265. Overcoming Setbacks and Embracing Failure: The Path to Long-Term Success with Clifford Starks

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational and of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours.

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Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at coach. Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Clifford Starks, what a privilege to be finally talking with you today. We were introduced by a mutual friend and I just could not wait for this conversation. How are you? I'm doing well. Yeah.

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Thank you, Cindy. I'm looking forward to it. Excited. Yeah. And I know I'm not supposed to date these episodes because they're evergreen and people are going to be listening to this, but right now I live in Northern Virginia.

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It's in the fall, allergies are full brown, they're full blown. Right now I sound like I smoke 20 packs of cigarettes and I don't. But it's like the whole allergy thing and I'm like some people are like, I like that. I'm like, I don't know.

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So excuse me, I've got my two bottles of water here. I'm prepared to hydrate so that I don't sound too bad. So you've got a very interesting background and I love in the beginning of your bio, you say, Clifford is a lover and a fighter enjoying the ways of life. He loves being where the action is and maximizing every area of your life. So we're going to talk all about this, but before we go into what you're doing now and how you're really empowering so many people with your background and everything, can you just tell the audience a little bit about your journey and how you got to this point?

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Because I want to dive into the whole mentality of getting into being a UFC fighter. That's a whole nother conversation, but what led you up to that point? Yeah, absolutely. So always had a really kind heart through my journey, just a lover of people and a lover of possibilities. And so that's always been in me and I've grown it as I've gone through my process.

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Everyone has a unique gift, a unique ability that happened to be mine. But I remember, so I say my whole journey started from four, five and six. When I was four, my biological dad drove out of my life. And at five, this one really hit me. At five, my grandfather passed away.

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And it was terrifying. You know how you fight or freeze? Well, mine was freeze. I froze in that moment, knowing that one day I was going to die. Just scared the heck out of me.

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Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a big thing for a five year old, too, right? Because you don't understand it. It's not part of your realm of reality, and it's like ripping the Band Aid off, but in a massive way, right? In a very massive way. And I felt what being frozen felt like, and I also felt what being free felt like, because I didn't know it at the time, but I was coaching myself through the process.

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I said, if I'm going to die, I'm going to live as much life as I can. And so that's what I focused on doing, is just, I'm going to live as much life as I can. And then when I was six, my mom remarried to the guy that I call dad to this day. He's always been there for me. And so I took that as there's people who are supposed to be there in this world, and they're just not going to be there.

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They're going to drive out of your life. They're going to leave. They're going to cheat. They're going to do whatever. There's people who don't have to be there, and they can choose to.

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They're going to be there. They're going to support you. They're going to love you, they're going to guide you, they're going to help you, and we're all going to die. And so I kind of took that whole mass and said, let's live as much life as we can. And that's what I focused on doing.

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Wow, it's so interesting. We have very parallel stories because my biological father died when I was 18 months old, and my mom remarried when I was three. But the difference is I have no memory of my biological father passing away at all. I have zero memory of him. But it was that same thing.

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And I talk about this in my book. I don't know what impact that had on me because I have no memory of it. But at the end of the day, both of us had that really major childhood trauma that has shaped our lives. Absolutely. Yeah.

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Wow. That's really interesting. Okay, so that was four, five and six. So how did you get into fighting? Because was there any other sports that led you to that?

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Or did you just be know? Because you started out saying how you love people, right? And you're a lover of people, and yet you ended up being a UFC fighter. So how did you balance that in your mind?

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The love of people? You froze. Oh, did we freeze up for a sorry. So sorry about that, clifford and to the audience. Oh, no apologies.

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That's the media of technology. I know, right? Technology. So what I was saying is that you started out saying that you've got this love of people, and yet you ended up being a fighter. So how did you reconcile that in your mind, right?

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That you love people so much, but yet you're going to go out and you're going to fight, right? Yeah. What is that whole polar opposite thing? How do you process that in your brain? Yeah, absolutely.

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What I love so much about fighting, it's the ability to compete. And I had a smart coach, too, and he was kind of like it didn't make sense to him, and I explained it in this way. Both fighters are willing participants. You have to sign a contract in order to even get in there. It's not like I'm fighting random people.

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And personally, I would never want to fight someone who wasn't a willing participant. I don't like doing that. But if they're willing to test themselves, because that's all it is, you get an opportunity to test yourself because it's a scary thing getting your hands taped, knowing what you're going in to do, knowing they're looking to do the same thing that you're looking to do. But you're going to learn a lot about yourself as you go through that process. And I've always liked competing.

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I've always loved competing. I love competing because I want to see who I am and I want to see how far I can go.

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What you just said was there were so many golden nuggets wrapped up in that, and so I want to touch on that for just a minute, because competing is about pushing yourself, and it's pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. And I think what I heard from there is that fighting for you was just a way to not only compete, but to really push yourself out of that comfort zone. So by pushing yourself out of that comfort zone, how did you grow as a human as a result of really pushing yourself into that complete zone of being uncomfortable? Because I always say in order to grow, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And it's a hard place to be.

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It's hard for most people never do that. And that's why so many people just stay stuck for most of their life, because it's uncomfortable. No matter how bad your circumstances are, you're comfortable with it, right? It feels good. Well, it may not feel good, but you're comfortable, like, you know what to expect.

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So how did that pushing yourself, how did that help you to grow and just continue to grow and continue that forward momentum? Yeah, I look at it as a level of awareness. Being uncomfortable gets you to a new level of comfort. Every time you do something that's uncomfortable, you have challenged your mind to be better than it was before. And so before I even was a fighter, I was a personal trainer, and I had to train people into doing things they didn't want to do.

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Got me. Really? Yes. I'm sure we all have our stories with our personal trainers and the gym memberships and all that. Yes.

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So I like calling myself a surgeon because it's about you go to get your surgery so that you can feel better. You go to do things because you want things. And when I can help them appreciate the process and guide them through the process properly, it becomes easier and easier, and their momentum will take over. And so that's what I've done in my life as well. I know that there's a process going on, and sometimes it's the freakiest thing walking down to that cage.

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It really is. But I also know the other parts of the process, the celebration, and I mean the celebration of life, whether I win, lose, or draw. I went out there, I stepped in the arena, and I really want others to step into their arena. Sometimes it's like, but I'm nervous and I'm scared and I'm this and I'm that. And then I just ask the question, well, what happens if you don't?

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And I get really deep with them because, yeah, you're going to fill things. That's for sure. That's the guarantee. But imagine what you'll fill if you never do it. That's right.

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Well, and the thing is, failure is a part of the road to success. I always use the analogy like baseball players. That's been the classic analogy of like, how many times does a baseball player strike out when they get up to bat, right? But they keep going. They keep going.

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And you said something that really hit home for me, and now I'm going to forget it because we're doing this in the morning, and it takes me a few hours to really get to be my sharpness. The thing is okay, wait a second. So you were just talking about oh, man. When that happens, you get it in the middle. That's what happens to me.

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It was so good, too. Okay, see, I knew that if I could just pause myself for a little bit and kind of ramble on, it would come back. Yeah. You talked about stepping into the arena and whatever that arena is for you. So here's the question, right?

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No matter what that arena is like, it can just be looking at a different job opportunity. Like, the arena is whatever is in front of you that you have to be comfortable stepping into, and you have to push yourself into that point. It's just you took it to the Nth degree and chose UFC fighting. Yeah.

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Oh, my God. So how long were you a UFC fighter? So I fought in the UFC for two years. Okay. Yeah.

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And I fought a total of eight years. Okay. And had a lot of experience going through that process. The funny thing, I told my coach I wanted to fight in the UFC in less than a year, and I went through that process, and he thought it was going to be impossible, which I love. That just makes life fun to be like, you can't do it because if you pull it off, it's cool for you and everyone around you.

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So I went through that process and ended up getting there in ten months. We got there in less than a year. Wow. Walking down. Yeah, we're walking down.

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And he's like, how did we pull this off? Even he was still in shock when we got there. I love it. Yeah, it was so much fun. Oh, my gosh.

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And I just have to pause real quick, because before we started recording, I was talking about my journey, and I'm diving into full time podcasting and launching a television show and all of that. And I'm having this conversation with my husband. He's like, well, and he's kind of an optimist, but there's always a little bit of I call it pessimism. He likes to call it well, I'm just speaking. I'm a realist.

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I'm being real. I'm like, okay. So I ran upstairs, and I have this sweatshirt, and I put it on, and I come down and I pointed at it and like, said, hey, siri, play glorious. One of my favorite songs by McElmore. And I just started dancing around, and my sweatshirt says underestimate me.

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That will be fun. Yeah, right? Oh, you're giving me a challenge. You think that I can't do this challenge? Acceptance.

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And sometimes we need that in life, right? Yeah. Where people absolutely don't always believe in you. And you're like, oh, I'm going to show you, because that's where my mind goes. Oh, you don't think I can do it?

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Oh, this is going to be fun, right? Yeah, I love it. So along those ten months, what was that journey like for you? Because I always like to share with the audience because it's not easy. Those ten months must have been really hard.

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You don't just decide to be a UFC fighter and ten months later jump in the ring. Yeah, I actually just woke up and Dana White gave me the contract. He's like, hey, do you want to sign this thing? I go, I do want to sign that thing. Yeah.

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No, it wasn't that easy at all. Definitely. We go through so much just to get to that point, and I think that a lot of young athletes, especially, and even entrepreneurs, and even in today's world, everybody wants to be an influencer. And they think that you just post one good TikTok video and you're going to rise to the top. It's not that simple.

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It's not that easy. And there's always a long, hard, struggle journey to get to that point. So can you just share with the know? Were there any times where you thought, oh, my gosh, what am I doing? And you wanted to give up, and what did you find within you to keep you going?

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So my UFC journey was kind of weird because I had other journeys before that that really supported me to getting in the UFC as quickly as I did. But I will say this, very kind and very resilient. And the beauty of these things are, even though that is my giftedness, anyone can learn how to do it. It's a practiced art. And as you practice something, you become better and better at that thing that you're practicing.

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So I had some resilient moments earlier on on my journey that you surprise and you shock yourself. Now, what was funny for me, my entrepreneurial journey was actually harder than my road to the UFC because I had a lot of kinesthetic awareness when I was going through my fighter's journey. So I already had all of those pieces in place. Now, my entrepreneurial journey, the parallels, exact same. You don't know what you don't know.

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And it can be very frustrating, almost like you're driving a car with bald tires.

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But what was cool is I look at every obstacle as an opportunity. And I had cracked ribs, hurt my ankle, messed my nose up, had a lot of things happen. And every time I was like, what can I do? That was it. Well, what can I do?

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And I would go to the training room when I couldn't practice, and I would watch other people practice, and I would visualize and I would visualize myself doing the moves and visualize what happens if they get this move off, what happens if I get this move off? What happens here? Because they're patterns. Life's a game of patterns. Yeah.

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And when you figure out how to use the patterns to your best of abilities, you're going to dominate in one way or another. Now, there's a fighter, George Rush, St. Pierre, because you can learn from people, and you can learn lessons later on in life. Like, I had already retired as a fighter. But George Rush was talking about a time where he was looking at the split second, the second per second on what a fighter was doing.

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So he would know what they would do and how they would do it. So those are data points. He would look at the data points, and he would look at them extremely closely. And so my journey can serve me anywhere if I choose to see it. I just have to ask my mind, how does this apply to me?

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And so and how does this apply to me? Well, it applies in business, because now if I look at the data points to the second of a second, or the millisecond of a millisecond, I can become better in business, learn the data points. And I really respected George Rush for what he did and what he accomplished and how he accomplished it. But there's a shelf life for everything that we do. And I knew I had a shelf life.

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I actually had a couple more years left before I got out of fighting. But my son being born, there were other planes. I was like, yeah, the risk isn't worth the reward. So I'm going to back out of this and go into something.

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Because I'm a retired figure skating coach and everything.

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That's so funny. I just looked at my phone and I just said McLemore and it popped up on my phone. Thank you, siri.

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I just happened to look. I'm like, okay, I know, right? But there were so many things, like accomplishing one thing on the ice led me to the next. And then today, my last really biggest thing was completing the Marine corps marathon in 2006. And it's like when you have those big things that you complete, you know what I mean?

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It's like, oh, my gosh, if I can complete a marathon, I can do this. And it's using those and leveraging those past experiences as your wins, right? Like, what are my wins? And I can do this. I can get to that next point.

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I love that because it's big. Congratulations to that. And I'll tell you, cousin, I hope this provides the audience with an amazing insight. It's really served me on my journey. But first I want to look at you directly and say, everybody, there is absolute greatness in you and you can shock the world.

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Now the next piece. Shocking the world is actually as simple as walking. And this is what I mean by that.

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Babies don't just fall over, crawl and say, I can't do it. They continue to do it until they start walking. I'm like, okay, well, why does that happen? And then why do people quit their dreams? And oftentimes we become what we're around and what we see.

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We see people walking. So in seeing that, we're going to be more inclined to do it. So what I've learned is just as a fighter has to hang out with high caliber fighters to get to where they're looking to go, so does an entrepreneur. So does a person looking to create amazing relationships. So does a person looking to get their health in place.

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If you're around the right tribe of people, you will start becoming that thing. So there's something called accelerated learning. Just being around it, you're more inclined to be more like that. And then the other piece, it's being around it and it's hearing about it as you hear what they're doing, as you're seeing what they're doing, as you're hearing what they're doing, as you're staying, you become more and more aware of it and more competent towards doing it. And then the other part is our belief systems.

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So what do we believe about something? Now, I went through this process because I thought sales and marketing were not the best of things. And that comes from the beginning of my journey, just seeing certain things, being around certain things. And as I understood it more and more, I realized, oh, everything's just a skill set. And you can choose to use that skill set effectively or not use the skill set effectively.

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Just like the ability to fight. I can use that to fight. I can use it to protect I can use it to protect myself. I can use it to protect others. It's just a skill.

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And so in looking at life like that, like, okay, what skills do I want to acquire and how do I want to acquire them and what results will these skills get me? The world's in your court, you have everything that you need. That was so golden. And I hope, audience, I hope you really got that because who you surround yourself with is going to make or break you. And I just know from my personal experience and I told you how my podcast has exploded.

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And last month, which would have been September 2023, I had over 70,000 downloads in one month, which was a record. Congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you. It is.

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It's incredible. It really is. And people don't realize when you have no audience, when you have no platform, nobody knows who I am. Right. It takes a long time to build.

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Not, you know, Kelly Clarkson starting a podcast, and I'm going to have millions of listeners, just like people, you know, you have to understand. But the thing is, who I surround myself with has made a difference. And here's why. Because when I'm looking at these other people who have gone before me and they've done what I want to do, what they've already done, you start to emulate that. And it's that energy.

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It's that exchange of energy that we have. Call it source, call it energy, right. You start to feel that and it empowers you. And that's why who you surround yourself with is just a game changer. It's a game changer, for sure.

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Yeah, 100%. Is there anything else that you want to share with the audience before we finish up today? Because this has been such an amazing conversation, and I also want you to make sure you tell everybody how they can reach you and what are some of the things that you're doing right now. Yeah. So I have created something called the Training Room, and the Training Room is basically like the mental gym for entrepreneurs because yeah, it was really frustrating for me when I first started my entrepreneurial journey, I felt like I was talked at a lot instead of actually putting in the reps that was going to make me successful.

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Yeah. It kind of reminds me if you were to take a personal trainer and they were to work out in front of you and you're watching the personal trainer work out. And then the personal trainer says, all right, that's how you do it. Good luck. Go do those things.

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You're not going to do them right, and you're probably not even going to do most of them because it's like, I thought I was coming to the gym to work with you, with you. And that's what I saw pretty consistently on the entrepreneurial journey. I've had a mixed bag. I've had some really great coaches on the journey and some really not so great coaches. And I feel my kinesthetic ability to understand how important it is for the person to train the habit in is where it's at.

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So, yeah, I got the training room out and I'm also speaking on stages. So if anyone is interested in hearing the journey of how the parallels of fighting and entrepreneurship go hand in hand, please reach out. I've actually been courageous or crazy enough. You guys get to decide on that one to say if you text me at 602-403-6957 I'm a Fighter, we'll have a get together and a talk and learn more about you, your dreams and what you're looking to create on your journey. What is that number again?

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Can you repeat it? Yeah, it's 602-403-6957. So that's 602-403-6957. Yes. I will make sure that is in the show notes.

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So go ahead, everybody text I'm a fighter to 602-403-6957. I love that. All right, so that's how you reach. Clifford, any last minute thoughts before we finish up? I just want to thank you, Sandy, for allowing me to be on your platform and speaking.

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I'm having so much fun on the journey and, yeah, we're going to keep shining bright and loving, people. Oh, Clifford. Well, thank you. It has been an honor and a privilege to have you. Everybody, thank you so much for listening today.

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Thank you for your support. And reach out to Clifford, text him I'm a fighter. Love that.

00:28:28
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace, joy, and happiness. Take care, everyone.