Who among us has not experienced "failure?" Rebounding is about the process of rediscovering, reinventing, and recovering yourself in the face of a personal or professional setback or failure. It is about learning how to suck the juice out of a lemon and turn it into lemonade, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and moving on with the business of living at hand . . . emerging even stronger, wiser, and with more confidence than before! We all have a unique set of experiences, talents, and gifts - all of which present opportunities for growth and for unique perspective. Blending personal experience with practical suggestions for reengaging, Rebounding presents a perspective that gives one the space to breathe in the face of a failure and learn how to turn that liability into one of your greatest assets. With a rare sense of vulnerability, the author opens up about some of her greatest challenges and what core beliefs created an ability to experience an inner resilience that many never talk about. Sharing the failure of a business, the failure of a marriage, and struggles with her recent financial reality, she creates in Rebounding a unique chance to get inside the ebbs and flows of life and examine the real power of personal choice in the face of adversity. Word Count: 212

Rebounding

A Practical Guide for Getting Up (and Getting Over It!)By Theresa Salihu-Musso

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Theresa Salihu-Musso
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-7592-7

Contents

Acknowledgements..............................................................viiIntroduction..................................................................ixChapter One: Hard Times 101...................................................1Chapter Two: Reality Bites....................................................6Chapter Three: How Do You Move Forward?.......................................10Chapter Four: Money Matters...................................................21Chapter Five: Creating Your Own Economy.......................................26Chapter Six: Envisioning a Better Way ... or a Better Day.....................31Chapter Seven: Up and Down: Working Together for Good.........................36Chapter Eight: Unto Thine Own Self be True....................................41Chapter Nine: Living in the Past vs. Living in the Light......................48Chapter Ten: Emergence........................................................54Appendix A: The Rebounding 30-day Radial Action Plan(RAP).....................5630-Day Rebounding RAP Journal.................................................59Select Bibliography...........................................................90About the Author..............................................................92

Chapter One

Hard Times 101

rebound noun 1: a movement back from an impact 2: a reaction to a crisis or setback or frustration verb 1: spring back; spring away from an impact -Merriam-Webster Dictionary

When I started out, I walked on air. I had the brains in my head and the shoes on my feet, Dr. Seuss so aptly wrote, and I really could not be beat. I confidently plunged myself, my family, and my finances in to my new business venture. I was going to beat the odds by being diligent and smart, by tracking down whatever resources I needed to carry on. I was going to offer value and insight.... we were going to change the world. I started a coaching and training agency that was equipped with the most positive people in the world - surely we could beat the odds if anyone could!

A year and a half later, we had lost our largest client due to their own fraud and bankruptcy issues, and had no other major sources of revenue to carry the company. Having invested my life's savings, leveraged all my sources of credit and some of my husband's, I was maxxed out. I liquidated all the assets of the company that I could, including the office building itself, paid off what I could and with my tail between my legs, found myself sitting on over $140,000 of personally-secured debt. I hadn't been smart enough or experienced enough to put all the debts of the company in the company name and so I couldn't bankrupt the company and I was literally left stuck, holding the bag. Sure there were other people I could blame but I was to blame too. Either way, I looked into the future and it looked grim.

On top of it, the economy and my fallback industry, real estate, was taking a major beating. I had nowhere significant to turn. After these years of self-employment, with two small children needing to be picked up from school, etc. I was hesitant to take a "job." I did for awhile, thinking that getting some steady income would help us get back on our feet, but the company turned out to not be so stable itself and I left it several months later (good thing as the company closed its doors a few weeks after I left). Unemployed, without any company left to speak of, holding all this life experience, baggage, and debt, I was floundering in a soup made up of confusion, despair, anger, fear, and borderline depression. It had been almost a year since things had hit the fan, and yet I still wasn't breathing a normal rhythm yet. I plunged myself into an intense exercise routine, thinking that was a good way to work off stress and lose unwanted pounds; although it did manage to keep me sane, I couldn't lose weight due to the internal stresses, and after awhile it felt less than productive. I sent out rounds and rounds of resumes - I wasn't qualified for many jobs outside of my industry and the job market was flooded with people like me due to unemployment being at record levels. I received a few phone calls and got a couple interviews - mostly entry level sales jobs in industries that I had no interest.

I think the thing that made it harder than anything was that my business had been about coaching and training - empowering people to be their best. At MY best, I knew that I loved to speak, train, consult, and write. I just couldn't seem to get that to pay enough consistently yet. Spiritually, I felt wounded in a very deep way. Here I had given my all, everything I knew how to give, to this business and the bottom line was, my best wasn't good enough. How was I going to get up the courage to try anything that really put me out there again, when I may have to face the same failure? My body's stress response system was shot - I wasn't sure if I even had the internal resources to pull it off and yet a job wasn't materializing nor did it seem like that was the long term answer. I was caught between my negative emotional space and the hard realities of the world.

And yet the economy was not going to support my wallowing and processing for long. My husband's work was also being threatened by the economic downturn in the building industry and we had too much personal overhead, having bought a larger, more expensive home while we were making plenty of money. That had upgraded our lifestyle and our budget. There were so many places we needed to make corrections and yet I felt like a deer in the headlights - how was I going to get myself out of this funk and productively tackle the challenges of the hour?

On the surface I was fighting the good fight - I had some part time things lined up that were keeping me busy here and there. I was grocery shopping, preparing holiday meals, entertaining, helping kids with homework, I even bought a new puppy and began training her. I was still exercising, I had been to a therapist, was still talking to my coach regularly.... all the things I was supposed to be doing. On the surface. Beneath that, however, was an inability to handle the hard stuff. I had a pile of bills and paperwork that was neglected on my desk (that I now avoided like the plague), I was blowing off prospective and current clients, I was haphazardly blowing off appointments, I was lying about feeling okay, doing okay, and being okay. I was not okay. Yes, in moments here and there I was, but not really 'okay'.

I asked my husband how he felt, how he handled the bankruptcy of a company he once had. He said he was the bread winner and he didn't have much time to think about it - he just had to get on with it. I perceived that to add a second layer of guilt to the equation - the guilt of not being able for whatever reason to "just get on with it." I had tried to get a job and seemed to fail - I had tried to restart my company, even got a few clients, but was failing to keep them because I just didn't have the internal energy to carry it. I was stuck in a pit and needed out.

Now I wish I could say that hindsight was 20/20. That I could look back and figure out what exactly went wrong so that I could move forward, learn from it, and never regret again. But that is BS. I...