Monday Motivation, 2.24.2020

Written by: Dawn Paciocco

Every Monday, The Rogers-Long Team meets for one of its two weekly meetings. The Monday meeting always ends with “Monday Motivation” in which a few minutes are spent listening to one team member presenting a quote, a quick reading from a book, a scene from a movie, or anything else they find motivating to provide a “spark” to the whole team on a Monday morning.

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny…C. S. Lewis

Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star for “lack of imagination”. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected by 30 publishers, and he threw it away. Henry Ford went bankrupt 5 times before building his fortune. Bethany Hamilton was attacked by a shark while surfing, lost an arm, and was back in the water one month later. The list goes on and on of famous people who struggled and/or failed before rising above to become the successful people we know. They all started as ordinary people, just like me.

I have a long list of hardships/failures in my life. Every day I am scared of failing at this life I live.  From being a good wife & mother, a good sister, friend, employee.  That list too goes on and on.  I am human.  Everyone has failed at some point in their life and has been through hardships that tested them.  From the small ones like failing test or a diet, to the larger ones that can make or break you.

My worst failure is my 3 miscarriages.  While some people would argue that a miscarriage is not a failure, I certainly thought it was. They were the hardest things I ever had to go through.  I felt like I had to hide the fear and the pain I was feeling because I already had 2 kids, and there were people out there that didn’t have any. How selfish was I to want another. I couldn’t show people around me just how this was destroying me inside.  I had to lean on the one person who was feeling what I was, so with the love, help and support of my husband we came up with a plan to change the path we were taking. I needed the support and love to get through this hardship and to make our dream happen.  If I had given up after that third miscarriage, we would not have the fireball that completes our family.  This was my hardship that prepared me to face anything else life threw at me.

Failure is a necessary part of life and the best way to handle failure is to learn from it. Failure comes in all shapes and sizes. We tend to learn the most from the larger failures in life.  Some people don’t though, they continue to fail before making it back. These hurdles along the way of life help you to build strength. Grit and perseverance are necessary to achieve goals. Sometime the painful memories and experiences can hold you back.  Instead use them to fuel a light of fire that no one can put out. Use whatever you THINK is holding you back to rise to the top.  There will be haters and doubters.  Don’t let those people fuel your fear of failure.

While my destiny might not be as great as Walt Disney or the others listed above, I am still living the extraordinary life I have been blessed with, because we have this one life, with all the chances in the world to make it an extraordinary one!

Dawn Paciocco joined The Rogers-Long Team in September 2018 as the team’s Client Care Coordinator. Dawn spent 17 years in the financial services industry and much like Stacy, was first a client of Ben & Kevin’s before joining the team. After a couple years discussing the possibility of Dawn joining, The RLT excitedly brought her on due to her fun-loving attitude and belief in the team’s mission to build an army of people that does good, becomes better, and strives to be the best.