How to Turn a Loss into a Win

In 1917 there was an 18 year old boy in Kentucky who fell off his horse and broke his leg.

Two weeks later the draft was instated by the U.S. government for WWI.

The boy was excluded from the draft due to injury.

The broken leg likely saved the boy's life.

There are many things in life that are undeniably bad to which I'd never pretend you can apply this psychological reframe that I'll be writing about today.

But there are some very impactful mental exercises you can go through to alter your mood while in an undesirable state.

Here's an insane reality to keep in mind: today, in the present world we live in, almost 50 MILLION people across the globe are trapped in slavery.

So if we keep this exercise focused on small day to day things that often cause frustration (Wifi not working, sitting in traffic, being in the only seat on the entire plane with a tv that doesn't work), there's almost no real reason to ever get worked up on a relative basis.

But just like anyone else, I of course often get angry and frustrated about the DUMBEST things.

I went to the DMV this past Friday. Horrific experience. Take every DMV cliche you can think of and multiply it by 10.

Stay as far away as physically possible from the Bayonne, NJ Department of Motor Vehicles.

During our 2.5 hour "nightmare" where Amy and I were trying to get NJ licenses and our car registered in New Jersey, I got incredibly frustrated. Basically foaming at the mouth.

But at one point during my peak internal fury, I tried to take a step back and recalibrate my mental state.

And you know what I did? I thought about the slaves.

I said to myself: "You know what Hal, what you're experiencing is not even close to a real problem. In fact, you should be embarrassed that you're complaining about this at all given the very real problems other people are going through. You're at the DMV right now because you need to get your car registered in New Jersey so you can get preferential parking near the beautiful new condo you just bought in Hoboken. Talk about first world problems."

My frustration level de-escalated from a 10 to about an 8 I'd say. That's not bad, I'll take it.

But I didn't stop there. I continued this line of thinking and asked myself if there was a way to turn the current situation into a positive.

And while thinking about that, inspiration for this email struck me all at once, and here I am now writing it a couple days later.

So my terrible DMV experience provided direct inspiration for the HTHC weekly email, inspiration that I sometimes have difficulty finding.

And since I jotted down some notes and technically did some work while there - I think that means I can write off my gas mileage to and from the DMV as a business expense? Wow, I just banked two quick W's right there.

The WWI example above also demonstrates how there can be a delayed positive that comes out of a situation.

In the moment, breaking your leg is without question a horrible experience. But only a couple days later, it was the best "break" of that boy's life.

I'm fully aware you can only take this exercise so far.

But the next time you start getting angry or frustrated about a small, day to day item, think about the slaves. Or the boy who broke his leg during WWI.

I bet it calms you down a bit.

Stay well this week, Hal the Health Coach