Adversity: How I learned to embrace it

I’m going to start this blog with a story, one from my own life. It’s an experience that I’ll never forget. It was the first time where I faced adversity and reflected on it. It’s a long story but it contains a valuable lesson. It’s better to learn from my mistakes than make the mistake yourself. Well, that’s my opinion. Sometimes it’s inevitable that adversity visits you.

This is the story of how I lost 15000 euros and a car.

The road to adversity: it all started so good

It was on the 23rd of March and I was doing some stuff for school with a buddy of mine. Okay, we were both watching a TV show on our laptops, you’ve got me.

Suddenly a woman in red addressed us both and asked us if we wanted to get extra information about what to do after you graduate. We weren’t interested but suddenly she added that we could enter a competition.

Suddenly she got my attention; you could become the CEO of a company for one month. I looked at my buddy and we both knew that we had to go.

After class, we went to their stance and collected all the information we needed to participate.

The day after this I went to the supermarket where I was supposed to do my summer job. I told the boss that I had found another job and that I wasn’t going to work anymore for them.

That place made me unhappy anyway so I wasn’t a big loss. The boss was intrigued and asked me what could be so much better than working there.

I’m going for CEO I told him. He looked at me and laughed, you’ll be back to ask your summer job back. I smiled back and told him that was never going to happen in this life.

I left the store and once I arrived at school I started participating in the competition. My buddy never tried it but he supported me. After I passed a test and uploaded my motivation I called home.

The road to adversity: my mom was furious

 

I told my mom what I had done and she was furious. She called me stupid and I was taking dumb risks. You’ll never make it into the next round she said. She thought that I had made an impulsive decision due to my ADHD. But ADHD is a gift, well at least in my opinion.

In my head it all made sense, I knew what I had to do and how to get it but almost everyone doubted me. They probably thought that I was delusional.

Suddenly I got an mail that I passed the first round and that I had to do some tests.

So I turned on my laptop and looked at what tests I had to complete. The first five were easy in my eyes. I had to do some analytical tests and two English tests. The other two were another story, they were both French tests.

My French was always horrible because I hated the language when I attended high school. Looking back it was dumb that I hated a language but I had to pass the tests.

So I asked my dad if he wanted to help me to complete the last two tests. He didn’t believe in me but he agreed and we both noticed that my French was pretty decent. The tests were also pretty easy but that’s another story.

Suddenly more and more friends started asking me how I was doing. People started believing in me, some were even claiming that I had already won.

The road to adversity: it was all about priorities

My tactic was pretty easy, I dropped everything to make sure that I made the next round. I didn’t care if I had to attend a party or class. I skipped it all just to prove everybody wrong.

It was one month later and I attended the theaters with some buddies, we went to the premiere of Civil War. During the movie, I got a phone call and I knew deep inside that it was an important one.

Once the movie was done I listened to my voicemail and heard that I was selected for the second last round. I think the whole city heard me screaming just because I was so happy.

People probably looked at me but I didn’t care I was doing what I wanted to.

I proved all the haters that I was able to do something because I believed in it.

Self-belief was the secret ingredient to the success cake in my eyes.

I had to write a motivational letter and email it by midnight and that where I made the most crucial mistake in my whole journey.

The road to adversity: welcome back to the comfort zone

Everybody told me that I was going to make it and it made me comfortable. I was in a lazy comfort zone and it would backfire. The only problem was that I didn’t see it yet. The comfort zone is so dangerous, you need to escape it (read here why).

So I came home and started working on an assignment that I had to complete for school. I looked at the clock and suddenly realized that it was already 10 pm.

At that time I was pretty relaxed but once I started writing I noticed that I was low on energy. I couldn’t write like I normally did. Suddenly I realized that I should have done this first. This should have been my top priority.

I cursed a lot but I was determined to give them a motivation letter.

I wrote and kept writing but I was never satisfied. Suddenly I only had 20 minutes till midnight. So I deleted my whole word file and started writing a new letter like a mad man.

After 15 minutes I had a motivational letter.

You’re too late mate

I turned it in two minutes before midnight. So I went to bed and suddenly I realized something. I hadn’t written the best letter, it didn’t represent the best version of me. It was good but not perfect enough to get what I wanted to get.

It had to be perfect to outperform the rest of the attenders. The next morning I stared at my black cup of coffee (the best natural pre-workout there is), my mind was wandering. I couldn’t get why this had happened.

The strange thing is that I had written the article about winning and testosterone before this competition.

Four weeks later I received an mail that I didn’t make it to the final six. I looked at the mail and knew that I had this one coming.

Because I didn’t win that competition I lost a paycheck of more than 15000 euros and a car (the car was only available for one month). That amount of money just slipped through my fingers and the worst part was that I was the one who opened my fingers. I made this happen.

I lost more than all that since I had also canceled the summer job. I didn’t go back for the ones who’re wondering what I did.

So I took a long walk and started reflecting on what went wrong.

The funny thing is that I learned more than one lesson from this adventure. All these lessons were worth more than 15000 euros in my eyes. You can have all the money in the world but that won’t make you a better person. A lot of money can be a curse as well, just look at some rich kids. They’ll never leave their comfort zone.

The road to adversity: destination to a better self

I may have lost money but I was growing as a person. I was becoming a better version of myself. Jut look at who learned from the experience. I was the only one who learned from this experience since all the others never attended the competition. They didn’t grow that day. I did what a had to do and I’m glad I did.

Because I was bold enough to take a chance.

It didn’t pay off.

But I’ll be back!

I faced adversity. Suddenly I celebrated it like I had won the competition. I gave adversity one last hug and then knocked it straight to the ground.

Every time that I’ll try to attempt something I’ll keep this in mind. I’ll welcome the adversity in my life, I’m hoping that it will return.

But every time that it peaks around the corner I’ll be ready.

Ready to become a better version.

Ready to get closer to my real potential.

Life is great when adversity visits you, don’t you ever forget that.

Now go out there, take a chance and learn if it doesn’t pay off.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”WqJ8o” via=”yes” ]Now go out there, take a chance and learn if it doesn’t pay off. @ZeroToAlpha[/ctt]

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Till next time

Alex

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