Just in case you need to hear this…
Bad things happen in life, and people can be mean. But we don’t have to let these things define us. You can turn your worst day into your best day by focusing on the good instead of the bad.
Last week started to be great for me. But five minutes turned one day into one of my worst days in a long time. In telling you about it, I want to help you prepare to cope with bad things. Regretfully at some point, they will happen.
It began well
But first, let me tell you a little about last week and what wrecked it. My week started well. I went to Tony Robbins’ Unshakeable seminar. I first attended a Tony Robbins seminar at the Crowne Plaza across from NRG Stadium in Houston years ago. Last week’s conference was as information-packed and inspirational as the first one. And there were a few points showing how you can turn your worst day into your best day.
It ended badly
So let me tell you what made one of my worst days, and then I can get to the part that will help you. Thursday, I went to the grocery store, and I was assaulted by three men recording a prank to put on social media. While shopping, two men came up behind me and shoved food in my face while the third recorded it on their smartphone.
It was over in five minutes. There is a segment of the population that finds stuff like that funny, but it wasn’t. It was sincerely traumatic to me. The part I am having trouble getting over is how angry it made me. I filed a police report. Two of the three were identified, and they have been issued citations.
Moving on
I’m not going to belabor the incident. I am sharing it with you mainly to illustrate that bad things happen. But you can turn your worst day into your best day by choosing to focus on the good in life instead of the bad.
With this in mind, I am sharing what happened to me for two reasons. First, I need not make the incident worse in my mind than it was. What happened was mean and childish. But I can’t let that change me. Frankly, I am still working on that. In the second place, I want to use my incident to share strategies on how to get by bad days. Then again, if this seems like a far-flung connection, bear with me for a moment because this is critically important.
This part will help
My job is helping people with their retirement, and I know that not every day will be their best day. Regretfully, when you retire, you will have bad days. However, knowing how to handle them or having a strategy will help immensely. Now I’ll be honest with you and say that I have never talked to a client about being prepared for an assault. Even so, this shows that unexpected things will happen. And if you have a plan, you’ll handle those unexpected things much better.
In total, you can classify anything that might happen to you within six risks that you may face in retirement:
- Risk of going broke
- Risk of not working
- Risk of getting older
- Risk of investments
- Risk of government change
- Risk of family dilemmas
So, if you are retired and you get assaulted, what risk will you put that under, and how can you handle it? Let’s think about this for a moment. In my opinion, I’d put assault under risk of family dilemmas. The risk of family dilemmas includes many bad things that can happen, from coping with natural disasters to assaults.
A visual to help
When you put together a financial retirement plan, your advisor should discuss what to do in light of each of the six risks. The overall point in planning for the risks of family dilemmas is being prepared. I have created an infographic to help you see areas that you should be aware of in planning for the risk of family dilemmas and several solutions to consider. You can download the infographic here.
So how can you use this information to turn your worst day into your best day? Let’s take my circumstance. I am going to use something I picked up from Tony Robbins. He said, “see things for what they are, but not worse.”
As much as I hate what happened, as far as I can tell, I was not physically hurt. There is a possibility for some health issues, but I will not go into that now. Even so, having adequate insurance is one way to prepare for family dilemmas such as assault, natural disasters, accidents, thefts, or interfamily issues.
Where social networks fit
Having a support network is the most significant part of taking the worst day and turning it into your best day. All things considered, that network, for me, is family. But it can be different for you. Having someone to talk to who cares about you is your most valuable asset. If you don’t have family, being part of a social network of friends through social groups can be a valuable resource in times of trouble. And I don’t mean social media. You can have friends on social media. But I would contend friends you only know through social media are not those you will turn to when bad things happen.
Be active
As you grow older, your social networks will get smaller because your work usually has its social network. Keep in mind that you get out of social networks what you put into them. For example, if you show up to Church every Sunday but don’t participate, when you need help, no one will know who you are. So my advice is to work on your personal networks.
I hope that telling you what happened to me and sharing how you can use that occurrence to turn your worst day into your best day has been helpful.
As always, to end today, remember that this information is for educational purposes only. This information is not investment, accounting, or tax advice. For those things, you need to find yourself a good fiduciary advisor. 😉
Have a great week,
Van
PS, here are some other great topics from my blog that may interest you.
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