What is something you rarely desire, detest nearly every second it’s happening, but ultimately consider it one of your most valuable experiences?

Says world renown evangelist/preacher, the Reverend Billy Graham, “Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.”

I’ll be honest, if you asked me what I really desired, I’d take comfort and prosperity any day.

Yet…

After spending nearly six tortuous years as a prisoner of war of the Republic of North Vietnam former Navy pilot, Captain Charlie Plumb said, “I am convinced that adversity is a horrible thing to waste.”

I think hardly what was intended by the “Join the Navy, See the World” recruitment pitch.

Famed college basketball coach, John Wooden, may have captured it most aptly, “Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being then especially free of admirers.”

Free at last…free at last…alone and uninterrupted to consider how you’re going to get out of this pool of doo doo.

What we learn from these undesirable moments undoubtedly merits noting and are certainly worth preserving so others might benefit and quite possibly avoid (they’ll have to create their own moments of adversity).

Lynn Hurley:  He Ain’t A Ditchdigger Anymore

My friend, long-time customer and now retired businessman, Lynn Hurley, was one such case.

After Lynn graduated from high school he decided to put off going to college for a year to earn enough money to go to school.

He got a job as an equipment operator/excavator (ditch digger according to him).

Got fired (adversity) for thinking about starting his own ‘ditch digging’ company…so he did!

Sometime later, a very large project failed to pass inspection.  An act that would surely bankrupt his company (more adversity).

What happened next was truly a display of embracing adversity.  It was Lynn Hurley’s BIG DEAL and a story worth preserving.  Because “He Ain’t A Ditch Digger Anymore”.