Opinion: Dire situations through the eyes of Dyer

During his lifetime, author and speaker Wayne Dyer had a big impact on me. He died Aug. 30.

I’ve since recounted how I devoured his books. I watched and re-watched his PBS fundraising programs.

Then, on Facebook, Dyer started popping up all over. One post recommended “I Can See Clearly Now,” a book I had not read. He wrote 40 books, and in 2014, he published what would be his last, a memoir. He became internationally known in the fields of self-development and spiritual growth.

In “I Can See Clearly Now,” Dyer writes a chapter for each pivotal moment of his life. Then, he reflects on that event with the insight of current awareness.

Over and over, the worst things became the very best things for him.

In Chapter 9, he writes about his dad, who abandoned the family when Dyer was 3 years old. Dyer spent years in foster homes and in an orphanage, while his overwhelmed mother tried to reunite and support her family. Dyer harbored enormous anger and resentment, for years, until he chose to forgive his father.

“I can see clearly now. As much as I wanted my father to show up and love me when I was a young boy, I now value his absence as one of the greatest gifts I’ve been granted. His waywardness and abandonment of me was truly part of my coming here to teach self-reliance, which is one of the great themes of my life,” he wrote.

We may not recognize gifts when they initially show up as suffering. Later on, we can see more clearly.

So what about you? What is it that you must be and do and share?

A contractor friend, Cliff, quit new construction work cold turkey, after building a profitable $7 million company.

“One of our general contractors announced that he wasn’t going to pay the retainer on a job,” he told me. “We had lost money on the project already, and this was going to put us in a serious cash crunch. I knew right then that I was done with new construction work. I stopped delivering bids and wrapped up the jobs I had.”

Then, there was a big empty calendar in front of him. Cliff let dozens of good people go. His intention was to grow his service department, but he was basically starting from scratch. His sales dropped to less than $2 million, and fear gripped him like ice-cold channel locks. There was a space, created by his inspired decision to leave behind a life that no longer suited him.

“There were some scary moments,” Cliff tells me. “I could close my business. I could get a job working for someone else. But I was not going backwards. Something in me knew that I could be successful as a service contractor. I kept putting one foot in front of the other.”

Cliff now has surpassed the $7 million mark with his service company. He has the quiet confidence of a man who followed his heart, in spite of many logical reasons not to. The seemingly worst thing became the best thing.

“I can hardly believe I’m saying it now, but the tough times brought out something in me that I didn’t know existed,” he says.

“I’m grateful that I went through that hell.”

That leads me to a Dyer quote: “When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out – because that’s what’s inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.”

I can see that clearly now.

Ellen Rohr is an author and business consultant offering profit-building tips, trending business blogs and online workshops at EllenRohr.com. Her books include “Where Did the Money Go?” and “The Bare Bones Weekend Biz Plan.” She can be reached at ellen@ellenrohr.com.