Today we’d like to introduce you to Craig Sotkovsky.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been an entrepreneur pretty much my entire life. I was the kid with the lemonade stand or going door to door to sell candy. I later became a carpenter, which later transitioned to real estate and owning and managing my own properties. My background in construction led me to become a 9/11 Volunteer at the World Trade Center.
In 2009, my wife and I moved to Mexico to raise our daughter and open an Indian restaurant. We eventually won the Trip Advisor Excellence Award.
One day in 2012, I was really sick and went to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia and a collapsed lung. Little did I know it was the start of a malignant tumor slowly growing in my right lung. But I still continued to work and even opened a spice shop.
In 2015, we moved back to Atlanta to release my book and launch my speaking career. But in 2016, I was sidelined because I was more sick than healthy that year; I was diagnosed with pneumonia and pleurisy three times. I was in a pretty bad emotional and physical space, and I recognized that this current situation wasn’t serving me.
I began listening to motivational speakers and mindset development experts and learning how people were able to deal with the struggles and circumstances that could have destroyed their resolve.
I needed to tap into past experiences and meditation practices I had learned while living in Jamaica that I had abandoned and go deeper than my current comfort zone. I had to get radically uncomfortable with myself to do the dark work. In the process, I was able to change how I viewed my emotions to my current circumstances. I call it my “a-ha” moment.
In 2017, I was diagnosed with a rare carcinoid cancer. I had three procedures to have my mid and lower right lung removed. I learned this cancer was a result of my time at Ground Zero.
During all of this, I had been mentoring young entrepreneurs at my office in midtown. I was able to help them work through some of their deepest traumas so they could find their own “a-ha” moments.
During the pandemic, I was able to reach a global audience since everything transitioned to being online.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I suffered from PTSD from volunteering at the World Trade Center. I was numb for many years. I later developed a rare cancer specifically attributed to my exposure at Ground Zero.
In 2004, we were hit with two hurricanes in three weeks and it devastated our portfolio of thirty rental units.
I was molested when I was a child and it took many years to come to terms with it. I’ve learned that whatever the obstacles along the way, I had to tap into my inner strength.
I’m finally in a place where I can help others using my past experience as a starting point.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
It doesn’t matter if you are a stay at home mom, real estate broker, plumber, or the executive making two million a year. We all lack something in us that stops us from getting to our next level of success, whatever we define success as.
I’ve learned over the decades that life gives humans challenges to learn lessons and share wisdom. I help entrepreneurs get rid of their disempowering thoughts, behaviors and compulsive patterns, to silence that voice that stops them from finding their greatness and true potential.
A question I ask my clients is, “What if you did? What if you actually did the thing that scares you the most? The one thing that is holding you back? What if you actually did it?”
Being happy is a state, being joyful is a deep-rooted emotional feeling; this is where the game changes. I help clients realize being joyful is a lifestyle/mindset and the testing of one’s resolve is the lesson we need to have. I believe we are light seeking a human experience – hence we are human beings. We have the ability to mentally experience an event before it actually happens.
Our brains do not know the difference between fantasy and reality; what is paramount is the emotion that it carries. Most of us are programmed just to get by and not flourish because of the people, places and things around us.
I help my clients change their emotional state as they work on their behaviors and patterns that have kept them out of flow.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I have the ability to read people and understand their tells. When people are paying you, they want the truth, so I tell them what they need to hear as opposed to what they want to hear. My experiences in multiple genres as an entrepreneur as well as my exposure to the different cultures I’ve lived in has given me a broad foundation from which to help people eliminate disempowered thoughts and behaviors. What I’ve realized is that no matter where we are, how we are, or who we are, no one laughs or cries in a different language.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.craigsotkovsky.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/craigsotkovsky
- Facebook: Facebook.com/myyucatan
- Twitter: @profitn
- Other: clubhouse: Find me on Clubhouse! https://www.clubhouse.com/@craigsotkovsky?utm_medium=ch_profile&utm_campaign=Hi3pDV_UG4Tk9G3A5WJYSg-330833
Image Credits
Craig Main – Craig Sotkovsky Craig Goa – Nishi Sotkovsky LA wedding – Craig Sotkovsky Interview – Nishi Sotkovsky Radio – Shreya Sotkovsky Mayapan – Nishi Sotkovsky Reading – Shreya Sotkovsky
