have to deliberately then choose to move on and just live life. “The fourth thing that pulled me through is it’s a choice. I just chose to live life in positivity,” Ramon says. And part of that is celebrating small wins, he adds.
Making tough decisions
With the current state of the world, John also asked Ramon what he is advising clients who are making tough decisions.
Ramon says that first off, he has accepted that some people just can’t be helped. Having said that, he has also stopped avoiding those people because he also realizes that he can still be friends with them, even if they can’t be coached.
He says he advises clients making tough decisions to start small. Little steps add up, he says. He also says that people need to trust the process and know that it will pay off.
Two keys to becoming a celebrity CEO
Asked what inspired him to write his new book – Celebrity CEO: How entrepreneurs can thrive by building community and a strong personal brand – Ramon says that he wanted people to understand that anybody can grow a small business, which is his area of expertise.
“I wanted small business owners to understand: it’s not hard to be known, it’s not hard to be noticed,” he says.
There are two keys to becoming a celebrity CEO, Ramon says. These are:
- Being a celebrity CEO can be in a region.
- Being a celebrity CEO can be in an industry.
Leaving a legacy
Ramon says that he wants to help you people in entrepreneurship and personal finance management, grow Smart Hustle, and leave Earth knowing he served others and was pleasing to God.
He says legacies don’t have to be complicated. For him, it gives him so much honor to know that he’s passing off some entrepreneurial spirit to his children, he says. He’s happy knowing that he has left an impact in his children’s lives.
Ramon says that it comes down to this: “I want to have fun, surround myself with amazing people who I can help and who can help me, and try not to take myself too seriously.”
Watch Ramon’s and John’s full conversation here.