Cherish the Tough Times
By Success Coach, Justin Popovic
We’ve all been there at some point in our life. Everything seems to be moving along smoothly
when something suddenly happens; a challenge, a barrier, a crisis. These events can range
anywhere from being mildly inconvenient to downright terrible and sometimes devastating.
When situations like this arise, we all have ultimately one choice to make – how we will choose
to respond.
When you boil it down, that is really how our entire life unfolds. We are making a never ending
series of choices about how we will interact with the events and circumstances surrounding us.
Many of these choices occur unconsciously as part of our conditioned behaviour patterns.
Understanding that we always retain the power and the right to make a conscious choice about
our reactions is where we can transform challenges into opportunities.
Consider the idea of personal perception. Every person observes and interprets the world around
them from a unique vantage point. I remember very clearly an incident about 5 years ago when I
was having lunch on a restaurant patio with a few of my colleagues. The patio was next to a very
busy street. About 20 minutes into our meal, we were all startled by a large crash followed by an
excitable YELP sound. As I turned in my seat to examine the incident, we saw a new sports car t-
boned by an older sedan. Fortunately, the collision had taken place at a relatively slow speed so
there were no injuries, just two very upset drivers. The YELP sound had come from a tow truck
driver who had been parked literally across the street. He was so excited that an accident had
occurred right in front of his truck meaning he would be the first tow provider on the scene. Talk
about drastically opposing perspectives! These two unfortunate drivers were caught up in a very
unpleasant experience while the tow truck entrepreneur had his latest gig essentially fall into his
lap.
What’s most interesting about this example is that it illustrates to me that th