The way I dealt with them; there?s the quick answer versus the real answer.

One of the ways that I?ve dealt with things, in the beginning, is denial. I just didn?t deal with it. I allowed suffering to take place in my life, which manifested itself in negative thinking, negative behavior and self-sabotage.

It?s the destructive things that have happened to me that really forced me to learn coping mechanisms and to seek out people that could help me. I surrendered to thinking I could do all of it on my own.

Pursuing spirituality was also a part of the solution, but there was no quick solution to some of my issues. A lot of it was life hit me with a ton of bricks, and there I was, squashed on the ground, figuring out, ?Well, I?ve got 2 choices: I either live in misery or I don?t.?

There are 2 types of suffering, as my friend Dan Sullivan said. “There?s short-term and long-term. You decide which one you want.”

I have chosen, at times, the long-term route. What I do now is to hopefully have this sound optimistic. When something bad happens to me right now, I have a much better perspective, knowing that all of the lessons in life, all of the progress is only going to come out of things that don?t work.

Dan Sullivan is a friend of mine. I learn from Dan. Dan learns from me, and he says, “Life is broken up into 2 areas: things that work and things that don?t work. That?s it.”

If you think about your life, we have areas that work and things that don?t work. The areas of life that we learn from really come out of those things that don?t work. Whenever I have a setback or something doesn?t quite work out right, heck, we?re human. We are constantly making mistakes.

Speaking for myself, I?ve made an ass out of myself numerous times. I?ve said things I wish I didn?t say. I?ve made decisions that haven?t helped me, that haven?t helped other people. I?ve done things that have hurt me. I?ve done things that have hurt other people. I would like to think whenever anybody has been directly or indirectly hurt as a result of my thinking, my behavior, my actions that it was not intentional. It was just me really not knowing what the heck I was doing.

I?m a lot less forgiving of myself now, because for one, I know that I?m human, and second, whenever anything bad happens, I now have a process for dealing with it. And that is, for one, realizing that if an area of life isn?t working, that?s kind of like God?s way of saying, ?Hey, pay attention to this. How could you do it over??

You can fail, but the only way you fail is if you fail to learn the lesson. So now, when negative things happen, I have a group of people, I have certain individuals in my life that I?m very close to, that I talk with, that I bring my misery to, that I bring my complications to, and some of these people, I pay. I have a client relationship with them and a lot of this is business stuff. Heck, I don?t consider myself a great manager. I seek out lots of training in that particular area.

Some of these things are small issues. Others are life issues that require very intensive, private godfather conversations with people, but I try to be resourceful. I was not resourceful in the beginning and the more that I go through life not being resourceful, the harder life is for me.