"It was hard but it was so rewarding..."

Yesterday, I wrote this article and shared that my mother had trouble breathing due to complications from lung cancer. I questioned why we take the most important things in life (like breathing) for granted.

I also shared that I will run full-all-out sprints as a way to remind myself not to take breathing for granted. A few hours after sending this article out via email, I received this reply:

“My name is T. P. and I have been following your blog for many years. I look for your blog every day and this morning, your blog is different. I read it twice, got up, put on my running shoes and went out to run again. I sprinted the last 100 yards uphill and was gasping for air at the end. The air was cold, 32F. It was hard but it was so rewarding that I am still able to breathe. I just want to say thank you Rob for sharing this very personal tragedy; and because of your story, it inspires me to try harder to achieve my goals while I am still able to breathe. Again, I appreciate your perseverance and relentless drive for success.”

Nice job, T. P.!

Please notice these words: “it was hard but it was so rewarding.”
Let me ask you an question… are easy things rewarding?

We do hard things because they’re hard. We do hard things because they’re rewarding. We also do hard things because they make us stronger.

This means we actually benefit twice from doing hard things. We get the sense of satisfaction from doing the hard thing AND we become better, stronger and faster. It’s kind of like getting your cake and eating it too. We always get a special bonus when we force ourselves to do hard things.

Another person replied with this thoughtful message:

“I was recently diagnosed with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. I suddenly could not breathe… it was so frightening. I should make a full recovery but just the other day I thought “If I can recover from this, I will never take another breath for granted”. So your post was timely. Just thought I would tell you…”

When this person recovers from this, and they most certainly will recover from this, they’ll be a different person. They’ll have a new appreciation for something we all take for granted. And they’ll become a hell of a lot stronger, too.

You don’t go through something like this and come out weaker.

If you’re going through a hard time, understand it’s sculpting you into a complete Badass.

P.S. You can learn to do hard things and become a Cashflownaire here:
https://dividendrealestate.com/membershipspecial/

P.P.S. How about putting on your running shoes and running a few sprints today? Who knows, it might be rewarding!