How Hitting Rock Bottom Can Give You a Clue to Your True Calling.

At 25 years, Lisa Nichols was a single parent with a newborn son and living on welfare. Her son’s father was in Los Angeles County jail, and she found herself on her own with nowhere to turn. Things took a turn for the worse when one day her son, Jalani, ran out of pampers; when she tried to withdraw $20 from her bank account to buy the pampers, she only had $11.42.

That $11.42 was the only money Lisa had in her name. Confuse and depress with tears in her eyes, Lisa wrapped her son in a towel for two days. As she sat to ponder her next move, Lisa put her hand on Jelani’s belly and told him, with tears streaming down her face “don’t worry Jalani, Mommy will never, ever be this broke again.”

That was Lisa Nichols rock bottom moment. She was broke and broken, now the question is how do you pick yourself up, muster up the energy and move forward. According to Maria Stenvinkel, in today’s Instagram and Facebook-friendly world we’re often bombarded with success stories. We see where other people are and we are not. We look at others successes and compare our work-in-progress.

Often we don’t take notice of someone until they’ve reached a particular goal, topped a best seller list or created a multi million business. Only then do they get noticed and celebrated. That’s our reference point.

But, here’s the thing: many of those who have created successful and fulfilling lives were once at rock bottom. Many of them have suffered and struggled massively. In fact, rock bottom was the foundation many of them build upon. Everyone has issues, no one is immune.

James Altucher for instance founded a web design company and sold it two years later for $10 million. Then, due to bad investments, he lost everything and almost committed suicide. In an interview, he said that he had realized that he couldn’t judge his “self-worth by his net worth.” Eventually, he made his fortune back as a fund manager, blogger, and podcaster.

“The only truly safe thing you can do is to try over and over again. To go for it, to get rejected, to repeat, to strive, to wish. Without rejection there is no frontier, there is no passion, and there is no magic.” ― James Altucher

“Don’t Judge your self-worth by your net worth”

When failure is fresh, and it's yours, it's often hard to believe that recovery, let alone success, is possible. But it is possible. Lisa Nichols embraced her weaknesses, worked really, really hard to turn her shortcomings into strengths and blocked out the negative opinions and noise around her.

Lisa Nichols now leads a multimillion-dollar enterprise. She is a media personality whose television appearances have included “Oprah” Steve Harvey and the “Today” show. She is also a New York Times best-selling author. But 20 + years ago, she was a single mom on welfare who had hit bottom hard.

She fought her way back, make tremendous sacrifice, believed in herself and turn her life around and in turn dedicated her life to help people turn around theirs as well.

“Maybe the reason why all the doors are closed so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.” Katy Perry

Change happens when we see no other option. When we’re uncomfortable in our comfort zone. When the pain of staying where we are is greater than that of change. That’s when we take charge and steer our lives in a different direction.

If you are at your rock-bottom moment right now, don’t panic, your situation is temporary. Everything in life is seasonal, so what you are experiencing will pass. Anything you focus on, you will attract so it is important you focus your attention on things that can build and assist you with your self development.

If you need assistance may be I can help, drop me an email at [email protected] and let’s work together to make your life more purposeful. In many instances rock bottom comes to steer us toward our true calling.

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Gifford is the founder of Leadership First, a leadership community dedicated to inspiring every leader into creating a great organization, one their employees will enjoy. Help us achieve our purpose, SUBSCRIBE to our community and get exclusive leadership articles from the best leadership minds in the world. Let's change the leadership status quo and inspire every leader into great leadership. Leadership First