”I just don’t know who I am anymore!” Cara said. “I have given so much of myself at my job, and also as a mother, wife, caregiver, housekeeper, and taxi driver to my children that I feel as if I have lost myself and don’t know who I am.” Too many of you, like Cara, have told me the same thing in coaching sessions. Many of you have faced divorce, rejection, financial setbacks, emotional and physical abuse, and hardships that have derailed, hurt and altered you to such an extent that you no longer recognize or like the person you see in the mirror.

In another recent conversation, Terri, a 37-year-old mother of three, told me that she felt lost and confused. Four years ago her world turned upside down when her husband of 10 years left her. Her self-esteem met an all-time low, and she turned to me for help. Terri explained that the vibrant, beautiful, capable woman she thought she was had been replaced by an insecure, fearful, timid woman whom she barely recognized. As a single mother trying to make ends meet, she felt constant guilt over having to miss much of her children’s lives. She felt that she was giving so much of herself to her job and others that there was nothing left to make her feel ‘whole.’ “Is there any hope for me?” Terri asked. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this!”

Don’t think that this is a condition experienced only by women. Jack, 42, feels as if life is passing him by. He expected by this point in his life to be making more money, to have a better relationship with his wife, to have a better position at work and to be more confident. He had applied for more than 200 jobs, only to be rejected each time. He feels worthless and as if his true identity has abandoned him. It has been hard for him to admit that he is suffering from a serious midlife crisis made worse by losing his job. Having to settle for a job for which he is overqualified makes him feel even more insecure, unworthy and lost.

I have heard many, many similar stories in one-on-one sessions with clients or talking with individuals after seminars. Through my vocation as a life-coach, public speaker, and author, I have found that feelings of rejection, worthlessness, under-appreciation, and a general lack of self-love, self-respect and lost identity are more common than I had previously imagined. If this describes you, then you are in luck because this book and the accompanying audio and video courses are designed especially for you. By applying the principles and skills presented in this book, you CAN and WILL rediscover who you are, grow your self-worth and self-esteem, overcome negative past experiences, forgive those who have hurt you, begin to live a life with purpose, and learn how to feel joy, even true pleasure, every day. You may be thinking that you have tried other self-help books and courses, and it was just too hard to stick with them to get the promised results. Don’t be discouraged! YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS. YOU ARE STRONG!

Yes! You are strong! No matter what you have experienced in the past, no matter what you are faced with at this very moment, you can make it. You can do hard things! Whether you felt confident at one time in your life and no longer feel that way or have never felt confident and worthy of success and happiness, this book is meant for you. Read on and learn the formula to build your self-worth, obtain emotional freedom, experience your inherent potential, and live your true life’s purpose. Unburden yourself of the emotional baggage that is holding you back and live the life you are meant to live! This is not a fantasy; this is not a fairy tale. You can do this, and this book and the accompanying courses will provide you with a formula that has been tried and tested in workshops, seminars and in hundreds of one-onone sessions with my clients. In fact, each section in this book comes directly from live seminars that have been taught around the world. Do your best to suspend judgment, skepticism and uncertainty, and proceed with the faith that as you implement the practical and realworld skills covered in this book, you will soon feel your self-worth grow; you will emerge as a more confident individual, and you will know your true life purpose. The most immediate benefit you will obtain is that you will actually begin to feel free from insecurities and emotional baggage, and you will be happy! You will feel the power that comes from being strong!

The I AM STRONG formula described in the first two parts of this book is essential to your success. Feeling truly worthy of happiness, success, satisfaction and fulfillment will lead you to a desire to forgive, to overcome your negative past, to discover your true life’s purpose and experience deep joy.

To get started, consider this question: if you could be anyone — who would you be? Think about this question for a moment and take it seriously. If you could be anyone, anybody at all, who would you be? This is not a trick question. Perhaps you would choose to be someone who has touched your heart or inspired you in some way. Maybe it is your favorite celebrity or sports icon. It might even be your father or mother or another family member whom you respect and admire. When I have asked this question in a corporate setting, people sometimes mention the name of their first manager or supervisor, a high school teacher or college professor.

The most appropriate answer to this question is, “I am happy being me!” This is exactly what this book hopes to achieve — to empower you to be able to sincerely answer that you are happy just being YOU! You are a powerful, wonderful, capable, talented, gifted human being. That, in essence, is the power of the I AM STRONG formula — to build your self-worth and enable you to discover your true purpose in life so that you can experience joy on a daily basis. If you feel that the goal of this book is too difficult, too lofty and unrealistic, please suspend your judgment and trust that this is not an impossible, but very likely and probable, outcome of this book.

Have you become someone you don’t like? Have things happened to you that cause you to question your worth and value? No matter what has happened to you, you are capable of rediscovering your true potential and true self-worth and living a life full of significance, blessings and miracles.

This book and the accompanying courses are organized into several parts:

1. I AM STRONG: The Formula
   
2. Build Your Self-Worth: The I AM STRONG Formula in Action
   
3. Receive the Miracles of Forgiving
   
4. Transform from Victim to Hero in 90 Seconds
   
5. Live Your Life with Purpose
   
6. Experience Joy and Happiness Every Day

Each section includes a self-assessment that you can use as you read or as you listen to the audio courses. The audio courses are recordings of the live workshops on each topic. Also accompanying this book is a series of short video segments that will help you implement the skills and practical tips. You can find a link to the audio and video courses and one of these websites: www.thehappinessfactor. com or www.IAMSTRONG.co.

Each section is meant to be interdependent, meaning that it is not requisite that you follow the sections in order, even though the principles build upon one another consecutively. If you are initially drawn to one section more than another, feel free to follow that inspiration and start with the section that you feel you need most. However, Parts 1 and 2 set the foundation for the rest, so I highly recommend that you begin with the first two parts to establish context.

A word of caution and a disclaimer: when I was in the same place as many of you are right now, I felt as if I would never be happy and that I was a failure at all the things that were important to me. I didn’t have the job I wanted, my relationship with my wife was nowhere near what it should have been, my children were withdrawing from me, and my sense of self was diminishing. Wanting to change things, I set out trying to change my circumstances, my job, my spouse, my children, my house, my car, the city I lived in, and none of it worked. It wasn’t until a friend said to me, “All of your problems will be solved from the inside out,” that I finally got it. This book and the accompanying courses will focus on change from the inside out and not the other way around. I have tried to write this book as if you and I were speaking one-on-one with the goal to provide you with as many practical skills as I can without delving too much into the theoretical or rhetorical. I am also hoping to challenge you to look at yourself differently, to see yourself in a new light, to reclaim the person you truly are, rather than someone who is a victim to circumstance or the acts of others. You are capable, beautiful, wonderful and powerful. Claim your right to be great, rediscover your true potential and worth, and live a life of purpose. YOU ARE STRONG! YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS!

Part 1: The I A M S T R O N G Formula

This part provides an overview of the powerful formula to build your self-worth. The formula is embodied in the short statement: I AM STRONG. Consider Part 1 as an introduction to this powerful formula that will be put into action in Part 2. The I AM STRONG formula will help you learn how to draw the distinction between who you are and what you do, as well as how to distinguish between selfworth, self-esteem and self-confidence.

Part 2: The I A M S T R O N G Formula in...