As a follow up to our last post, “How to Beat Adversity, Obstacles, and Other Crisis In Your Life,” we wanted to share with you the most important component on that list. The umbrella over it all, for us. We want to share it with you not to shove it down your throat or be obscene about it, but because it is who we are at the core and we always want to be transparent about that. Emphasis on always. Introducing our F-word. We have a few of them, but not the one you think. Failure is one of our favorites, because we have such a gratitude for the opportunity (more…)
Have you ever poured a carbonated drink over ice and watched the path of the individual bubbles? (Okay, I know that is a strange question. Work with me.) Some of the bubbles in the carbonated drink go straight to the top, but most of them hit an obstacle (or two or ten) of ice cubes on the way up, and pretty much all of them follow a path that isn’t always the shortest path or the predictable path. They go in all sorts of directions at various speeds, jostling side-to-side to get the right upward momentum. A lot of the bubbles stuck on ice cubes do get there eventually, and then they all group together to make the “fizz” part of the drink. It’s the part the advertisers show because it just looks good! It’s a great example of how life can go for our children and teens. One of our roles as a parent is to teach our children how to get past the obstacles of ice to rise to the top of the glass. Yes, it might take a path that is not the one we expect, but it is a path and a journey nonetheless.
So how do we teach our kids to get past obstacles? Here are some critical elements to consider:
Teach your child or teen that there will always be ice in the glass. That means there will always be obstacles to overcome. We all have them to various degrees, and to be honest, life would be boring without them. There is no value in spending energy expecting (more…)
We all have crisis. If you are not in it now, you’ve been in it before, and you will likely be in it again. And perhaps again, and again. We (Aly and Andrea) happen to be in it now, personally, and in an unimaginably huge way. Perhaps because we are motivational speakers, and most see us as just about the “happiest people they know,” you probably don’t believe us when we say this is a very sad, difficult family crisis we are going through right now. It is. We’ll tell you all about it another day, but we know we’ll get through it, past it, and beyond it. The question for you becomes, how do you get past your life-crisis? Better yet, how will they shape you?
We did not become the “adversity experts” for no reason. We have been here, in the middle of awful, many times before and we have a system. We know the critical components to beating and thriving amongst the adversity. Here are some of our favorites:
