It Makes You Stronger. Or Does It?

"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

This quote is very deceiving.

​Let's take the simple example of food. Millions of people (including myself some days) put garbage into our systems. Refined sugars, gluten, dairy, pesticides, herbicides, fluoride, preservatives and the list goes on. Things that we know (and research shows) are not good for us. They are literally killing us. But they don't kill us right away. It's a slow death. Does this mean they make us stronger?

What about somebody who gets into an accident and gets seriously injured. Perhaps even becomes paralyzed. Does this make them stronger? It definitely does not make them physically stronger.

What about business? I started my first business 9 years ago. I've made a lot (and I mean a lot) of mistakes. I've lost thousands of dollars. I have people who do not like me. I have scars to show the experiences. Have they made me stronger?

All of the examples above have the ability to make us stronger. Or perhaps the better word is wiser. The key... we need to learn from the experiences.

If we eat food and feel like shit, we probably should not eat it. If we continue to eat it it's not making us stronger, it's making us weaker. If we learn from the experience and stop eating the food, we become stronger.

If we get into an accident we may become physically weaker but we have the ability to become mentally stronger. We could, for example, help others who have been in a similar accident.

If we let our business destroy our lives and become scared to follow our dreams, we're not getting stronger, we've become weaker. Instead we could use those experiences to improve our business.

Perhaps the quote should be "whatever doesn't kill you makes you wiser (if you're paying attention)." Not as catchy, I know.

Our experiences will only make us stronger if we learn from them AND take action.