The Truth About Setbacks

Have any of your recent decisions flopped? I've had a few of my own, and just before giving up on my dreams, I learned the truth about setbacks.

It all started back in May when my 5 year-old ran inside the house yelling, "Mom, Bethany's lips are blue!!!"

I heard the intense panic in his voice all the way upstairs in my office and I went numb. I'm not sure my feet even touched the floor as I flew down the stairs and out to the backyard with one intention: to see my three year-old well.

My now eight year-old was by the side of the pool with her, having discovered her floating face-down in the deep end. He had already pulled her out all by himself and was waiting for me, hoping I could make everything all better.

She lay there, lips blue, no heartbeat, and not breathing. My older daughter was crying, and I yelled at her to call 911. She froze, feeling the weight of the situation. "Call 911!" I yelled until she ran inside.

I had failed to keep my three year-old safe. Even though I had already taught her how to swim, on that day I failed to be watchful enough.

Subconscious programming took over. My first instinct was to pick her up and lay her over my knee, as I patted her back. That's what I've done for 15 years whenever my babies had trouble breathing; but of course it didn't help, because she wasn't choking. There again, I failed. I had one intention in mind: to see her well, and I made a mistake. I did the wrong thing. I failed.

Immediately I turned her over, letting her head hit the deck too hard in my frantic effort to try something else. I blundered again, hurting her in an effort to help her. If she were awake, she may have complained but there was no response.

Get oxygen to her brain; that's what I had to do. But my CPR training was back in 1991. All those detailed, systematic instructions of what to do were forgotten in this moment. All I knew is that she needed oxygen until the paramedics showed up. I put my mouth over hers and gave her a breath. But it only came rushing out of her nose. Again, I failed.

So I plugged her nose, gave her a breath and it filled her chest. Common sense told me her brain needed the oxygen . . . and since her silent heart was designed to do the job, I gave a few chest compressions, and another breath. Another round of compressions, and she began to revive.

Gratefully, she completely recovered. There were, of course, lessons to be learned from this horrific experience. Be more watchful... as if I didn't already know that. A deeper lesson was to comprehend on a whole new level how nothing material matters, so long as our family is in tact.

But later, as I finished up the creation of our home study course, I had an even deeper epiphany which has led me to conclude that I was meant to experience our business setbacks as well as this incident to learn a universal truth that I had never really grasped before. I thought back to our flopped investments, and then I thought about my daughter. Then I realized this:

We make mistakes. With good intentions we sometimes fail. Nobody achieves success at remarkable levels without experiencing some failure along the way. How we respond to failure is really what determines whether or not we deserve to enjoy success.

We must press on.

With my daughter, in a matter of minutes, I failed four times. What if I had stopped even for a second to bemoan it? There was NO TIME to whine. Her life was on the line, and each failure provided valuable feedback to help me get it right. If I had stopped after any one of my failures, I could have missed the window of time that decides whether she lives or dies, is handicapped or well.

Financial mistakes are no different. If you've experienced a few and are having trouble picking yourself up again, remember that your financial life is on the line.

Take too long to bemoan your setbacks, and it could literally mean financial death, or long-term handicap for you. It's time to take a deep breath, take personal responsibility for where you're at, learn from the experience, and get busy creating again. When one door closes, another one always opens; but you'll only find it if you get up and commence the search.