What You Will Learn from Adversity

In life, no matter your background, ethnicity, location, gender, rich, poor, democrat or republican, you will most likely at some point in your life face adversity, hard times, or have challenges at the very least.  You could experience financial trouble, physical ailments, emotional stress, marriage issues, problems with your children, or a long list of other unfortunate things.  My point is, is that no one is immune to facing problems on this earth.  A quote that I have used before and will do so again, is that “Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react.  Successful individuals understand that when adversity hits, learning opportunities also present themselves.  It can also be said that highly successful people reach their status because of their ability to handle to difficult situations. I have put together a list of 7 things that you can learn from facing and overcoming adversity.

1.      Humility

According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, humility can be defined as the quality or state of not thinking you are better than other people: the quality or state of being humble.  I have personally been in different situations faced a lot of adversity and to be honest, as I type these words I am going through a bit of adversity and I can assure you that it is a very humbling experience.  When you face difficult challenges, obstacles, or hardships, it is hard, maybe even impossible at that particular time to think of yourself as better or higher than other people.  In fact, it may be the complete opposite, you may even feel lesser than people around you; this is especially true when one faces financial challenges.  One thing is for sure and two things are for certain, when you face adversity you will also confront humility. 

2.      Perseverance

Perseverance can be defined as the quality that allows someone to continue trying to do something even though it is difficult.  Anyone who has reached the top of the mountain will quickly tell you that there were many trials and that it was by no means easy.  They will also tell you that the view from the top of the mountain is spectacular.  In fact, often the road to success, is the road less traveled.  When you are able to face and overcome adversity, the experiences in themselves will teach how to persevere and continue fighting and moving forward even when the going gets tough. 

Related: Positive Approaches for Overcoming Obstacles

3.       Learn New Things about yourself

Aristotle may have said it best, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”.  One of the best ways to learn things about yourself, is for you to be challenged and face some difficult tasks.  I love college football and enjoy those tough, hard fought games. The games where nothing seems to be going right for one team, making some early mistakes or maybe suffering some injuries from key players, but ultimately the team is able to persevere and win the ball game.  I particularly like hearing from the head coach of the winning team after they win a game of that nature, and one question that the reporters often ask, is “What did you learn about your team from this win”?  The reason they ask that question, is because had the team won the game easily with no challenges or hiccups, there probably wouldn’t be much that the coaching staff could take away from the game.  Often the coaches will tell the reporters that they learn that their team had mental toughness, their young players have matured, that their team has perseverance, or maybe that one of their unexpected players is not afraid of the big stage.  In any difficult situation, there is also a chance to learn new things about yourself.

4.      Who your true friends are

I think this is something that may get overlooked in the face of adversity, although it shouldn’t.  It is amazing how when a person is reaching high levels of success (especially financial success) they have all the friends in the world and seems as if they could do no wrong.  But the moment that person hits some difficult times, or Lord forbid they loose all of their money, then things begin to change and that person is likely to find themselves with a shortage of friends.  We all love a rags to riches story, but the other end of that spectrum, is someone being rich and wealthy only to lose everything.  I heard that many people would prefer to poor or middle income verse having it all and losing it.  I could only imagine the feeling.  People who experience this or something similar will quickly find out who their real and true friends are.  This is also a time to say that you should always try to treat those close to you with love and respect, because when tough times come calling, hopefully they will be the ones who stick with you and offer a shoulder to lean on.  When adversity knocks, you can be sure that you will immediately know who your real friends are.

5.      Personal Growth

One of the main things that The Alston Collaborative focuses on, is personal growth and development.  One of the best ways to grow as a person, is to face adversity.  Flowers need water to grow, and it has to rain in order for those flowers to get the water.  Two phrases directly related is, “there is no joy without pain” and “no pain, no gain”.  That means that you must endure some type of struggle in order to enjoy the sweet taste of success and victory.  The football team in my earlier example, not only learned new things about themselves, but they also are experienced growth from going through tough football games.  When teams win Championships, they often reflect back on the hard work they put in and also the times that there were able to face hardships and overcome them.  They didn’t enjoy going through the adversity at the time that it occurred, but once they achieved their ultimate goal, they were actually able to be appreciative of the tough times, because it essentially made them better and who they are.  I can testify that I have grown from past troubling experiences and it has made me a better version of myself.

Related: 5 Ingredients You Need in Your Life

6.      Problems aren’t always big as they seem at first

This is slightly a follow up from the previous example.  When you have difficulties, at the time that they occur it can make for an unpleasant experience.  However, once you are able to move on and put the challenge behind you, the problem in a sense shrinks in size and looses its magnitude.  It helps a great deal if and when you face adversity and a slue of problems, if you are able to keep things in perspective and look at the big picture.  I can attest that is much easier said than done. Often we will face challenges and don’t understand how we will move on or survive.  A great example is when you’re in love and experience your first heartbreak.  It seems as if the world is over and you wonder if the bad feeling will ever go away.  You could still have shelter, food, clothes, and maybe even doing well financially, but still feel distraught.  When you look at the big picture, you may have your heart broken, but all things considered you have a lot of good things going for yourself.  After you have had your share of challenges and tough times, you will realize that your problems aren’t always as big as they seem. 

7.      Laugh at Life

One quote says that “when life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.”  I believe that it is important to try and not take life too seriously.  We all have to leave this place at some point, so you might as well try to enjoy life and laugh as much as you can.  Laughter is good for the soul and some even believe that laughter can be a cure for diseases.  I understand why, being that many diseases arrive due to some form of stress.  When you are laughing, enjoying life, and expressing gratitude, it makes it extremely difficult to be stressed or worried.  If you can learn to laugh at life, laugh at yourself and have a sense of humor about things especially when facing tough times, you will find out that adversity will lose some of its grip when you begin to start laughing and finding things to be thankful for. 

Related:  Benefits of Personal Development

7 Belief Systems of Excellence

In becoming an entrepreneur, I have proactively sought out individuals who have obtained high levels success in their life.  I look for people, who have not only been financially independent, but those who are genuinely happy, healthy, and have great social relationships.  One common trait that I’ve noticed in these successful individuals is that they have all had a mentor of some sort, someone who had already achieved the results that they would like to have.  In doing my research, one individual that has stood out is Mr. Anthony Robbins, motivational speaker, Life Coach, and Author. 

In 1986, Robbins wrote the National Bestseller, “Unlimited Power”.  For anyone pursuing personal growth, aiming to be the best version of themselves, I would highly recommend reading this book.  It has certainly had a positive impact on my life.  There are too many nuggets to even summarize in one blog post.  For that, I am going to go over the “Seven belief systems of Excellence”, according to Robbins.

1.       Everything happens for a reason and a purpose, and it serves us.

I personally believe that most things happen for a reason throughout your life.  A quote I’ve used several times is that Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react”.  Those who are successful, tend to react positively when they encounter bad or negative situations.  Robbins says, regarding successful people facing hardship, that “they believe that every adversity contains the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.”  He gave a great example of Marilyn Hamilton, who was a former teacher, beauty queen and also a largely successful businesswoman.  Hamilton suffered a terrible accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down.  She became extremely frustrated with quality of her wheelchairs, which in turn brought out the entrepreneur inside of her. She along with 2 others went ahead to create Motion Designs; and became a successful multimillion dollar company that creates quality and effective wheelchairs!  This is just one example of how someone took what happened to them, reacted positively and found purpose in their situation. I believe you can do the same!

2.       There is no such thing as failure.

Find any extremely successful person and behind them, you will find a fair amount of times that they failed at one thing or another.  Robbins gave a great example of President Abraham Lincoln, who from ages 21 to 52 had at least 10 fairly large failures and still went on to be elected President.  I personally like the quote by Michael Jordan, who said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career, I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed”.  So if you want be successful, you’re going to have to accept the fact that you may fail occasionally and when you do, you take it as a teaching tool, use that information to continue pursuing the goal to get the results that you want.

Related: 10 Steps to Achieve Excellence in Anything

3.       Whatever Happens, take responsibility.

This is a lesson that I personally have had to learn the hard way and I am very glad that I learned the lesson.  Once you begin to take responsibility for what happens to you, you then gain control and access to be able to change your situation.  Robbins uses the phrase “I am responsible.  I’ll take care of it.”  I like that phrase, because it gives you ownership of the situation, instead of leaving your fate in someone else hands.  If you are not taking responsibility for what happens to you in your life, then you are basically saying that everything that happens to you is of circumstance, which means you have little or no control to what happens in your world.  If you were to ask people if they want to control their own life, or if they would like for someone else to control their life, most would probably choose option A. Yet, everyday many of us chose Option B, based on our everyday actions.  Robbins says. “By retaining responsibility, you retain the power to change the results you produce.”  I definitely prefer to be the one who holds the Power to change my own circumstances.

4.       Its not necessary to understand everything to be able to use everything.

In this section, Robbins gave an example of people in power, being that they will have knowledge about many things, but often they have a small mastery of each and every detail of their business.  When I read this section of the book, for some reason I thought of Lebron James.  Lebron James is by no means the best shooter in basketball, he is not the best rebounder, he has never lead the NBA in assist, and his ball handling skills does not compare to those of his teammate Kyrie Irving.   James is not the best in any of those categories, yet He is the Best Player in the NBA.  Why??  It is because, he isn’t great at any of those listed things, however, he does all of things very good and add his special gift of athleticism and his positive mindset, and you have the Best player in today’s game.

Related: 5 Habits of Highly Effective Communicators

5.       People are your greatest resource!

This is my personal favorite, because our business is about putting “People First”, and many other successful individuals have proven that when you build rapport among people and establish relationships, the results tend to be positive.  In our society today, Profit & Revenue is often the bottom line.  Those companies and individuals who are able to establish a “people-oriented philosophy” are often those who see the best results, not only in their business, but also in their personal lives.  Being an entrepreneur it is extremely important to have positive financial results, however in order to have success and maintain it for a long period of time, in my opinion it is extremely important to respect people, build relationships and put the people first.

6.       Work is Play

Find any successful entrepreneur, artist, innovator, or athlete, and you will find that they are all extremely passionate about their craft or their belief.  These individuals love what they do, and because they do, whenever they encounter obstacles, experience rejection or failure, they are able to still work toward getting the results that they desire, and maintain a high level of enthusiasm while doing so.  Robbins says, “if you decide that work is mere drudgery, just a way to bring home a paycheck, chances are it will never be anything more”.  When your work is play, money often isn’t the main motivating factor.  One of my favorite songs, along with Riley Curry, is Big Sean’s featuring Drake, “Blessed”.  He quotes, “F*ck a Vacay, he feels better at work”.  While I was still working in corporate America I definitely didn’t feel better while I was working, verse when I was on vacation with my girlfriend or my friends!  Kobe Bryant was facing serious charges, yet when he went to work on the basketball court, it was like he was in a completely different world, and in return, he excelled.  If you truly love your job or whatever it is you may be doing, chances are you’re going to be much more productive and get positive results.

7.       There’s no abiding success without commitment.

Robbins says” Individuals who succeed have a belief in the power of commitment”.  I personally believe that once you fully commit to something with your heart, you have extremely increased the chances that you will achieve the results that you want.  Robbin talks about many individuals who were able to obtain a large amount of success, yet they were not most talented person in their field.  It was those individual’s commitment to success that allowed them to separate themselves from the rest.  My favorite example that he gave, was that of Larry Bird.  If getting into the NBA was based solely on athleticism, then Larry Bird would have never been drafted.  Larry Bird was slow, not the tallest, and by no means could jump the highest, yet he was able to be one of the greatest to ever play the game of Basketball.  It was Birds commitment and dedication to the game that allowed him to excel in his craft.  I also hear that Bird was one of the best at talking noise while on the court, which means he was probably as having fun at his craft!

Related: 10 Motivational Tips!

Expenses and Liabilities

Financial Literacy can be defined as the ability to make judgements based on good information.  It is also the ability to understand how money works in the world; how someone earns or makes money, how that person manages it, how he/she invest it (turn it into more) and how that person donates it to help others.  Before you begin to accumulate wealth, it is extremely important that you try to fully understand money and how it operates.  Learning the basic accounting principles would be a great start.  We will explore two terms often used in accounting, Expenses and Liabilities.

 

Expenses

Expenses can be defined as the cost required for something, or the money that is spent on something.  Most expenses are tied directly to the cost of living.  I tend to break expenses down into four categories: Fixed, Variable, Unexpected, and Miscellaneous.

Fixed Expenses are those that are typically the same each month.  Those expenses would include: rent or mortgage payment, cable and internet bill, insurance premiums, car note, any memberships (subscriptions, gym, Netflix, etc.) or childcare.

 

Variable Expenses are those that will change from month to month, meaning that from month to month that expense may be higher or lower.  Variable expenses would include: water and electric bill, groceries, credit card payments, health care cost, and gas for your vehicle.  The expenses could be higher or lower depending on the time of the year, your family size, whether you travel often, or your spending habits.  A number of things could impact the amount of these expenses.

Unexpected Expenses are those that occur on occasion and at no particular time.  These expenses may be able to be anticipated, but still no direct way of know exactly when they will occur.  Unexpected expenses could include: car repairs, paying a ticket or fine, impulse purchases, money for assisting a friend or family, braces for your child, or anything else that may come when you aren’t expecting it.

Miscellaneous Expenses are expenses that we may not account for.  They are different from unexpected expenses, because these expenses normally occur, but usually not on a monthly basis.  Examples of miscellaneous expenses would be: car inspection & registration, annual IRA or Credit Card Fees, Annual Club dues, school shopping for children, hair cut or beauty salon, clothes in the cleaners, money spent on seminars, books or conferences, routine car maintenance, or taxes (depending on your situation).

  

It is important to understand each of these expenses, especially if you are working to maintain a budget or a spending plan.  Many people create their budget based on their monthly expenses but fail to account for the unexpected and miscellaneous expenses.  Depending on your financial situation, you may want to add $200-$300 or $1000-$1,500 to your budget per month, just to be allocated to those unexpected and miscellaneous expenses.  This will help give you a better picture of your financial situation so that you can see what you having coming in and going out. 

Related: 9 Tips to Help Reduce Your Monthly Expenses

Liabilities

Liabilities is something in which an individual is responsible for, especially a DEBT or a Financial Obligation.  Good examples of liabilities would include: car notes, credit card debt, student loans, mortgage loans, payday advance loans, health care bills, business loans, or any other outstanding debt.  Whether you’re an individual or a business, you typically would like to decrease your liabilities and increase the amount of your assets.

 

Liabilities in most cases take money out of your pocket, while assets put money back into your pocket.  If you are a business owner or an investor, there are certain situations where a liability could essentially put money into your pocket.  A perfect example, would be an investor taking a mortgage out for a second home.  However, since the investor is knowledgeable, he knows that he will get a great interest rate on his loan and that due the size of the house and neighborhood, he could easily rent the home out to a small family.  Based on the market value of the home, the rent would end up more than the investor’s monthly mortgage payment, meaning that every month the home would pay the investor income, although the home shows as a liability on his books.

 

Related: The Cash Flow Quadrant

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