A sister asked me how did I go through my Dark Night of the Soul Journey and come out on top? How did I devastatingly lose the company that I built, only to rise back up with a better outlook on life?
April 16, 2015, I will never forget that day. I had sent out a letter to all my staff, about 500 people, announcing that I was stepping down as the President of my company.
Deeply ashamed of my failure, I was even scared to go to my kids’ school. I felt that I had failed, failed to protect my clients, and failed to lead my team.
During those dark months, I was sad and mad. I was sad about the betrayals. I was mad at myself for taking eyes off the road and not seeing the storm that had come. I had started the company in my tiny kitchen, full of passion, and grew it to be one of the biggest mental health agencies in our community, serving thousands of clients a month. Now that was all taken from me.
But deep down, I knew that life happens for me, not to me.
Even the betrayals and the losses, they were all part of life lessons.
This week, I am serving as a Senior Leader at Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery. Today, we learned from Keith Cunningham, an amazing teacher, who shared with us his $100 million lesson that he learned in life. He only learned it after he lost everything 40 years ago and had to start all over again. That was his Dark Night of the Soul Journey. But because he turned it around and grew from it, today, he is impacting hundreds and thousands of lives.
Lives are being turned upside down during this pandemic. Unemployment is skyrocketing and there is so much fear in the media. In a time of crisis, sometimes we forget that life happens for us, not to us. Everything happens for a reason and leaders are the ones that seize the opportunity to grow and to give back.
I want to use all the skills I learned through my dark times, to help sisters to survive and thrive during these uncertain times. So I founded Athena Sisterhood in the midst of COVID-19.
We are the creators of our lives. We determine the direction it goes. I know, there is no failure in life. Only lessons.
Love,
WeiLi
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