Strength Through The Struggle

A conversation with Lex Robinson and Brandon Mancine during which we discuss the vital characteristic that is resilience - and how to go about developing it for every aspect of your life. 

Mark and Lisa, a staff member at his Martial Arts School, shares a story about a tragedy that hit Lisa two years ago.  Lisa talks about the celebration of life of her son, Leo, and how she remembered the happy times about his life.

Today’s episode is about the two different but powerful meanings for Strength Through the Struggle that you can use in your life. Let’s get right to it. Hello everybody! Thanks for taking the time to tune in and listen to this episode. I really appreciate your time and energy. While this episode isn’t specifically about martial arts I’m going to use them as an example. When I came up with the name for this podcast it was the result of wanting to be truthful about life. At least my experience with life. And what I’ve learned about it from my childhood, into the military and as a career martial artist and student of life. I wanted people who were looking for solutions to life’s challenges to be able to find honest answers, inspiration, and motivation. The first thing that STTS means to me is that we all actually do have the Strength to get through any Struggle that crosses our path in life. Those can be struggles that were thrust upon us through no doing of our own as well as the challenges we create with our c

What’s the opposite of “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas? I’m here to tell you in this episode of the STTS. Let’s get to it. If you live in the United States, or possibly other countries as well, you may have seen the commercials advertising a visit to the city of Las Vegas. There are dozens of commercials, all about 30 seconds long with different storylines. Each commercial, regardless of the storyline, promote the idea that as long as nobody back where you live knows about what happens, then do whatever you like in Las Vegas. Because What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. It’s a bit of a wink-wink, nod-nod approach to life. If nobody knows, there’s no crime. No knowledge = no harm = no foul, is not the actual outcome. Now, I totally disagree with that mentality but that is an episode for another day. I grew up with a similar philosophy in my home. It went like this, “What happens in this house, stays in this house.” I distinctly remember hearing this from my mother one summer day. The neighbors severe

My wife and I are on vacation in the Dominican Republic. This episode is not about how I live some amazing life, although it is amazing in many ways. It’s not about who we live a life of luxury, traveling to exotic places and living where we want and how we want. It’s about how change for the positive can happen when the environment for it exists. Six years-ago Teresa and I were at the very same resort in the DR. We arrived the second day it was open. We opted to take the trip then because the price was outstanding by virtue of being new. At the time the staff was not that fluent in English and we weren’t fluent in Spanish so sometimes we had a little language barrier. Also, there were many things all over the resort that weren’t completed or ready. Some of the restaurants weren’t open that first week and many of the listed resort activities weren’t ready. The beach was in good shape and the pool was in good shape and while we aren’t much for drinking, it seemed the bars were all fully staffed and fully stock

Have you ever had a moment of absolute anger? What about Outrage over something? A little indignation maybe? Maybe things didn’t go your way in a situation. Somebody hurt you. A person close to you won’t hear what you are saying. A person wronged you. Someone took advantage of you. You felt disrespected I’ve been there. I’ve lost my cool over plenty of things that were small. True misunderstanding when the other person didn’t mean it the way I took it. What about something that is righteously wrong. There is no arguing about it. It was unfair, unjust and unwanted. Something sexual abuse. People who abuse the elderly. Wanton violence that has no purpose but to hurt another. I have. I’m probably the only one though… wink, wink. Of course, we’ve all been there. We’ve felt the anger at something unjust. We have felt indignation when we see another has had to suffer some indignity such as sexual abuse. What if when we see things that could lead us to anger or bitterness, we could, in turn, use it to go somewhere b

When Your System in Life Isn’t Working Welcome Back. What we are going to chat about today is how to overwhelm can get us off track and how to overcome that. Let’s get to it. First of all, THANK YOU, to everyone who is hearing this today. I appreciate you and the fact that you took the time to listen in. These podcasts can only help if they are heard. Please share them with your friends and family. Does it ever seem as if at the end of the day things are not going your way? I mean you care. You aren’t lazy. You are working super hard every day. When the day is over you are definitely tired. You are trying to do your best with all of your responsibilities.  But in spite of your best efforts, things aren’t going well or in the direction, you hoped for. Maybe things in your life aren’t changing for the better and you almost feel as if your wheels are spinning and you are stuck in place. There was a time when I felt exactly like that. Actually, there have been a number of times in my life where I went through a p

A couple of years ago, I was having a really hard time breathing when I would try to sleep at night. As time went by it got worse. I was in Colorado to do some training with one of my martial arts instructors and it got to the point that I was afraid to fall asleep because I actually thought I would die. I ended up canceling my training after the first night of no sleep and flew back home to go to the VA hospital and get checked out. After a CAT scan, the Emergency Room consulting Ear Nose and Throat physician came in to see me to give me the diagnosis. He chucked a bit and said, “Looks like you are going to need surgery. Your thyroid has a rather large mass growing on it. That’s why you can’t breathe at night. It takes up a good portion of the space in your throat and when your body relaxes to go to sleep the airway gets cut off. I went through the surgery and it was a success. Even better, the tumor was cancer-free. My wife and I had plenty to celebrate. I was so grateful. I was so very pleased to be able t

I once heard a story about a famous landscape architect. He was a master at what he did. He traveled the world creating amazing gardens and landscapes for prestigious locations. It is said that on days when he felt particularly challenged, he would pull out a piece of paper from his pocket, look at it, nod, fold it up and get to work creating another masterpiece. People were astounded by the brilliant designs that would seem to come out of nowhere after he studied that tiny piece of paper. Eventually, this master designer died. After the funeral, people went to his house for food and to share stories they each had, of this great man. His colleagues approached his widow and asked her about that mysterious piece of paper. They were convinced it contained the secret formula to his success. She told them she did not know what was on the piece of paper. He kept it in his coat pocket normally and she never asked to look at it. After many requests for the opportunity to see the paper, she went upstairs and looked in

An old student of mine stopped by in the middle of July. I didn't recognize him and had to ask his name. As soon as he said it I recalled his time with me. He was a student for about 5 years. Roughly age 9-13. He was being raised by a single mom. She hoped the martial arts would help him get some discipline, direction, and focus. It was a challenge getting him to do what would help him. It was a challenge to get him to make better choices. It was a challenge to earn his trust. He was a boy then and a man of 32 now. I asked him what he had been up to. He extended both arms which were covered in tattoos. It seemed as if he thought I should know by me looking at his arms. I asked him what it all meant. He said, "I've been in and out of prison." I asked him how long that had been going on. He said, "Fourteen years. I just got out again about a month ago." He told me how he had found his way into petty crime and then stuff a bit more serious. He told me how he had been doing this for so long, he just saw himself t

Recently, I had the honor of giving my One Last Talk. If you haven’t heard of OLT, the idea is to share with the world what you would most want people to know if you only had 15 minutes to do it and then you were gone from earth forever. It is the idea and program of Philip McKernan. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for awhile you may have heard of him here or at a conference, you may have attended or on a different podcast. I’ve interviewed Philip 3 times now. If you would like to hear them the first one is Episode 33 and the second is Ep 99. I don’t recall, at the moment, the Ep number for the third. I had the good fortune of giving my OLT in Boulder, Colorado. Philip was hosting the event. There were several other people in the audience I knew. I had gotten to know these other people a couple years earlier at another Philip McKernan event called BraveSoul. That event in Ireland. It was a retreat of sorts and we were there for 8 days together on the west coast in a little village named Ballyvaughn.

First off, I want to Thank You! For listening today. It means a lot to me, that you brought your time, your energy and your attention here today. Thank you. Sometimes as I look around this world we live in, it can seem pretty confusing. There are often things going on that don’t make sense to us as an individual member of the human race. People do hurtful things to others. People do harmful things to themselves. People do illegal, unethical and immoral things to themselves and others. If we try to look at the world from a “logical” perspective it is impossible to do effectively. In part because what is logical to me, isn’t necessarily logical to you. The values I hold may not be the same values that you hold. What I feel is moral or ethical, you may not feel the same way about. That being said, one thing I’m 100% certain of is, I’ve never seen any good come of focusing on the negatives in our lives. With one exception… focusing on a negative is only valuable if we use to create something positive. There are p

I am a big Allman Brothers fan. I have been since I was a teenager. After Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident, I became a fan of Gregg Allman as a solo artist. There's a song Gregg wrote titled These Days. It's really about regret. And, more specifically, the regret of a relationship that came to an end. The first time I heard the song, the last line got my attention. Let me share it with you. Please don't confront me with my failure. I'm aware of it. For me, it isn't just about the regret of a relationship ending but the regret we all feel when we have made a poor choice or when things haven't gone our way. When talking about the statement, I've frequently made a small adjustment. Please don't confront me with my failures. I'm aware of them. One thing that would get to me when I was growing up was to have my shortcomings or failures brought up to me repeatedly. Not the run of the mill kind of failure like 2+2=5. But the kinds that were a big deal. Like not being liked for who I was being seen as inher

There was a time in my 30’s and 40’s when I wanted to change my name. Not my first name. I was good with that. I considered changing my family name. Growing up I had a number of experiences that landed for me in a negative way. I was molested at the age of 6 and again at the age of 9. I experienced physical as well as mental and emotional abuse. My father was fond of telling me, “You aren’t worth the powder to blow you to hell.” I heard that “I wasn’t worth the powder to blow me to hell,” so many times that I actually started to believe it to be true. It was a lie, but in my young mind, I couldn’t make sense of it. Why would my father say such a thing if it wasn’t true? I came to the conclusion that I was broken beyond repair. I’m not saying it made good sense for me to end up believing that lie. Those words along with the other forms of abuse seemed to validate each other. Through that process, I came to believe there was something inherently wrong with me. That I was fundamentally broken. And seeing myself

Mark reflects on the life that has revealed itself for him over the past few decades and realizes how grateful he is to have the life he has.

I discuss the new direction and structure for the podcast that I have implemented today. I have been thinking about it for a long time and I am excited for you to continue to follow me on the j9urney of Finding Strength Through The Struggle. http://www.markgoblowsky.com  

Addiction, no matter what substance or activity it is too, has the chance of taking over our lives. It’s a complicated issue that has played the part in many a broken home, relationship and life. My own family had its share of addictions to various substances or activities. Addiction happens so slowly and feels so harmless in the beginning that we don’t notice what is happening. We are simply enjoying ourselves. Before we know it, we feel like we can’t live without it. It’s a good thing there are people to show us the way out. Our guest this week, Roscoe is one of those people. I’m proud to know him and to help you get to know him as well. Click here and take a listen.

We, humans, love a pain free, difficulty-free, existence. The opioid painkiller epidemic is a great example. I know what it’s like because I got hooked once. And I’m not going to blame my doctor either. I had shoulder surgery and the pain was terrible. The doctor wrote me a prescription for painkillers but they did nothing to help me ignore the pain enough to sleep. After a couple of days, I called, explained my problem, and they called me in a stronger one. Those didn’t work. The doctor called in a stronger prescription a couple of days later but I still couldn’t sleep and it was now eight nearly sleepless days and nights. I complained again and this time I had to drive to the doctor’s office to get the prescription and in turn deliver it myself to the pharmacy. This was because of how strong the painkillers were. You had to hand-carry the script and show an ID because they were that dangerous and there was so much fraud that people would do nearly anything to get their hands on them. I finally started to ge

Imagine being on a plane headed to your dream vacation. Let’s say it’s Italy. You spent the last two years planning it. It’s all been paid for. Your itinerary is planned out for each day with all of the sights you want to see most You know all the restaurants, museums and ancient ruins you will be seeing and when. All the details have been checked off and the weather is supposed to be beautiful the entire time. You settle into your seat on the plane. It’s a long overnight flight. You put your seat back in the reclined position, put on your eye mask to block out any light and decide to sleep until your long-awaited arrival. You wake up to the sound of the pilot saying, “We are preparing for our final descent.” A few minutes later the wheels touch down on the runway and he says, “Welcome to Holland!” You are confused. This isn’t what you were planning. You had your heart set on Italy and you have no idea what to do next. We all have our hearts set on certain things turning out a certain way. It can be a relatio

Ever feel like you know where you want to go but aren’t sure how to get there? Maybe you are starting on something completely new. Maybe you have found that making a mid-course correction is necessary. Either way, getting moving in the direction you want can be difficult if you don’t have a system in place to help guide you. I developed a system that has worked very well for me over the years. It has helped me start new things. It has helped me make mid-course corrections and adjustments along the way to get where I wanted to go originally. It has also helped me to stay the course when I felt like throwing in the towel. I share the whole thing in about 20 minutes on this weeks episode. If you would also like a printed copy, click here to get that. Enjoy!