I am sure we have all been through tough times in our lives, and we do get through them as we can testify to. We don’t forget and we have all heard the saying, if it doesn’t kill you, you will grow stronger as a result of the experience.
Just looking at the business angle, any of us who have been in business for a decent length of time will have been through a number of negatives and hopefully more positives. Every situation in our lives we should learn from and we generally learn more from the negatives than we do the positives. We know what the deal is. We know we have to come through it, or we just quit. It all adds to our story, and they are lessons we can pass on to others. I love hearing peoples’ stories – how they got from where they started to where they are today – and we all have a great story to tell. Most will have stories of adversity, and we will have come through them as a stronger person as a result of the experience. We don’t see it at the time but when we look back on times of adversity, we realise the lesson we learned. A quote I heard some time ago is, “From every seed of adversity comes one of equal or greater benefit”
So whats gets us through the tough times? How did people get through the 2 world wars? What got the Auschwitz survivors through their inhuman experiences? A positive attitude, the belief that things will get better, and the power of the mind – sheer willpower which is probably the greatest human strength. The human mind and body is amazingly resilient and can recover quickly from difficulties.
We have to look beyond where we currently are, look beyond the light at the end of the tunnel. We have to look after our mental and physical health. We have to ask for help and we need to limit our time with toxic people or toxic situations.Someone said to me some time ago that in 5 years time, we will be the same person that we are today apart from the books we read and the people we associate with.
I do totally believe that limiting time on social media, limiting the amount of news channels we watch, limiting the amount of time we spend with negative people can have a massive impact on our mind. In addition to making sure we look after our minds, we need to look after our bodies by feeding it with the right food. We need to remain tough at all times in order to have a successful business. Add to this a healthy body and a healthy mind and we have pretty much cracked it. The other thing I would add is that if you are really struggling, please ask for help – ask the right people. Work with professionals
A great book I can recommend is “Tough times never last but tough people do” by Robert Schuller
Keep strong everyone, great times are around the corner.
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 23/02/2021