The Donkey and The Farmer

If you’re tired of waking up without a clear focus, feeling physically drained, and living a life that’s completely out of alignment with what you actually deserve—you are in the right place.

Too many entrepreneurs and real estate investors reach a point where they feel like they’re just getting buried alive. The market shifts, a major deal falls through, a trusted partnership breaks down, or a health scare hits out of nowhere. It feels like absolute chaos. But I want to share a powerful story with you today about a farmer's donkey that completely flips the script on adversity.

When this old donkey fell into a deep, dried-up well, the farmer thought there was no way out and decided to bury the well with the donkey inside. But every single time a shovel of dirt hit that donkey’s back, he did something incredible: he shook it off and he took a step up.

In this episode, we are diving deep into how you can take the negative circumstances in your life and your business and find the exact inverse positive to pull yourself into the light. We look at why every great icon—from Walt Disney to Colonel Sanders—had a "well story," and how you can recalibrate your brain to stop playing the victim and start building your ramp to the top.

📍 Key Topics Discussed:

• The Story of the Farmer’s Donkey: How a choice to bury a problem became the exact mechanism for rescue.
• The Guarantee of the Setback: Why criticism, bad investments, and market shifts are 100% guaranteed, and how to prepare your response.
• The Victim Trap: Why looking at who is throwing the dirt keeps you stuck at the bottom of the well.
• The Great Icons of Adversity: Examining the massive failures behind the ultimate success of Walt Disney and KFC.
• The Shovel Riddle: A mindset shift to help you stop digging your own grave and start building a pile to reach the skylight.
• Daily Mental Recalibration: How to actively train your brain to extract lessons from terrible situations.

It’s time to stop complaining about the dirt being thrown your way. Shake it off, take a step up, and let's go!

👉 Take Action Today:
Visit JasonYarusi.com and take the FREE assessment to identify where you are on your journey. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
Rate, review, and subscribe to help us reach more people ready to live their best life.

🔥 Get in contact with me:

Website: https://form.jotform.com/240740659878168 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonyarusi/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jasonyarusi 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@liveonehundred 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonyarusi/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jason.yarusi

Transcript

0:00

And the question isn't whether or not dirt will be thrown on you. It will. The question is what do you do when it happens? Hey, let's look and talk about the farmer's donkey. You know, there's so many times in our life where we have this lesson that you're just gonna get buried. You just have to ask yourself, how do I climb up higher? And it might be that you're using everything being thrown at you. Just build yourself a little ramp to get yourself out of that mix. All right, let's go if you're tired, not feeling fit, tired, just having a focus, tired, just not having a life that you deserve. This is the place to be. I'm Jason Roosy. Today let's look and talk about the farmer's donkey. So there was this farmer who had this whole donkey, and on his property was this well that hadn't worked in years. And one day, the donkey just so happened to fall into this well. And that donkey cried and cried for hours and hours while the farmer just tried to figure out how to get the donkey out. And at a point, the farmer just decided that there wasn't a way. There wasn't his possibility to get this poor donkey out of this well. So he came up with the only option, and that was to bury the well and bury the donkey, right? The only way forward to just make this stop, make this go away. So he called upon his neighbor, and along with the neighbor, the farmer started to throw dirt down the well. And here was this poor donkey who at first just started to panic and cry louder and louder. But then something changed. And with every time there was a shovel of dirt that went onto the donkey's back, he just shook it off side to side. And lo and behold, the dirt started to pile up, and he started to step on top of that dirt. And the next shovel would come onto him and he would shake it off. And lo and behold, the dirt would start to pile up and more dirt came. And he shook it off and he stepped up and just another shovel. Shook it off, step up. Hour after hour, that dirt that intended to bury him was really the very thing that rescued him. Because lo and behold, as the well filled up to the top, here came this donkey who eventually stepped out of the well and walked away. You know, there's so many times in our life where we have this lesson that you're just gonna get buried. I mean, it could be criticism, failure, backlash, bad investments, stocks, health scares, criticism, all these things that are meant to bury you. And the question isn't whether or not dirt will be thrown on you. It will. The question is what do you do when it happens? You know, most people they sit at this bottom of the well and focus on who is throwing the dirt. The people always point out everything that's happened to them. And that's why at times when we're getting feedback, we look at it as them pointing the finger at us instead of someone trying to help pull us forward. Now, did the farmer intend for this to happen? I don't know. But the lesson here is that the donkey found a way to respond, to take what was a negative circumstance and look to how there can be a positive. You know, every great person has a wealth story. You think about this, right? Like the no movie has this arch where it's just greatness, great things, great things, great things at the end. I mean, Walt Disney, he was fired supposedly for lack of creativity. Colonel Sanders rejected over and over and over for what is now KFC. I there's story after story that you remember because someone went through adversity and found a way to fight through this to get to some positive result. Many times we have to take our brain and recalibrate our brain to think of things in a way that may not make logical sense. Now I'll ask you a riddle. A man is stuck inside of this building, and this building is built of just massive stone boulders, and this stone boulders go down 80 feet into the ground, and there's this dirt floor, and this the walls go up to about 12 to 13 feet in the air with a ceiling across for which there's a skylight. There's a door, but the door is a massive steel door that's about a foot thick, and all there is is a shovel. So how do you get out? And the first thing that comes to mind is that you take the shovel and you start to try to dig, right? And dig and dig and dig. Yet the foundation goes down 80 feet. So potentially, could you ever get through to dig all the way down? Well, what about the door? Well, the door is a foot thick. So could you try to pry the door up? It's probably not gonna work either. But when you change your mind to think that you start to dig, and every time you start to dig, you create a pile for the dirt that you've dug out of the hole. And eventually the pile will be so big that you'll be able to reach up 12 feet in the air, right, with that pile of dirt and reach that skylight to get out. And most times in our life, we're always looking at the negative. We forget to say that with every negative is an inverse, that's a positive. And how can we find the attraction that brings us closer to life, bring brings us closer to the thing that's great? What dirt are you constantly complaining about? Is it the failed partnership, a divorce, missed opportunity, uh, just the economy, what we're seeing on the news? And are you letting that thing bury you? Or are you looking at how your life can be used in a way to create positivity? What is this dirt that's being thrown on you? What is it building inside of you? What is it motivating? And you're gonna have dirt throw on you. Uh setbacks, they are not potentially going to happen. They are just absolutely guaranteed. And usually the setback is not, it's not when you think it's gonna happen. One day, you get a phone call. One day, you wake up not feeling well. One day, something happens that's completely outside your control and you're stuck in the middle trying to solve it. You know, when you think about adversity, you just have to ask yourself, how do I climb up higher? And it might be that you're using everything being thrown at you. Just build yourself a little ramp to get yourself out of that mix. Life is wonderful. Life has a ton of potential, but you have to see it. And if you can't clearly see it today, you have to start working in your mind daily to just ask that question. I know this isn't great, but what can I see that I can learn from that can create something good in the future? All right, that's what I have to do today. I'm JC Narusti. This is the Love Wunch Podcast. Let's do this.