How to turn SETBACKS into SUCCESSES

I’ve experienced more setbacks — relationships, professional, and financial, to name a few — than I care to remember.

Among other things, I got bankrupt in 2011. When I did, my only option on the table was to fly away from the country that was my home at the time, into Switzerland, the country where I was born, that I had left 41 years earlier, in 1980, to work, live and love abroad.

I landed in Switzerland with $800 in my jeans pocket, a 25-kilogram backpack, an IKEA shoulder-bag with my desktop, all the movement I need between my ears, and no home to call my own.

Thus equipped and with generous help from my country, I slowly but surely turned my past setbacks into successes, not for the first time, but for the final time this time. Here’s what I did:

Forgot what I had experienced and read in the 64 years before.
Restarted anew by knowing only what I remembered.
Turned head over heart, to heart over head (“Where is fancy bred,in the heart or in the head?” – Shakespeare).
Began to trust my senses — feel, see, hear, smell, touch, and taste — again, rather than the senses of strangers through hearsay only.
Discovered that everything I know is a word, box included, compliments Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Decided that think outside the box is bull, that think outside the word instead makes perfect sense.
Ended thinking thoughts and began wording words instead (the two are identical, hence make no difference).
Realized what I want is what I’ve done since before the day I was born.

Though this post is about how to turn setbacks into successes, I remember the setbacks as if they were yesterday, but I still don’t know what success is supposed to be.
However, it does not bother me anymore.
Knowing what I remember is more than enough, I find, to turn my setbacks into making my dreams come true.

Now, I’d love to hear from you:

What’s your story of turning a setback into a success?
How do you define success in your own life?
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from overcoming adversity?”

PS.
For your FREE copies of SUCCESS QUOTES WORTH READING TWICE or LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN QUOTES WORTH READING TWICE, email beat@schindlersword.com with “Success” or “Ludwig” in the subject line (separate emails please).

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