From Worrier to Warrior: Unleashing the Power Within

An interview with MARTIN SALAMA

Martin Salama is our feature article in our premier edition of Lemonade Legend: Showcasing Trailblazers and Trendsetters. He exemplifies the qualities we spotlight–resilience, leadership, innovation, courage, humility, and confidence. He is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, Life Coach, and he adopts the philosophy of Living Incredibly Full Everyday!

Lemonade Legend (LL): Martin, you have had fantastic success with your book, Worrier to Warrior, published in June 2023, making the #1 spot in Anger Management the day it was released. Tell me how you got to where you are now as a coach and bestselling author.

Martin: The journey from what I call me being Martin 1.0 to the book being published began in 2008 during the financial crisis. That entire spring had been one disappointment after another trying to hold a multimilliondollar building project together while the world was falling apart. Everything—and I mean EVERYTHING—that could go wrong to make the project fall apart did.

I remember seeing the headlines in the newspapers about the financial chaos unfolding, but it wasn’t real to me until I was on the phone with an investor pulling out of the project. My chest tightened. I could feel my muscles tense for the blow even before he said, “We can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

The world was talking about the financial markets imploding, but the words still didn’t fully sink in. Even when I turned to my now ex-wife and said, “That’s it. We’re out of options. That was our last hope to keep the project alive,” I still didn’t believe it was over. It felt like a horrible dream. I had myself convinced something would miraculously happen to fix everything. I was in a fog.

To make matters worse, in my denial of the situation and rationalizing that everything would be okay if this thing or that thing fell into place, I put my personal holdings up as collateral for the project.

I remember my son running to tell me the car was being towed. My house was foreclosed on; my investments were liquidated; my relationships became broken and tense (if they survived). I went from being on top of the world and having projections saying soon I’d be able to touch the stars to wondering where I would sleep.

LL: That must have been devastating. How did you work your way back from what felt like a crushing defeat?

Martin: For a year, I was stuck in a dark, hazy, heavy depression. Everything looked vague and slightly out of focus—like the sun had dimmed, and everything I saw was leached of color.

This fog lasted until October 2009, when I realized I needed to figure out how to claw my way out of the colorless void I had crashed into. I had to find a way to get moving again—to build momentum and pull myself back into the sunlight.

Without realizing it, I began using techniques that would later appear in my book, Worrier to Warrior, to move my life forward again. First, I evaluated where I was. Then I looked at where I wanted to go. One season of my life had ended, and over the course of the winter of 2009, I realized I wanted to reinvent myself as a life coach in the next season of my life. I jumped into life coach training the next spring. The more I learned, the more I unraveled thoughts, emotions, and feelings from early in my life to when I lost everything. This process helped me realize that I hadn’t been true to myself for decades. Instead, I had been subverting my desires and beliefs to suit others. Ironically, doing this created more distance in my relationships and perpetuated the inability of others in my life to communicate what THEY wanted. At the same time, it stifled my ability to recognize my needs.

As I untangled all this, I realized I was my worst enemy, lying to myself to make sense of my decisions. In Worrier to Warrior, I call this process using “Rational-Lies™ .” Interrupting this process and rewriting the beliefs and behaviors that lead to RationalLies™ is a cornerstone of my coaching practice.

LL: I really like that perspective. It can be easier to create Rational-Lies™ than to do the work to figure out the reasons behind the actions and stay true to ourselves. It sounds like you have a deep passion for helping your clients through this process. How do you distinguish yourself in the crowded industry of coaching?

Martin: Through the process of what I was working through, I got to a point where I started to like myself again and even love myself. I loved everything I was doing. I have ADHD, and I was doing a 10-minute guided meditation one day. My mind kept slipping into the thought of “when is this going to be over?” In the middle of trying to slow my brain down for a minute and be present for the meditation, I had this download of information tying all the tools I was using together into one approach. At this moment, The Warrior’s L.I.F.E. code was born, and I fell in love with the ideas that came to me. I wanted to show people how to follow the same process that saved my life. To accomplish this, I turned the word life into an acronym, Live Incredibly Full Everyday. What I do is show people no matter where they are in their life, it’s their mindset that needs to shift from scarcity to abundance. But on a deeper level, from self-conscious to self-aware, so many people think they’re self-aware, but after a conversation with me, they recognize they are self-conscious.

LL: That’s such a great origin story. Now I’m wondering if I’m as self-aware as I thought. It makes sense to have expert help digging through some of these deep issues. Who is your ideal client?

Martin: Successful women entrepreneurs with over a decade of experience in business who are not afraid to invest in themselves and their businesses to become warriors in their businesses and life so that they can get to the next level. That means increasing the ROI of their income streams and creating a positive culture in their business from the top down. I’ve always connected better with women than men. Perhaps it’s because I grew up with four older sisters.

Men want to know about the bottom line. They want to see how you are going to make them more profitable. Women want to know, how will you make me more successful? Even though there is profit with success, it’s also about emotions, energy, and satisfaction. I give my clients practical ways of getting to their goals. I guide them to dig deep into their emotions and thoughts so they understand what they need to be successful. What kind of unique culture do they need to create what works for their leadership style?

Often women are dealing with gender-based discrimination, navigating male-dominated networks. Five years ago, I was blessed to marry an incredible woman. She is a high-level executive at one of the largest banks in the world, and she still deals with unconscious bias. When this happens, women may experience fear of failure, guilt, or self-doubt due to the unspoken—and often unrecognized biases that color how they are treated in the professional world. Women also tend to have more life roles, caring for children or aging parents. This is why life balance and self-fulfillment are so important. Profitability alone does not equal success. I work with the whole being, the pieces and parts of life, creating balance and gratification so my clients Live Incredibly Full Everyday!

Showcasing Trailblazers & Trendsetters

PUBLISHER

Lemonade Legend

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Michelle Faust

Copy Editor

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Contributors

Martin Salama

Shiraz Baboo

Zondra Evans

Dr. Wendy Labat

Catharine O’Leary

Nicole Mashingaidze

Joric McLean

Vicki Mizel

Sara Nakamura

Carina Reeves

JR Spear

Angel Tuccy

Brandi Van

Jaclyn Whitt

Media Consultant

Angel Tuccy

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