 Aloha. Welcome to Keys to Success, which is live on the ThinkTech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11am. We are your hosts. My name is Danilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome to today's show. The goal of this show is to provide professional and personal development tools and profound insights on how to achieve success in life, career and or business. Terry Werner Hops, DSWA accredited coach and certified trainer and founder of Terry Werner International and The We, was our guest on our last show and her words of wisdom can be accessed on Newman Consulting Services website, NewmanConsultingServices.com or our landing page, Danilia.org. These last couple of weeks have been an extremely stressful time for many in our country. Individuals have been very passionate about their views regarding our political climate and have struggled with emotional challenges as a result. The election is over. We have a new president-elect, Donald Trump. Despite all odds, he won the election. Now, what can we learn from this experience and how can we apply it to our personal journey? Well, what we learned is to always keep the faith with regards to our own personal goals. Keep the focus, persevere and never give up. And with that, we would like to introduce our guests on today's show. Our key to success theme today is turning obstacles into opportunities. Joining us today as our honored guest is Mrs. Marina Keaton, CEO, owner and founder of Your Connection Hawaii. Mahalo for joining us today. Aloha, thank you very much. Hi, Marina. It's lovely to have you here. Thank you very much. Marina, if you would, please share with our guests and our viewers a little about Your Connection Hawaii and what prompted you to start your business? Yeah, Your Connection Hawaii is luggage storage. Right. And every time when I say people, they ask me what business I have, I have luggage storage. Everybody's like, what is that? But what is that is that it's a help to our visitors on the island because when they come to Hawaii, there is no really luggage storage which provided by hotels. Most hotels don't hold the bags. So true. Yeah, when people go to the other islands, and this is our kind of like center of the universe, everybody, everybody comes here, who travel around the world, they come here, they bring the bags. And then when they go other islands, they don't want to bring all the stuff with them. So they look for the luggage storage and there is no many luggage storages now. So you say if I checked out of a hotel and my flight was 12 o'clock that night and I checked out at 8 in the morning. Most hotels at that situation hold the bags. They hold the bags. So if I wanted to go to a different island, if you go on a different island, then they will not hold the bag for you. So you will hold the bags if I wanted to go to Maui for a couple of days or a big island and come back. Exactly. Or even people between like mainland and Asia, and even those people, sometimes the people ask for like one month's hold in the bag or sometimes a year. What a brilliant business idea. That's a brilliant business idea, really. I mean we've been in that situation ourselves. That's exactly where I came from because I was in the situation. I went to France in Europe on my four-year birthday and I wanted to meet, the plan was to meet my friends from Russia and they couldn't come. So I stuck by myself and I carried all this camping equipment because we were going to rent a car and go camping and have fun and it was 15 days and nobody came. So I did not know what to do. I decided to go to Montpellier and just take a bus to the sea. And I came to Montpellier and I didn't have cash to pay for the bus. So I had to carry my stuff. And I had only dollars. I didn't have euros. And every time when I say people, I have dollars only. They're like, no, no taxi takes me. No buses takes me. Nobody takes me. So I carry all this stuff. But my plan was that I arrived in Montpellier. I put my bags into the lockers and I go free. And the lockers were locked completely from anybody because of some kind of situation there. So instead of spending my four-year birthday on the sea, like I always do my birthdays. Four-year birthday? So I was back in the bags all over Montpellier. Nobody wanted to feed me because every time when they take out my dollars, they're like, no, no, no. So it was a disaster trip. And we opened, me and my business partner, my ex-business partner, we opened first luggage storage 2008. And what actually happened, one time I was just talking about stories, talking stories. And this thought came, somebody, some guest was with us and he said, you know, after 9-11, everything was shut down. No lockers, no airport, no port, nowhere. And I was like, oh, okay. So I remember my story, dragging the bags. And I was like, oh, I think we should help people. And that's how it started eight years ago. Then that first company, the first business, had a sad story. And I basically lost that chance to continue. It took me down for many years. I was very upset. I did not know what to do. But then a year ago, I was like, okay, I should do it myself. And I opened it and I did not expect how fast it just started growing. Oh, absolutely. It's just like, yeah. So you taught, well, you talked a little bit about your, well, I detected an accent, by the way, I mean, my accent too, from Australia. You are from Russia, originally. So, you know, you talked a little bit just now about the fact that you had challenges through the first one that you started and you were down and you somehow you came back. What happened in that period? How did you mentally get through the challenge of a partnership break up, of a real losing a business? I mean, that can be disaster. I mean, that can be mentally draining for anybody. Very much so. And actually, those years from the crush on the business time to the time now, that's why my personal growth all kind of picking up. I mean, I always was improving myself. I always wanted to live life and get more experience from life and more happiness from life. But that time was very, this time was a very important point for me, because I start from quantity to quality. All those studies I did, all the spiritual studies I did, all my life, they kind of came to the point of realization. And realization was that everything in my life depends only on me. I cannot count on anybody. I can count, it's not the right word. I cannot hope that somebody will come and help me. Because what it does to person when you hope that somebody will help you in any way, in the money, friendship, moving the furniture, or doing anything, what happens then, you minimize your own powers. And when you minimize your own powers, then when it's come to that point, when you, oh, please, I need this, even if you don't say it, it's in your vibrations. But when you realize it's all you, and actually I had kind of tough point over there when I realized it's all me, and I have to be strong, and I have to push through, and I have to do it, that was kind of like, oh, what am I going to do now? This is completely unfamiliar territory for me. I need to change everything in my life. But first of all, I have to change my thoughts. And that thought came to me that I have to be free of hope that somebody will help me. It took me maybe like three, four months when I found myself feeling very comfortable to do, to rely on myself and do things myself. And what Danil and I teach in our school, we have a vocational licensed school, and we teach individuals to go out and start their own businesses or do whatever they need to do in their lives to be successful. It's a simple, simple formula. Be who you need to be. Do what you need to do. And 90% of the time, you'll have what you need to have. But you have to do it, and you can't control anybody but yourself. Exactly. And what you said was so profound, you know. Really profound. And you know, when you grab that mirror and put it up in front of you, and what you see is you, and that you are the one responsible for where you are. Yeah, yeah. That's like really hard to digest initially, because you know, who else can you blame? You cannot blame anybody. That's exactly, that's a great point. That's a great point. And that's, it kind of opens another thought and memories that when I came to this country, I had difficult times. I had difficult times because, first of all, because the family I joined to was not supportive. Yeah. And those days, it was 1994, the marriage between Russian and American person. It's not a good one. It was not, yeah, people were... Let me cut you off here a minute, before you go too far, because that's the next question I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, once you arrived in the United States, how was it different in what you expected your arrival to be in the United States to be? And it's going into exactly what you're talking about now. So go ahead with that. Yeah. So, yeah. So a lot of media, a lot of information in media was about Russian women coming to America for green card to marry American men. And that was so not true. But I knew that. Yeah, my husband knew that. However, everybody around us were having doubts about it. And of course, people were talking and it put a lot of pressure on our family. And basically, we as a family did not make it. However, we made with our beautiful son, 20 years old, his fabulous, fabulous... That was the purpose of your marriage, you know. That was the purpose of your child. That's right. Yeah. And what we teach is that you cannot listen to the peanut gallery. Peanut gallery? That's what we call the outside influence. That's right. It's because it's what's in your heart and what's in your significant other's heart and what you want out of life. You've got to be what you need to be and not listen to the other people. That's absolutely right. And this is one of the things I learned. I learned from that experience. And I did a lot in my life. And I had a lot of experiences. And I had a lot of negative experiences. I mean, like, now I'm not this person anymore, but before it was all about emotions. It was all about somebody said something, somebody pushed you down, the dog barked on me, you know, somebody pushed somebody, my mom. I'm like, oh, like this. And that's what I learned to do. I learned to do not to do it. And not to react, but to respond. To respond, exactly. And what I wanted to say about forgiveness, yes, that people in my life who I should say maybe like 95% of my life before my turning point was negative. And I realized that it's all me. I brought that 95% into my life because the way I thought, the way I thought about myself, the way I felt about myself, that's a very, very important point. So let me sorry to interrupt because this is such great conversation. We're going to take a short break. This is keys to success on the think tech live streaming network series. We're talking with Marina Keaton, CEO, owner of your connection, Hawaii regarding our keys to success theme today, turning obstacles into opportunities. My name is Danelia D A N E L I A. I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. So stay tuned to more keys to success. We'll be back in a minute. Hello, this is Martin to Spang. I want to get you get excited about my new show, which is humane architecture for Hawaii and beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays, 5pm here on think tech Hawaii. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon, tune in to stand the energy man at 12 noon Aloha Friday here on think tech Hawaii. I'm Ethan Allen, host of likeable science here on think tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2pm, you'll have a chance to come and listen and learn from scientists around the world. Scientists who talk about their work in meaningful, easy to understand ways. They'll come to appreciate science as a wonderful way of thinking way of knowing about the world. You'll learn interesting facts, interesting ideas. You'll be stimulated to think more. Please come join us every Friday afternoon at 2pm here on think tech Hawaii for a likeable science with me, your host, Ethan Allen. I'm John lagging. Welcome back. This is keys to success on the think tech live streaming network series. We encourage you to call our hotline at 415-871-2474 to join our conversation or tweet us at think tech hiv if you have any questions or comments. We've been talking with Marina Keaton, CEO of your connection Hawaii regarding our keys to success theme today, turning obstacles into opportunities. My name is Danelia D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo. John Newman, welcome back to the show. And we'll get right back into it because we had to break off and you were saying something very profound. We were talking about the changes in your life and how your attitude and your mental thought changed your life. Can you expand on that a little bit more, please? Yeah, it was one of the things which brought me to the change. It was forgiveness. It's forgiveness of everything and everybody who ever did anything bad to me. Even those men who hurt me a lot when I was five and 12 and 17, that was a very difficult forgiveness and a lot of hurt there. However, it's all in the past. And for me now it's even very difficult to see that as a problem because I take it now like it was my opportunity to grow. Because every time when something negative happened, especially when it's really something deep negative happened, it hurt me a lot. That was the most significant time in my life because it pushed me to grow more, to progress more in my thoughts, in my feelings. And most is to see each person playing a different role in the world. And whatever vibrations, whatever thoughts and feelings I have, I attract those people. So when I realize that, I start changing my thoughts, feelings, which changes my vibration. And at this time, it's already probably like a year when my life is completely different. That's very, very powerful. Look, you've brought us into your life. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Now, you have been giving from the beginning. I mean, I want to let our viewers know that. And you had an experience that most people will never have. Let me see here. You were on a team that went up to Mount Everest in 1994, wasn't it? Yes, yes. That you were on a team to go up and clean up Mount Everest. Yeah. Can you share with our viewers about that? Yeah, yeah. That sounds very exciting. I really did not climb Everest. I was in a cleanup expedition. And the reason I didn't go there, because those days it was $60,000. That's right. It cost that much to climb it? Yeah, yeah. It's two months. It takes two months to do it. Wow. You always go up and down, up and down, up and down. And the people who were there, they were bringing that, you know, junk. Right. And the difficult part of it was, I was with my ex-husband at this time there, and he did climb. I was in his support team, so to say. And it was difficult in terms of, like, there is nothing there, yeah? There is no obstruction, no TV, no phones, nothing, nothing. And it's only you and the glacier. And the environment, that's right. That's it. And everybody else who is in a team focusing on what they're doing. Right. So when we were going there, prior to we went there, we were talking about that, what we're going to talk about, what we're going to do. But when we went there, I understood that everybody by themselves. Yes. You know, the focus is so harsh there. Right. And what helped me to actually to survive those two months there, because it's still very, it's a high altitude. Yeah, the base camp was on almost like 5,000 meters. Wow. And stay for two months in 5,000 meters was very difficult. Yes. Plus, I couldn't speak English very well. Very well. And you had to be on oxygen some of that time? No, no, no. The oxygen people take only when they go higher. I go higher. Yeah. But what prepared me for that, it's what was in my life before, when I was climbing the mountains, because I was an English teacher in the mountains. And I was the owner of the climbing company in the mountains, too. Okay. And I like to go by myself, climb without roads, climb on climb mountains. Uh-huh. And those times, when I fell down on Kruvas. And I was there. You fell on Kruvas? Yeah, and I was there in my completely wet shoes. And I was in Bikini because it was hot day. It was like between survive or freeze. Yes, right. Oh, the time when I was going down without trail, and it was grass. And the grass was like when it's long grass on a steep slope, it's like, wasn't an ice. Yes. And I had to hold the grass, and it was sharp. And then at the end, like one hour later, all my hands were bloody. Wow. And then I met aliens in the mountains, too. That was a very scary thing, too. I don't know if we're going to go off in there or not. But we're going to get you back on track, because you're scaring me. It's not Halloween is over. All right. So let me ask you, your turning point, you shared a little about that. What do you attribute your turning point in your life when you're busy? Okay. Yeah, turning point was the point, not only realization, what I just said, but it was when I was standing one time on the sunrise beach, and a thought came to me, and a thought said to me, I was looking for freedom, happiness, and love all over the world. Oh. And I did so many things. I met so many people. And the way I found it, it was inside of myself. Thank you. That was a really profound moment in my life, and I was just like, wow, it's inside of me. Yeah. And then I was looking at the water at that time, and I lift my head, and I see I'm standing in the sunlight, like a circle of sunlight, and everything else around me, like dark and raining, and then I understood that the nature kind of proven that's true. That's right. That's what it is. So you had an epiphany. I had an epiphany. All right, wonderful. So John, why don't you ask you a signature question? Okay. This is a question that we ask all of our guests. So don't get upset. We ask all of our guests this. You know, what are your three top success habits? Okay. I think I should say one, first one is a hunger. It's a hunger for progress. It's a hunger for learning. It's a hunger for living interest in life, to be happy and help others. Oh, man. That's right. That's right. Number one. The second one is not giving up. If one plan doesn't work, there is another. There is another. There is another plan. And another one is focus. Focus. Focus on my well-being, on my connection to environment, to people, and care about people in environment and give people the help that they need. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. So how do you maintain your daily motivation, despite all the obstacles that come up? We all go through them, right? Yeah. It's like sometimes it's just overwhelming to people. There's so many obstacles that come up and everything. So how do you maintain your daily motivation to get through those setbacks? Yeah. So I kind of raise above them. And what I mean by that is I have been meditating for 80 years. Now I'm teaching meditation and several places on the island, and it is mindfulness meditation. So I develop the skill of non-emotional attachment to whatever is going on around me. So what it means is that if something makes me upset, I first of all, I focus on changing my feeling. And when I change my feeling, then I can, from that peace in me and balance in me, I can look at the situation and ask myself a question, what the situation is teaching me. So that kind of a motivation to be happy, motivation of respecting my life, which was given to me for such a short period of time on this earth, motivation of other people's success stories. And a lot of books. I read a lot of books. And one of the things I do, if I kind of go down maybe a little bit, I go on YouTube and I listen to certain lectures, certain people, and I love voice. And I love voice successful stories. Actually, right? This is the thing that's all readily available to us now. I mean, I do the same thing. Before I go to bed, I make sure that I listen to something positive. And it's just really, it relaxes you when you go to sleep. I've found that I'm sleeping a lot better. It makes a big difference. Yes, that's what they say. When you go to sleep, you stop the momentum. Yes. And the powerful thing that I hear from you is that you have taken ownership in your life. And you see positivity, vibrations need to start from you. That's right, that's right. Vibrations start from your thoughts, from the feelings. That's why we need to change our thoughts, our feelings to raise above. And there's a quote that I can't remember the author, but it said, if you change your thoughts, you'll change your world. Yes, that's right. It's a very powerful, profound thing. We tend not to think how often we have negative thoughts. Yes, yes. And that's one of the points. When I start changing, when I start working on it, I was completely surprised at how difficult it is to go, like they say it's 17 seconds, take 17 seconds to gain momentum. Yes. And it's completely, absolutely right. It's difficult, but now it's easier. The more you do it and you know that, the more you know that. I don't remember the number of seconds, but they say that if you hold a negative thought, was it 17 seconds? 17 seconds. 17 seconds, yeah. Then that then goes out in the universe. So we've got to start catching ourselves. I'm not keeping it for 17 seconds, get out of here. Right? Because it's your religion. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. That's how the feeling comes. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, you are not going to be there. Right, absolutely. So what's the last piece of counsel that you could give to people? Okay. Real quick. Okay, very quick. When the obstacle come to your life, and you look at the obstacle. And the obstacle, it's like one side of one piece. And there is opportunity on another piece. So by changing your thoughts and your feelings, you come to the neutral position. From the neutral position, you come to the peace and balance. And that's a time when you can only find the correct and right answer for the challenge or the question you have. So all of us have to train our mind to be positive. And to move forward. Yeah, of course. Okay. Well, we're out of time. We'll have to wrap it up. Marina Keaton's Words of Wisdom with Regards to Kisses Success can be found on Newman Consulting Services' web page, NewmanConsultingServices.com, and landing page, denilia.org. Thanks to you, our viewers and listeners for tuning in. Thanks to our broadcast engineer, Zuri Bender, our floor manager, Nick Sexton, and to Jay Padel, our executive producer who puts it all together. Thank you, Marina, for all for joining us today and all the wonderful insights that you gave to success in life. Thank Tech Keys to Success. We'll be back on Thursday at 11 a.m. We ask that you please tune in again and ask your friends and family to do so as well. My name is Denilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. In closing today, Denilia and I would like to leave a quote, which says, you can have anything you want in life if you'll just help enough people get what they want. And that was by Zig Ziller. Aloha.