I'm no stranger to adversity.
I walked away from a secure corporate job and launched a new business in the middle of the great recession wildly underestimating the change and challenge I was going to endure.
When Covid hit, and live events went to zero overnight, I remember journaling: “I just lost 90% of my revenue. It’s gone. I don’t know when it’s coming back.”
We're all going to be served some measure of unexpected challenge, change, adversity, difficulty and pain in our lives. Navigating those circumstances is less about what happens to you and more about how you respond. That’s what ultimately shapes your future.
What Is Post-Traumatic Growth?
Post-traumatic growth is the positive psychological change that some individuals experience after a life crisis or traumatic event. Post-traumatic growth doesn’t deny deep distress, but rather posits that adversity can unintentionally yield changes in understanding oneself, others, and the world.
Those two experiences, when my world seemed like it was collapsing, turned out to be defining moments, because they served as the catalyst to propel me into a significant season of growth and a new direction that was more aligned with who I wanted to become.
Post-traumatic growth goes beyond resilience. Rather than persevering through challenging circumstances, it represents the capacity to reflect, grow, and truly shift one’s perspective.
3 Questions to Ask When Adversity Hits
Now, whenever I'm faced with real adversity, I consider a series of questions that helps me maintain a growth mindset:
What Can I Learn From This?
Every challenge you face is an opportunity for you to learn, grow and evolve. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed and default to negative thinking when things go awry. A better formula is to extract the learning and focus forward without getting stuck in cycles of rumination or regret. Our darkest moments can become defining when we are awake to lessons.
Where's the Opportunity I'm Not Seeing?
Adversity narrows your focus. Widen it back out. A failure doesn't define me. And it doesn’t define you. Success is iterative. That setback is the setup for the next breakthrough.
How Can I Make Decisions Today I'm Proud of 6 months From Now?
Action mitigates fear. Once you have a plan and start moving down the path, you start to get some momentum and progress toward what you need to accomplish. In a very painful situation, what you're trying to do is chip away — and progress actually feels good.
Recognizing Your Next Breakthrough
I have come to refer to those two experiences as my “two mountains.” When my “third mountain” arrived in 2025, I was able to reflect back on those previous seasons of adversity and leverage those 3 critical questions to summon another season of meaningful growth.
That doesn’t mean it was easy or the pain was eliminated. However, it did serve to reinforce for me that the setback was merely the set up for the next breakthrough.
I invite you to reflect on the setbacks you have faced in your life. What did you learn? And, if you are navigating a season of adversity right now, what is the opportunity you might not be seeing?
