This is our year to rebuild. What will be your role on the construction team?

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Should you be confronted by great difficulty, then take courage in these ideas so eloquently expressed:

“Let a person rejoice when he is confronted with obstacles, for it means that he has reached the end of some particular line of indifference or folly, and is now called upon to summon up all his energy and intelligence in order to extricate himself, and to find a better way; that the powers within him are crying out for greater freedom, for enlarged exercise and scope.” – James Allen

“It is the Law that any difficulties that can come to you at any time, no matter what they are, must be exactly what you need most at the moment, to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson.” – Emmet Fox

Listen to some of the chatter and gossip around you. How many coworkers, friends, associates, and casual acquaintances talk of problems in their lives, their jobs, the country and the “system?” A lot of people have the habit of finding blame somewhere out there. They often revel in righteous indignation of the real culprits – bosses, co-workers, politicians, “big oil,” corporate greed, you name it. I’ve been guilty of the blame game although now I recognize when I’m a player and try to fetch myself up sharply and refocus on problem solving.

Here’s a bitter pill from one of the great business philosophers of the last century, Jim Rohn: “Ifyou spend five minutes complaining, you’ve just wasted five minutes. If you continue complaining, it won’t be long before they haul you off to a financial desert and there leave you to choke on the dust of your own regret.”

Having heartfelt gratitude for gifts already possessed is an ideal basis for positive problem solving in my business and personal life. If you can read this paragraph and enjoy a deep breath of clean air, you’re ahead of many in the world.

Avoid whining and complaining in any business setting. One fruitful result is that meetings are shorter and much more productive. Many of you reading this have likely sat in meetings that ran overtime because of irrelevant minutia focused on this client or that manager or her department or his habits…, ad infinitum.  After these meetings you ask yourself, what did we accomplish?

Unpleasant and unexpected events do occur outside of our control. Simply stated, “Shit happens!” (Pardon the expression.)  Endeavor to view these roadblocks with objectivity and emotional balance. The truth is they are pointers to greater achievement and personal growth.

When you embrace your struggles as necessary life workouts, you’ll willingly step up and take full responsibility for your role in the solutions. Then you’ll experience how restorative hard work flows naturally from such an attitude. You and your business grow stronger as the result of that work.

Sometimes, fortunately or unfortunately, a massive problem must be placed directly in front of us. Then we are forced to grow beyond our present means by finding a way over it, around it, under it, or straight through it; smashing the problem to little pieces and clearing a new road to recovery and profits.

Having been fortified by the experience of transmuting obstacles into opportunities for needed change, we are freed to see the next challenge as exactly what we need to grow up again.