Hitting rock bottom. Crash and burn. Down and out. Dead in the water. Up in smoke. Hitting the skids. In dire straits. Find yourself in stormy seas.

No matter the severity of the storm, it could bring your entire World crashing down. It can happen so fast that it is practically unavoidable. 

A meltdown comes at you like a freight train and always catches you off-guard. Things spiral out of control. Every effort to stop it, simply makes it worse.

While you run to catch up, you damage trust relationships with mates, colleagues, and family.

Before you know what is happening, you cease to matter. Things sort of carry on without you. You shuffle things around, prioritize and try to adapt, but nothing yields fruit. It seems impossible to weather the storm.

I know what it is like to lose everything. I have been broke. I have been bankrupt. I have been criticized. I have been rejected.

I have been laughed at. I have been doubted. I have lost my biggest clients. I have lost my best employees. I have lost business partners. I have been served. I have been sued.

I have had times I was terrified, devastated, exhausted and wanted to give up … But I did not.

Whatever the situation and however it came to be, you are in it now. It is a dark and lonely pit – and you need to get out of it.

Depending on your willingness to accept the magnitude of the task which lies ahead, you can get out of it within a year, or wriggle out of it a decade later, alienated from your loved ones and looking like you have been mauled by a bear.

The belief in yourself is all you have left when everything gets lost. 

When you lose all the material things in the World, you start to feel like it is your fate, and you are defined by these experiences.

In reality, your strengths define you. How you choose to respond to adversity is what illustrates you.

What you need to remember is that failure is not final, and you can not let yourself be defined by circumstances. You must believe in yourself.

An unwavering faith in good things to happen and a belief in yourself to continue on is all you need to fight on.

Things are replaceable and turn to dust, but people’s legacies live on.

The World will talk about what you did and your impact, but most importantly, people will talk about the person you decided to be and how you lived your life.