091 – Take Charge Of Your Life - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE…
Today’s episode is inspired by another one of our listeners; This letter comes to us all the way from Australia!  I knew we had listeners in Australia but this is the first letter I have received from down under.Luke from Australia is a 28 year old professional fire fighter…but it wasn’t always so.  In Luke’s letter he told me that seven years ago he was a huge partier…every weekend and every other weekday that’s all he and his friends did…was party and have fun, drinking and carrying on and all the other activities you might imagine would go along with that lifestyle.  Luke said he was a university bum who was cruising through life with no direction or purpose.

After one of these all night binge party’s it all came to an end when Luke got arrested and thrown in jail.  For the next three months he was living in terror and uncertainty because he had court looming over his head and if he were convicted, it would seriously alter his future in a negative way because his chances for employment would be nil.  He was also in torment from the embarrassment and pain he caused his parents.It was during this time that Luke made a promise to himself.  He promised himself that if he beat the conviction and got a second chance that he would not waste it….he would work incredibly hard and do his very best, to be his very best, and redeem himself.

Luke got the second chance he had been hoping for, and he went to work changing his life.  His close friends became his biggest obstacle because they didn’t understand why he didn’t want to party his life away anymore.  In spite of that peer pressure, he prevailed.He spent the next five years finishing his degree, and then he was able to gain entrance into the fire brigade.  In Australia, that is a very difficult thing to do.  It is a coveted position that tens of thousands of people apply to each year.  It usually takes four years and has an impossible 7 stage recruitment process…but Luke kept at it, he persevered,and ultimately got the position he set out to. 

Luke thinks that if he had not gotten arrested when he was 21, that he wouldn’t be where he was today.  He credits that seemingly negative experience with causing him to gain a new perspective, a perspective that he needed, in order to be successful.I think Luke is exactly right, and thats the topic of today’s episode;  Using bad experiences, turning them around and making something good out of them.

If Luke would not have gotten arrested that night seven years ago…he might still be partying!  Sometimes it takes something huge to make us wake up, look around, and see whats going on.  Not everyone does though.There are plenty of guys that were in Luke’s shoes who just used that bad experience as an excuse to party even harder.  Luke went the other way, Luke became a better man because of it.I can relate to his experience because I got arrested for driving under the influence when I was 23.  I had a wife and three small kids at the time and it really made me feel like the most worthless man who had ever been born, I was ashamed beyond measure.  I could have easily became depressed and felt sorry for myself and blame my circumstances and situations and continue on spiraling downward. 

Instead I got my act together, kind of like Luke did.  I started making a distinction between the things that were important and the things that were not.  I stopped drinking completely for four years and focused on my new priorities.So…bad things happen to all of us.  All of us at some point in our life will be faced with a heavy burden of our own making.  Or we may have some other external tragedy  to deal with. 

Some of us will prevail, like Luke did, while others will begin a long slow circle around the drain of life.Whats the difference?  Why will something like this make some guys better and make other...

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