Today's video tells a story about a time I thought I had lost what was important to me, and the lessons that I learned from that experience.

To summarize, here's what I've learned from this story:

Your Reponse to a Situation is Everything

How you react to a situation determines your reality. Events + Response = Outcome (E + R = O). I learned this from Jack Canfield in The Success Principles. You can't control the events, but you can choose how you respond to them, which affects the outcome. Don't let an event ruin your life. Let it help you grow—whether you learn to be more patient, compassionate, or a better problem solver.

Detach Yourself—From Material Possessions / From the Situation

Understand and accept that everything is fleeting. Material things are here for us to use and enjoy but we can’t really “own” anything forever. In a situation, knowing that “this too shall pass” will help you appreciate what you have right now in the present, whether it is perceived as good or bad.

How to Deal in Moments of Crises

1. Accept the situation.
2. Ask “What’s the worst that can happen?”
3. Ask “What would I do if that happened?” Focus on solving the problem at hand. Plan beyond the situation to see how you would pick your life back up afterwards.
4. Understand that no matter what happens, life goes on. You will be okay.

For the curious souls, here's the second story that I cut out of the video.

A couple weeks ago, my server got hacked and the files on my backend were a hot mess. After long calls with Bluehost, I decided to reset my server to clear the bot, knowing that in doing so I would have to rebuild my two websites from backups (which is like putting puzzle pieces back together and “should” be fine if done carefully…).

Unfortunately, there was a major technical issue rebuilding Lavendaire and my database backup would not connect to WordPress. To my despair, my website showed a complete blank for a couple days and even the specialists at Bluehost couldn't fix the problem.

At that point, I thought I had lost everything and anxiety was creeping up on me. I was so immersed in tinkering with the server, trying to figure out what was wrong, that I knew I had to take a step back and get some space from the situation. So, I went out to dinner with a friend to take my mind off of my broken website.

After I distanced myself from the situation, I accepted the fact that I may have to rebuild my website from scratch. Instead of sulking over losing my content, I focused on how I'd solve the problem, and mentally planned what my next steps would be in rebuilding Lavendaire.

Luckily, in the end, I found a gracious friend + WordPress expert to help me reconnect the database. After hours of tinkering on his end, Lavendaire is now back on with almost everything in tact! I am so thankful for his help and so glad that everything turned out fine. 

What do you think? How do you deal with moments of crises? Please share in the comments below!