The more it hurts, the harder it will be to forget

Timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

I started my own publishing company my senior year of college, during the boom time of the early two thousands.

And to say that time was on my side would be a huge understatement. There were numerous tailwinds at my back, economically, cultural and technologically.

Generation x had entered into the workplace, and organizations and mainstream media finally began valuing our opinions.

Blogging, print on demand and other independent content production platforms emerged as legit.

Selling business books, making speeches, doing consulting and selling on ecommerce was a highly profitable career with virtually zero barriers to entry.

The best part was, the market wasn’t too crowded yet. With the dawn of internet meme culture, it was alarmingly easy to stand out, earn people’s attention, build this cool new thing called a personal brand, and leverage it for material gain.

I was in my twenties at the time, and was almost surprised every time I got booked to speak at a conference. If one of my books made national news, my response was to laugh first, cheer second.

All I do is wear a nametag every day, and this fortune five hundred company is paying me thousands to show up and tell stories? It just didn’t seem real.

Keep in mind, social media hadn’t been invented yet, and influencers weren’t even a thing yet, so it was the wild, wild west out there. And my peers and I had the time of our lives.

We profited greatly from this fertile period, which lasted a good six or seven years.

However, the economic pendulum eventually swung back in a massive way. The housing market crashed, sent our economy into a recession, and all of the sudden, my business dried up faster than a dollop of hand sanitizer.

It was like crickets out there. Clients stopped buying. Consumers stopped reading. Colleagues disappeared left and right. And I personally caught my first case of the humbles.

I realized I had been riding my bike downhill and assuming my legs were strong the whole time. But now that the land had leveled out, I actually had to pedal. Or in my case, peddle.

I felt disoriented, overwhelmed and paranoid. The ground was shifting under my feet, and I was grasping at entrepreneurial straws like a drowning man. Pulling out all the tricks to drum up new business.

Some of which did work. I was still able to pay my mortgage and go out to dinner. Although looking back, it really was beginning of the end. I hung in there for another three or four years, but eventually saw the writing on the wall.

Ultimately leading me to retire and pivot careers away from a freelance roll into full time corporate employment.

Galloway writes about this journey is his fantastic book about the algebra of happiness. He explains that all bubbles are hallucinogens for the viably of products and services in the marketplace. If you’re doing really well, realize that much of it isn’t your fault. You were swept up in a boom.

This humility results in your living within your means and will prepare you financially and psychologically for the next card you’re dealt. And when the next part of the cycle shows up, and it will, you can take solace knowing again it’s not your fault, and you aren’t the idiot the market might make you feel you are.

What boom are you currently swept up in? How might you use the current wave of optimism to become more resilient when the bubble bursts?

The hard part is, the first time you’re inside a boom or bubble, you’re not aware it’s happening. Or why you ended up there. Or how to get out of there.

Kind of like the first time you have an anxiety or panic attack. It’s an experience that’s one hundred percent foreign to you, and since you don’t have the language to name it or the tools to tame it, all you can do is collapse into a heap of tears on the floor, and assume you’re dying.

Which, of course, you’re not. Nobody dies from anxiety or panic attacks. It simply feels like you will, since the symptoms like chest pains and shortness of breath are similar to the ones you get from serious medical conditions like heart attacks.

Back to my original thesis. Timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. If you are in the middle of something major right now, a mental health issue, physical alteration, career reinvention, or some other significant transition, be thankful. Gratitude is gravity.

The earlier and more often these things happen to you, the better equipped you’re going to be down the road. The suffering you endure today pays you back tenfold tomorrow. Because the insight and perspective and humility you earn accrues compound interest.

And as long as you reinvest that wisdom, you will evolve into the next iteration of yourself.

One mantra that helps me during such difficult times is, the more it hurts, the harder it will be to forget.

I know it sounds masochistic, but it’s a worthy to story to help me cope in the moment. Saying those words doesn’t reduce life’s pain, but it does give me hope that my suffering will not be in vain.

I can think to myself, wow this sucks right now, but good. This moment is searing onto my brain, making a deposit into my emotional savings account for future withdrawal. I trust those funds will be available to me in due time.

Notice that my objective here is not the elimination of difficult feelings, but being present with whatever life brings, and then using that to move toward valued behavior. It’s a positive spiral. The greater understanding of my emotions leads to a better understanding of the truth.

Ultimately, booms and busts come for us all. Life always finds a way to pop the bubble of reality that we have come to regard as secure and eternal.

But as disorienting as it can feel, we trust that every fragment of hope we stumble upon is real.

What insight, perspective and humility are you earning that’s accruing compound interest?