Mike Basevic

You can have the life that you want, it takes dedication and decision making to commit to yourself. When you do, there is no reason that you should not be living the life you desire to live.

 

It is interesting how Mike Basevic, Owner and Founder of No Limits Nations got started on his journey to become an expert in human behavior. It was out of necessity; Mike began in a completely different career in the field of hospitality and hotel management on his way to becoming an entrepreneur. He felt as though his life was beginning to spiral as a young entrepreneur. Reflecting on his childhood, he realized that he came from a very traumatic upbringing. There was a lot of fighting, arguing and overall very emotionally traumatic. This eventually started to take a toll on his life. In his late 20s and early 30s, he found himself dealing with panic attacks before he even knew what they were. Mike Basevic carried a lot of stress and panic in his earlier years. A young entrepreneur who was trying to create success, at the time married with three young children and his life was filled with chaos.

No Limits Nations’, Coach Mike Basevic realized that a lot of this stemming from his childhood. It was a stable household for the most part but there were emotional strains; yelling, fighting and memories of waking up in the middle of the night to things being broken and in disarray. It was a chaotic environment growing up, which left him as a young individual having to deal with emotions; which he now knows as stress and anxiety. In his early 30s, his marriage had ended, and his business had failed, Mike looked at his life, unsure of what direction to take. Life is not supposed to be that way he thought, along with dealing with emotional strains, the anxiety was at a peak in his life and found himself suffering from frequent panic attacks. After a few trips to the emergency room, he thought his life had been in turmoil and was searching for ways to fix these problems.

Coach Mike Basevic went on a journey to study human behavior. He realized that it was not normal for people who seem to be extremely hardworking to be exhibiting these negative behaviors. He would then see people just seemingly swimming along in life, free and happy, yet, he was struggling despite his commitment to be happy and successful. All of that led to his study of human behavior. So, this was the catalyst for Coach Mike to read over 250 books in a two-year period. If there was a book out there about mental health, self-help, emotions or human behavior, he would read them all and if he liked it, he would reach out to the author and see if there was additional training they would offer. Also, if there was a class, or a seminar, or training offered, Mike Basevic attended.

Currently, Coach Mike Basevic, Owner and Founder of No Limits Nation formed a division of the company called “The Anxiety Free Executive” which is regarded as one of the top programs in the world at eliminating struggles with anxiety and depression. He currently resides in Hinsdale, Illinois with his wife and 5 children.

Where did the idea for No Limits Nation come from?

The structure for my business “No Limits Nation” began when I took a large interest into the study of human behavior and cognitive science. Through the journey, I applied everything I was learning and realized that most of the stuff in the self-help industry was either a shell of the truth or left a lot of parts out. I started to implement what was working for me, threw out what didn’t work and then I created a real strong formula for myself. In a short time, everything that looked so bad previously, started to look up. A lot of the health issues I was experiencing were gone, the stress was gone, tingling in my arms had all subsided. I found that I had a lot more energy. Previously, I was exercising 6 days a week and still not feeling good. Now, I find myself exercising 3 days a week and feel amazing. I was feeling so much better due to getting rid of the emotional resistance and years of built up emotional discontent; the black cloud above my head was gone. I knew that this is what I was meant to do. I then decided to take my ideas back to the young kids I was coaching at the time. In addition to their physical training, I wanted to implement a mental performance program as well. It was unbelievable the results that these kids had experienced.

I became a performance coach. After the success of implementing it to the kids, I decided to start teaching my program to various groups of people; salespeople, athletes and executives and their performances skyrocketed. That said, I was always pulled back with helping people with anxiety and depression issues. It didn’t matter who I spoke to, whether it was a celebrity or athlete on top of their game, most of them were still experiencing many of the same emotional struggles. They felt as though they were each inadequate, they were anxious, felt insecure and were all dealing with overall emotional hell internally. Even if on the outside it seemed as though they had it altogether; on the inside, they were constantly fighting this emotional battle.

It was probably a year to a year and a half of getting slammed in the face for me to realize that this was my true calling. I realized that I had to be teaching people how to eliminate these problems of anxiety, and depression as I was seeing too many lives destroyed. It became clear that the regular patterns for dealing with anxiety and depression, most often, led to medication and prescriptions but ultimately, these are not going to solve people’s problems, only mask them. People were also often distracting themselves with exercise, with eating healthy or maybe drinking alcohol and partying, addicted to extreme sports or whatever people were trying to do; each of these were all considered distractions to take them away from their pain. I learned that people need to deal with the problem on the inside, head on instead of distracting themselves. I began giving presentations to large groups and they were wonderful, but we noticed people were listening to our stories but not necessarily implementing the techniques in their everyday lives. They were inspired when they left, but quickly got back into their same routines and nothing in their life changed. I knew the only way people would do the work is if they were coached through the process as well as being helped through the challenges. Ultimately being held accountable along the way.

So, when it came to the creation of Anxiety Free Executive, I made the commitment to work with each person in my program individually. This was the evolution and who knows what we are going to do in the future. I am a living example that people can turn things around and begin living the dream as I am living the life I always dreamed of and would not change a thing.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

My typical day is serving my clients, I am still on the front line serving my clients and working with them each individually. My day consists of spending a lot of time doing that; my business runs itself and we have a great support staff to help me along the way. I get to spend every day doing what I love; which involves helping them to transform and getting them through their challenges. Whether it is about helping them through the anxiety, the depression, the overwhelming stress, the divorce or job failure, once you get over the emotional discontent and get through these things internally, it allows me to teach them how to live their dream life. Outside of work, I enjoy spending quality time with my family. My wife and I have 5 beautiful children and 3 dogs to complete the family. I also enjoy playing golf.

How do you bring ideas to life?

My process of being creative is always being open to new ideas coming to me, no matter who it’s coming from. I am constantly looking for ways to support my clients and help people; I am also very open to listening to other people, especially those on my team. I personally speak to 30-40 clients a week and I absolutely love it. I know what they are going through and more importantly, I know how to get them out of the dark place they might be in. Being on the front lines with my clients is always sparking new ideas. I always remain open to new ideas; they flow in all the time. I don’t act on every one of them, but I sometimes run it past my team, by asking their thoughts or even our clients and followers their thoughts on what we can improve on or their suggestions. We put in a back-end program for our clients who went through the 8-week program last year, and it couldn’t have made me happier. Our clients suggested that it would assist with their progress and we gave it to them. I am a big fan of investing in myself and my future growth, whether that comes with satisfying myself or helping others. I spend a lot of time and resources into people that I believe can reach their individual goals.

Every day and every minute, there are people everywhere who are dealing with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. These are the individuals who are praying for help and need answers. They do everything they are told to do; they go to the doctor and the doctor gives them prescription drugs, or possibly they try meditating or doing self-help and they are just trying to solve the problem. None of those things solve the problem, I can personally tell you this from my past experiences. If we are not reaching these people praying for an answer, then we are not doing our jobs. I like surrounding myself with people who can get me to reach those that need help the most. I value the people who I am partnered with and those who may have more expertise in certain fields, I lean on their support and rely on them a lot.

What’s one trend that excites you?

People are starting to wake up to the fact that they do not have to suffer. What we learn and what we teach our clients is that most of these labels that people are given regarding mental health are wrong. ADHD, social anxiety, seasonal depressive disorder- all these labels that we’re given—are a joke. Pick the label. Most of them can be temporary emotional experiences if we allow them to be. But so many people branded and labelled- people are now waking up that maybe the medical community has it wrong. That these labels and treatments are dangerous if not solved. There are more people out there that have the understanding that this can be solved. They have the understanding that with the stigma and struggles- I see that trend going and I like it. In 99% of the cases with people dealing with anxiety and depression, it does not have to be that way. There is an answer and we can get you out of it.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

I do a morning formula every day and I teach my clients this same formula. People going to gyms every morning to start their day to take care of their bodies… taking care of the mind is not much different. Just as maintaining your physical health is important, your mental health should be just as high of a priority. People do not expect that they can go to the gym once a month and achieve positive results, they understand that they need to dedicate a few times a week to getting fit. They make it a commitment, there is no difference with the mind. The morning formula is something you should make a priority when you wake up every day. There are 365 days a year, for 355 days, I am implementing that morning formula into my routine. What happens is, life beats you down; we aren’t dropped off in this world to expect sunshine and rainbows. From the beginning, we are filled with struggles; we fear life, we fear death and we are told the word ‘no” – 10-15x more than they are told the word ‘yes’. Our parents teach us about their fears; don’t trust people easily, be skeptical of certain people and be afraid. By the time we are around 10 to 13 years old, we are filled with that skepticism, fear and worry; worried about tests, worried about what people think about us. Young toddlers are bouncing from one experience to the next, but as we get older, we are conditioned to being miserable. Life tends to beat you down quite a bit hence the importance of having a powerful formula to get rid of the virus.

The formula is from 45 minutes to 1 hour and it works to clean all the mental weeds; the pressure, the stress and the anxiety. It helps us to dial in each morning and as a result, just like a person who goes to the gym 5x a week and eats healthy; your mind is more productive, the creativeness, the empowerment, the energy and the success will all come. When people are the best versions of themselves, they make more money and have better relationships where love, fun experiences and contentment expand. It’s when we don’t take care of our minds, the weeds start to grow back in the garden and the rainforest starts to die. My life is a beautiful extension of my commitment to that morning formula.

What advice would you give your younger self?

That it is going to be okay. My disappointment about mastering this information in my 30s, was that I wish I would have known when I was around 10 years old. These are the things that kids should be learning now; in fact, that was the tagline of my book, “the class they don’t teach in school”. It is so important that everyone can form a sense of emotional intelligence and the understanding of the how the mind, brain and our emotions work, as these are really the keys to everything. Our inner world creates our outer world. Our mind has been conditioned to transfer the feelings to worry, fear etc. Then we are having constant thoughts and emotions of worry. If I went back in time, I would teach this stuff to my younger self. Then again, I embrace my struggles, they all led me to who I am today.

Everything I learned and went through has prepared me for this. So, when my clients are struggling, I can understand and have been in their positions. I would tell my younger self to stay committed and work on yourself. If you want to change the world, work on yourself first and the world will respond. Everything will be okay, even if we can’t see the answers for the future, we can be comforted looking backwards and seeing how everything aligned and the dots connected themselves. When living in a forward direction but feeling anxious that we can’t see the solution, these dark clouds can start to form. In the end, it was about teaching myself these tools and knowing that everything is unfolding beautifully.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

We have an addiction in this country to prescription medications. In most cases, not all, these are being distributed way too frequently and can have very dangerous effects. Whenever you mask a problem with a drug, you are putting a Band-Aid on something that may require surgery. What are people told when they are struggling? To go to counselling, to go see a doctor, see a therapist or take a drug to balance the inner pain. We have some very powerful drugs being prescribed to even kids and teenagers. I am on the line with 13 and 15-year-old kids who are being prescribed Adderall, Klonopin or other benzos—and these drugs are no joke. These powerful prescription drugs are given to children, but the problem is still not being solved. They are making you feel a certain way to get through life but in 99% of the cases, it’s not solving the underlying problem. We solve the problem once and for all. Sometimes it may be just getting people to be more productive and allowing them the opportunity to not have to live with the stigma and struggle of being labelled with a mental illness. A lot of the stuff out there often results in people being analyzed; either through counselling or therapy, then diagnosed with a disorder and most cases medicated. People also think that positive thinking is the answer but tell someone who is having panic attacks every day or someone who can barely get out of bed because of depression, to think positively. That would last about 8 seconds and then the problem would still be there. There is a real benefit to having a healthy mind and feeding yourself healthy food, but it is a commitment and not something you do 20 minutes a day. Most people don’t understand that there is an answer for them and that if they are committed, that there can be a solution.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

One thing I continue to do and recommend, would be taking care of yourself. You must take care of yourself. We are taught in this world to take care of others before yourself. and not be selfish. Well, the best way to give back to others is taking care of yourself. When you are running at peak efficiency, you have that much more to give those around you. Everyone that comes into our program, we ask them on the application, who do they have relying on them and who is depending on them to be the best. Maybe it’s their spouse, maybe it’s their kids, their employers or employees. If they are not the best versions of themselves and they are not operating at peak efficiency, then they are not the person that people need them to be.

If you have goals in life, you must make sure you are taking care of yourself first. Then, when you are the best version of yourself and expanding your brilliance and greatest and you are inspired, relaxed, motivated and happy. Any person you speak with or anything you touch, everyone counting on you to be your best, will be positively impacted. People talk all the time about running yourself into the ground, and that to be a successful entrepreneur, you must be working 80 hour weeks but when you are doing that, you are not good for the people counting on you. When you take care of yourself, you are that much better for everybody. When it comes to your mental and emotional health, and everything you impact, will be greatly impacted, you will have the ability to change the rule. When you operate at peak efficiency, you can literally change the world.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

One strategy that has helped me grow my business is the use of current technology. Whether we like it or not, we live in an online world and that is how we can reach people these days. So, our program, while we utilize technology and online properties, it’s not an online program. We interact completely with our clients every day, but we reach people through the online world. We use social media; we use all those avenues to reach people. As again, people are out there praying for an answer, they need to know how we can get them through it, and they need to find us and where we are. What better tool to use than the online markets and internet and social media? I learned it and I hired the best people in the world to do that because I knew I wasn’t serving anyone if they did not know who I was. We tapped into the online market to reach the people praying for our help!

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

One of the failures I had during my time as an entrepreneur, was when my business crumbled in my thirties. It is difficult to come to a point in life where it feels like nothing is working out the way you want it to. At that point, I had to decide where I wanted my life to go. I could have stayed in that negative spot but then if I did, I would have missed the opportunity to experience all the amazing things in my life today. That was a turning point in my life.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

A great business idea that we have utilized would be online webinars. We can give amazing content and tools and techniques just by accessing our free webinar and watching it online. It has really changed our business. The more you give people and the more they are impacted by what you are giving them, it’s allowing us to change the world. We used webinars because not only can we make videos and send it out there but also including PowerPoints and additional information for them to have altogether in one place. We give this stuff away for free because it really is powerful. We are using technology and allowing people the opportunity to put in this work and to take notes in the comfort of their own homes.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I would say the best $100 I spent recently was on New Year’s Eve with my family. We were talking about going out for the evening, we had all these potential plans for how the night could go. At the last minute, we decided to get some groceries, cook at home and have some fun there. We went to the store to grab the groceries; we made some barbeque and we ended up playing a video dance game all night long. The next day I said that it was a wonderful night and only cost about $100 and it was worth every penny.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

I would say that technology in general is something that has helped my business grow tremendously. There is a need to balance the technology we use in our everyday lives, but it is hard to argue its high levels of efficiency. It gives me and No Limits Nation the ability to connect and reach people from various locations. We want to be able to reach as many people as possible to provide them the chance to change their lives for the better and that involves changing along with technology.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

I think a great book that everyone should read is “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. It was written about a 100 years ago, it’s just a really good book, especially when it comes to some principles to success. What he did, he interviewed dozens of successful people in his time and he spent many years researching for his book. It’s an amazing book that translates well into the present day. I think everybody is looking for something different, but I think every young person should read that book, as it’s an amazing collection of the ingredients needed to be successful.

What is your favorite quote?

I would say a favorite quote would be something I share with my clients all the time. “You have got to take care of your inner world; your inner world creates your external experiences. Make taking care of yourself the second-most important thing in life after breathing.” – Mike Basevic

Key Learnings:

• Explain to people that they do not have to suffer; the inner world creates the outer world. So, you must take care of that. Most people believe they are destined to struggle, that they have bad luck and their life is filled with chaos and that is just the luck of the draw but that’s not the case. You can completely transform your life when you take care of the inside and then the outside.
• You don’t have to live with emotional discontent. You don’t have to live with anxiety labels and anxiety struggles. You don’t have to live with stress, burnout, fatigue, depression. in most cases, it can be temporary, and it can be eliminated within several weeks. Of course, there is work to be done but the issues can be eliminated.
• You can have the life that you want, it takes dedication and decision making to commit to yourself. When you do, there is no reason that you should not be living the life you desire to live. When you are committed to having that life and committed to be the best version of yourself, it will happen. If you have the right tools,
• Look at the legacy you want to leave, for your children, for your friends, for your spouse and the impact you would like to have. If you are good, this is the end of the story and you can be happy with it, then good. The problem is most people aren’t. They want their story to have a better ending. You wake up tomorrow morning and to be continued is moving in a direction you want it to.