I am honored to be here today to share some thoughts and ideas with you.

Our business is unique in that we are directly compensated relative to our ability to motivate others to take action. But how can we inspire others when we ourselves are not motivated due to major strife and difficulties occurring in our lives?

My story involves recent challenges I’ve encountered and how I’ve been dealing with them. They may be similar to hardships many of you are experiencing now or have experienced in the past.

There are challenges such as being there for parents or other loved ones through times of grave illness or perhaps helping with their end-of-life care. Or maybe even you are going through, or have experienced, health issues.

And, of course, we all felt the effects of a world pandemic not that long ago.

All of these things occurred in my life, and within a short period of time, all while still having the demands of a young family and the challenges of a growing practice.

During this time I was able to push through and emerge to a point I would have never thought possible to achieve under the circumstances.

I was able to experience more success and growth in my business while being there and also present for my family.

I knew, however, that things needed to be handled differently and that I needed to take on a new approach. So I implemented the five A’s in dealing with adversity.

1. Acceptance

The first A is acceptance. It is fully recognizing and acknowledging the facts of the situation, without judgment, keeping us from asking, “Why is this happening?” and so on. Full acceptance allows us to break free from thoughts of guilt or unfairness, allowing us to move on and properly deal with the matter.

2. Ask

Ask for help. Sometimes I forget to do this and think I can take care of everything myself. But the fact is, I can’t. And for me this starts with asking for help from my higher power.

But, of course, it doesn’t stop there. I wouldn’t be able to deal with things without the help of my family, friends, loved ones and, of course, my colleagues, business associates and team members as well as the value of having a trusted, well-positioned team in place. I could not thrive in business without asking for the help of my business partners.

3. Affirm

I asked myself, What do I want to have happen during all this? Why is it important to me? and What am I prepared to do? Then I made a list of affirmations and said them out loud multiple times, every day. And I still do. I know we’ve all heard of this before, but I’m here to tell you that it works for me. And when you make consistent affirmations, you start to get ideas, which is very important to the practice of the fourth A.

4. Action

You need to take action. Action is the engine that drives it all. But I realize that when you are going through extreme adversity, it’s enough sometimes just to get through the day. And that’s OK for some days. But when you’re caught in a storm, it’s most important that you stay focused and take consistent action.

5. Appreciate

I started to appreciate everything that was going right in my life, and then more positive things opened up. And some may say to even appreciate the very thing that is causing you the adversity because when we look back at our lives, when we experienced the greatest personal growth, that is when we were faced with great hardship and overcame it.

What really brought this home for me was when I was in the hospital for treatments, and I would see the young children there who were very ill. They were smiling, laughing and playing, and that taught me the value of appreciation and the importance of not only living in the moment but also embracing it and making the very most of each one.