Down and out is a bad position from which to recover.

Down but determined is a guarantee that in time things are going to get better.

Determination overcomes disappointment.

To come back from disappointment, match it with determination.

When Serena Williams loses, look out.

When one of Elon Musk’s Space-X rockets crashes and burns, he grows more determined.

When Steve Jobs got fired at Apple by the man he recruited to run it, there was no way he liked it, but Jobs immediately started another company that invented what today is the Apple operating system setting up his return.

Assisting bad breaks by harboring a bad attitude is no way to rebound.

Be dangerous with determination to overcome.

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I will never buy an outdoor grill that is not made by Weber.

For anything that goes wrong, they always make it right most recently replacing the entire cook box of a large grill because it was not performing up to Weber standards.

No begging, no threatening – no hassles.

Goodwill is the gold standard of customer virtues.

There are other companies that accept the consumer’s word without exception, but not many.  That’s why there is no shortage of irate entries on Yelp.

Consumers want to be believed when they call; not be put on trial to prove their point.  A picture, an answer within a half hour, a new cook box in less than a week.

Whenever possible in business as well in personal human relations, the person who can be first to say yes is the one to be championed and appreciated.

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Losing things in life is a bummer.

The more we lose, the unhappier we become.

It works the other way, too.

For every loss, a gain.

Empty nest?  Get that special place for the two of you.

Leaving the job you love?  Move immediately to find a new love.

Laurie Cantillo left as the successful and outstanding program director of WTOP in Washington but before accepting one of the many radio offers she received, Laurie pursued her passion – space – and took a job with NASA (She has since been promoted to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena).

What a role model!  Her son is interested in astrophysics.

For every loss of something we love, find something to gain.

Nothing is worse than the loss of enthusiasm for the next adventure in life.

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The pain of going through rough times is nothing to wish for.

But life is full of rough times and some people use challenging times to transform their lives into something better.

A broken relationship leads to an entirely new and rewarding one.

A lost job or failure to win a raise or promotion is painful but useful when the irritation can morph into something better.

A deep personal disappointment that cannot easily be shaken off can be used as a motivator that brings satisfaction.

When rough spots paralyze, they also continue to do their damage.

Pain transforms into eventual happiness when it is used as an agent of personal change and growth.

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Happiness just happens, right?

But it really doesn’t.

Sometimes things do happen that make us happy and we’re always chasing more of these random events.

People who are really happy are those who realize that happiness is a choice.

If you have to wait for something to come along to be happy, then you’re going to be unhappy a lot.

Even money doesn’t make us happy although we think it will.  Check with lottery winners a year or two after they got wealthy beyond their dreams.

Still unhappy with all that cash.

And when illness, loss or hard times bring us down, we can’t always reverse these things just because we don’t like them.

Happy because I have people who love me and who I love.

Happy that I survived tough times or a difficult situation.

Happy that I had the flu because it could have been worse.

Happy to lose my job, the next one changed my life (this happened to me).

Happy to come this close to losing my life because surviving it made me appreciate life even more.

As we said, happiness is a choice.

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There really is no such thing as the future.

There is only now – where we can live, love and feel fulfilled.

We think of the future as a place where we can get the things we really want but nobody can see the future and anyone who lives in that space will be constantly disappointed.

The future has a way of never arriving.

Dreams are another thing – they are the desires we have that will only come if we develop a path to attaining them.

Dreams are redeemable in the present where they can be fully enjoyed.

People who live constantly for tomorrow may not realize it but tomorrow never comes.

But dream and prepare a plan to realize it and they will be enjoyed in real time.

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In this age of social media and political directness, we have a right to stop verbal abuse.

By telling people who cannot seem to muster any human relations skills that you do not plan to be their target any longer, you are fairly saying be nice or be quiet.

It is your right.

Just because social media allows people to interact in ways that can be insulting, hurtful, embarrassing or abusive, the remedy is to set your rules.

Same goes for verbal conversations where people feel they can tread on feelings by bowling you over with some of the bravado that has become commonplace.

Philadelphia TV weather personality Cecily Tynan who also has tons of adoring fans for her meteorology as well as fashion sense, took a critic right down to the mat when the rude Facebook user started debating the appropriateness of an outfit she wore on television.

Tynan wasted no time putting that bully in place by writing “be nice or be quiet” to the delight of her other fans.

After all, it is her Facebook page and she controls her own life.

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The other day, long-suffering Philadelphia 76ers fans were actually screaming “Trust the Process” as a crowd chant during a game.

Trust the process is what management has been asking fans to do while they endured years of underperformance by the Sixers to get a better chance at a high lottery pick and thus restock the team with the best talent over time.

That, and a little lottery luck, has remade the Philadelphia 76ers into a playoff contender for the first time in a long time.

But wait …

Do the fans really know what they were collectively shouting?

Trust the process means be patient, good things will happen.

It strikes me that this is the shout out many of us need to give ourselves when change takes too long to happen or when we experience a loss of confidence.

Be patient.

Good things will happen.

Trust the process.

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1. Write down the top 25 things you want to do for the rest of your life.
2. Circle your top 5 goals.
3. Start planning how you are going to achieve those top 5 goals and cross off the other 20 goals and don’t spend any of your valuable time on them until you’ve accomplished the 5 most important goals.

Buffet who is renown for studying hundreds of companies to acquire but actually acts on very few says that really successful people say no to almost everything – the opposite of what most of us do.

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A study of 18 maritime disasters (ship sinking’s) over 3 centuries covering the fate of 15,000 people of more than 30 nationalities overturns widespread belief that women and children got off the boat first.

Captains and crew survived at a higher rate than women, children and male passengers.

Women do no better even if they represent a small share of the passengers on a sinking ship.

This leads the National Academy of Sciences that conducted the study to perhaps tongue-in-cheek say this human behavior can be described by the “expression every man for himself”.

More than gender wars, this study underscores the importance of understanding that when faced with a life or death situation, most people will take care of themselves first.

In friendships – even strong ones – it’s helpful to remember this human condition.

And it reminds everyone that they are ultimately and always in charge of caring for their own needs first.

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