I use my highly specialized training from the forces, studying the best personal & business development leaders and using my Ph.D. in life, to unleash your highest potential. My proudest accomplishment is being alive! I am transparent in sharing my story allowing a greater awareness and raising of consciousness to support the healing for humanity.
Resilience has been described as the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Times are not easy now. How do we develop greater resilience to withstand the challenges that keep being thrown at us? In this interview series, we are talking to mental health experts, authors, resilience experts, coaches, and business leaders who can talk about how we can develop greater resilience to improve our lives.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Baz Porter.
About Baz Porter: Baz Porter is a renowned inspirational speaker and mentor who has helped thousands of people find peace in their lives. His story began when he served as a British Army soldier. After his service, he was diagnosed with PTSD but preserved to overcome depression, anxiety, addiction, and homelessness.
His unique, unorthodox style has been formed over 25 years of experience in serving people globally. Learn more about Baz, or sign up for a membership at www.bazporter.com
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I was a washed-up veteran, diagnosed with PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Found myself homeless with nothing, living in my car battling with addiction to drugs and alcohol. Trying to recover from addiction, self-doubt, fear, homelessness, and severe depression. I really wanted to make a difference in the world using my life experience as a British forces soldier to mentor and empower people to reach their full potential so I wouldn’t have to repeat the cycle of feeling unworthy.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
I founded my company in 2019 in the United States, due to my passion for service to others and after a profound spiritual awakening. I am on a mission to bring my message of hope to billions while guiding my clients to navigate through the depths of adversity. I have had the privilege of speaking on stages alongside great thought leaders, such as Dr. Greg Reid, Sharon Lechter, and Mark Victor Hansen.
Over the past four years, I have earned the respect of my clients, such as doctors, athletes, and A-list celebrities. I have been featured in articles and appeared in podcasts and a television show.
I wanted to be able to create the life of my dreams and stop playing victim to my thoughts. So, I could create a new life for myself, start a family, build a business inspiring those who also aspire to make a change in the world. Turning the impossible into possible.
The thing is, I was struggling with finding a job and making money to support myself. The addiction to alcohol was controlling my life. That meant I wasn’t able to create the life of my dreams and stop playing victim to my thoughts. Let alone create a new life for myself, start a family and build a business.
To make things worse, I felt terrible because I was afraid of failure and scared of myself. Too proud to reach out for help. I felt even worse about the situation because I was supposed to be a man of honor. As a decorated Veteran, I could not even afford a loaf of bread, let alone a house or stable environment. I felt like a failure as a man and unworthy as if I did not matter.
The problem was that I had enough of living this nightmare. The addictions controlling my life, living in my car in uncertainty. Or the alternative was suicide. Which meant there was no way back. which in this case, hitting the wall reduced me to my knees. I was emotionally and mentally broken.
Then, as if by chance, something amazing happened…
That’s when I realized my superpower of resilience, and everything changed. All from this event I discovered my inner strength and began to remember the value of my life!
It was now crystal clear to me how to create a formula on how to live the life of my dreams. Because I saw how I could create this formula using it for myself and change my life.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I learned that difficult times do not last. You need to stop thinking that hard times last forever, change your perspective and the story you tell yourself instead.
As a result I sat down writing for three days straight creating a formula for trauma recovery and impactful living.
After I did that, I started applying for jobs. I found a job and started to rebuild my life again. This was my rebirth.
Suddenly, I was making thousands of pounds doing a job that I loved.
That’s when I realized the secret. At the time, I was trying to recover from addiction, self-doubt, fear, homelessness, and severe depression. That’s when it became crystal clear that the secret was using my superpower to inspire others.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I had to change who I associated with. I stopped drinking and stopped doing drugs. I was determined to get sober. I started formulating and finalizing my action plan by making new friends while being of service to others.
My plan was to start saving enough money to rent an apartment. I then found the courage to ask a friend for help, to rent a room in their house.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Even after all I had done to turn my life around, things were not perfect. I was lonely. After many failed relationships, PTSD, and nightmares I did not understand why I was lost, still feeling empty and without purpose. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop the nightmares or the feeling that I was not enough. I did not fit in. My insecurities intensified. I had social anxiety and still felt afraid of the unknown. Then everything seemed to hit me at once. Within one week everything changed. I lost my job; my car blew up. I was made homeless.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
A friend offered me a room in her house where I started again. Not giving up. I set out to help others by joining a group on Facebook. Supporting others who were suffering. I put my flag in the ground. I was perfectly imperfect. I declared to the world that I was a healer and a channel. I realized I am here to help change lives, using my trauma to help myself and others to thrive.
I thought if I could create something that would make it possible to change people’s lives so they wouldn’t suffer the way I did, I would be really happy.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
After 6 months of speaking to people 18 hours a day, tweaking, testing, and gaining clarity on what mattered to people, I formed the formula and structure to change lives. I chose to call it Thriving Together. A group mentorship program.
Though it sounded too good to be true, I now live the life of my dreams.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
I started to let other Entrepreneurs & Business Owners use the formula Thriving Together.
As a result of all this I was able to achieve the following:
I settled in Los Angeles after finishing a world tour on donations with no savings at all. Recovering fully from depression, and anxiety. I now use my trauma to empower others to thrive.
As a life and business strategist, inspirational speaker, British Forces Veteran, PTSD survivor, and author, I have recovered from addiction and homelessness.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
I use my highly specialized training from the forces, studying the best personal & business development leaders and using my Ph.D. in life, to unleash your highest potential. My proudest accomplishment is being alive! I am transparent in sharing my story allowing a greater awareness and raising of consciousness to support the healing for humanity.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My favorite part of being an entrepreneur is supporting my clients. I believe that everyone has a story to tell. I listen deeply and help them rewrite their own. So, they can step into their victory every single day.
After creating Thriving Together group mentorship program, I was not only able to achieve my dream of living my life authentically with purpose and passion. I’ve also been able to stop using drugs, alcohol and recover from depression and PTSD. I can stop that because I trust that I’m living proof the formula I created supports me, my clients, and my family to live an extraordinary life.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
I would love to spend even more time with Dr. Greg Reid, Sharon Lechter, and Mark Victor Hansen.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!