I was reading the book, “Ego Is The Enemy” by Ryan Holiday this evening and a chapter titled “Fight Club Moments.” In the chapter Ryan outlines many points on a basic premise:
Almost everyone hits a rock bottom. The lessons that follow hitting rock bottom are either felt or because of the ego are ignored and then repeated again which is a vicious cycle.
It would be nice if it didn’t have to be that way. If we could nicely be nudged to correct our ways if a quiet admonishment was what it took to shoo away illusions if we could manage to circumvent ego on our own. But this is often just not so.
That last paragraph is a section in the chapter. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Again, just being vulnerable I’ve had so many experiences in my life where I hit “rock bottom” literally and metaphorically and the lessons that come with it are so profound if you can take the time to truly understand them.
Here is what I would really challenge you to do. If you are going through something in life right now - the loss of a loving relationship, financial loss, loss of your health, loss of a job, just bad news in general. Take time to really reflect. Get vulnerable with yourself and be really honest with yourself on what you would have done to make the situation turn out differently.
What could you have done better? How did I let this happen? How can I make sure it never happens again?
My biggest issue guys and I’ve stated this before was I tied my identity as a person and my worth to being a success in business and the fear of this caused me to lose the greatest person I’ve ever had in my life. That’s just the truth.
Listen to me. Feel those nudges now, feel the weight of the situation now, understand in the moment what you need to do to improve. I really wish I had and now understand the 100+ things I would have done differently.
This is such a big lesson because we will all face tough situations in life, the rock bottoms. Just don’t miss out on the lessons if they do happen and try to also recognize them in the moment.
