“Show me someone who has done something worthwhile.
And I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.”
- Lou Holz.
Building wealth is never a walk in the park and never will be. In our quest to create wealth, we will always suffer some form of adversity. However, we must see adversity as a teacher, something temporary and transient. We should see adversity as a test of our determination and character. The richest people in the world at some point in their lives must have experienced one form or another of adversity. Overcoming adversity must have prepared them for the wealth they have been able to accumulate. Therefore, you should take a few minutes of your time to discover the role of adversity in creating wealth.
At some point a study of three hundred successful people was conducted involving the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and the like. The study revealed that a quarter of those studied had disabilities such as blindness, deafness or crippled limbs. Three-quarters were born into poverty, came from broken homes, or at least came from extremely stressful or disturbed situations. The point to be made here is that there is no great man or rich man who has not experienced some form of adversity or another. What we see is wealth or success, but not the adversity they have suffered and used to propel themselves to wealth and greatness.
The richest are the biggest failures in life. Just as they expect success in their quest to build wealth, they also expect failure and therefore prepare for it. Adversity is the price you have to pay for your success in creating wealth. Therefore, to build wealth, you must accept adversity when it calls and learn from it. Look for the positive side of any adversity and discard it. This is because every adversity carries with it a gift. It is that gift that the rich look for when adversity calls. Never see adversity as a punishment, but as a way to propel yourself towards success in creating wealth. In the words of Dolly Parton: “If you want to see the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” In the quest to build wealth, we are bound to meet adversity and we must overcome it.
However, adversity is not optional. Misfortune can befall both good and bad people. Both the rich and the poor suffer misfortunes. Even the righteous suffer misfortunes. However much you cannot decide whether or not you will meet misfortune, you can decide, like the rich, not to remain permanently under the shadow of misfortune. You should learn like the rich, that there is no peace without problems, no rest without tension, no laughter without sadness, no worries without struggle, and that is the price we have to pay to live.