Relentless Romero Blogs

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN "Don’t ever let somebody tell you something’s impossible, or that your dreams are impossible. What you believe is exactly what will be. If you believe you can do something, you will. If you believe you can’t, you wont. And this is my challenge to each and every one of you, as you take off to go on about your lives.  I want to challenge each and everyone of you to BE OUTSTANDING; because that is the only way you are going to achieve everything that you are capable of. And when I say "outstanding", outstanding is not good, outstanding is not great. It is better than good, you must be better than great. And why does it have to be so high? Why does the standard have to be outstanding? Because that is what we are capable of. “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” Steve Prefontaine said that.  And outstanding, let me tell you something about that too. You’re going to be working harder than other people. Good – you...

Fairbanks, Alaska 49th Birthday Trip Life is too precious to not get on a plane and go live it! - Jason Romero Tomorrow is my birthday, and I gave myself and early present this year. I just got back from a trip to Alaska! I want to share the last 72 hours with you, as they were amazing to me and perhaps they may inspire you in some way. Sunday, March 3, 2019 I went to church for the early service, per my usual Sunday routine when I find myself in Denver, Colorado - my hometown. When I was leaving, a friend asked me "Jason, what do you call a Polar Vortex in Alaska?" I was stumped. He responded, "Tuesday!" We were having a cold snap in Colorado, and he was telling me that Alaskans know the cold, as he had lived in Alaska for years. I asked him if he had ever seen the Northern Lights. I had always wanted to see this phenomenon, but assumed my degenerative eye condition had robbed my eyes of the rods necessary to have the night vision to see the Auro...

What if 90% of your work was pro bono and only 10% of the time you were paid? This is the situation I find myself in at the present moment. I became a Keynote Speaker a few years ago. When I first began speaking, I spoke for free 100% of the time. I called schools, service organizations (Rotary, Lions, Optimist, Kiwana, Knights of Columbus Clubs), churches, youth detention facilities, homeless shelters and residential recovery centers for adults and asked to speak to their youth and adults free of charge. When I spoke to groups, I was consistently thanked for sharing my story, being vulnerable, talking about tough topics like depression and fear, and teaching how to believe in a dream and accomplish the seemingly impossible. I had people encourage me to continue sharing my story, they told me I was the best speaker they had ever heard, and some told me I said exactly what they needed to hear at that moment. This feedback encouraged me, and fueled my desire to pursue a career...

Recently, I had the shocking fortune of running past a building that I thought was going to topple over on me. As I ran past the building I noticed that it was a triangle on the bottom and a square on the top. The different shapes at different ends of the building made it look like the building was "twisting." I have not been able to shake the thought of this building. As I researched the building, I discovered that it will be the 4th tallest building in the city, and the "twist" is actually supposed to strengthen the structural integrity of the design. The building has attracted a lot of attention because of it's "difference" of architecture. Critics have come out in droves to suggest that the building is sinking, or that each floor is one inch short, or that construction has been halted - all of which are untrue.  This got me thinking about how we humans interact with one another. As a norm, the masses are more comfortable with homogeneity -...

An inspired life, is an easy life. Recently I was speaking at an event for a Business Journal in the North Eastern United States. The CEO of a $4 billion company with 22,000 employees was sitting in the audience. While at my talk, he sent an e-mail to his team and told them to book me for their annual kick-off meeting which was 30 days later. Thirty days later I found myself back in the same city, and about to go on stage in a ballroom of 600 executives. The CEO introduced me and explained that he had heard me speak the prior month, and my talk had put two questions on his heart: 1. What is possible? and 2. What am I really capable of doing? The CEO explained that hearing my story made him re-examine these two very important questions, and he wanted his executives to have the opportunity of hearing me speak so they too could have a growth experience. In the next 45 minutes I told my life story, and we laughed together, cried together, hoped together, hurt together and cheered ...

“Changing of the status quo. Setting out in a new direction. Breaking the cycle.” I hear the term “disruption” a lot at conventions, conferences and business meetings where I speak. It is talked about as being a novel idea, something that we all must take up arms to do. In fact, it is something that is begun on a daily basis. The real message with disruption is that we must “follow through” once we start our disruption. It is timely to have this discussion as we start a new year. As individuals, we make new resolutions and set goals for ourselves for our professional, personal and spiritual pursuits. As organizations, we reveal new annual plans with new service and product launches, budgets and strategic initiatives. These are efforts to disrupt the status quo, and bring about positive change. For any business or person that wants to grow and evolve, we should all be able to agree that change is a necessary ingredient for this process. Stagnation is a sure path to a s...

100 miles done in 24 hours at Across the Years 2019 I'm on the phone with a friend I met on the Camino de Santiago in Spain just 3 short months ago. She asks what I've been up to, and I tell her I just finished running for 24 hours. There are some pauses, some clarifying questions, some laughs, some stories, and then she asks me, "Why Jason? At some point you need to ask yourself, why do you do this to yourself?" For anybody who has ever ventured to do something "out of the ordinary", be prepared to be asked by others "why?"  Think deeply about your response, before you respond. This is an amazing moment, when you can truly share the essence of who you are with another person. They don't care about what you do for a living, they don't care about what you have, they don't care about where you came from, they don't care about the color of your skin, they don't care about whether you're blind or in a wheelchair, they ju...