Embracing Life's Unfair Moments

Life isn't fair.

The sooner we accept that truth, the sooner we can begin taking control of what actually matters: our response.

In this episode of Run With The Cheetahs, Russell Anderson and Jerry Freishtat revisit Chapter 13 of Jerry's book, From Victim to Victor, and explore one of the most important mindset shifts a person can make. 

Through personal stories, lessons from business, athletics, relationships, and life's toughest tragedies, they discuss why adversity is unavoidable and how extraordinary people learn to navigate setbacks without allowing them to define their future.

Jerry shares insights on resilience, preparation, personal responsibility, and the importance of building the mental toughness needed to face life's inevitable challenges. The conversation also examines grief, recovery, the power of perspective, and why no setback has to become a permanent identity.

Key themes include:

•  Victim vs. Victor mentality 
•  Resilience and recovery 
•  Why life isn't supposed to be fair 
•  The power of acceptance 
•  Plan B thinking 
•  Building mental toughness 
•  Learning from adversity 
•  Relationships and support systems 
•  Responding instead of reacting 
•  Creating positive outcomes despite difficult circumstances 

As Jerry reminds listeners:

"No defeat is a final defeat."

If you're facing a difficult season, this episode offers practical guidance, encouragement, and a roadmap for moving forward.

Run With The Cheetahs — Your Guide to an Extraordinary Life.

Jerry Freishtat
CEO of Wealth Climber | Serial Entrepreneur | Investor | Advisory for Startup Entrepreneurs | Speaker | Author | Committed to innovation, growth, and making a positive impact on the world.

Russell Anderson
Founder, President ACS Creative; Marketing & Design (30+ years of growing brands; global and local)
Serial Entrepreneur, Forever Student of Business - and Life

Buy the Book and Audiobook!
Amazon Audiobook
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Intro/Outro Music Credit
Big Thanks to Michael Fath for the use of The Emerald Isle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hva33IEU3SY&list=RDHva33IEU3SY&start_radio=1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People who understand that life isn't fair spend a lot of time preparing for the unfairness so that when it comes your way, you it's all how you handle it, which gets into this whole victor or victim mindset. Okay. If you have a victor mindset in advance of unfairness, it's not that it's not unfair, it is unfair, right? But how you handle it, how you respond, and the results is what life is all about.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Welcome to Run with the Cheetahs, the podcast. Podcast, this podcast, and I hope you've seen some of it before. But if not, if you're new, this podcast is the companion podcast to the book, Run with the Cheetahs, written by Mr. Jerry Freistadt. And uh we are so fortunate to have Mr. Freistatt with us every time we do one of these podcasts. And uh matter of fact, let me get him in here right now. Jerry, come on in and say hello to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Hey, hey there, Russell. Hey, another great day over here. Uh looking forward to getting going. Uh today, today we are going to go into one of life's greatest questions. And we'll we'll we are gonna jump into that here and and cut cover some really, really good content for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

You're right, Jerry. And as a matter of fact, you know, we've touched on this before. We've because this is one of our favorites, you know, and it's important. This is important stuff. Um I gotta say, folks, this book is pretty amazing. Today, we are actually gonna go revisit chapter 13, Jerry. I went back and, you know, I had to read chapter 13. The chapter 13 is called from From Victim to Victor, which fits so perfectly into our conversation today about life's not fair. And I, you know what? We're gonna go ahead and jump over some of this and just say, look, people, life's unfair. Life is unfair. There's there shouldn't be any surprise about it here at this point, okay? Life is unfair. So I've got two things I want to read to you from your book, and then we'll get started here. Many people let the world dictate their destiny. They have an inherent belief, no matter what I do, the world is unfair. It's just a matter of time until it's my turn to have negativity or even tragedy thrust upon me. That's right out of your book. Okay. Now I want to read, I want to read the follow-up to that, okay? Actually, and this is the lead in the chapter.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yep. In life, the comeback is always greater than the setback. Find those who have been in the trenches, who suffered difficult times, who may have lost everything, only to rebound to new heights on their ladder. I have never met anyone who has achieved anything worthwhile who didn't at some point recover from an event that caused severe pain and suffering. It's all part of the game. Jerry, we know life is unfair. We know that. We have we have to know that. Okay. I mean, and if if there are people new to this conversation, folks, life is unfair. It is. But Jerry, why is it so hard for us as adults to understand that?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Well, let me set the tone of this conversation. Let me set the tone of this conversation by asking you a question, right? Okay, so if we know up front life is unfair, randomness, negativity, stuff that's thrust, no matter what you do, no matter how great of a human being you are, no matter how much you work at something, something negative or tragic can be thrust upon you any moment, any time. You know, and I I always like to say, you know, we we all get that call, you know, that that call we don't want, right? And so if you know life is unfair upfront, can there be anything unfair about it? Well, I I know that's a great question. Right. And here's the basis of the question. It just comes back to mindset. And the reality of it is that the majority of people just don't prepare for it. Um, you see, you can't eliminate all randomness in life, but you can have a big influence on its outcome. Right? And now let me let me tell you just a quick story just to just to get things rolling here. Okay. Now, and this is this is not like you know, one of these like tragedy stories. It's just to convey how it all works. Okay. So uh, you know, a lot of you may know my athletic background was in golf, played collegiate golf and caddy on the PGA tour. And um, I was around some of the most elite players. I mean, it was it was just the most incredible experience ever. But let's just say you're out playing golf and you're a fairly good golfer, and you rip a drive right down the middle, 300 yards, just perfect position for your next shot. Everything's great. You walk out there and you get to where your ball is, and it's sitting in a divot from another player that either didn't fill the divot or some courses just leave their divots out there. But whatever it is, the ball is sitting in a divot. Not only is it sitting in a divot, it's sitting in the back edge of the divot. So you really even can't get the club on the back of the ball to hit your next shot. Okay. Well, the immediate reaction by almost everybody is, well, that's not fair. I just hit it right down the middle in the middle of the fairway, right? Okay, so the difference is that the amateur player, okay, walks up to that situation and essentially is self-defeated because of the circumstances. They they've already determined I have no way of hitting this next shot. I can't get it out of the divot. I don't know how to do it. Well, the PGA tour player has practiced that situation hundreds of times. Not only have they practiced it a hundred times, I guarantee you, Tiger Woods, Scotty Scheffler, Jack Nicholas, I don't care who you want to name, they've hit a hundred hundreds of shots out of that divot from the front of the divot, the back of the divot, the side of the divot, different depths down in the divot. So the so they're more prepared for the situation. And I find that in life in general, people who understand that life isn't fair spend a lot of time preparing for the unfairness so that when it comes your way, you it's all how you handle it, which gets into this whole victor or victim mindset. Okay. If you have a victor mindset in advance of unfairness, it's not that it's not unfair, it is unfair, right? But how you handle it, how you respond, and the results is what life is all about. Okay, so the person that comes up against a tough situation and just decides, uh, woe was me, here we go again, I can't believe this happened. They kind of go into this negative victimization that it just becomes part of you. It's part of who you are. And the exact opposite is true for people who live a victor lifestyle where they come into a situation that takes a lot of practice, takes years. I'm not saying this is an easy mindset to get into, but after you conquer it multiple times, every time you come up against those situations, and you you you may have a short-term, you may have short-term negativity that we all do, especially if it's a tragic situation. You know, there's a mourning period, whatever that might be. But you still have the capability of realizing that this is not all-encompassing. I've been here before, I'm gonna get through it. And and that's the difference. So um, you know, yes, life is very unfair, um, but how you respond to the unfairness will determine um, you know, your destiny.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Well, that's just fabulous. And I'll tell you what, it it hits on two things that I want to highlight. And and and just Jerry, just so you know, this is definitely not in order of our outline. Okay. Okay, but here's the deal. You know, you talk about a golf shot. Um, I want to talk about the scale of life is not fair for a minute. I want to talk about the continuum of life is not fair. You know, life is not fair at at the at the low end when you're in the Costco line, which is long, and then someone goes to open another register and they take people from the back or new people instead of bringing you over. That's an un some people would say that's unfair. That's unfair. You know, and then then we have we have traffic unfair things, okay? But and then we have tragic unfairness. Sickness, we have divorce. I mean, these are things that when they happened are really upsetting, unsettling to someone's life. I'll get to a couple more in a few minutes, but so we have this continuum of unfairness, and and here's the deal about it the mindset is really the big deal here. And and here's why. Here is why you mention it victim or victor. The truth of the matter is that you perform better. You as a human being, you as a person, your your person performs better when you have the victor mindset. When you have a victim mindset, you're not performing at your best. And and I mean, we could go into we can go deep on this, but that's a shortcut right there. That's a that's why this is important. People need to understand that life is not fair and we need to learn how to deal with it. Um that's just and and you you said it perfectly. And the shot having that shot in the divot, oh my god, that would be that would be awful, dude.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, I mean, it you know, it there, you know, what you're saying right now also just gets back to, you know, the optimistic life's lifestyle versus a pessimistic lifestyle, you know, which which, you know, again, there's a lot of reasons people are pessimistic and you know, and and have victimization mentalities and and things that they they feel they've been victim to or haven't experienced the ability or the right mentor, the right coach, or whatever it might be to get them to see things a different way. So um, you know, that's again that it's it's it's a uh it starts with a basic discipline of just an understanding and a realization that um that the world is not against me. As a matter of fact, if you if you take a look around, the world is weighed heavily in your favor.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Well, you know, I think that uh, you know, getting into expectations for a minute, I think most of us want and expect what we consider to be a fair and just world. You know, we we we expect this to be a just life, and in many ways it is, and unfortunately, in many ways it is not. And you have a you know, you have a comment about expectations, you know. Well, we here we are, we're talking, this is a run with the cheetahs, and you point out that even the fastest cheetah, the fastest animal on earth, loses most of its hunts. You know, what can nature teach us about expectations?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

So this world that we live in, okay, and another aspect of it is is, and this gets back to another thing I say in my book about the playing field, right? You know, and and you know, you can't change the playing field. So you have to accept that humans were designed this way, okay? The world is designed this way. I couldn't tell you why, but I mean the reality of it is, is think about it. What if there were no setbacks, no tragedies, no events, or anything like that? You know, the our our spirit is designed to deal with things and come back and do that again. You know, all animals, all animals except humans have an inherent built-in ability to compartmentalize situations, okay, because it's just nature. Okay, they don't have the brains that we have. So they they're every animal on earth is faced with random situations every day. They compartmentalize it, deal with it, fix it, and move to the next thing, and never even question anything, okay, because it's just in the nature of the way animals, animals are. And humans, whether you believe it or not, originally we were the same way. Because just like every other animal, our brains are wired for survival. But over time, what's happened is the evolution of abundance. And that gives us options. It gives us options to be lazy, unaccountable, weak. And because of that, in the modern world, and as as we've brains have developed and so forth, it becomes your obligation, okay, to embrace that cheetah mentality, okay, if you want to live an extra extraordinary life or a life of you know a victor mentality. You have to actually train yourself to do this stuff because you know 100,000 years ago, it was built in. You know, if you if you didn't, if you didn't, you know, go out and execute, you know, you you you died, right? There was there were there were no options. And those options we have in life today, in some ways, even though there's tremendous benefit to it, in some ways makes us a sadder society. And um, so it's your obligation to understand that, do hard things, and like Goggin says, calllous your mind, right? Yes, you callous your mind, and then these unfair things and these setbacks just become part of the game. I mean, it's just that simple. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

You know, I want to go back to uh I'll tell you what, Jerry, in in the 80s, I think I was in my late 20s or early 30s, I think, back in the 80s, and uh I remember when Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And I couldn't wait to read this. Because I I I thought, oh my goodness, here's a here's a man of God who's gonna really give me the bottom line on this and explain this to me. He's gonna explain to me why bad things happen to good people. It's a great book. It's been read by millions and millions of people. I think I still have my copy, actually. Great book. But the bottom line and what he says is that um yeah, bad things happen, there is no rhyme or reason to it, and the question becomes what do you do with it?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

That yeah, I mean that's the ultimate question. That's and and that's whether it's Rabbi Kushner or whether it's Jerry Freistadt, that becomes the question. What do you do with it?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So let's go into like the more severe things, you know, the you know, tragedies that happened, and you know, I mean, awful the death of a child. I mean, something just horrific things that take place in the life.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Which, by the way, that is what had happened with Rabbi Kushner. His son had progeria, I believe, and and he died, I believe, at the age of 14. He that's what drove him to seek and to write this book, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, and um, you know, and you know, in my youngest son a couple years ago was diagnosed with leukemia. Thank God everything is fine and he's he's recovered. But when you when those things happen, it's like regardless of the depth of the tragedy, and you're gonna go through a mourning period no matter what. Okay, that's that's again part of the human species and how we're made. But you have to at some point transition from that victim mentality back to the victor mentality. You have to somehow be able to put what happened in its in a in a in a compartment and be able to move on. Um, and again, because nothing is all-encompassing. So the the depth and length that you stay in that mourning period um will test your resilience to come back. And what I've learned now that I'm getting older is that when really negative things happen or financial laws, whatever it might be, that with experience, those mourning periods are shorter, shallower, not as painful. And you you've learned to have the resilience to bounce back. And the quicker you can come back, the reality of it is, is the better overall life that you that you're gonna live. Um you don't forget the tragedies in life. They don't go away. It's always gonna be part of you in your brain. Okay, and we talked about that in another podcast as well. But the trick is to overwrite them with positive input and actions to limit their impact in your daily thoughts. See, your daily thoughts are what create a victim mentality. Just this constant feeling of things that are not in your control. The world is, you know, throw you know, throwing these negative things at me and so forth. So, you know, your daily thoughts, the more input and positivity you get there, the quicker um you can bounce back um and get back on track. And as I said, pain doesn't go away. It's there, but you have to suppress it by overriding positive things.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

I I think it's so important that you have addressed, and I'm I'm gonna pause here just for emphasis on mourning. On mourning. Uh we we have to acknowledge the fact that when ugly stuff happens, there is gonna be a period of mourning. And we don't want to diminish that. We do not want to diminish that. Uh I'm gonna talk in a few minutes about you mentioned your son. I remember that, I remember that situation. Um, you know, my my wife's my wife's had breast cancer, your wife's had breast cancer. I mean, we we we in our own universes we've we've dealt with this, and uh but the worst, by the way, on that scale we were talking about of life's not fair, the worst situation, the worst thing from what I read and all the research that's been done is actually when you lose a child. Losing a child, and and here's the deal about this, by the way. A divorce and losing a child are very comparable as far as the heartache they cause immediately. Right. But as it turns out, losing a child is the much tougher one to come back from. Right. That's what the research shows. So I don't want us to skip over the fact of mourning in any situation is bad. By the way, if that drive into the fairway and that land in the divot, if that cost you the master's tournament, there'd be some mourning over that, you know? Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no doubt about that. There'd be some mourning over that. But uh, you know, but once again, so uh Jared, we maybe we've covered this already, but so people who are in the midst of these tragedies, they say, Why me? Or or when they're in the midst of this unfairness, they say, Why me? Why me?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that wrote uh Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Yeah, um, he he has one of my favorite quotes on this subject, and it it you know, he goes, Life isn't fair, it never will be. Quit trying to make it fair. You don't need it to be fair, and that last line is the whole key. Key to the whole thing. Okay. You don't have to have everything working. I mean, what would life be like if everything went your way all the time? That'd be pretty sweet, but never mind. Okay. So what I'm saying is, is like, you know, if you had the ability to eat out at a five-star restaurant every single night and have chefs serve you the greatest food every single day, well, after a couple months, guess what? It's not a big deal anymore, right? So the the setbacks in life essentially prime us for the benefits and joy in life. And there's a balance in there. But I think what Kiyasaki's really saying about this subject is that your approach needs to be tied to your core beliefs, right? When you're dealing with unfairness. You know, that last line of you don't need it to be fair. Again, if your core belief is, is that you know that unfairness is going to happen at random times, and I know that no matter what I do, um, you know, it's going to happen, then as a core belief, you understand that in the midst of those setbacks, that it's just part of the game. And you have to have the resilience just to bounce back from it. So I think, you know, that that that's kind of my answer to that one.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

I think it's fabulous. I think that's a fabulous answer. What a great quote that is. Uh that's excellent. You know, I want to go back to the just for a moment to the scale of unfairness and talk about how different people have slightly different mindsets. Now, again, we you and I, we've talked a little bit about this, and I happen to know one of your pain points, so I'll probably bring it up here in a minute. But like for me, I'll give you an example. If I'm in traffic, if I'm in traffic, and and then I do a lot of traveling up and down I-95. Okay, so I mean, you know, I mean, uh there's constantly construction going on, and you know, you run into a situation where a sign says left lane closed ahead, move right. Okay. So, you know, because I'm a because I'm a rule, a rule keeper, you know, kind of guy, if I see that sign, I move over to the right. And then a gazillion people are zooming past me in the left lane, okay? Now we listen, we've all been here doing this, okay? Now, I will just kind of say, uh, that's that's that's how it is, you know. That's that's it. That's you know, okay, but but I don't necessarily, but my wife, now my wife, she she is ticked off at those people that are zooming down there. You know, she she's got a she's working up an attitude, a bad attitude about these people. And the difference is this. The difference is then what mindset are you now in? I I'm in pretty much a complacent, happy-go-lucky. Okay, I'm in the right lane. I'm I'm sorry it's gonna take a little longer, but I'm I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And yeah, and she's pretty ticked off. So, I mean, she's ready to unleash, she's really to ready to unleash some fury on somebody if if need be. So again, the even in an everyday, very minor situation compared to what we're talking about as far as tragedy, these little things that go on, they they adjust your mindset. And when they adjust your mindset, if you're in a negative mindset, if you're in a victim mindset, you're not performing well. You're not performing at your best. And I just think that's important to realize that yes, mindset's important at in the big, in the in the ugly, in the big ugly, the the the death of a loved one, the divorce, mindset's really important. It's also important in all those little daily things that go on.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Right. And what what you just what you just said is what makes us all different, okay? So the person zooming down the right lane is okay. It could be me. It could be, but that person mentally is thinking, what's wrong with all these other people? Why are they why what they don't understand the efficiency of getting down as far as you can get down before you merge over? Maybe it's an efficiency, you know, I out of my book, being an efficiency freak, where everything that you do is maximized for maximum output and potential and things like that. So again, you know, there's not a right or wrong to this. I love it. No, I went to your question, right? Yeah, but you know, that that that's the that's the understanding. So, you know, your your wife is really upset about those people, and those people are wondering what's wrong with everybody else. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

I love every bit about this. Okay, so Jerry, here you go. You made reservations for your wife's birthday dinner. Okay? A tough place to get reservations at, but you made reservations a couple weeks in advance, and you you two show up for dinner. You go up to the girl at the at the desk and you say, I'm here, and she says, Great, Mr. Freistadt, we'll have your table here in just a moment. And then while you're standing there waiting, another couple walks up and they say, uh, you know, we didn't we don't have any reservations, any chance of getting in here. And she says, Maybe we can work you in. So then, so then you get seated, and then these other people get seated several tables away from you. And the servers come up and deal with them first. Those servers come up and deal with them first. And they're they're taking their order, and and you haven't even seen a server yet. Now, I I know you well enough to know that that sets you off.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Well, the part of the reason that that's so anything, any inefficiency, because I'm a career 40-year entrepreneur, run multiple businesses, and and and and I've always been in the you know consumer-related businesses. Um, I understand, you know, the importance of that. So my my aggravation a lot of times is this is not a well-run company.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Right. Yeah. Or these these people weren't trained properly, right? Okay. And um and as everybody knows, there's not too many well-run companies, right? So, you know, it's something that, yeah, does that bother me? And would I be agitated and aggravated about it? I 100% would be. Um, but you know, again, that's one of those things, getting back to the two people in the lanes, you know, that's that's a pet peeve of mine because of my previous experiences and understanding what it takes to take care of a customer.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

And and the reason, again, that I bring that up, the reason I bring it up is because I just want to point out to people that your victim victor attitude in even these smaller things affects your performance. Now, you are likely not to be quite as kind, giving, and loving in those next few minutes with anyone else that's, you know, as you would be normally. I know you're a jovial, glowing kind of guy, but boy, if that happened to you, you you you'd be you'd be a little bit miffed there for a bitch, you know. So it's important to understand how your our attitudes are affected by these happenings, and we need to work as hard as we can at understanding you can overcome all this. Um, so I'm gonna jump to I'm gonna jump to some people that I call plan A people. And I don't know whether you know any of these people or not. You know, I I know a couple of plan A people. Um and these are people that either had their life tracked out, I mean, they had a plan. They had they had a plan for their life. I mean, you know, it was go to high school, go to college, you know, get married, have a couple kids. I mean, they they had it. They they knew where they were going. Or that's one situation. Another situation was uh a gentleman who from early on wanted to be uh an attorney or wanted to be a doctor, either one. Yep, and uh these plan A people get to where they were going, and then something's not right. They're not right, they're miserable. Okay, they're miserable.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, and in that scenario where somebody plans out their life and it turns out the way they planned it happens 0% of the time.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Oh, that's uh yeah. In other words, the life works out like they planned it, you're saying. Never. Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah, so so you know, those people feel like victims. I mean, those people really feel like life's not fair. I mean, they have had a they have had a solid gold plan, they have the checked all the boxes, I mean, they've done what they're supposed to do, and then it doesn't work out. And it's tough for those people. Those people get hit hard. I mean, they get hit hard. I mean, I think, and I think some of them never recover from that, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, I mean, a part of the reason that those people go so many years with being able to execute that plan is because they're risk averse. Right? So, so they spend they spend most of their life or most of the time making sure nothing goes wrong, right? And and that and reality is that can work for a while. You know, that that that that can work for a while, okay? But uh it doesn't prepare you for for the realities of the world or the realities of life when when something does happen like that. I mean, um the you know, those people, I think not just those people, but for some reason, some people have victimization set in that just lasts a lifetime. I mean, and and they and these are these are the saddest stories, by the way. I mean, people, these people are very unhappy and they die unhappy. Um, and uh, so I think that um in the your plan A people and and and people like that, you the key is you have to have the ability to change directions, pivot, recharge, start the comeback from whatever the setback is. And, you know, and probably the tenth time we've already said this, but you have to get in victor mode. I mean, it there's no if you want to live an extraordinary, fulfilled, happy, resilient life, you have to spend the majority of your time in a positive outlook, positive vision. And the other thing is the people that go into long-term victimization, they don't realize that when you start over, you start over with knowledge that you didn't have before. And that puts you just that step from the bottom, just that what you learned and whatever that setback was, that puts you one rung up on that ladder, and that's how you start again. No doubt. You have to yeah, you take the information and say, okay, whoa, that didn't work, not doing that again. Okay, and you learn something, and then you're on to the next thing. And um, and that that's what victors do. I mean, there there's there's no um there's another perceived thing that that that always bothers me. And you know, I see this sometimes when I go speak speak places. You know, people have this perception that, whoa, man, look at this guy. You know, he's got the five kid, five successful kids, amazing wife, you know, financially hit it big. I mean, all this other stuff. But but the but that's not the reality. The reality of it is is I have setbacks all the time. All the time. I know. And and people need to understand that I don't care who your idol is or who your who who you uh you know think your greatest mentor is going to be, I think every one of those people is gonna tell you they're no different than you, right? It's just how they respond to a setback or respond to unfairness that makes the difference so that a larger percentage of your time, which is turns into a percentage of your life, is spent in a growth, healthy, expanding, you know, happy um world. And uh, and if you fall in that victim mode, and um, you know, I I know some people, um, you know, just to describe the other side of it, um, I know some people that got divorced and became a victim to that their whole life. Absolutely, yes. Yes. Like, you know, just like, oh, you know, I'm a failure, and that there's no, there's no moving on, and and you know, whatever it might be. And uh, and that can happen to you with any big setback or or failure or anything like that. So um, you know, the ability to pick yourself up, move on, and as I said, get that one more rung up that ladder, that first step up that that first rung, that's the hardest one after after a setback, but it's the launching point to uh to expansion.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

That's fantastic stuff. I'm gonna I want to go back just for a minute and finish up on my plan A, people, because here I want to give those people the secret for a better life. Plan A, people. Let me tell you what you can't wait to hear that. You need plan B. You need plan B. Okay, that's the answer. Okay, plan A did not work. Plan B is what you need. And and get with it. Get on it, get with it, you know. And uh, and uh the other little comment I have here is that stop uh stop following the map and start reading the terrain. You know what I mean? You know, uh you know, they say, Jerry, and this is so true, they say the best business leaders, and by the way, I believe this to the core of my soul. The best business leaders, the first thing they have to do is understand reality. They can't, they can't have a they can't have a distorted, inflated vision of what well of where they are in business. They got to be able to see where things are. So I think it's the same thing for people. We need to really be able to have an understanding of where things really are, and then assume the appropriate mindset for being able to move forward. Plan B. I love plan B. Plan B is great. I mean, you can do a lot with plan B. So on my plan A, people, when that thing fails for you, your answer is plan B. Let's get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yep. All right, totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

All right, so you know, now let's go. I'm gonna go to the deep, deep, deep pain just for a minute. Answers are pretty much the same, but I'll I want to talk about it. So I have a couple of people in my universe, um, and both of these situations are fresh enough. And when I say fresh enough, I'm gonna say within five years. These are two people, these people do not know each other, both have lost a child. In this case, both due to suicide. Both case to do a suicide. Um the pain is the pain's indescribable. I mean, it it's indescribable. And my I my heart, my heart cries for these people. I mean, it's it's awful. It's awful. And so I I I think again we have to acknowledge that there is mourning. There is a there is a grieving. There is a grieving period. And I don't have any uh I don't have any idea how long that is. And as I mentioned earlier, the research shows that the recovery from losing a child is the longest recovery of any of the pain points. I mean, divorce you could you overcome quicker. I know some people don't, as you just mentioned. But generally speaking, the research shows, so I don't know quite what to say to these people, except do your best to do your best to understand you're gonna grieve and to accept accept the situation, surrender to the situation. And again, what really brought this whole topic to mind for me is one of my one of these people, young lady I know who lost a child, lost a son. Um Divine Surrender. And uh, you know, it's it's a matter of you finally get to that point at some point where you just say, I can't do it, I'm done. I'm done, I can't do it anymore, I can't take it anymore, I'm done. And the good news about divine surrender is that even when you finally have left it out there, you're done, you're you're you're out. Now you have to move forward. It so it is your line, which I've seen, it's accept and I f and and and and and move forward. It's accept and move forward. Don't deny.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah, yeah, accept and correct.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Accept and correct. Thank you, Jerry. Accept and correct. And that might not be the perfect language for that situation, but the bottom line, so you you and I think we all for a moment can understand if if that sort of an unfortunate thing happened to you, it would be it would be just as painful as you can imagine. But that divine surrender, if you get to a point where you just finally have given up.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

You've given up. Yeah, I mean, on this subject, you know, like we, you know, people in the self-help arena like us and everything else, you know, we we're the majority of us are like anti-therapy. You know, my you know, someone says, oh, I, you know, their woe is me on small issues and trying to get little things in their life straight and everything else. You know, my answer to that is go to the gym. But, you know, in in these, in these tragic situations, Russell, I I I am a big believer in, you know, there are times, you know, where you need to seek professional help. And and my advice on that is is um, you know, and and I cover this in my book about only only 10% of people are at the top of their field in what they do. So if you go seek professional help for these types of circumstances, you've got to make sure you're with the right people. Yes. And and and it's very hard to do. But um, you know, there's um there are things in life, I mean, it's very sad that are, you know, really tough to overcome. Really tough.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

And uh um, but you've but hopefully for those people that you know and everybody else that's listening that may have a similar situation, hopefully you find something. You know, I mean, and and find find a launching launching point to, you know, kind of, you know, honor, honor the loss in a in a positive way of what they would want for you, um, and and try to you know live live as full a life as possible.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

No, you're right. You try and live as full a life as possible in spite of what has happened. I think that's good. Uh two things I got for you. Well, that then we're gonna turn the corner on that. And that was, I think we that was important that we stated all that. Two things. Uh Stephen Covey, whose book you know has been a tremendous bestseller. What's the name of his book?

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Seven habits of highly effective people.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yes, and that's a great it's a great book. And by the way, one of the guys that works with me, that is his Bible. He absolutely loves that book and just just keeps it on his desk all the time. But you know, one of Stephen Covey's things is this, and I think this is great for what we're talking about today. He says, 10%, he says, own your 90%. Own your 90. 10% of life is what happens to you.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Own your 90. Okay, take it from there. 10% is what's gonna happen. Own your 90%. I think that's just fantastic. I think that's great stuff. And then the other one I'm gonna bring up at this point is, you know, I wrote to you uh several weeks ago after getting an email from Brian Kite, K-I-G-H-T. And by the way, folks, I'm gonna say Brian Kite has a has a newsletter uh that goes out, I think, every day. It's called Daily Discipline. It's really good stuff, it's fantastic stuff. And he sent a newsletter out a couple of weeks ago that I forwarded on to Jerry. It had a lot to do with life is not fair. But Brian Kite's main premise is a formula that he introduces and he he references this all the time. And the formula is E plus R equals zero. Excuse me. Equals O, not zero, equals O. And so that's and what that is is that's an event plus your response equals outcome. And if we just stop for just a second. Here's the deal. The only thing you really have any control over in that formula is your response. In other words, something happens, the event, you now have a response, and there will be an outcome. And by the way, I mean, he he drills this non-stop because it is so true. I mean, it is so very true. So, I mean, that's how we should look at most everything. There's an event. How are we going to respond? And there will be a new, fresh outcome.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Probably a good time to bring up the first part of that, the events. Yes. You know, um, you know, there's again, this is one of just one of those phenomenon things that that people need to be aware of. Um, is that like most people know somebody or or a few people or whatever that um seems like no matter what they do, no matter what happens, there's just negativity, bad things in their life, bad outcomes, you know, just can't get anywhere, complaining, whatever it might be. And then on the other side of that, there's people, it just seems like everything they touch turns to gold. Right. So, you know, I'm I'm here to tell you, okay, that it's not a coincidence, right? That in that whole thing about which which category you may fall in, you know, has to do with your uh you know, your mindset and your daily behaviors and and what you do and what your actions are. Um and I'm gonna go back to to being uh people who are risk averse. If you're risk averse, nothing good can happen. Right? But the negative randomness of life is built into everyone. Okay, so without having the taking risk and challenges and executing and trying new things, you take away the upside, and all you have is the downside. Wow. And and that's what happens to people that I just described, where it just seems like whatever they happen, whatever they do, something bad's going on, the negativity. And the people who are super risk takers are winning all the time. They still have the losses, same losses as the other guy, but they have the wins. And then the more the wins come, and the more you get experience and understanding how life works, it's just a random phenomenon that it's way less likely that random negative things happen to you. That's just the and it, you know, I guess the best way of describing this is health and wellness. If you're if you're if you're a health and wellness person, you know, living in a uh, you know, extreme healthy lifestyle with nutrition, exercise, and all those things, the randomness chances of a negative medical issue happening to you are cut, I'm gonna say 80-90% versus the person who's unhealthy doing all those other things. So people don't look at it that way. If you step back and look at it from that perspective, you have a lot of control on the randomness that happens in your life. And that's what, and that's why you see the person that everything turns to gold and the person that everything's a disaster. So that's we do have more control than we think.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

You know, Jerry, we have we're gonna be doing an upcoming segment, this will be in the next six to eight weeks, on how one finds strength after some of these real tough losses. And and you and I both know, and and and most people should acknowledge this, but if they haven't experienced any real hardships, they may not really understand it. I mean, you and I both know that after having divorces, which we've both had, and after having losses in business, which we both have had, and have having health challenges in our family. We know that after you endure some of these things, after you go through these things, your resilience to things in the future gets better. You're stronger going forward. So you've said it earlier today, I believe. Those setbacks are shallower than they would have been initially because they have built up some resilience. That's an important thing to know. That's an important thing to know.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Yeah, and that's why when you describe that scenario, you know, that that process, the first tragedy of the first major setback is that is by far the toughest. And that and that's why it's uh I'm literally gonna say it's almost easy. It almost happened to me. Almost happened to me in my divorce. Almost easy to fall into that lifetime victim mode. And uh so uh getting through that first one and the only way, and you know, people always ask me, well, how how did how did you recover from that? You know, what how what what was what was the moment? What what what transition to get you on the right track? And and you know, the I don't really know. I don't really know the answer to that question, but there's there was a there was um a just a certain discipline that just just came across me after two years of, you know, I had four little kids at the time, and I just I just woke up one day and I just said, I can't be like this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

I think you said, I think I can almost imagine you saying, I've got to do better than this. I've got to do better than that.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And and so, you know, and again, I think that's just part of, you know, again, somebody a professional in the field can answer this a lot better than me. But it's part of that mourning process where I don't know how long it takes or or how low you go or anything else, but you get to a certain point where just the tide turns. And um, and for people who are going through real tough times, you you need to embrace that mindset that it may not be today, next week, or next month, but the tide is going to turn.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Wow, good stuff. Jerry, I think we uh, boy, we've we've covered some we've covered some good stuff here. And I I think we want to wrap this up a little bit. Let me ask you this. If our listener, if a listener that's out there right now is going through a real tough, deeply unfair season right now, what is the one thing they can control today to start moving forward?

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Well, for those of you that watch this and have read my book and follow me, you you know one of my favorite sayings is the Abraham Lincoln quote of no defeat is a final defeat. And um I know that's a real tough thing to hear when you're in the middle of it, but it eventually you you do come out of it. Um, you know, setbacks related to random circumstances. I like to view it, and and I'm real good at doing this now. Okay, I was I wasn't years ago, and real good at doing this now, but I view it as simply part of the game. Yeah. I mean, and I and I I almost look at life as a game. You know, it's a game of odds and percentages of just trying to execute at the highest level I can, uh, be great in all the areas of my life. I want to be a great father, a great husband, community, relationships, um, business, whatever it might be. I want to excel in all those areas and and be the best I can. Um, but I definitely have the ability to look at it as um as a setback, as a test. It's literally a test, or um you can you can even look at it as like a puzzle you need to solve. And when when you get in that, when you get that mindset, um even even the tough ones now, even the tough ones, had a few tough ones lately, um you're you're able to handle it better and and realize that you know, with time, execution, effort, you know, things you know will improve. And you know what? To wrap this up, I just had another thought about this whole thing. Please. One of the greatest things that happened to me over all the years is resources and relationships. So when you're younger, try and find those key people. Like our relationship, Russell, you and I, okay, that's a treasured relationship. Okay, and and each, everybody should have, you know, several of those people that you can count on, people you can go to, depending on the circumstances. I mean, there's not a whole lot that can happen in business to me that I don't have a resource to call and at least get some input, get some advice, you know, get some direction. You know, whereas when you're left out on an island all by yourself and you don't have those relationships, yeah, these comebacks are way harder.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna read something here that as kind of a wrap-up, and then if you have a last word, I'd love to hear it. But here's this ladies and gentlemen, life is not fair. It never was and it never will be. But you are not defined by what happens to you. You are defined by how you respond to what happens to you. Be a cheetah, accept the terrain, surrender to what is, then run anyway with the pack beside you. What do you say, Jerry?

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Yeah, I love that whole thing. Um, yeah, I think I think my final thought on this uh topic for today is um I want people to get in a mindset of acceptance. Yes. You know, acceptance that unfairness is inherent in human beings, inherent in the world. It's gonna get gonna get thrown at you, you know, um, you know, randomly, time to time, at different depths, um, and and and different levels. And um you you need to wake up every day knowing that that is embedded in in the you know lifelong game that you're playing. So um, and and let's just go back. Let me wrap it up with this. If you like, if you know life is unfair, can there be anything unfair about it?

SPEAKER_02 55:10

I love it. That's great. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Ladies and gentlemen, well, Jerry, thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, um, first off, if you're new to us and you're still with us here at almost an hour, well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for staying with us. If you liked what you heard, please give us a like, share this with people. So maybe somebody you know is going through a tough time. This might be something good to hear uh for them. It might be helpful. Uh, I want to recommend once again, this book is amazing. Uh, you know, I I've read it several times, but I went back and got into chapter 13 before this because I wanted to review some of the things. It's fantastic material. And I also want to let you know uh, you know, Jerry is available for speaking engagements. He uh can do things local in the Washington Metro area, and he can also do some travel and get out to wherever you are. So if your organization or business has a need for someone to come in and really speak the truth and get people going on the right track, Jerry is the man, let me tell you. I've heard him. He's fantastic. So I want to thank you for joining us today, and uh, we will uh see you soon with another podcast here in a couple of weeks. We've got a couple of real nice topics coming up. Jerry, thank you so much. Talk to you soon. We got a new one coming up soon. See you, buddy.