How To Tap Into Your Invincibility

‘In the midst of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.’ Albert Camus

Winter comes in many shapes and forms throughout our life. None of us can escape them because life – just like nature – is comprised of seasons.

For every summer there is a winter, and it is what you do in the summer months that will determine how you will fare when the temperatures plummet.

Rather than give you the theory of how to survive another winter, allow me to share from my own personal experience of how I have faced my own winters, to this point in my life, and how from within has risen an invincible summer. I trust you won’t mind me sharing some of my story.

1. The Winter Of The Lost Way

I was only in my thirties: only a young man, when I lost my way.

The problem was this. I had gone into business in a multi-media company with an elder cousin, and after a number of years I could not agree with many of the decisions that he was making in regards to the future of the company. So I resigned as director.

The problem was that I had wrapped up my identity in that business. So when the business was removed from my life, so too was my identity.

That led to frustration, a sense of hopelessness and anger. That anger was then directed, not against those whom I’d been in business with, but was in fact aimed at my wife and my young children. I became violent.

At the height of my anger I found myself raging around my house while my wife and three young children took refuge in our bedroom – all huddled together on our bed.

When I entered the room, there were the four people whom I deeply loved hugging each other for protection, their eyes filled with fear.

I stopped in my tracks.

I immediately left the scene, stormed outside and gave myself a stern talking to – ‘Peter, if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to lose everything – even those who love you so deeply’.

I then returned to my family transformed – sought their forgiveness, and peace finally reigned within our household.

2. The Winter Of The Lost Job

I knew that my future was as an entrepreneur, and yet I decided to seek the security of a job.

The job I secured was with a holiday accommodation company, and before long I became one of their best lead generators.

So much so that I received a call one day from head office, as I was paid on commission for the leads I obtained for the company, complaining that they had to pay me as much as I was earning.

I should have seen the signs, but there came a day when I was given one day’s notice.

That day I declared to my family that I would never place my security in another man or another business for the rest of my days.

I started a cleaning business, and within just a few weeks I was earning more from my own business than I’d ever earned working for someone else.

3. The Winter Of The Lost House

I remember the day well as I lay defeated and depressed on my bed in our bedroom at the front of our house.

I could hear the banging as a ‘For Sale’ sign was being erected by the real estate agent.

Forced to sell the house, before the bank took it, I felt a complete and utter failure. With every strike of the mallet on the sign post it was like every thud was shouting ‘loser’ – penetrating the very depths of my being.

That’s when the phone rang. It was my wife’s Auntie Lorna, and I heard my wife say, ‘Lorna, we need a miracle.’

Now before I go on – there is a story behind Auntie Lorna. For just one year ago she had suffered an asthma attack in our house and was dying on our sitting room floor. I was able to keep her alive by administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the paramedics arrived. She survived because of the kiss of life I gave her.

However, that very night, after receiving her phone call – she suffered a similar attack while staying at someone else’s house that didn’t know how to kiss. Lorna went to heaven that very night.

The amazing thing though is this that Lorna left her niece a part of her inheritance, and that inheritance saved our house.

4. The Winter Of The Lost Book

I had self published my first book and received my first $100,000 check.

So I wrote the second book, never once considering failure.

Then I got the phone call.

They rejected it.

My ‘summer’ response? I’ll just write another one.

So I did, and my third book supplied me with yet another sizeable check.

5. The Winter Of The Lost Health

There was a three to four year period where I suffered two frozen shoulders and one bout of life threatening pneumonia.

From the age of 25 years of age I have believed in the power of divine health.

It has been my practice to follow what the good book tells us – that ‘the prayer of faith shall heal the sick’ and I have done this for my own life and even for the lives of others with miraculous results.

Sometimes the healings have been instantaneous, while at other times it has happened over a period of time.

The good news though is that personally I was healed of all of the above.

Simultaneously, I choose to eat healthy foods, I grow my own organic vegetables, drink filtered water, exercise regularly and do not imbibe in the habit of smoking or the drinking of alcohol.

An Invincible Summer

In all the winters I have faced, I have learned that there is in me an invincible summer.

But at the same time, as I look at the habits that make up my life, I constantly live in a state of preparation, continue to develop and practice positive attitudes, choose to speak positive speech and surround myself in an atmosphere of possibility and love.

Make this part of your life, for these are the summers that will sustain you when the winters come – for they will surely come.