Business Coach : Don’t Hold Grudges
-Napoleon Hill, who’s the success author and business coach who absolutely changed my life– I keep his book up here because when I first encountered his writings, it just absolutely blew my mind some of the stuff I could find here. But his “Laws of Success” books have absolutely just worked wonders in my life.
And he was an apprentice, basically, of the late Andrew Carnegie, another business mentor.
-OK.
-So he basically rode shotgun with the world’s wealthiest man. And one of the things he wrote– which just blew my mind, it just jumped off the pages– is he says, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it a seed of an equal or greater benefit.” So, every adversity, every heartache, every failure, “carries with it a seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
What does that mean, that behind every failure, there’s a seed of an equal or greater benefit? I mean, how have you seen that play out in your life?
-I don’t think you really know who you are and what your capabilities are, what your strengths are, and even your weaknesses, until you find yourself in an adverse set of circumstances. And the ability to move out of those circumstances and to look back and see that I didn’t crater, I didn’t give in. I stood up for what was right. I moved on. I accomplished what I needed. And you kind of got that stored into your backpack, as it were.
Because you’re going to find another one. But once you get to that other circumstance that’s negative that looks like it’s going to fail you, then all of a sudden, you’ve got this backpack you can look in and say, wait a minute, I remember two years ago. Look what I came through. I can do this now.
-I’ve never seen that more true, it seems like, than recently. I’ve seen it tested so many times. But one of the guys who works here on our team, his father had passed away suddenly.
And the day after he found out– I think it was the day after he found out. Maybe it was the day he found out– he calls me to find out how my dad is doing. And my dad is suffering from cancer. But he thought outside of himself enough. He’s that kind of person. And to me, I say I’m a big fan of that.
Now, I don’t wish anybody to have adversity. I don’t want to have my father deal with cancer. I don’t want them to lose their dad. That’s not what I’m saying here. What I’m saying is when he went through that, instead of being bitter and negative, he called me. And I’m like, that’s one of the best humans I’ve ever met. So my opinion of him has always been high. But now I’m just like, pfft, are you kidding me?
And it’s those kind of, I think, situations that we get tested and when people look at us. And I know that’s when people look at you. And I think that’s powerful for us to just marinate on that.
Now, I hate to bring it up. I know it’s not a fun place to go back to. But your daughter was– what was your daughter’s name?
-Anne Catherine.
-Anne Catherine. And she’s basically seven years old–
-Yeah.
– –healthy, high energy–
-Yep. And beautiful.
-And beautiful.
-Yep, all the above.
-And then one day, she got sick.
-One day she got sick. And 21 days later, she died.
-And how do you recover from that? How is success still a choice when you lose your daughter suddenly? Not success financially. I’m talking about moving on and having success. How is that still possible? A business coach.
-It changes you. It definitely changes you. And it can also hammer you into one place. Because I’ve seen it happen to other people. But Barbara and I were very fortunate. It certainly rocked our world. There’s no doubt about that. But having a business coach can help in this process.
But at the same time, we were able to build our lives again. And using the memory of our daughter and how much she meant to us to help reconstruct the broken pieces, to kind of plaster them back together.
-Were there other people who watched how you handled that situation who commented?
-Yeah.
-That maybe you impacted them through how you handled that situation?
-It’s been 15, 17, almost 20 years ago since Annie passed away. And I still get people who say, I don’t know how you and Barbara did it, how you came through it.
-You’re going to get one more here. We have the five kids. And right now our oldest is nine. When you’re watching this, they might be 39. I don’t know. But when my daughter was about seven, it occurred to me, the loss of your daughter. That situation became real. I’m like, oh my gosh.
And when she had her birthday party, I kept crying all the time. My wife’s like, what’s going on? And I just kept thinking about how blessed we were to have her. And when my son was born blind, I remember specifically of thinking about you in that situation. And that’s what carried me through that.
-Well, see, that’s the whole great joy of a shared humanity. We all bring something to the table. It’s like this great feast of humanity that I can bring my survival that adds to your thriving, as it were. You can bring your survival that adds to someone else’s. And I think this is what we give each other. This is what we do. This is what makes this life really worth living. Because we are conscious of the needs of others. Just like a business coach has to be conscious.