October, it was the worst of times, it was the best of times...

October is a rough time of year in the Ross house. October 13th, 1995, my grandfather passed away. Columbus Day 2005 say the passing of My Dad, Columbus Day saw the passing of my father in-law. I also just heard that a young man who used to wrestle at my Alma mater, who also knew my father, died tragically in a motorcycle accident yesterday, October 12th, 2008.

Add to that the global state of unrest regarding the economy, why even get out of bed at all? Well...that's just not our style. Every tragedy and setback prepares you for the next giant step. A loss of a father causes you to step up and take the wheel. When it's my time, my children and successors will do the same. tragedy is life's way of telling us to pay attention.

Last year, on October 19th a former student and business associate executed some extremely unethical and down right illegal business moves in an effort to put me out of the Self Defense and Martial Arts Business all together. Couple that with a few opportunistic and greedy people bent on getting their unearned share of the pie. Imagine people coming out of the wood work and attempting to discredit years of hard work, love, blood sweat and tears you put into a project. The endless hours and the countless dollars invested in something you believed in. You would think with the world stacked against you, life itself would implode. But the opposite is true.

First, you find out who your friends REALLY are. a person's true self is revealed at times of crisis and the cream truly does rise to the top. At the end of it all I lost a partner and associate I didn't need and I no longer had to carry any hangers on to my investment of research, time and money. Through it all I have the business I should have had in the first place.

I mention this, not to make light of any tragedy. Because there are some things you just never recover from. But you take them with you and if you can, you pull from them some lesson. My father's passing revealed that nothing is at all what it seems. A stable thriving business with a 30 year history was on it's last thread. I learned that even if everything is taken from you, as long as you can put you have your will and desire, good things will happen.

I know my Dad didn't have to die in order for me to find out about the business, but sometimes, that's just the way life works.

This October, the economy adds to the strangeness of the month, but this too shall pass. Faith in what you do and who you are sets the tone and action yields the results. Action, any action, sets the world in motion. Motion creates opportunity.
Opportunity creates prosperity.