04: The Art of Being Resilient and Never Giving Up with Roy Huff

In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Roy Huff. Roy is a best-selling author, scientist at the University of Hawaii, teacher, and blogger. Roy has earned five degrees in four different disciplines spanning liberal arts, history, education, and geoscience.

He has worked on projects such as forecasting volcanic emissions from the Kilauea Volcano and training on geostationary satellites for NASA's GOES-R Proving Ground.

He has been published in numerous publications for his work and seen on TV, but his entry into creative writing did not occur until the age of thirty-four when he began writing a creative paper for an English class while working on his fourth and fifth degrees. That paper later became the opening chapter of his first book, which grew to be an Amazon number-one international epic-fantasy bestseller, Everville. Subsequent books in the Everville series have also gone on to become bestsellers and continue to win awards for both cover art design and content. Roy is a monthly contributor for Lifehack.

After learning more about Roy, one of the most amazing things about him, aside from all his success, is his story of hardship that he had to overcome to reach these levels of accomplishment.

Learn more about Roy and the Best Selling Everville Series here

Book Roy Recommends if You Want to Sell Your Own Books in a Massive Way

Roy’s story is incredible. He grew up in abject poverty in rural Kentucky and North Carolina. His father was manic depressive. His parents divorced when he was 6 and his father died of HIV when he was in 8th grade. He suffered through some abuse and at times only had one set of clothes and was lucky if he had shoes.

As Roy says, "We didn’t even have enough money for a bus pass growing up."

Through much hardship, Roy managed to graduate valedictorian of his class and then set off to Hawaii to fulfill his dream of becoming a weatherman. Withing a year, he ran out of money and had to leave. This started a 10 year journey of entrepreneurship and more hardship for Roy. Roy tasted some major success, but through a series of unfortunate events had to file for bankruptcy and liquidate his businesses as well as his home.

It was at this point that Roy decided to go back to school. While working a full time and part time and raising a family, Roy was able to earn 5 degrees in 6 years!

It was in year 4, that Roy found writing – totally by accident. Listen to the 12 minute mark to hear this amusing and life changing part of his story. It was while getting a degree in Geo-science that a simple creative writing assignment became the basis for his best-selling series, Everville. He struggled to get it off the ground and then was spurred by a book he read and subsequently finished the first Everville book in 30 days. He put the pressure on himself by actually marketing the book before it was even written! It took off and he went onto the 2nd and 3rd books, but had another setback – a divorce.

At this point, Roy made some life changes and created a Life Action Plan for himself focused on his health, relationships, and wealth. Listen in at the 17 min mark to learn how he did it and the results he has been able to achieve. There are some great lessons in this section about how to get an idea off the ground and create a platform to be able to launch it, including how he got accepted as a writer on LifeHack.com. His latest project is a series of books on personal development looking to be released later this year.

​Lessons from Roy for Entrepreneurs:

• Success is not about being the smartest or having the most talent, its about the willingness to keep going and push through where others would stop or your personal limits are encountered.
• When you keep doing things, you get better at them, and people start to think you are good and tell you so, but its when you start to believe your own “hype” and get complacent where you lose your edge. Never be satisfied and check your ego at the door.
• Beware of getting just “good” at something and not doing the extra needed to be “great” at it. Additionally, beware of becoming the jack of all trades and master of none – “just good” at a lot of things.
• Be open and receptive as you never know how a little tip or item can make a huge difference. And sometimes these come from the most unlikely sources.
• Continue to strive for and find ways to add value, even when you think you are already adding value is critical to success
• If people aren’t buying your stuff, its because you are doing something wrong. And if you are not willing to accept it, then you can’t learn or grow or find ways to improve.
• Focus on the most important things, the 80/20 rule. Don’t waste time on the small things or stress on them. Put your effort, time, and focus into things that actually matter and have a serious impact in driving you toward your goal or goals.
• There is a big difference between being truly productive and just be busy. Beware the “busy trap.”
• Roy also discusses what he calls “leveraging your time.” This is not so much about prioritizing your time as much as understanding when you are most productive in your day and making sure to be focusing on your most important items during those times.

Best Quote: "The universe doesn’t care about the problems that I have. And if I want to succeed at something, the only way I am going to is by taking action."

Roy's Misfit 3

1. Take Real Action. If you don’t take action, everything else is irrelevant. If you want to achieve and accomplish something, you have to do something, You have to do more than read or listen to inspirational content and "prime the pump." You most importantly have to take action on the core goal that is most impactful in getting you to what you want to achieve. Put yourself out there. What is one thing you know you can take action today that will help you get closer to a goal? Do it.
2. Resolve to Really Learn from Your Failures: This includes a lot of things. It means you have to allow yourself to fail. It means you have to not give up when you fail. And it means, that when you do keep going, you actually learn from your failures. So be willing to learn and actually put into effect what you have learned from your mistakes. What is one thing you have failed at recently? Write down what you have learned from it.
3. Seek Your Passion: It’s your life. And if you’re not happy with yourself at the end of the day, what’s the point? When you find your passion and have something that you love, you are more motivated to work at it and be successful anyway. Why not stack the deck in your favor? What is something that you are passion about that you know you can provide value in? Why not give a shot? What do you have to lose…some great lessons from a failure or two?