Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Keron Chang. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Keron, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

When I think about this question, it forces me to examine my own path. I begin to look at where I am thus far and where I am heading. With that in mind, I have distilled it down to my 11 keys to success and I will look at each in turn.

1. Learn to calculate the future cost of present decisions!
– what will this present decision cost me in the future
No matter what you are doing, you will have to make decisions today that will invariably impact your present and your future, and every decision you make has a cost attached to it. This could be a direct cost or an opportunity cost. Nothing is free and the greater the success you are looking to achieve, the greater the price you will have to pay. When we talk about price here, we are not talking about money though money may be involved. We are talking about all the costs including time, relationships, change, and heart. This also speaks to a key element of success which is vision. I define this as the ability to see into the future the results of those decisions that you are making today, such that you have a somewhat clear view of the outcome and the steps to get to that outcome. I guess what I am saying is that you have to have a clear vision that both pushes and pulls you and a clear view of the costs that will accrue. You have to be able to understand what the current decisions will mean some time from now.

2. Inaction is the opposite of success! Failure is not the opposite of success!
Failure to act is by definition the grim reaper. To be successful you must act and often swiftly and decisively or at least carefully and methodically. If an obstacle presents in your way, as they always will, you cannot stop. You are required to find a way whether around it, through it, under it, or over it, but you must find a way. Life seems to test your resolve when preparing you for success. I have seen no other way in my experience.

3. Many people will dislike you for doing what is right for you. You have to get comfortable with the fact that not everyone will like you
I believe people are by definition good, but often act based on their baser influences. In other words, though people desire good and respond well to good, they often are conflicted internally when they see you doing what they cannot or will not. This may be because you expose them, and no one likes being exposed and naked for the world to see. The same way a person will react if you all of a sudden pull the walls down around them while they are naked taking a shower, it is the same emotion that swells inside them when you, by your forward momentum, expose their lack of momentum. So, don’t hate them and don’t get too bogged down with it, just get comfortable with the fact that for you to move forward and do well, you will make some people mad even when you are doing the most good.

4. Mindset is of utmost importance. Faulty thinking is your enemy. Keep your mindset healthy
There is nothing worse than faulty thinking. If your thinking about anything is faulty, it can (or very often will) mean the difference between a wonderful outcome and a horrendous failure. Examine your thinking and force yourself to really do well despite how you may “feel” at any moment. Emotions and feelings often betray you because they are often fueled by inaccurate and faulty thinking. Consider this, how many times do you feel like sleeping in instead of getting out of bed and hitting the gym or the treadmill? How many times do you make an assumption that turns out to be completely wrong? How many bad habits do you justify on a daily basis? All of these reside in the realm of faulty thinking and they have the power to ruin your life.

5. Not everyone will applaud when you win
This one is pretty clear I think but anyone who has risen above their peers particularly from humble beginnings will likely agree with this. Even those close to you may not cheer you on as you had envisioned. Jealousy erects walls that are often impossible to break down. Just know that when you are rising you may get more hate than accolades from the places you least expect. Be ok with this fact. Make peace with it. There is a chance that your mother, or brother, or spouse, or best friend may turn against you when you are climbing and succeeding. It’s ok, you will be ok, and you will find people who truly have your best interest at heart. Don’t give up and for God’s sake don’t stop.

6. Your network is your safety net! You need to find your herd. Make this a priority
There is an old saying that there is strength in numbers and there is much truth to this. While on your ascent, I strongly recommend aligning yourself with like minded people. They will often make it much faster and easier and will often give you just enough lift to rise above the daily challenges. Just know also that this group of people will change as you move forward, and that’s ok.

7. Success breeds more success
When you are on a winning streak, don’t stop. Know that the more you succeed the more you will have the energy, clout, and resources you need to keep winning. Never ever pump the brakes when things are moving in your favor. Instead increase your efforts and your reach. The flip side of this means if you are on a losing streak, find small wins that can then aggregate into bigger wins. For example, if you lost a major business deal, instead of wallowing in despair over it, focus on and find success in many smaller deals. You may be surprised at how they begin to pull you forward.

8. Planning and execution! Plan first then execute. Build the habits. Habits are more important than goals. Systems are more important than immediate results
This one is pretty clear as well. Success is never a singular event, it is always a series of events and decisions spanning a measure of time. Planning and execution are keys to building success. This is my version of the explanation of why most lottery winners die poor. Winning a random jackpot may seem like success but that’s a myth. If you pour water into a bucket full of holes, no matter how much water you poured, you will soon find yourself with an empty bucket. Success is the art of plugging the holes in that bucket or at least having the sense to find a better bucket. Your systems and habits and planning and execution are the things that plug those holes.

9. Success takes time and is contingent on your systems and habits repeated moment by moment, day by day, year by year
This carries from number 8 and really alludes to the fact that success is never over night. It does require time. That, I believe, is irrefutable.

10. Surround yourself with people who love you and want you to win
This speaks to the reality that support is critical to success. In my opinion there are really no self-made millionaires. Every tall and majestic and ancient redwood must have at its base sturdy and nurturing soil. In other words, if the soil is bad the tree will fall or at least fail to reach its full potential. The better the support, the higher and stronger the tree can grow. This fact is often overlooked by many but is illustrated in the Bible parable of the sower. Where the seed falls is as important as the quality of the seed. A fantastic seed in the wrong soil won’t do much, just ask any farmer.

11. Hang out with eagles and you will soar, hang out with hamsters and you will spend your life in the wheel working hard but getting nowhere
Finally, the old proverb that tells us we become the sum of the people we hang out with holds true. Attitudes, behaviors, and mindsets are actually contagious, possibly more so than diseases. This is why peer pressure turns wonderful kids into almost unrecognizable individuals. Never underestimate the power of influence. It’s pull is insidious, subtle, and yet more powerful than a whip and a branding iron. For the latter cannot change the mind even though it may temporarily encourage movement.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

One of the questions I get asked a lot, especially from the skeptics, is “why should anyone listen to you?”. “What qualifies you to coach or mentor anyone or why should anyone buy your books?” My answer to that is always the same, listen to my story. I came from the bottom, under the proverbial thumb of life, through the fires of affliction, up the rough side of the mountain, over the pits of adversity, to the plains of progress. I am the unlikely. If you want to be successful, to win, to rise, to achieve, to recover, despite everything life throws at you, let me show you how. I encourage you to profit from my pain and my experiences! Why spend your years going through it when you don’t have to? Leverage my knowledge and experience to create the future you want!

I was born on the island paradise of Jamaica in the beautiful town of Ocho Rios to a blue-collar chef and a housewife who later became an entrepreneur. But see, even paradise has an underclass and though we lived in a tourist Mecca, by the time I was born we were struggling to make ends meet. We really didn’t have much of anything early on, and though my father worked a lot, it was seldom ever enough for our basic needs. I remember my mother going to the salvation army once to get clothes for us to wear, and if you know anything about a developing country, you know that the face of poverty there is not as rosy as you see in the developed nations. There were really no comfy social programs to help you eat. Things were pretty rough in the early days. We were so poor that poor people gave us money. My mother would say things will get better when my rich uncle comes from the poor house! To poor people we were “the poor”. Thank God my parents had the ambition to strive for better.

Three things changed my life:
1. I had a mother who doesn’t know how to quit and whose love and devotion became a beacon of light through the darkness
2. I was introduced to God at an early age and my strong desire to walk in his ways kept me from succumbing to the temptations of drugs, easy money, and power
3. I had ambition, drive, and an enduring desire for good coupled with a love of knowledge and truth

I got to know hunger, pain, defeat, and loneliness, -> which forced me to clearly define my purpose, vision, and passion -> which became the platform for my victory, joy, and success! Though my siblings and I knew love from our parents, who gave us the best life they knew how, we also knew adversity and learned to overcome it.

If you live a life of privilege where everything is handed to you and life comes easy, that’s great, but I may not be the best coach or example for you. If however you are hungry, and you belong to the other 99% who know struggle, heartache, and disappointment, and who have dreams they want to fulfill, now is your time! Let me help you rise!

It is from these difficult experiences that my work emanates. I believe in recreating a better self, mind, body, and spirit, and my products are geared at helping people do just that. I produce supplements and herbal products to help the body and I write books and articles and coach and mentor to help the mind and the spirit. I am not professing perfection but rather sharing from my own experiences to help others find their success. Yes, that does make me vulnerable but if no one shares no one learns, so a little vulnerability is a small price to pay to help others like me get there and get there faster.

I also had the distinct pleasure of working as a Registered Nurse in NYC as well as other states and cities for more than a decade, working with many of the sickest patients across the largest healthcare systems. While pushing hard to advocate for these patients, my eyes were opened to the amount of suffering that people endure, unnecessarily, every day. People lose special their moments, their big dreams, and even their mobility because of poor nutrition and eating habits!

Those experiences ignited a fire in me for good nutrition that supports excellent mental and physical health. After a wlot of research and finding the right partners, I started a new product line specializing in 100% plant based and non GMO or Organic multi-vitamins, and herbal supplements.

My brand is called Created to Rise because it is an affirmation of the reality that we all have more in us and we were all put here for a reason. We are not just specs of dust floating in space. Our lives and existence have meaning and we can rise to become more that we are now. This is also the story behind our logo. The 3 mountains symbolize fear, self-doubt, and procrastination. These three hurdles challenge every human and each of the 3 has the ability to make your dreams null and void. They can invalidate your greatest desires and your greatest possibilities.
The figure atop the mountain is you gaining the victory over these 3 mountains. You have the power within you and you were created to best these things. No one can stop you unless you stop yourself. Nothing can defeat you unless you defeat yourself.
The sun at your back symbolizes the fact that God and the positive powers of the universe are with you and are lighting a path for you to move forward, to move higher, and to overcome those 3 mountains.

Our website is createdtorise.com

Our products include:

– The book entitled “Created to Rise: Unlocking Your Personal Power Despite Life’s Obstacles”
– The soon to be released book “Created to Rise: The Success Handbook of Life Changing Stories”

The Vitamins and Supplement line including:
– Adult Multivitamin Plus Herbs
– Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies
– Organic Kids Gummies
– Organic Adult Gummies

Plus more products and titles to be released soon!

In summary, our goal is to help people live their best possible lives by nurturing the body, mind, and spirit by creating products and content highlighting what we personally do, products we personally create and use, and how we cultivate and practice spirituality.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I believe every entrepreneur can identify with the challenges involved in not only starting, but maintaining a business. I am definitely no exception to that rule. When I decided to start my business I could have never guessed how difficult it would be. Nothing really prepares you for what you will face as a small business owner in a big city with a shoestring budget. Created to Rise has faced so many roadblocks it is actually incredible. We went through all the preliminary steps of researching the market, finding funding, developing our product, creating our processes, and building our team. Despite all this time, effort, and preparation, when we finally launched our product, much to our surprise, it did not go flying off the shelves, In addition to slower than expected sales, we also had several production delays that extended the time we should have been to market and caused us to miss an extremely important sales day. We tried everything in our power to ensure we didn’t miss the deadline, but our manufacturing partner had supply chain issues and just could not get the product done in time.

Fortunately we worked through that issue and finally got our product to our distribution partner Amazon, only to have their receiving department misplace a significant portion of our inventory. We made dozens of calls, sent so many emails, talked to so many people, and tried everything we could to find the inventory. It took them almost 6 months to finish their investigation and finally give us credit for the lost product. By this time we were pretty discouraged because we had lost so much time and invested so much money without a single sale being made or a single dollar of revenue coming back to us.

Despite all this, we persisted and still continued to push forward. One important lesson that we learned is that just because you deserve it, doesn’t mean anyone is going to give it to you. As an entrepreneur you have to get up every day ready to fight and to win despite the odds being stacked against you. You can do everything correct and still have many things happen that can destroy your business and your dream.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One lesson that I had to unlearn is the idea that “good things come to those who wait.” This saying, like so many others, has a small element of truth to it but from an all encompassing perspective is actually a detrimental saying. Waiting around for good things to come to you is probably one of the worst strategies to employ in our capitalistic world. The people who wait around are typically the people who get the worst or the leftovers after the go-getters have had their fill. Or, they may end up getting nothing because there wasn’t enough to go around.

I remember waiting for the right moment to launch a business I had started years ago. It was a website centered around providing qualified professionals with a platform to connect with new career opportunities. I spent over 18 months working on perfecting this online tool. I created a plan, employed a team, and worked tirelessly on perfecting this tool. I waited and waited for the right time and for good things happen to allow the project to take off. In the end, the cavalry never showed up and we ended up waiting so long that other competitors got to market first and we were left with nothing but a hefty bill and an embarrassing failure,

After this experience I learned that waiting around for good things to come to you is just not a great business or life strategy. I had to rout that ideology from my psyche and replace it with a “do it now” philosophy centered around the idea that the longer you wait the less likely you are to succeed. Now this does not mean that one should rush into everything blind. Instead, what it means is that taking purposeful, deliberate, immense, action is a requirement of success. Once you have a heading, move quickly. The longer you wait, the more inertia sets in and the more your competitors have opportunity to get out in front of you. It is also a life lesson that we do not live in a vacuum and nothing is static. Even if you are not moving, the world is. Even if you are not changing, the world is so you better get lively.

Contact Info:

• Website: createdtorise.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/created.to.rise/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keron-chang-universal/