Rewrite the Script

This past week I was fortunate to have an opportunity to meet with a young couple who was going through some rough times. Almost everything that could go poorly happened to them over the past few years. I was honored when they allowed me to try to help them with their current financial struggles.

We met at a local restaurant for lunch and they shared with me their ‘story’. It was sad. Very sad. It reminded me of a line I use quite often: “Bad things happen to good people”.

So, we sat and talked and then worked on a game plan. The plan would help them to reduce some expenses, earn some additional income and in months, be out of debt. We agreed to meet again over the summer to ‘take a temperature check’ and to make certain they had followed the plan and were ready for the fun part: using the excess cash to build an emergency fund, possibly buy a new car, think about owning a house, etc.

As I finished helping them develop their plan, I watched their demeanor switch from hopeless to hopeful. From woeful to encouraged. From beaten down to looking up.

One hour of sitting together, acknowledging their difficult times and then ‘rebooting’ seemed to give this couple new hope. They sort of ‘rescripted’ their lives right in front of my eyes.

As I look back on my life this was important for me to do as well on several occasions:

I remember working for a loser of a boss when I was young. He demanded I place my job above my family. He demanded that as his subordinate, I needed to remain at work until after he left each evening. It made matters worse that I was a morning person and I arrived at 7 am each day and he arrived at 10am. I wanted to leave at a normal hour to have dinner with my family or to watch their sporting events. He was a night person and stayed until 8-9pm. Can you imagine my disdain for him each night as I sat there waiting for him to leave feeling trapped by my circumstances?

I remember moving my family to Florida to work for a company only to find out that there were some undisclosed financial shortfalls and the company was in shambles and closed less than six months after I arrived. I was out of work with four other mouths to feed, a house payment, two car payments and no business network to rely on in South Florida.

I remember getting up at 4am and driving 65 miles up the Garden State Parkway each morning and then back each night and working in a cubicle all day absolutely hating my job. (I commuted as I didn’t want to keep uprooting my kids for my work).

We all have stories like this. I am not trying to pull anyone down. The moral of the story is that these events didn’t define me. And if you have had a string of bad luck or unfortunate issues, I am here encouraging you not to allow them to define you either.

One day after observing how much Barb loved being a home health nurse and having her encourage me to enter the field, I took a gamble. I listened when a recruiter called and offered me a chance to “rescript” my career or ‘my story’ and to get into hospice and home care. I listened and responded when I heard that little voice in my mind and heart that said to ‘go for it’ and that I was worthy and that I could do it.

In 1988, I edited my career, no I rewrote the whole damn story and jumped feet first into hospice and home care. Amazingly and very quickly, I realized I found this is where I needed and was meant to be.

Once I made the move, I loved going to work most days, felt as if I was making a difference in the lives of many and seemed to have some nice success at it as well.

Funny how that is, when you do something you like, you seem to do it well. I remember saying many times, I would do this for free. Wow! From hating my boss or commute or work to loving it. From allowing my negative circumstances to affect my morale and my relationships to having my new one bless them.

Bad things happen to good people. Some really bad things! But we have a choice. We can let them define us or we can change the script. We can follow the path they have placed us or we can create a new path.

Failure is only permanent if we let it define us that way and remain ‘stuck in the muck.’ In most cases, setbacks really hurt but they can also really prepare us for success in the future.

It is up to us to take a breath in life, analyze the circumstances, ask for help from family, friends and God and if we don’t like the way the play reads, rewrite it.

In the end, it’s our own personal play and we have control of the pen.

With a goal to “help the next guy in line”, Glen Cavallo, a 30+ year executive has chosen to share the many lessons he has learned with others. Glen does this by serving as a coach/advisor to leaders at all levels of organizations, as a board member and as he presents inspirational speeches at regional, national, annual and awards meetings.