The Bank Robber Episode

I’ve said before that all good will be attacked. I want to add a little bit to this.

The last several months I’ve been going through the six pieces you need in place to get through the cycles of complexity that life throws at you. These pieces are:

Ethos – which is your philosophy and mindset. Intention – your goals, mission, and purpose. Efficacy – your ability to carry out your intended purpose. Agency – your actions and activity, actually carrying out the purpose. Adversity – the internal and external obstacles we all face when we attempt to make any move. And Elevation – this is where we reflect, revise, and remix our lives to get better for the next time we hit a cycle of complexity.

Adversity is going to come to all of us. We should be thankful that it does because it makes us better, stronger, and wiser. However, it’s beyond my capacity right now to be thankful for adversity while it is happening. When I reflect and see how the obstacle changed me and made me stronger, I can be grateful that the experience made me stronger.

That’s as much as I can do sometimes – I’m not going to be grateful for the death of a loved one or some other difficult path just because the experience made me better – I can be grateful that I was able to use it to grow, however.

But even with obstacles not as serious as all of this, it can get frustrating, and you don’t have to be thankful for them in order to grow from them.

Back to this: everything good will be attacked. This isn’t a spiritual thing, it’s not Satan attacking you. This is a natural thing. All of life is the upward struggle against the downward pull of the normal negative. We all fall towards the base level of negativity, and with no effort on our part, that is where we will all end up. Some people have a harder time than others trying to struggle upward, just like some trees seem to thrive with or without sunlight, and some have a hard time growing in the shade.

The good that is attacked is this effort or struggle upward.

My proof that it isn’t spiritual comes in when I think of a bank robber. If this thief tries to pull off a perfect heist, she will run into problems in the planning stages. She will run into problems trying to find good help. She will run into problems trying to remove the license plate from the getaway car. Maybe the screws are rusty and stripped and she can’t get them out. She will run into problems of self-doubt, thinking maybe she won’t be able to pull it off, thinking she’s just not good enough, or experienced enough, or too young, or too old. She will run into problems in the execution of the robbery – things are not going to go as planned.

Is robbing a bank good? No!

Are effort and planning and execution good? Yes!

And all good will be attacked. Because of nature. Because of the way that this universe was built.

It’s all a struggle. From the moment you came into this world to the moment you leave. But we get to decide how we deal with the struggle. We get to choose whether we are going to let it break us, or let it make us stronger, better, and wiser.

I want to choose to get stronger. I want you to choose to get stronger. When you are up against it, get an obstacle in your way, choose to get through, or go over, or go under, or push it out of your way. Get the skills and the power necessary – the coaching and the learning, decide that you will not let this thing stop you.

But more importantly, just know that when you try to do something and set goals, you are going to run into adversity. External adversity that could be an excuse to quit is going to come. Internal adversity where it seems like your own SELF is trying to stop you from achieving your desires. And the bigger the goals, the more adversity you will have. The larger the impact, the more it will try to stop you. The knowledge that it is coming will make it easier to say, “Hey adversity. I’ve been expecting you. I understand that you don’t want me carrying out these plans, but I’ve got some news for you. I’m doing this, and there’s really nothing you can do to stop me.”

Tell me about a time when adversity struck just when you were about to have a breakthrough. Answer in the Ideas & Concepts Mastermind, or in the comments below. 

I release this with the sincere hope that I haven’t inspired anyone to rob a bank. It was just an illustration to make a point.