How to Overcome
i started my competing journey in the
fitness industry in 2009
by 2011 i was competing on national
level stages all over the country
by the end of 2011 i was laying in a
hospital bed being told by doctors
i may never walk again much less ever
compete again
and that i needed to mentally prepare
for that
today new information regarding an
incident at the dell plant a man facing
attempted homicide charges accused of
intentionally hitting
24 year old whitney weiser with his suv
and leaving the scene
the suspect saying he wanted to meet
with wiser who wanted to end their
relationship
when she tried to leave police say he
intentionally ran her down with his suv
wiser remains in critical condition at
vanderbilt medical center with extensive
injuries the victim releasing a
statement to the judge saying i know he
may be in jail only for a few years
i am going to have back pain for the
rest of my life
competing and fitness became the only
thing that i cared about
this was my pathway to redemption and
not letting this determine me or my life
all right now we only gotta do five
going back up oh yeah come on
ah make it tough it wasn’t just about
winning anymore to me
it was about getting back everything
that had been taken away from me
finally in 2014 it all paid off
by 2016 i find myself standing on the
olympia stage
competing with the best pro athletes in
the world and i’m looking out over the
crowd thinking to myself
i made it i’m so grateful that i never
gave
up and i never listened to what anybody
else said i was capable of
i trusted in god and i followed my
passion
and i found my purpose this is my wife
being fearless is a lie there is no such
thing as being fearless
and although we may never be able to get
rid of fear completely we can use it
with our beliefs to overcome anything in
life
it’s amazing how our mindset can and
will affect the entire direction of our
life
it’s our perspective and how we view our
circumstances
that will ultimately make or break us
and it’s our beliefs
not our abilities that will cause us to
excel
or to never lift our full potential
this is the reason why we either
struggle through life
wondering why things always have to
happen to us
or whether we thrive through every
adversity with the mindset of things
happening for
us instead of to us we have two
different views of obstacles that we can
choose to have
and each view will take us in a
different direction entirely
the first few we can choose to have on
obstacles is they’re there
to prevent us from moving forward or
something that can stop us
the second view we can choose to have is
an obstacle is simply there to teach us
a lesson
prepare us for the next level or simply
a problem that needs a solution and it’s
up to us to solve it
it’s all perspective though and every
painful situation can have a purpose in
life
if we let it and this is how we move
forward despite
fear to overcome anything in life
i have four strategies for overcoming
and the first one
is that we have to identify our fears
and you’re probably still wondering from
the video how i ended up in that abusive
relationship
that almost cost me my life and the
answer is
fear i was scared and although
fear was instilled into me daily in that
relationship
leaving it was just as scary and you
might think what what were you so scared
of leaving the relationship
and it’s common common fears like
scared of being alone i was scared of
never truly being loved or understood
fearful thoughts flooded my mind of this
is as good as it gets
this is all i deserve i can’t expect
anything better
these were all subconscious beliefs that
i had about myself
from a very deep rooted insecurity which
is simply a fear of not
feeling good enough and not feeling
worthy of anything better
now of course i didn’t know i felt this
way about myself at the time
it took me several years to learn these
hard truths about myself
and to even be able to admit them took a
lot longer
but that’s the first step of overcoming
is to identify our fears
and define them clearly because
something else that i recently learned
is that just because we believe
something doesn’t mean it’s true
it’s so important to stop our thoughts
and examine them
and ask ourselves questions like is this
really true
why do i believe this to be true and
what does god say about this
because the fact is god doesn’t make
unworthy people
so after you identify your fears you
have to learn to move forward despite
them by
controlling your mind and your emotions
and i feel like we’ve lied to ourselves
in recent years with such a hyper focus
on our feelings
you would think that our feelings are in
control of us instead of the other way
around
we’re told to honor our feelings and do
whatever we
feel good about but what we’ve forgotten
is that we are in control of our
feelings they do not control us
we don’t have to just sit by and let our
thoughts run rampant in our mind
controlling everything that we do
we have the ability to stop them analyze
them accept or reject them and do
whatever we want with them
so i have to admit that when i almost
lost my life
trying to leave this abusive
relationship and i had to learn how to
walk again
i was angry i was angry for a lot of
reasons
but mainly i was angry because i was
just on the rise in the fitness industry
and now i was sitting in my parents
living room all day watching tv
with the out without the ability to even
get up and walk by myself
thoughts started to flood my mind of why
did this have to happen to me
i didn’t deserve this why do i have to
deal with this
but honestly we can’t stay stuck on all
the reasons why
something happened or why it had to
happen to be able to move forward from
it
it’s all a mind trap and self-pity
prevents our problem-solving abilities
so in order to move forward
i had to control my mind and not stay
stuck on thoughts of what could have
been why did this happen how did this
happen
because if i did i would have never been
able to move forward from it
so when you’re trying to overcome you
have to have
the confidence in yourself that you’re
going to make it no matter what
there’s no other room in your mind for
doubt or fear
and i had to have hope in god that he
would redeem everything
and i had to believe in myself so i just
kept fighting relentlessly to beat the
odds
when i finally stepped back on stage my
biggest fear was realized and i didn’t
even place
at the national level show that i had
won the previous year
i came face to face with what i feared
the most
and that was that i would never get my
same life back and i’d never be back
the same to what i was before this
happened to me
but this taught me something valuable
and it developed my character deeper
i learned resiliency resiliency is the
ability to recover quickly from setbacks
and keep going despite defeat
without a loss of enthusiasm or passion
and that was hard and i can’t say i was
enthusiastic the whole time
but over the next few years working my
way back to the top
it took a level of resiliency that i
didn’t have before
and i wanted to show people what you
could be capable of with the right
mindset
and if you never gave up and that was my
why
which brings me to my third strategy for
overcoming and that is to pursue a
purpose if you don’t know what your
purpose is yet you just follow the
passions and desires of your heart and
you’ll eventually find it
it’s so important to define who you are
what you want and what you’re passionate
about
competing was my passion that led me to
my purpose
which is to empower women and give them
hope to overcome too
and just to know that they can overcome
anything in life
the key to staying connected to your
purpose is that it has to be tied to
something greater than yourself
that way if you’re ever tempted to quit
it’s not just you that you’re affecting
at that point
there will be lives that don’t get
changed people that don’t get saved and
people that don’t get inspired
if you quit so you can’t ever give up
i stay in my purpose because i never
want anyone to have to suffer
the pain of what i’ve suffered so my
passion to empower women runs deep
it’s because of what i’ve had to
overcome that i found my purpose
in 2017 i got the vision and a strong
desire to produce one of the only
bodybuilding and fitness competitions in
the world
the only problem was i had no idea how
to do anything like this
i had no experience promoting or
producing events of any kind
much less of this caliber there was so
much fear and doubt and even trying to
move forward on this
i just knew i wanted to give hundreds of
other women the spotlight to shine
and the chance to come together for a
common purpose and be surrounded by
other strong like-minded and supportive
women
who are all trying to overcome their own
battles too
now after only three years my fit show
has become
a platform for women empowerment and
that’s my purpose
so the fourth and final strategy of
overcoming is for us to share our
stories
when we share our own stories of
overcoming we give others the hope to
overcome too
and all throughout history people have
been broken and humbled
to be able to lead and teach others from
experience
to share their stories and provide hope
and to inspire others despite fear
to inspire in spite of circumstances
and in spirit as humans we go through so
many traumas in life
and yet we still feel like we’re the
only ones going through anything
the list could go on forever from toxic
relationships
sickness and disease depression anxiety
loss of loved ones
we go through so much as humans the list
could go on forever
it’s so important that we use these
tests of our strength
and these and use it as the opportunity
to help
give others strength to keep going
instead of letting them make us bitter
at life
when the women who compete in my fitness
competition started sharing with me
their stories i heard comments like
competing and meeting other strong women
gave me the confidence i needed to keep
going another woman told me
this sport helped me overcome self-doubt
and build the confidence i needed to
leave an abusive relationship
and still one more woman told me this
show was the only thing that kept me
focused and going
during the pandemic this year it was
then i realized
that stepping on stage for a lot of
these women was that moment of
overcoming for them
and what if i would have let fear stop
me from moving forward on this vision
just because i didn’t know how i had so
many
reasons and excuses valid excuses that i
could have put forth to not move forward
on this
at the time i had no money no experience
and at the time no support
from a male-dominated industry so what
story are you telling yourself
what desires and passions do you have in
your heart that you need to take action
on the only way to conquer fear is to
confront it
it won’t ever completely disappear but
it will lose its control over you
when you have the courage to move
through it past it and despite it
remember it’s our fear and our
perspectives
that are an opportunity to change our
reality
and those are our four strategies for
overcoming identify your fears
control your emotions pursue a purpose
and share your stories of overcoming
with the right mindset we are capable of
anything
we are born to overcome we just have to
believe in ourselves
and be able to move forward in spite of
fear thank you