My three grandchildren spent seven weeks at the Tyler Hill Camp in Pennsylvania this summer. The culmination of the seventh week was “color war,” where two teams bearing the two colors of the camp (blue and gold) battle each other over multiple days of sports and singing competition.
The highlight of the “color war” is when they “break it.” This year, the camp brought in (by helicopter) the legendary Alex Rodriguez, former New York Yankees third baseman and one of the game’s most prolific power hitters.
A-Rod surprised the 500 campers who had gathered for a show in the camp’s rec hall. To cheers and screeches, he took to the stage and offered advice to the young people shocked to see him.
I wanted to share his profound words with you: “I’ve always wanted to be a world champion, and played for almost 25 years, and what I learned, it takes the entire group, connected thinking one way and that’s the winning way, and that made us a world champion in 2009.”
Dealing with the unexpected
One of my favorite sources of inspiration is the “Morning Juice” newsletter from Investors Bank. The daily email contains thoughts about the different challenges you might face any day of the week, and how to overcome them.
A recent Morning Juice newsletter featured an article titled “How to Deal with the Unexpected” by Jim Rohn. It’s about how all of us can not only handle but also embrace the many changes that life may bring us.
Please read Rohn’s thoughtful advice below. I found it quite inspirational, and I hope you do too!
In life, the winds of circumstances blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives. It’s one thing to create change. It’s another thing — often unavoidable — to have change foisted upon you when you don’t expect it.
We all experienced the blowing winds of change. Yet some of us still manage to reach our intended destinations. What guides us to different shores is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sails. The way that each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives.
Unforeseen circumstances happen to us all. We have disappointments and challenges. We all have reversals and those moments when, in spite of our best plans and efforts, things just seem to fall apart. Challenging circumstances are not events reserved for the poor, the uneducated or the destitute. The rich and the poor have marital problems. The rich and the poor have the same challenges that can lead to financial ruin and personal despair.
In the final analysis, it is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we discover that the wind has changed directions.
When things change, we must change. We must struggle to our feet again and reset the sail to steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing. The set of the sail—how we think and how we respond—has a far greater capacity to alter our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly and responsibly we react to adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally and willingly conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our thinking.
Learning to reset the sail with the changing winds rather than permitting ourselves to be blown in a direction you did not purposely choose requires the development of a whole new discipline. It involves going to work on establishing a powerful, personal philosophy that will help to influence in a positive way all that you do, think and decide.
If you can succeed, the result will be a positive change in the course of your income, lifestyle and relationships.
Source: Fall 2018 issue of Success magazine.
