Seven Pieces of Motivation to Help You Rise up When You Reach Rock Bottom
Here is my most shared tweet this week:
Killer Advice for 2022
- Be 1% better each day
- Work after hours on a side hustle
- Publish your thoughts on social media
- Get around people slightly ahead of you
- Be friendly to every person you meet
- Build more than you consume
- Launch a newsletter
- Study Web 3.0
Seven Pieces of Motivation to Help You Rise up When You Reach Rock Bottom
Rock bottom is worse than the navy seals’ “Hell Week.”
It’s the lowest point in your life. The idea is to get out of there as soon as you can. I’ve been there plenty of times, and written about it. My job in life is to keep you moving forward and help you rise up if you fall.
Time to get back up, if you feel down.
“You get to do this”
A friend of mine hit rock bottom when his son was born autistic.
The doctor explains to him in the hospital that he will need round-the-clock care. And that one day his son will need to be in a “home.” As a result my friend can’t take holidays or live the digital nomad life. He’s confined to a state of Australia for the rest of his existence.
The hardest thing he has to deal with is that his son will (almost certainly) die before he will. My friend’s mission until that fateful day is to continue to make a daily sacrifice right up to his son’s last breath.
One night a few months ago, he was in the shower with his son as he can’t wash himself. A gentle smile came across his face.
He said to himself I get to do this.
When you hit rock bottom, don’t forget that you get to do something billions of people in cemeteries can’t do anymore: live.
Sick children aren’t a burden. They’re an opportunity to make something great out of life. They’re a powerful reason to live life to the fullest.
Society is at rock bottom
There are far too many grey and white hair grandpas in parliaments all around the world.
A lack of diversity has led to old school thinking and a slower rate of change. Society has suffered because of it.
There’s enormous hope though.
The country of Namibia (part of Africa) have elected 22-year-old, Patience Masua, as the youngest member of parliament.
In the country of El Salvador a 40-year-old man named Nayib Bukele is making waves. He put forward a bill to switch his country’s currency to become the extremely naughty Bitcoin.
Now he’s using computers that run off electricity from volcanic energy to mine Bitcoin. It’s not uncommon for him to tweet “buy the dip” when the Bitcoin price fluctuates.
More opportunities will arise for you as a result of diversity.
Never ever give up
Filipina Hidilyn Diaz left home and went to Malaysia to train for the olympics.
Not long after, a global health crisis forced the world into lockdown. For the next few years she lived in exile. Gyms became shut. The only place to train was in an open-air carport.
Malaysia is scorching hot so conditions weren’t ideal. She trained through it and got the gold medal. She smashed records.
That’s not the best part. This was her fourth olympics. She defied the odds and finally got gold. Hidilyn isn’t special. She just understands the #1 rule of success: never give up.
Her losses made the win possible. Rock bottom became a superhuman story for Filipinas all around the world.
Don’t give up. Try again.
Giving up is a deadly sin — CJ Johnson
Chase an obsession to the ends of the Earth
When rock bottom finds you, and it will, there’s a simple solution: get yourself an obsession. A few years ago I went through a David and Goliath fight with mental illness.
The result: writing online became my obsession.
There’s something about an obsession. It transcends hard work and takes you to another dimension. The longer you pursue your new obsession, the further away rock bottom becomes.
What knocked me down in life became the greatest motivation I’ve ever had to rise up again. 500m views of my writing have reinforced that lesson.
A healthy obsession is the best distraction from rock bottom.
Look for a powerful catalyst
At 24 David Goggins had the world against him. His Mr Potato-shaped body pissed him right off. He came from an abusive family. To top it off he had a learning disability, severe asthma, a stutter, and low self-esteem.
At the time his job was to spray cockroaches. On the couch one night he accidentally watched a documentary about the US navy seals. His life would never be the same again.
He eventually made it to the seals. Later he became an unconventional marathon runner that broke multiple human (and athletic) barriers.
One tweet. One article. One video.
One thing can be the catalyst to change your life and take you away from rock bottom. Keep looking. Embrace online content.
Sometimes, the ducks line up in a way you don’t see or comprehend until later —Linda Caroll
The mental battle is the way
Every glamour has its price.
Most people think the price of winning — of greatness — is hard work and sacrifice. But beyond that, it’s also the mental battle. The constant drumbeat of dissatisfaction.
There is no end to it.
Consistent high achievers learn to make peace with it — Julie Zhuo
Rock bottom feels like sh*t.
What if it’s not a powerful place? Another way to look at rock bottom is as one big mental battle. What doesn’t screw you up makes you stronger. When I won the war against my mind everything changed.
I realized that the point of rock bottom isn’t to kick you in the genitalia. Nope. It’s to upgrade your mind. To make you believe new things. To make you mentally tougher so next time you won’t fall into a dark hole again.
Losing everything can make you a billionaire
Charlie Munger got a divorce at age 29 and lost everything.
Two years later his son died of Leukemia. In a twist of fate, without insurance, he lost everything for the second time.
At the age of 50 he had to have standard cataract eye surgery. The left eye became blind afterward. Ongoing pain continued in that eye. Eventually, Charlie cut his losses.
The doctors removed his left eye and replaced it with a glass one. With one eye left, the drama continued.
Doctors told him that he had a rare condition that could cause his right eye to fill up with blood and lead to complete blindness. Charlie began to learn brail with the expectation blindness was inevitable.
The condition has since gone away. He still has the full use of his right eye at the age of 97.
Since losing everything multiple times, Charlie became a billionaire.
Loss equals good luck in another area of life.
Rock bottom boils down to this
All of us are going to hit rock bottom many times in life.
We won’t know the source of our pain. One day we’ll simply wake up and a freight train will come out of nowhere and knock us down. What happens after is a story. After a while rock bottom will become a past experience.
Author Mark Manson provides the #1 benefit of hitting rock bottom. “You get to rewrite the narratives around your past experiences.”
What has happened is a story. You get to retell it. You’ll tell your grandkids one day. When you write the story you can make it an empowering one. You can take all the crap that has happened and make it someone else’s gift.
Rock bottom is an incredible gift. Use it.
Tim Denning
P.S. – My Substack publication “Unfiltered” is a great way to upgrade your mindset so you can access new opportunities. It’s raw and will knock your socks off. You can ask questions there too.
