Why You Need to Be Grateful for Difficulty

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one column for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another edition of the Warrior Soul podcast where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help support The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen in order to help them to live their best lives. I wanna talk today about gratitude. And gratitude's become an important ritual of mine. It's also become a buzzword of sorts in the self help community.

And it has often been overused. Right? We hear almost everybody out there talking about the fact that they write down three things that they're grateful for each day, and that helps them to get filled with gratitude. And, you know, the the saying is that if you're filled with gratitude, you can't be filled with doubt. You can't be filled with fear.

And people use gratitude to combat all of those negative thoughts that often come into their minds from time to time. And I'm not down talking it. It's something that I do personally every single morning. I think it is important to feel grateful. I think that if you are down and out, gratitude is one of those things that could help you so much if you just realize all the great things that are in your life.

You know, it could take you to a different level. At the same time, it can get overplayed, right? There's only so many times that you would be grateful for, you know, living with a beautiful woman or or grateful for having your wife in your life or grateful for, you know, living where you're living, grateful for living in the beautiful United States, which I'm eternally grateful for. There's only so many times that you can write the same thing down in a notebook over and over again, before the exercise starts to lose its meaning. And one of the things that that I've found helpful to keep this exercise from losing its meaning is to dig deep down into my soul to find a way to be grateful for things that I should never be grateful for.

To find a way to be grateful for the difficult things in your life, for the the hard times that you've experienced. One of the things that I'm I'm grateful for is the fact that I have ulcerative colitis, one of the worst things that's ever happened to me in my life. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the fact that I've I've I've spent a lot of my time worrying about how I was gonna survive. I'm I'm grateful for the fact that I grew up without a father.

I'm I'm grateful for the fact that I've gone through many difficult periods in my life. And and why? Why would I ever be so grateful for something? Why would I ever be grateful for something like that? And the answer is this.

Because it's those times that made me. It's it's those times that that that created who I am right now. It's those times that that put me into the position I am right now in life. And if I can't be grateful for those things, if I if I can't find a way to be grateful for those things, then, well, guess what, all that difficulty I went through, that was that was wasted. You know, Seneca Seneca is quoted as saying, I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune.

You passed through life without an opponent. No one can ever know what you were capable of, not even you. And the thing about it is this, if if you really, really think about how you approach life, right, there's so many of us who use misfortune as an excuse. Right? They use misfortune as an excuse for why they're not where they want to be.

They they use misfortune as an excuse for for, you know, why they failed. What I'm telling you to do is is to become impervious to that, to make yourself invincible to those thoughts. Why? Because misfortune shouldn't be why you're not succeeding. It should be why you are succeeding.

It should be why you have a fire in your heart that that can't be put out. It should be the reason that you get up in the morning. Why? Because you're trying to make things better in your life. Misfortune could be fuel.

Right? Hard times could be fuel. Remember the saying, hard times breed hard people. I'm a big believer in that. If you haven't gone through difficulty, you're at a disadvantage.

If you have, that's an advantage for you. If you're going through hell right now at some point in your life, that will be an advantage for you. Something you could look back on. Something you could say, oh, shit. I got through that.

And so no matter what you're going through right now, no matter how hard it is, remember, you'll get to be grateful for it someday. And if you're currently using things that happen in your life as an excuse, if you're currently using, you know, your difficulties right now as an excuse, stop. Turn it around. Do you want to be a victim of your circumstances? Or do you wanna use your circumstances as fuel to make you better?

And I think I know what choice you would make if you truly wanted to live a good life. Short, simple, something you could do every single day to give yourself fuel, to push yourself to a higher plane. And I hope you take advantage of it because every single one of us out there, nobody is immune from tragedy. Nobody is immune from hard times. If we just reach down and try to grab those hard times by the throat and push ourselves to make things better, then we'll all be better off.

This is Chris Albert with Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.