I would like to dedicate a moment to thanking all the people who have made this book possible. I’d like to start with my parents for raising me and supporting me through the whole writing process. A heartfelt thank you goes out to my brother for the support he gave me while writing this, as well as helping me work on some of the drafts. Special thanks goes out to Raymond Aaron and his team, namely Clayton Bye for all of his help, and Liz Ventrella for making the process go smoothly. Then there are those who educated me throughout the years, as they have been a great source of inspiration and knowledge. And thanks again to all those who provided the kind testimonials and endorsements for the book. Finally, I’d like to thank everyone in advance who purchases this book. You’re awesome!!

I love to see young people break out and start to create. In the case of this book, Alexander Wagner learned how to deal with chronic disease and then decided to pass along some of the tools and knowledge he found in the process.

The Best You: How to Conquer Adversity is a testament to a spirit that is strong, creative and willing to share. Alexander deals with many of life’s challenges and offers up solutions that will sometimes surprise you. He talks about personal challenges and charity, the greatest of attributes, as well as goal setting, building good habits and defining yourself.

Where teenagers are notoriously self-centred, Alexander is simply centred, is determined to succeed in life and already has most of what he needs to do just that. Do I sound impressed? I am. Young people, in fact most people, rarely manage to break out of their comfort zone to produce something original. This young man has broken down the walls that tried to enclose him; he will go far.

So, keep reading, or if you’re just browsing in a bookstore, do yourself a favour and buy a copy of The Best You: How to Conquer Adversity. You’ll be glad you did.

Loral Langemeier is a money expert, sought after speaker, entrepreneurial thought leader, and bestselling author of five books who is on a relentless mission to change the conversation about money and empower people around the world to become millionaires.

Alexander Wagner offers to give us a lift with his book The Best You: How to Conquer Adversity. This is a young man who has been struck down by severe, ulcerative colitis. Yet he has thrived and gone on to win several gold medals from international karate competitions, has repeatedly placed in the top 10 academic achievers in his school and has won other athletic and scholarly awards which have brought him distinction amongst his peers. Now he wishes to pass on some of the methods which have brought him success.

Beginning with the question “Why would you want to face your challenges?” Alexander takes us down a road filled with adversity, showing us how some interesting people dealt with challenges in their lives and then talking about facing your personal challenges, overcoming yourself and giving something back to your community. He finishes the book with three important subjects: building good habits, goal setting, and how to define yourself.

The book is one that reads far beyond Alexander’s years. It will surprise you, entertain you and, most of all, it will teach you how to overcome challenges most people don’t even realize they have.

People experience innate feelings of shame when they don’t live up to their expectations. In other words, when you back down from your challenges or don’t give it your all in the face of catastrophe, you recognize this and feel disappointed, expecting less from yourself. There are many ways people cope with this. Lowering the bar for themselves, focusing on other people’s shortcomings, shifting blame, and this is besides worse methods like drugs and alcohol, which can make problems “disappear” temporarily. My intention is not to berate the people who do any of these things. I can only assume that constantly resorting to these actions is no way to live. Why not overcome this feeling of shame or guilt, in a way that is much more productive and will solve your problems? That way is, of course, facing your challenges.

To delve deeper into the benefits of confronting your adversity, in the spirit of the book’s title, we must address how this will create “The Best You.” You can only grow through challenge, and only by voluntarily accepting it. What exactly does this mean? It’s not the same as having difficult situations cast upon you, separate from your own free will. Let’s take school, for example. A relatable example, but also one that seems to contradict what was just mentioned. As a child, the choice to go to school is not made of one’s own volition (or else I sure as heck would have stayed home). That being said, you can still choose to get the most out of school. When you decide to actively engage in school, you can genuinely learn from it. You can develop better habits, expand your ways of thinking and learn to better articulate yourself. Even learning to socialize can be considered a form of bettering yourself. School is not perfect. However, considering that you’ll dedicate a quarter of your life to learning, why not get the most out of it?

This is where voluntarily undergoing the challenge comes into play. To improve yourself in any of the matters mentioned above, you have to pay attention, do your work, study appropriately, etc. You have to willingly accept your situation and make the most of it, whether it’s enjoyable or not. Muhammad Ali famously said “I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Apply this to everything you do. Remember that no one worth anything pushed themselves only in the last moments of their success. When we witness people like Jeff Bezos, his status as the richest man in the world is what is immediately noticeable. We see the perfection that is the tip of the iceberg, but we don’t see the larger dirtier area that is holding it up. It is those imperfections that matter, as they come from countless years of attempts to accept and overcome challenges. Through technology, the strides to fame have become much quicker and at times easier, but regardless, it still takes many steps to get there. Everything you achieve, every time you push yourself to grow as a person, it’s another notch under the belt, another step closer to achieving your end goal. Ask yourself, what is it you want, what’s stopping you from getting it, and then do what is necessary to conquer those obstacles. Perhaps you want to be a motivational speaker: read, take classes on speaking, practice and discover what the pros are doing. What about entrepreneur, lawyer, doctor, you name it. In every case, there will be hurdles you have to face, but every time you beat them, you will be better for it.

Perhaps you’re not convinced yet that you should face your challenges. The other question you have to ask yourself is “What other choice do I have?” I ask this in a literal sense. You can delay, procrastinate or get someone else to do the work for you, but I ask “Why?” Why would you voluntarily choose to do nothing? By placing yourself in the victim seat, there is a resignation that you are incapable of influencing your surroundings. Perhaps something is comforting about living life this way. By degrading oneself to a mere spectator of life, the burden of responsibility is subsequently absolved, along with many of life’s pressures. Given this, why not just be an observer coasting through life? Simply put, facing adversity is what makes life worth living. To be of substance, you need to push back when the world shoves you. Existing the other way, you may as well be invisible and untouchable. No amount of product and money can replace the resultant feeling of emptiness. In fact, the way to replace that emptiness is to arrive at a place where you know you’re worth something, and most of the time that feeling comes from achieving great feats and gaining confidence in yourself.

For a second, let’s go back to the fact that your problems won’t go away on their own. It’s undeniable that no matter what you do, there will be a time when hardship strikes. Given a choice, why not be the one who was strong enough to pull themselves out of misery, rather than the one who was beaten by it? It’s quite apparent that the only way to do this is to face your challenges. It is easy to feel as though you’re being overwhelmed at times, but it’s necessary to fight back and never give up.

The other issue has to do with what comes if you don’t challenge yourself—that being, you don’t improve as a human being. For example, I would enjoy playing video games 24/7 as I’m sure many boys my age would, but chances are I wouldn’t improve very much at anything other than video games. Perhaps it’s possible to do this and still feel proud of oneself, but I doubt it. It’s more likely that you would feel ashamed. This is because there is no joy in having everything given to you freely. There’s nothing to be proud of, nothing to bring you growth; it just makes you spoiled. Don’t fall into the trap of running from your problems; face them and conquer them with pride. You will undoubtedly find more satisfaction in knowing that you are a reliable person, rather than knowing that you rely on everyone else around you.

The final reason to face your challenges is that over time things become easier. A perfect example of this is any sport. Chances are the first time you tried to throw a ball it was quite difficult for you. You may not have even been able to aim the ball, let alone use the right amount of power. However, over time you repeated the action so much that it became instinctual. Anyone who’s played a sport for a while surely recognizes the difference between when they started that sport and where they are now. It’s almost certain that the basic action involved in playing that sport has become extremely easy, e.g. throwing, kicking, punching, etc. This is how everything becomes with repeated exposure to it.