Show Transcript

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Here's the truth. Life is messy. Things are going to happen to you that you don't want.

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Things are going to happen to you that you didn't plan for, that you never could have expected.

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But here's the kicker. You might not be in control of what happens to you,

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but you are 100% in control of how you react to it.

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And that, my friend, is the magic of the situation.

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That's exactly what we're exploring inside of today's episode.

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So with that, I hope you're ready for it. This is episode 325.

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Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life? Because those bad days,

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they're just doors to better days.

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And that's exactly what we do here at Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life,

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turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight up inspiration,

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motivation, and encouragement just for you.

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So kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

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Let me ask you this. Do you ever feel like life is a game of dodgeball?

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Yeah, you're back in elementary school, and you're the only one who's being pelted by the ball.

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Time after time, you have the dodgeball flying past your head,

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maybe every once in a while hitting you right in the face.

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The hits, they just keep coming one after another. Feels like you can't even

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catch your breath. You can't even recover from one hit before another one smacks you in the other side.

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Basically, you're doing nothing

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but dodging, blocking, trying to escape what life is throwing at you.

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But here's what today is about. What if you switch things up?

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What if you quit playing defense and switched over to offense?

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What I'm talking about is what if you stop dodging those challenges and you

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step into them? You catch that ball and you catch it and you throw it back with even more force.

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Because life, my friend, it's not about avoiding challenges.

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No, it's about embracing them. It's about catching them and returning them with

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even more force, making it into your good.

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The topic of today's episode was inspired by my interview with Alethea Felton,

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who I introduced you inside of our last episode.

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That would have been episode 324. she

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is an incredible woman who's been through more

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than most people can imagine and honestly

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you could say that she was dealt a bad hand and yet

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if you heard her and heard her story and met her and heard her spirit coming

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through her voice you will know that aletheia felton when she looks at the glass

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she doesn't see it just as half full she sees that glass is overflowing flowing.

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This mindset is powerful. It's pivotal.

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And I want you to be able to start to look at life that way for yourself.

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Now, I understand for some people, it comes easier than others.

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I think it just comes down to our personality.

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But today, I'm going to work with you. I'm going to coach you through it.

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I'm going to have you ready to start looking at things from a different view.

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Because this, my friend, is about a mindset that things are happening for you, not to you.

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And when you can adopt this type of mindset shift, it changes everything.

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I want you to think about life's challenges like weights in a gym.

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At first, the first day in the gym, you know they're heavy. They feel almost impossible to lift.

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You struggle just to lift even the littlest weight.

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But But you know, the more you go, the more reps you put in,

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the stronger you get, the easier it is to pick them up.

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And before you know it, you're lifting more and more weight than you ever thought possible.

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It's not that the weights or in this regard, the challenges are any less.

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No, you are just becoming stronger. You are becoming a person who's able to

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handle it a little bit more and a little bit more because you're becoming a

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bigger, better version of you.

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Every obstacle is just another rep. It's not about the weight.

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It's about the muscle you're building, the strength you're gaining,

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the person you're becoming.

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And that, my friend, is how you grow. It's how you step into a new version of you.

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It's how you get to show up as your best self.

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The fact is true, I know it as well as you do, that we're all gonna get hit

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by things in life that we can't control.

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It's part of life. It's part of growing.

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But what I feel separates the people who thrive versus those who crumble in the face of challenges.

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Is all on how they react to it.

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Basically, when you walk outside and it's raining, do you get upset and do you

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get angry at the weather and think, oh my gosh?

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Or do you say, screw it, let's dance in the rain.

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You get to make the decision. It's like that with everything in life.

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We can't control what happens. We can't control when it rains,

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but we can control how we view it. what a reaction is to it.

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It's the same thing with the challenges you face, the struggles you go through, the hardships.

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Now, I'm not saying that things are easy and I'm not trying to lighten what you're going through.

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No, trust me when I say I understand that life can be very difficult.

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Things can be really hard. And at times, life is just honestly totally unfair.

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But what I'm telling you is that in the big picture of things,

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I'm trying to give you a tool today, a mindset shift that's going to help you get through it.

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Because the faster you can overcome it, the faster you can get past that challenge,

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and basically turn it into a force of good for you, the quicker you're going

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to get back to a life that you love again.

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And that's what I want for you. I want you to get past the challenges,

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overcome the hurdles, and get back to loving life.

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To living life the way that you want to.

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Alethea Felton, she didn't get to choose her health challenges,

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but she sure did choose how she shows up each and every day.

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Her glass is overflowing because she chose that it would be.

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She made that decision. She decided to show up every day to look at it from

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a different view, to see the good instead of the bad, to focus on the positives

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instead of the negatives.

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She decided to see her glass not as just half full, but overflowing.

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So, my friend, here's the application. Here's the challenge.

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Is the next time that life throws something at you that you didn't expect.

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That seems like it's screwing everything up. Maybe it's a setback,

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a catastrophe, something that's just ruined the day or maybe impacting your life.

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I want you at some point to remember to stop, to breathe.

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And I want you to remind yourself that I may not be able to control what just

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happened, but I do control me.

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I control how I react to it. I control how I show up from this point forward.

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When you decide to react with intention, with strength, with a mindset that

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no matter what, you're going to keep pushing through it.

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That has you showing up. That has you leaving a legacy.

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It has people looking at you in a way you never could have imagined before.

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And again, it's possible for you.

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Even if you're somebody who's viewed the glass as half empty, that's a choice.

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You can choose to view it as half full or better yet, you can choose to view it as overflowing.

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It doesn't mean that it's easy. It might take some work, but the more you put

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in the reps like you would at the gym, the stronger you're going to become,

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the better you're going to get at turning challenges into opportunities for

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finding the good and the bad.

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Because remember, my friend, there's always a rainbow after the rain.

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The powerful message here is that when you do this, when you flip the script

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on life, on life's challenges, you stop being a victim.

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Instead, you get to become the author of your own story.

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Let me repeat that. When you adopt this mindset, you stop being a victim of

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life circumstances, and you instead turn into the author of your own story.

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You are in control of how you react to the things that happen.

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So to end, I'm going to take it back full circle to where we began.

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You're back in gym class. You're playing dodgeball. But this time,

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well, Well, it's as an adult and the dodgeballs are actually the challenges of life.

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But this time, instead of ducking, instead of running away, instead of being

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scared, I want you to step into it. You don't let that ball hit you in the chest.

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No, you catch it and you return it stronger and faster than it ever came at you.

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That is what you are capable of. I believe in you.

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I know you are able and deserving of doing this because, my friend,

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you deserve everything that you ever could want in this life.

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Sometimes we just got to be brave enough, strong enough to grab the challenges

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like we're grabbing a bull by the horns and figure out how can we ride this

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thing for everything it's worth,

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turning it into something for my good.

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And that, my friend, is today's episode.

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Short, sweet, hopefully powerful, hopefully inspiring.

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And if nothing else, I hope that maybe you were a little bit entertained today

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with all of my metaphors and examples.

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But honestly, the hope is always that today's episode can mean something to you.

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Making today a little bit better than yesterday.

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And hopefully tomorrow, even better.

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Music.