In order to reach our full potential, we must first develop the skills of perseverance and positivity. That’s the message that best-selling author, performance coach and motivational speaker Dennis M. Postema is hoping to spread to his clients and the world at large. Postema himself learned that lesson early in life; he shares his story in the best-selling book Developing Perseverance and on his websites, Motivation and Success and Stories of Perseverance.
“When I was twenty years old, I lost my brother in a car accident,” says Postema. “It was just after I started my career in the financial industry. At the time, I had a mentor who told me that I had a choice: I could stay in a depressed state over my situation, or I could grieve for my brother, learn from the experience and go on to make something of my life.” Those words, says Postema, had a profound influence on his life and led him to begin a series of successful businesses. Eventually, he became inspired to coach others in the art of cultivating positivity and developing perseverance.
Postema says that the battles he fought early on his life—which included a three-year struggle with ulcerative colitis that required several surgeries to remove and rebuild parts of his digestive tract—taught him to look on the positive side. He credits his personal misfortunes with helping him to learn to appreciate life and with giving him the drive to help others do the same.
These impulses led him to create the website Stories of Perseverance. “I’m a huge superhero fan,” explains Postema. “There are so many heroes out there in everyday life: veterans who’ve lost limbs and have come back and been an inspiration to somebody, caregivers, people who’ve been bullied, people who’ve beaten cancer. We have so many heroes, and there is so much hope out in the world, and we don’t ever hear about it.” Postema wanted to give people with hopeful, heroic stories a platform to share their stories, and others could draw inspiration from them.
In addition to his websites and book, Postema also speaks on the subjects of positivity and perseverance, sharing his personal stories of overcoming tragedy to motivate others. “Dennis inspired our chemotherapy patients and their caregivers by sharing his personal story and the mindset that has helped him overcome adversity,” says Faith Smith, Director of Public Relations and Marketing at Mercy Defiance Clinic and Mercy Defiance Hospital. “They left with practical ideas for coping with serious difficulties and the inspiration to put those suggestions into practice.”
A major goal of Postema’s business is to help his clients and those who read his websites and books achieve lasting success. “I want to change people’s lives and help them to have the best life they can have,” says Postema. “Often what happens is, we’ll read a motivational book, and we feel really good, and then two weeks later, we forget everything that was in the book.” Postema counters this tendency by including action guides in his books and offering home study courses so that people can keep the helpful information and lessons they learn from his teaching materials and use them in their daily lives.
Carol Joost explains how Postema’s action guides and tools have helped her apply what she has learned to her life. She says, “Dennis Postema’s ‘Victory Journal’ has given me a new appreciation for the daily victories that we each accomplish. Each small victory that we comprehend and appreciate evolves into something much larger by giving us added strength and purpose throughout our months and years.”
Postema’s aim is to help people become superior versions of themselves. “I think people don’t realize that they have everything that they need already inside of them; they just have to bring it out somehow,” says Postema. “My hope is that my materials and my coaching will help them do that.”
Additional information about Dennis Postema is available on his websites: http://www.MotivationandSuccess.com, http://www.StoriesofPerseverance.org and http://www.DennisPostema.com.
