From Adversity to Entrepreneurship: Michael Allison's Master Class in Resilience and Transformation

When life threw curveballs at Michael Allison, he didn't just dodge; he caught them and threw them right back. Join us as the CEO of The Adversity Academy recounts a life marked by sheer resilience, from the sun-baked streets of Jamaica to the top tier of entrepreneurship. His candid narrative isn't just about the hardships but how they forged his path to greatness. Allison takes us through the highs and lows, from an ill-fated football career to his transformative military service and the mental health battles that ensued. His transition to civilian life was no walk in the park, marked by a taxing government job, personal struggles, and a divorce that set the stage for a self-improvement odyssey.

This episode is more than Allison's story—it's a master class in turning trials into triumphs. He opens up about the intensive treatment programs for PTSD and survivor's guilt that changed his life and how finding the right support system is like discovering a new superpower. From university presidents to the person next door, Allison's clientele share a common thread: the hunger for transformation. In this interview, he delves into the importance of empathy in the workplace, how to support colleagues in silent struggles, and how breaking free from limiting beliefs can unleash potential you never knew you had.

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Chapters

• 0:02 From Adversity to Entrepreneurship
• 9:30 Journey to Self-Improvement and Success
• 22:23 Transforming Lives Through Adversity

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau. The Dead Pixels Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing and Independent Photo Imagers.

Gary Pageau: 0:18

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pegeau, and today we're joined by Michael Allison, the founder and CEO of the Adversity Academy. Hi, Michael, how are you today?

Michael Allison: 0:30

Hey Gary, how you doing, man? Thank you for having me.

Gary Pageau: 0:40

The photo industry. People who are running photo labs and camera stores and whatnot, are no strangers to adversity. But before we get into how your background can help them, can you share a little bit about how you got to be where you are today?

Michael Allison: 0:49

Definitely man. My life is about getting through some adversities and learning lessons from that. So I grew up as a kid from Jamaica, been through some hurricanes, came to America trying to live the American dream, as my family tried to give us that vision of what that would look like for us in America. You know it was kind of rocky, coming from some humble beginnings. So we grew up in the projects and had to get through some of those hurdles there.

Gary Pageau: 1:13

Where did you relocate to in the US?

Michael Allison: 1:15

To Miami, florida. Man in Overtown, ok, awesome, yeah, man. And from there, you know, I obviously went to high school in florida, but I struggled a little bit when it comes to like the dialect in regards to speaking pots were opposed to american english. So struggle with um that transition for a little bit. Then play some high school football. I played was pretty good, offered an opportunity to go to university of wisconsin but tore my acl mcl, so, uh, that's the that's the downfall of so many athletes is that darn.

Gary Pageau: 1:45

ACL man.

Michael Allison: 1:47

So you know that was that opportunity to go to college was taken away. So I served in the military man, one of the best experiences I've ever had. And you know, when 9-11 hit, you know I knew that it was almost a sure thing that I was going to actually go to war. So eventually I did go to Iraq, served in Fallujah in 2004. From there, man I'm serving. You know, I got injured, lost a couple of friends while I was over there and I decided to get out.

Michael Allison: 2:13

Two years after that and once I got out of the service man, I worked on the railroad, became a train master in Atlanta, georgia, and went through some mental health stints, went through a divorce at that time and things was really rocky for me at that particular moment. So I left that job and just went back to working on myself. So I went back to school, got a bachelor's degree, master's degree in business, and then I said I want to get back into the workforce. So I took a job in Washington DC and started working for the government around the Obama era and General Shinseki with the Department of Veterans Affairs. I did that as a project manager and a government contractor. So if you see some of these medical equipments that's inside of the VA hospitals.

Michael Allison: 2:56

I helped put some of those hospitals for our veterans and left that job after about 12 years and said I want to get into working with veterans much more closely. So I became the director at Florida Atlantic University, helping our veterans utilize their GI bills for themselves and for their dependents as well, and I said, all right, now it's time to bet on myself, you know, and I got into entrepreneurship. So I purchased franchise and ran a construction company down here in South Florida and then sold that company. And after selling that company I said I wanted to work on some personal development, business development, taking all of my business acumen, some of the struggles I've been through in life, and apply that to the Adversity Academy. And here we are where we have three different programs and services that are offered to individuals and business clients as well.

Gary Pageau: 3:42

Well, congratulations for just being here after all that. You've got monsoons, you've got immigration, you've got ACL, you've got a lot. Man, I had no idea there was gonna hear all about that. That's awesome, listen. So tell me a little bit about the jump you made to entrepreneurship, right, I mean because you had a probably very fulfilling job, you know, at the VA helping people, and you said you worked there for about 12 years, right, and you know a lot of people would have been satisfied with that, right, they would have been comfortable, just kind of, hey, I'm going to ride it out. You know, government job, it's going to be fine, and you know the government always needs people, so kind of a secure environment. What made you make the leap then to say, listen, you know, I want to kind of hang out and, or I should say, put out my own, my shingle, and do my own construction business. What was that process? What drove you to do that?

Michael Allison: 4:39

There are several factors that tied into that. That tied into that. I found that throughout life, for myself personally, once I've felt like I've plateaued or accomplished something and there's a ceiling there and there's nothing else to accomplish or there's nothing else to do, I found that I get bored, I get stagnant and there's something else for me to be doing. And then, while within those working confines, I totally understand the dynamics of all right. Well, I've learned, I've maximized my capacity within this space and in regards to, like anywhere, mobility, if you understand the structure of how a university is set up at that particular moment, then it was time for me to leave and go do something on my own. With that being said, I didn't just leave. So when it came about a year and a half or so, I said that, all right, well, I have all of this knowledge from the military. I have all of this knowledge that I've gained from the Department of Veterans Affairs. I have all of this knowledge that I've gained from Florida Atlantic University. And then also within my personal life, I struggled a good bit of things that I had to overcome and accomplish. So, when it comes to divorce, when it comes to some things that deal with, like your mental health outside of the workplace, so like suicide attempts, alcohol problems and things like that run-ins with the law. I had some issues with that and I had to combat that, overcome those things, through a whole bunch of personal development for me to um, get better at life itself. So I found that personal development and business development were all one in one. So what I decided to do was I'm gonna sacrifice some time, I'm gonna sacrifice some things if I wanted to, uh, get into this entrepreneurship.

Michael Allison: 6:23

So I started taking a whole bunch of business courses, business classes. I already had a master's degree in business, but I wanted to learn more. So what is it like to actually live and go through the day of an entrepreneur, what they do, because it's more than whatever you just learned inside of a college realm. And I did that and I got to learn more things around, what it is like to actually run a business. And the thing for me was what is another opportunity where I could easily understand a blueprint of what is set up, of how to run a business, and that was through a franchise.

Michael Allison: 6:56

As in, a franchise is already a plug and play. You just have to go learn the systems and the processes that's already in place. So I went out and purchased a franchise, $150,000 investment into this company and got that company up and running, got it up to $1.5 million within two and a half years and we worked on this company, built this company and eventually I got to selling that company. Man, but it was eventually me sacrificing, investing the time and the effort to learn what it is like to actually start running a business and then getting out there with my employees and like learning what it is like to like knock on doors, learning what it's like to help build buildings, look at blueprints, look at different sheets and things like that, to actually know what this industry is really like.

Gary Pageau: 7:37

Right. So talk to me a little bit about your revelation that personal development can be tied to business development. Because you know I've talked to a lot of you know business owners and they kind of you know almost keep the can keep those worlds separate. Right, you know, my personal life is my personal life, my business life is. But what you decided was that you know, if you work on one you can work on the other as well. So talk a little bit about that kind of revelation, how that came to you.

Michael Allison: 8:04

The other as well. So talk a little bit about that kind of revelation, how that came to you. I realized that when I got my first job working on the railroad, I got out of the service and I did not seek any type of medical help or assistance or anything like that for close to seven years. And I'm working on a railroad in Atlanta, Georgia, and I get a call around two o'clock in the morning. There's a accident and I pull up and there's a guy that jumped in front of a train, a guy that was on drugs, and he killed himself and his body was cutting half and I seen that and immediately when I was in Iraq I got blown up by a car bomb but my best friend got killed and I had to put my best friend in a body bag Right, and that immediately brought me back to that.

Gary Pageau: 9:14

So you had almost like a PTSD type experience.

Michael Allison: 9:17

PTSD kicked in, and all of a sudden that kicked in while I was on the job. And now I needed to deal with that because from there, two weeks later, there was another suicide.

Gary Pageau: 9:30

Oh, my God.

Michael Allison: 9:30

And now that was affecting me at home and for me to show back up at the job, I was not in the right state of mind to operate at my maximum potential. That's the first instance when that occurred. The second instance where that occurred was on that same job. I was married, but working on a railroad is an on-the-call job, so I could go work nine to five but if there's a derailment at midnight, a derailment at two in the morning, Michael Allison gets called. He has to leave his family and go show up to the derailment and take care of that. So that became an issue and that led to my first divorce because I was not home and I was not present, being a husband and being a dad at that time. So, to push that a little bit further, that trickled on where I noticed that this was something that kept reoccurring within my life. So I went on to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and I was excelling, doing excellent with the career that I was doing.

Michael Allison: 10:29

But back at home I noticed that I was not happy, I was very depressed, I was not dealing with my mental health, I was not doing some things within my family in regards to being a dad and being a parent, and that led to my second divorce and even brought me to the brinks of trying to take my life, man, because I noticed that I started having all of these anxiety, depression, I started having all of these doubts and started making like really, really poor decisions.

Michael Allison: 10:55

And then, once I started investing myself and working on the personal development aspects of things, I noticed that there was a turn, there was a transition, there was a transformation within myself was a transition, there was a transformation within myself as a business owner, as now I'm showing up as my best self within my job. I could think better, I could operate better, I could make clearer decisions, you know. So that also poured into my employees, because they saw that from me. Because when you're in that space, you don't really see it, but, like you're, when you have people that's coaching you and mentoring you, or people that's actually evaluating and looking at you and want to see the best for you, then they actually help to tell you what's really what's going on with you as well, too, man.

Gary Pageau: 11:34

So I imagine it's hard to expect the best out of your employees when you're not being your best self in the workplace. Absolutely so. You became a better coworker and a boss by taking care of yourself. That's right. Absolutely so. What were some of the things techniques or workshops or what that you first looked into when you realized you needed help? Were they programs through the VA that they offer, or was it a class? What were some of the first things you looked at when you realized you needed some guidance.

Michael Allison: 12:11

There were several things that took place for me. The first thing was I wanted to get PTSD mental health, traumatic brain injuries, all of those things that was tied into that and understand what was really going on for me to even come into close to taking my life. I was on up to 13 different medications at that particular moment and, with that being said, I said, all right, let me go find the best places that help veterans that deal with PTSD. University in Chicago, and we went through an intensive treatment in regards to what is it like that a veteran is dealing with and replaying, and actually like going through some of the psychographics, some of the intrusive memory types of things to deal with, some of the neuro-linguistic programming of what's going on deep, deep within your brain, to understand what are triggering you and things like that.

Michael Allison: 13:03

So I went through that program there and really got a better understanding of getting past some of the grief, some of the guilt, some of the deep, deep depression of why I was going through things, why I was having some of these different types of flashbacks and addressing those things. Then I said, all right, I want to go to another place to help me, like double down on this. So I went to emory hospital and I'm atlanta, georgia, and then I went through the program with them and what I really liked about the program, because I, I, uh, I carried around a lot of guilt within my life because when I told you that my best friend died, I was 10 seconds away from him, yeah, and they died and I didn't right and I, I went through a good bit of my life thinking that could have easily been me.

Gary Pageau: 13:49

Yeah, or what could you have done to help that I've?

Michael Allison: 13:52

done right. So what we did was they recreated my scenario, my situation, and really like drilled in for me to understand. That was never my fault, right, and I really had to come to grips with understanding that was not my fault. And yeah, man, I mean we get emotional about it, man, but at that particular moment, man, that really resonated with me to understand what was going on with me and how I was carrying around so much baggage within myself.

Michael Allison: 14:26

And the next thing that I did was I found a counselor, and you know it was not through the VA. I've went through close to over 10 counselors from the VA hospitals and there's a thing with like identifying and finding someone that you could communicate with, that you could connect with, and someone that really understands some of the deep, deep issues that you're dealing with, to understand what led to some things, why you operate some way, why you think in some ways. And that was one of the key to find one of the best counselors for myself. And I did that, but it was outside of the VA, outside of the VA, and they helped me go through a whole bunch of holistic things that I should have been addressing and dealing with. That led to some childhood trauma that tied tied to why I was dealing with some things as an adult as well too.

Michael Allison: 15:12

And then, in addition to that, the next thing I did was I said, um, I wanted to surround myself with godly men, so I joined a men's group and it was around a bunch of guys that go to my church that was always keeping me accountable. And then that from there was, I said, I'm going to get a coach and someone that's going to help work with me. Then I'm going to get a mentor, someone that I could look to, someone that I could help, that's already been in situations ahead of me that could help guide me along too.

Michael Allison: 15:41

So, I implemented all of these different things in place to help keep me accountable, responsible and to help change my life, and doing some of those things started working on some things. That's tied to, like, the decisions I'm making, the direction I want to go in my life and just the destination of where I wanted to be at in life, and aligning all three of those things helped me propel to where I'm at now today, man.

Gary Pageau: 16:02

So I find it interesting that the process you're talking about really took a path right. It wasn't a I need to do this one thing, to take care of this one thing. You were knocking down objectives to reach your goal to where you are today. When you're coaching people because that's one of the things you do is executive coaching and business coaching Talk about how you talk to potential clients or current clients. Just about that process that there is no quick fix.

Michael Allison: 16:36

There is no quick fix. What I find when working with people is you're here at this side of the spectrum and towards the end of the spectrum is your destination of where you're trying to be. And what causes a lot of issues that we have is we're out of alignment and we're a loss of clarity, and a lot of people are always like trying to find their purpose, trying to find their missions or things. That's attached to some of those things there. And then for me, when I work with clients, you know obviously I work on one on one or we do the 90 day programs. Know, obviously it's I work on one-on-one or we do the 90-day programs. But for me, how I figured out what worked for me best is the same process and principles that I put in place to help work with clients. So I break it down under three different uh, under my framework. So I saw the decision, direction and destination and on the end of it, the spectrum is your destination and where you're at now, and the concept is around breaking the bottle. What's inside of the spectrum is your destination and where you're at now, and the concept is around breaking the bottle. What's inside of the bottle that's keeping you away from your destination. So we're gonna get to identify some of the things that you've been doing, some of the things that you need to start doing. Then we're gonna gain clarity on what you were doing before and then what you need to start doing now. Then we're gonna verify some things that's tied to some limiting beliefs, some things that may be tied to like imposter syndrome right From there, when it comes to the direction.

Michael Allison: 17:52

Right Now we need to get aligned right. What are some things that we need to start doing right? So we're going to start building, we're going to start creating and then, once we're going to start establishing what that looks like, so you can have a clear blueprint of some of the things that you need to start doing as I coach you along to help you get those things accomplished. There's much more other sub layers of questions that's tied to that.

Michael Allison: 18:13

Lastly, is the destination piece of you actually getting there and seeing, envisioning what that actually looks like right? So this is where you're going to gain that alignment right, putting things and structures in place to make sure that you stay there right. Then we're going to work on things that's tied to, like the proximity. What are the community you need to be in, who do you need to be around? What are some things that you need to put in place, the networks of things that you need to keep that momentum that you just built, that you just worked on, to keep on going. And then, lastly, is the last piece to that is the sustainability of what that looks like. So how do we maintain that, how do we keep that going? How do we keep on leveling up so you could be at your optimum peak performance as that high-level CEO?

Gary Pageau: 18:58

So when you're, I guess when you're talking to entrepreneurs, one of their characteristics right the mentality of people is they want to fix things right. But you know, it's like you know I see a problem, I want to fix it, I want to take care of it. But you know, sometimes they're almost looking for a quick fix. Right, I need to act immediately. But a lot of what you're talking about requires a great deal of patience and planning.

Michael Allison: 19:25

Yes, that's. You know that's a gift that I think that I have is a lot of patience. I come from the project management background, so I like putting things in place to help you get through something. But the beauty in the patience is, if you're willing to invest the time in yourself for 90 days, you'll be surprised of the transformation that you'll see within yourself, the level of growth that you're gaining for yourself. So if you'll be surprised of the transformation that you'll see within yourself, the level of growth that you're gaining for yourself.

Michael Allison: 19:54

So if you look at things in the grand scheme of things, are you willing to sacrifice three months, 90 days to get to the level of what you're trying to do? I did that, but it took me close to 10 years of sacrificing things just to figure that out. If I would have done that earlier and just sacrificed three months, imagine where my life could have been at. You know what I mean. So I do understand that we kind of think in the microwave day and age where things got to be quick, fast in a bottle and we got to get solutions right now. But things does not happen just like that every single day. Not everyone just turns up to be a millionaire. If you think of most millionaires, they turn out to become millionaires in their 40s and their 50s and things like that. You really have to like put in the work to actually get the results that you truly, truly desire.

Gary Pageau: 20:42

Yeah, because most businesses are, you know, marathons, not sprints, right?

Michael Allison: 20:48

Right. You know, when I was in college I did the research on Walt Disney, right, and it took him years to build Walt Disney. It took some trial and error to build Walt Disney and now you see the big conglomerate of what it is now, right, right, and me and my wife was actually talking about this. This guy got. We talked about the different aspects of what what disney is. He bought, he purchased land, right, so he he had the construction side of things. Then he decided who was who was going to be his audience. It was going to be kids, right, so he put all these different dynamics of what it was going to look like. Now you have your mickey mouse, your mini mouses, your cartoons, you, now you have this disneyland, disney world, all of these different things in this big spot because it was in Orlando. So we just thought about what does it? How does this guy put this business concept together to get it to where it's at right now, to the point of it's so big and it's so massive. He has no competition.

Gary Pageau: 21:43

Right. Well, universal Studios would argue with that, but I know it's interesting getting back to Walt Disney, though, as sort of his journey. When he started, you know, as an animator, you know no one was doing what he was doing. I think when he started walt disney studios, you know he, he mortgaged everything. He bet everything yes, was not a a for sure, and I'm sure there was some other person out there, um, who is around the same time frame, who was is trying to do the same thing, who we never heard of because they didn't succeed. Right, that's right. So is Disney one of your touchstones or hallmarks of the people that you think did it well?

Michael Allison: 22:20

Yeah, I think Disney did it well when I wrote the paper on what he did. I think whenever I look at things, I always look at like how did people get past some of these adversities? What were some of the things that they put in place, what was some of the strategies that they put in place? And that was one of the companies that were the person or the brand that I said man, if I could do it or want to look at, I always look at things like. I don't look at things in regards to, like, jealousy or envy. I always look at things in regards to like how can I learn from this? What can I take from this? What can I extract from this to strive for my greatness within myself, man? So that was one of the companies that I did look at.

Gary Pageau: 22:59

Tell me about a little bit, about your clients, the type of people you talk to. I don't think Bob Iyer from Disney is one of your clients, but can you talk about the people who find you and you know talk about? You know the scope of type of the businesses you talk to.

Michael Allison: 23:13

Yeah, definitely. So I've worked with or I am working with as well, like some executives, like I'm working with like a president from another university right now. But these clients that I come in contact with, it's amazing because they connect with me because of some of the things that I've been through and I connect with them on. So when it comes to, like, the mental health issues, the depression, the anxiety, the suicide, or when I speak publicly about drinking and getting a DUI I've spoken about getting molested as a kid and some of the things that I dealt with and carrying that bottled up emotions and feelings and then sharing the steps and the processes and or the healing process, what it was like for me to get past that. So just connecting with people on a human level is where I usually find and seek where their empathy is at, to work with that client to get them to to the transformation that they're looking at. So I've worked with some presidents, some CEOs from some different companies. I've also worked with some people that are just normal people every single day, you know, and I did a speaking engagement and this lady came up to me and she was like thank you for sharing that. You know, I have a brother that's not in a comfortable space right now to be vulnerable and transparent and get past some of these things that he's dealing with right now, and I think your program would help him and me. And this woman brother got on a call and we got him into the program because this was something that he needed. I had someone listen to my podcast and they said, hey, we listened to episode number one and what you spoke about, and I think my brother would be a good candidate for this. So I had to work this person's brother into my program this. So I had to work with this person's brother into my program.

Michael Allison: 25:09

So, for the most part man, I've seen a good bit of different people from different areas or walks of this life to get to work with, but the beauty of what I love is just to see the transformation of me pouring into people and just to see them. The concept is always about breaking a bottle. So it's really breaking a bottle and just shattering all of these limiting beliefs, things that are holding them back in life, because some of these people, when I meet with them, they're not going out of the house, they're staying home, they're contemplating suicide, they're thinking what is in this world. For me, I'm a failure, I have not accomplished anything and some of those things that are some deep, dark struggles that people are actually dealing with right now, man, so I try to tap into that and help people get to their greatness.

Gary Pageau: 25:54

And you may be sounds to me like you're dealing with people who maybe appear outwardly successful, right Like university president, business leader, but they're dealing internally with some other stuff leader, but they're dealing internally with some other stuff.

Michael Allison: 26:11

That's it. So that's how I really tell people that things. So when I got out of the military and I worked on a railroad man, I was doing phenomenally well. No one knew that I was going through a divorce. No one knew that I got a DUI. No one knew that I was dealing with mental health and PTSD, because when I showed up to work, I'm smiling, I'm happy and I don't talk about those things. But when I showed up, for that guy that passed, that tried to commit suicide, it hit me, hit me on the job site, right, you know. So that's where you've got to really connect with people and ask them deep questions to get to some of these things. But obviously you have to develop a level of trust with people to get them to be vulnerable and transparent and to talk about some of those things.

Michael Allison: 26:53

Same thing occurred for me, man, when I was in Washington DC. I'm working and all of a sudden, me and my wife have an issue and that led to our second divorce, led to my second divorce. Now I'm going to my job saying, hey, I'm going through a divorce and we need to get out of this house, we need to sell this house. All of these things are tied into it. I'm going through a custody battle with my ex-wife. All of these things are tied into my job, but no one really knows about those things. But now it poured into my job where it became an issue. Now I have to deal with some of these things. So these are real life issues that I was going through, that I was dealing with, and I know many people are dealing with some of those same things now and for that I try to help them get through some of those situations.

Gary Pageau: 27:37

I mean even as, like a coworker, right, you may be working with somebody and you know they're sitting there having a bad day and you have no idea what they brought in, right? Do you work with businesses like that, where you're like, hey, how can I be a better co-worker or a better team member for a business?

Michael Allison: 27:55

Yes, I do. Actually, I just did my TED talk Right and after my TED talk there was other speakers that was there and I spoke about mental health and I was speaking about unemployment and I was speaking about the homelessness within the veteran community and a lady came up to me and she said that you know, I work with over 300 businesses and she said a problem that I find is that the veteran community within some of these workplaces there's a high turnover rate, with some of the veterans that are there because they're other people's coworkers, but some of the feedback that they're getting is those veterans within those workplaces are dealing with something. You could tell they're dealing with something Right, but there's no one there within that workplace to connect with them and help them with that Right. To connect with them and help them with that, what you find out is the attrition rate of those veterans that's within the company. They come in and they turn out to be very good employees, but after a while something happens and they leave.

Michael Allison: 28:55

After a while something happens and what it is sometimes it's they come to work, they go home and drink. They come to work, they're dealing with mental health issues. They come to work, then they're dealing with mental health issues. They come to work, then they have they're dealing with, like kids issues divorce issues and things like that, and then eventually something has to give.

Gary Pageau: 29:13

So where can people go for more information? I mean, you mentioned your podcast, so definitely want to talk and mention that, and also maybe your website or how people reach out to learn more about your programs.

Michael Allison: 29:24

Definitely so. For people to learn more about the Adversity Academy and our personal development program or a business development program, you can go to wwwtheadversityacademycom or you can send me an email directly at mallison at theadversityacademycom.

Gary Pageau: 29:39

Great. Well, listen, Michael, it's great to meet you. I thank you very much for sharing your story. I know you've shared it many times, but I appreciated hearing it from you and I know you've overcome a lot and I appreciate you sharing that with our audience.

Michael Allison: 29:52

Man, Gary, I appreciate the opportunity, brother. Thank you so much, man.

Erin Manning: 29:55

Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.