TBBVA 113: How Loss and Tragedy Can Turn Into Something Positive

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Links Referenced:

• Impact: After the Crash (Documentary)

Tweetables:

Many are afraid because there’s no guarantee in business. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
If you put it out there and nothing happens, what have you lost? #vatip Gotta Tweet!
You have no idea what’s on the other side of the loss. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

On Video:

In Words:

Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant.  I am your host, Tiffany parson, and this is episode number 113.

I am coming to you just giving you some thoughts after watching this documentary.  I think it was on Amazon Video.  I’m not sure.  It’s called Impact: After the Crash and it’s a documentary about – I think it’s like over 20 years later after this school bus crash in Kentucky.

I never heard about the crash until seeing the documentary.  This happened back in 1988.  Fast-forward, I think the documentary was done in 2016.  It was just a very interesting story.  It was a youth group.  They had gone to Kings Dominion and they were coming back and were hit head-on by a drunk driver.

Now, I’m not going to go into the whole details about the documentary.  I’ll link it up in case you guys are interested in checking it out.  But there was something that one of the fathers said that stood out to me and I thought, gosh, you know, I want to share that on the podcast because it’s pretty much turning something really awful and tragic that happened into something positive.

When it comes to our businesses, sometimes we can take things out of context when things happen that are unexpected, not what we wanted.  We think it’s, you know, the worst.  But God has a way of turning things around.  This is what he said and, okay, let me give you his story real quick, real, real quick.  He lost his wife and his two daughters in this crash, so only he was left because he didn’t go on the trip.

Another lady, her husband and daughter were on the bus and she lost her husband.  Her daughter survived.  She had injuries and she survived.  Eventually, the two of them, the man that lost his wife and two daughters, and the lady that lost her husband whose daughter survived the accident, ended up getting together and falling in love and marrying.

What the guy says, he says God…oh, gosh, I just totally went blank.  God has a way for turning things around for us, and when we think we have lost everything, he has a way of giving it back to us in unexpected ways.  Then he said not only does he give it back to us, but he’s a bonus guy and he gives us more than what we lost.  That’s what he said.

When he was giving this, you know, sharing their story, oh, my gosh, I just cried.  I had to figure out why am I crying?  Am I crying because they lost their loved ones or am I crying because God is so good?  I have to, you know, do a self-check because anytime I’m watching something and somebody dies or passes away, I find myself crying and I have to do a little check.  A lot of times, it’s related to my own dad and just, you know, missing him and, you know, it’s like, oh, I lost him and all this stuff.  But today, it wasn’t about that.

It was about how good God is when we think we have lost everything, and how we get it back and then some.

A lot of times, people are afraid that because there’s no guarantee in business – whatever type business, there’s no guarantee.  They’re afraid they’re going to lose, lose money, lose time, lost clients, lost confidence, lose self-esteem.  They’re afraid they’re going to lose something.

This documentary, this portion of the documentary, because it wasn’t all about this man and his story.  It’s about all the families.  But this portion just reminded me, and I wanted to share it with you, that even in loss, there is a message in that, there’s a lesson in that, and there’s a reward in that, especially things that are out of our control.

All we can control is what we do.  If you put it out there about your virtual assistant services and nothing happens, which I don’t think will unless you just put it out there and, you know, where you know for sure nobody is going to see it.  If you put it out there and nothing happens, what have you lost?  Nothing.  Nothing.  We can’t be afraid to lose.

Let’s say you put it out there, you get lots of clients, and the next thing you know all the clients leave and you lose everything.  In reality, you lost clients.  You may have lost income.  But did you lose everything?  No.  You still have what you were giving to your clients – your services, your skills, your knowledge, your experience, your ability.  You still have all of that.

It also made me think about the time when I lost my job.  If you’ve been following the podcast for a while, you may or may not recall me sharing that I have been laid off twice and fired once in Corporate America.  The first time you get laid off, if you’ve ever been laid off, it’s devastating.  You do feel like you’ve lost everything.  What am I going to do?  I have mortgage and a car payment and a this and a that.  You know, you start thinking about all those things instantly.

But if you get caught up in what you might lose – because this is just on the initial, you know, just, you know, get your slip or your phone call or told in a meeting or however it works.  If you focus on that in the initial thing, it’s devastating.

But if you could fast-forward a few years from now, then you would see how if you step out and keep moving forward and do what you know you’ve been called to do, whether that’s start a virtual assistant business or some other type business, if you do it putting one foot in front of the other, then you’ll see not only does God give it back to you, but even more than you expected.

Now, this was a church group, church youth group.  I don’t know if I said that at the beginning about the documentary.  I do realize everybody listening to the podcast does not believe in God, but I do, and I know what he’s capable of.  Hearing their story was just a reminder to me, like I know what he’s done in my life.

But then you see this happen and people who have lost – he lost his wife, he lost his kids, and yet at the end of the day, he was able to put one foot in front of the other and found love again and even more because he was saying how he lost his wife.  God gave him a new wife.

He lost his two daughters.  Guess what?  His wife, his second wife, she had two daughters around the same age as his daughters, and the bonus was, the more that God gave him was – he only had two daughters.  He didn’t have any other kids.  But the bonus was she also had a third child and that child was a son.  He was saying all the things he thought he wouldn’t get to do, he got to do.

Oh, okay, I’m not going to cry on this podcast.  When you do video and podcast and crying, that’s just not a good match.  I cried before on the podcast, but just with audio.  I won’t do it on video [laughs.]  I still want you to be able to hear me.  But it just – I can feel it in my gut like, ah, wow.

I don’t know about you, but once you’ve hit whatever your bottom is, everybody’s bottom is different, and let’s say your bottom is the loss of a job, the loss of income, or I don’t know, the loss of a home.  We’ve had crazy hurricanes and things like that.  I don’t know what you’ve lost, but all of us at some point have experienced some type of loss.  Maybe it’s a loss of a loved one.

I encourage you to continue to move forward, continue to push.  You have no idea what’s on the other side of the loss, of the grief, of the being upset and frustrated and wanting to give up.  You have no idea what’s on the other side of it.

In August 2010 my dad passed away.  The very next month, I met my husband.  Actually, it wasn’t even a full month.  It was like my dad passed away August 28^th and his funeral was like September 2^nd, and the first time I met my husband, like got to talk to him, I knew of him but we actually talked and not knowing he was interested, was maybe a week or two later.

At that point in my life I felt like I had lost everything because, you know, material things don’t matter, but when you lose somebody, a parent, I mean, it’s like I don’t know.  Ten years later, I’m still adjusting to it and you don’t – the loss is always there.  Let’s just say it like that.  You know, it couldn’t get any worse than that to me.

I was in my 30s and so, you know, I’m like whatever, don’t matter.  You know, I wasn’t even thinking about, at that point, I don’t know, sometimes us ladies, we just like, oh, well, I’ll be single for life.  It’s cool [laughs] when you get in your 30s, right?  But that wasn’t the case.  It was almost like my dad sent my husband to me.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s what it was like.

Anyway, the whole point of this is just to let you know you may have experienced loss or be afraid that you will experience loss because you’ve stepped out to start a business.  Maybe it’s because you don’t have the support that you thought you would have.

I encourage you to put one foot in front of the other.  You don’t know what it’s going to look like on the other side.

Anyway, that is the message that I wanted to share with you today.  You can apply it to any area in your life, any area in your life.  Even now in my ninth year in business, I don’t see looking backwards.  I’ve lost clients.  I’ve lost income, you know.  But guess what?  I’ve gotten more clients, not just the clients to replace the clients that left, but even more than the clients who left, or the income.  Not just replacing the exact dollar, but more than the dollar that was lost.

I don’t want to get all emotional on that.  I don’t know.  I think somebody really, really needs to hear this today, and so I’m the one to come to you and share that with you.  I needed it and I know somebody else does.  Anyway, I’m going to stop now because I’m tapping my foot.  I see the camera moving and all that stuff.  I’m going to go get me some water and take a breath.

But anyway, I encourage you.  I hope this short podcast touched you in some way and really just got you moving forward in whatever it is that you’re supposed to be doing.  You’re here, so there’s something that you’re supposed to be doing.  Not just here listening and watching the podcast, but I mean like here on earth living and breathing to do those things.

You have a wonderful and fabulous day.  I’d love to hear from you.  Come over to my Facebook page.  Let me know what’s going on in your virtual assistant business.  Let me know how the podcast is influencing you, affecting you, a question you have.  Let me know.  I’m there every day.

Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.

See you next time!