“Is this going to be like therapy?”
“Will this be a men's support group?”
“I’m tired of people trying to get me to stare at my past”
Common concerns we hear from the more A-type individuals who are thinking of joining The Arena.
And I get it.
I’d also much rather rocket towards a bigger future than waste time aimlessly staring at the past trying to “heal all my trauma” or “hug my little child.”
Alex was already a successful entrepreneur. He built the two largest women’s fitness brands in Asia and was looking for his next big thing… but he was stuck.
“I was going through the ideation phase of trying to build out the business model, yet wondered why I wasn't pulling the trigger, why I wasn't moving forwards.
That really challenged my identity because I identified myself as the entrepreneur who takes action immediately.
But I was displaying all these characteristics of other entrepreneurs, which I didn't necessarily value ambiguity, the stagnation, and wondering why that was?”
For context, Alex is an action-taker. He literally joined the program at the last possible moment… not because he waited, but because a friend he respected had just shared with him the results he’d gotten out of it and Alex wanted in.
Alex didn’t really know what to expect, but he had those same concerns.
- Is this going to be like therapy?
- Will this be a men's support group?
- “I’m tired of people trying to get me to stare at my past”
And his experience with The Arena was far from it…
“What I really appreciated about Itamar’s approach is he spent almost no time looking in the rearview mirror in terms of why have these things happened and why do we think this way and what led to that and so on…
That very pragmatic, process-oriented approach was really different to how I'd done it in the past and I think that's why I personally feel like I had a tremendous breakthrough from it.”
See, sometimes the thing that will get you to the next level isn’t obsessing about your past and healing all this or that. It’s sometimes just about understanding how you tick.
And that’s what it was for Alex. As soon as he got clear on that he was able to remove everything that wasn’t working and make space for what was.
“My outlook on business now is the polar opposite of where I was prior to The Arena program.
I had a huge epiphany that I had confused interesting business ideas for opportunities, for things that I should be personally doing.
And I wasn't moving forward because I need passion and purpose in what I'm doing.”
That’s the wild part. Despite always being interested in psychology, philosophy and various kinds of self-work… It wasn’t Alex’s past that was holding him back.
It was a simple lack of clarity that he needed an outside perspective to see.
In Alex’s words:
“As I said to my wife, I would have paid 10x more for The Arena program knowing what I've taken out of it than what I went into it with… Because the unlock for me is worth 100x what I paid for it.”
What to do if you want to move forward and are tired of being told to stare at your past.
- Ask yourself if you’re crystal clear on what you want to do next
- Clarify if what’s holding you back is lack of clarity on the path, fear of walking the path or perhaps… like it was in Alex’s case… Self-permission to walk the path that you want!
- Decide to do something about it
Who dares wins,
Itamar
P.S. When we asked Alex what he’d say to anyone sitting on the fence, here’s what he said:
“If you can recognize a gap between where you are and where you want to be…
Consider why you’re sitting on the fence. Because if you knew that the outcome was positive, you wouldn't be sitting on the fence.
So it's only internal apprehensions and anxieties.
Is it apprehension around your own sense of accountability? Well, that's going to be baked into the program.
So you can delete that concern.
If it's the cost, well, then look at it as an investment.
Now, as I said to my wife, I would have paid 10x more for The Arena program, knowing what I’ve taken out of it, than what I went into it with…. Because the unlock for me is worth 100x what I paid for it.”
