Jin and Jorg

BOOK TRAILER FOR “MAJOR DREAM” BY JIN ROBERTSON

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Today, the third day of a three-day seminar entitled “The Language of Impact,” in Los Angeles, I saw two of the one hundred twenty attendees talking to each other during a break. I walked up to Jin Robertson and Jorg Winterlach and said, “Excuse me, I just want to say that you both are amazing. You inspire me.” As the three of us talked for the next few minutes, I was thinking how incredible it was that our lives—Jin lives in South Korea, Jorg lives in Germany, and I live in California—had intersected at that moment in time.

Dr. Jin Kyu Robertson

Jin had come to America at age twenty-two in response to a South Korean newspaper ad looking for a housemaid. She had a one-way ticket, a hundred dollars, and very little English. Six years later, to escape her husband’s abuse, she entered the U.S. Army, where she rose to a rank of Major. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in International Relations History from Harvard. Her daughter followed in her footsteps, earning a Harvard degree and then entering the U.S. Army; she is now a Major serving in Pakistan. Jin is now Korea’s most popular motivational speaker, and her book, Major Dream: From Immigrant Housemaid to Harvard Ph.D., has sold more than half a million copies and prevented numerous suicides in Korea.

Jorg Winterlach

Jorg grew up in East Berlin under communism, forced to

Night Brings Out the Bright Contrast of Day

Hope and faith will always triumph over adversity just as good will always triumph over evil, for implicit in the duality of material existence is the promise that this, too, shall pass.

Good and evil must ever be complements on this earth. Everything created must bear some guise of imperfection. How else could God, the Sole Perfection, fragment His one consciousness into forms of creation distinguishable from Himself? There can be no images of light without contrasting shadows. Unless evil had been created, man would not know the opposite, good. Night brings out the bright contrast of day; sorrow teaches us the desirability of joy.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Rise to the occasion and you will

Flowers Grow Out of Dark Moments

If you believe that you are one with God, that you co-create whatever comes into your life, and that everything happens for a reason, then it follows that hardships are nothing more than course corrections on your spiritual path.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Richard Bach

If you could but look through God’s eyes, you would see God’s

It Is Useless Knocking at the Door of Heaven

When you feel attuned to God and bathed in the healing, protective glow of God’s love, you recognize fear for the illusion that it is.

Clouds don’t worry about falling into the sea because they can’t (a) fall or (b) drown. But they are free to believe they can, and they may fear if they wish.
Richard Bach

You realize it is not the adversity that needs to be changed, it is

The Ghosts of Difficulties Past

Fear relaxes its hold on you when, in the midst of crisis, you can look beyond the pain of the moment and think, There is value in this.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summon the courage to look squarely at the challenge in front of you, lest

Ice Flowers on the Window Panes

Adversity compels you to dig deep within until you tap into the bottomless well of courage and fortitude that is your Divine birthright.

You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
Mary Tyler Moore

In the worst of times, you may

Let It Rain

The most capable and courageous among us have likely lived through punishing experiences, the simple telling of which would make the rest of us faint dead away.

That which does not kill me makes me stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche

If you cannot change what you are faced with, then you must

It Is Necessary to Suffer Some Defeats

Our greatest lessons are often embedded in our greatest pain. We cry to the heavens, unaware that we are growing stronger and wiser even as we plead for mercy.

We rarely gain a high or larger view except as it is forced upon us through struggles which we would have avoided if we could.
Charles Horton Cooley

You would not be the person you are today if you had never been brought to your knees by the vicissitudes of life.

If life teaches us anything, it may be that it’s necessary to suffer some defeats. Look at

Greater and Greater Things

Do not fear adversity. Every squall you are forced to navigate better prepares you for the next storm brewing just over the horizon.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
African proverb

Indeed, it may be advantageous to find yourself adrift in

Two WIngs to Fly

Every tussle with adversity is designed to further buff the perfectly formed diamond of your soul.

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?
Rumi

An athlete elevates his game not by practice alone, but by competing against stronger opponents.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund Burke

Embrace your inner David and

Summon the Hero Within

Celebrate the difficult moments, for they are where the missing pieces of your greatness can be found.

Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
Charles (Tremendous) Jones

Greeting every challenge as a character-building exercise

A Harsh Nurse

How you feel about a challenge depends on how you choose to deal with it. You can call upon the best in you, or let it get the best of you.

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.
Madame Swetchine

It matters not whether you are caught in a spring

The Schoolmaster of Life

The road to salvation is by no means a linear path; adversity and triumph melt into one another until they are all but indistinguishable.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Kahlil Gibran

Thus, while you do not necessarily rejoice whenever life steers you into a ditch, you

Every Cloud Is an Angel’s Face

By definition, the circle of life demands that we experience the full range of what this life has to offer. Adversity is an integral part of the natural order of things. No one escapes its bittersweet embrace.

To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.
Carl Jung

While you cannot prevent adversity from knocking on your door, you can prepare for its arrival by

God’s Megaphone

Odds are that your search for deeper meaning and purpose did not kick into overdrive until a crisis turned your world inside out and upside down.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C. S. Lewis

As awareness grows, you realize that adversity may be a signal that what

In the Difficult Are the Friendly Forces

"Strength Through Adversity" by Janice Northcutt Huse (janicehuse.com)

Though adversity may scramble the puzzle pieces of your life, it arrives bearing a gift—a shift in consciousness that deepens your understanding and appreciation of Universal forces.

In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature’s way of forcing change—breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place.
Susan L. Taylor

The value of adversity has long been the stuff of legend. In the Bhagavad Gita, Kunti, mother of heroic