A few days ago, I killed a cockroach in my kitchen sink. I’m tired. I’m tired of doing without and living this rough life. I’m tired of things not being easy. You’ve felt this too…. Feeling tired of even trying. But enough complaining. I am grateful to be ABLE and uber grateful to be WILLING to work hard and change our circumstances.
So many leaders will share their hero’s journey or the transformation once they get to the top, but I am determined to be one of those that share the journey as I go. I could just wait a year or so, when I’m rolling in the chedda’ to tell you that I went from “homeless to a millionaire,” and leave it at that. But that’s not the full story – and it leaves all the juicy stuff out that you could learn from. I’m here to help you LEARN, even if it’s from the cruddiest details of my life, my failures, or the successes in my life that took too long. Let’s talk about the tough stuff.
Going through hard stuff SUCKS but can be an amazing tool if you can see past the “hard” to the other side; I can, and you can too. Going through adversity gives you the grit and gumption to MAKE something happen; it gives you hands on practice with resourcefulness. There truly is POWER in broke. (Daymond John, Shark Tank/Author) I’ve experienced this first hand. When I was growing up, I got whatever I wanted & when I first met my now husband, I was a serious brat. A brat that never would’ve done anything with her life other than party, be promiscuous, and get a 9-5 job for the rest of my stuck-suck life. I am SO thankful that he “rescued” me from that nightmare but more so for the fact that he showed me the beautiful world of endless possibility that surrounded me. (That I had no clue existed!!)
I have always been hard working and tenacious and a leader, but until we went through poverty and the “tough stuff”—I didn’t KNOW resourcefulness & resourcefulness is absolutely required in entrepreneurship. If I would’ve started pursuing this dream in college before I met my husband & before my world-view changed – I would’ve given up in the first week. Now, I know that failure is necessary for growth and necessary to reach success. (Which is still a hard pill to swallow sometimes.)
I don’t believe that you could ever fail so hard that you could never get back up again & since failure is REQUIRED to get to success, even failure moves you forward. Failure helps us receive the golden medal of honor that is resourcefulness. Tell me again you “don’t have the money,” or “don’t have the right support system,” “don’t live in the right place,” or “don’t have the socioeconomic status.” If you want something, the “how” becomes irrelevant & you figure it out.
When circumstances aren’t exactly optimal for our success, but we figure out a new way to make things happen and to make things go in our favor; even MORE success finds us. Type in “celebrities that came from nothing,” and you will find HUNDREDS of people you look up to in the media that came from not-so-optimal conditions. But, that’s exactly why the circumstances that surround us don’t count for anything & if they do, they’re FOR us, not against us. Your life is happening FOR you, not TO you & I always remind people that:
“This hardship isn’t derailing you from your path to success, this IS the path.”
Use your story to be polarizing. Use your story to give others hope. Use your story to give YOURSELF hope because since so many others went through what you are going through, you can make it through this as well.
When crap hits the fan, find another way to get to what you desire, and success will find YOU.