in life.

And we can't control this.

The only thing we can control,

is how we respond to the tragedy.

I'm going to share with you two different stories.

One, about a man named Ben, and another,

about a man named Jeff.

Let's look at our friend Ben.

Ben is a 28-year-old, happy man.

He works a comfortable nine to five job,

he has a dog, he has a house.

He has friends and family that all love him,

and he has a lovely girlfriend who he is planning

on proposing to, in the upcoming years.

From the outside looking in,

everything is going right in his life.

The best way that I would describe Ben's life,

is the white picket fence life.

Ben and his girlfriend have been dating

since they were 18 years old.

And he is truly in love with her.

From a very early age,

they would talk about their futures together.

They would talk about what kind of wedding they would want.

They would talk about the type of house they would live in.

They would talk about how many kids they would want.

And, when Ben heard this, he wanted to provide for her.

Ben wanted to give her everything that she wanted

out of life.

And he was willing to do the work in order to do this.

So one week, Ben had to leave town for work.

So, he cleaned the house, took his dog for a walk,

kissed his girlfriend goodbye, and he was on his way.

Halfway through his out-of-town work week, he learned

that he could actually come home early, if he wanted to.

So Ben decided to do something nice for his girlfriend.

He decided to surprise her with flowers and chocolate.

In an attempt to be more spontaneous.

Which is a quality that his girlfriend really, really likes.

And it's something that his girlfriend

would wish that he did more of.

So Ben drives home, and he is walking up to the door,

with flowers and chocolate in hand,

excited to surprise her.

He opens the door, and the first thing that he noticed,

were someone else's shoes, were on the floor.

He did not really think much of it.

He figured that she had some friends over.

She was, after all, a very social, a friendly person.

And because he was gone, she might have been bored.

He walked around the downstairs of the house,

looking for them.

But, he didn't see anything.

But he did see that there was an open bottle of wine

sitting on the kitchen counter.

He went upstairs to look more, but still, there was nothing.

At this point, he was getting a little confused.

Was she even home?

There was only one room that he had not checked.

And that was, the bedroom.

So Ben goes up to the door, and he opens it,

still having flowers in hand.

And what he saw, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He saw the girl, that he had been dating for 10 years,

the girl, who he had said that he was gonna marry,

the girl, that he had planned his future with.

He saw this girl in bed with another man.

The moment that Ben saw this, his heart sank.

And he felt his stomach turn in knots.

His head began pounding.

He felt physically sick.

In that moment, the only words that Ben could really muster,

was, you need to leave.

The next day, she packed up all of her bags,

and just like that, she was gone.

The next few months would be prove to be

the worst months of his life.

Because he was so heartbroken,

he started to perform worse at work.

He stopped exercising.

He stopped staying in contact with his friends and family.

He would spend his nights in front of the TV,

cursing his girlfriend's name.

He would ask himself, "How could she do this to me?

"I wanted to give her everything,

"I told her that I would give her

"everything that she wanted.

"But yet she still does this to me.

"This woman ruined my life."

This behavior continued over time.

And it got so bad, that Ben almost lost his job.

And because he could not afford this,

he did pull himself together a little bit,

and he did just enough not to lose his job.

But his mind and body were still only half there.

He was never fully engaged in anything that he was doing.

He spends the next few years doing a good enough job

not to get fired.

But, he was still miserable and depressed.

And he kept blaming his girlfriend

for the way his life was.

I think at this point in the story,

a lot of you are probably thinking to yourself,

yeah, that is terrible, but,

this does not happen that often,

and it would not happen to me.

And my response to that would be,

just wait until you get older.

Things change a lot when people get to the stereotypical

marriage age, which would be around 28 to 30 years old.

And these types of things are much more common

later on in life.

Let's look at the second story.

The second story is the same as the first story,

up until the point where Ben saw

that she was cheating on him.

And the character of this story is named Jeff.

So when Jeff saw this, he told her to leave.

And she left the next day.

And of course, Jeff was heartbroken.

He cried, and didn't understand

how she could do this to him.

He spent the next few months in pain, crying his life away.

And cursing his girlfriend.

He would ask himself similar questions.

"How could she do this to me?

"I wanted to give her everything."

But, it's at this point when Jeff does something different.

Instead of cursing her name, and thinking to himself

how awful of a person she was, Jeff asked himself a question

that 90% of people will never ask.

And he asked himself, "Did I do anything

"that caused her to cheat on me?"

So Jeff actually got his phone,

and he called his ex-girlfriend.

She was a little stunned to hear his voice.

And when Jeff asked her the question,

she responded with, "Um, I don't know.

"I guess I just lost attraction to you.

"I'm sorry."

So, instead of continuing to be depressed,

Jeff made a commitment to start working on himself.

He started to try and make himself

a more attractive man.

A better man.

Jeff started off very small.

He simply started going to the gym again on a regular basis.

And he did that for a few months.

Then, he started to clean up his diet a bit.

And he did that for a few months.

Jeff also started to regain focus on his job.

And he started to perform better.

When he felt okay about his job, and his physical health,

he even started to look up ways to start making more money

on the side.

Because Jeff had always dreamed

about starting his own business.

When Jeff was with his girlfriend,

they would cuddle up with each other,

and watch Netflix in the evenings.

And that's just what they did, every single night.

But now that she was gone, Jeff had way more time

to work on himself and his own business.

As a result of this extra work though,

he started to have some sleeping issues.

So he started to look up ways to sleep better.

He started to meditate before bed to calm his mind.

He like the way meditating made him feel,

so he started to meditate in the mornings.

And because of this, he became a less-stressed person.

Months went by of Jeff putting in a little bit of work

every single day.

And eventually he saw some results.

But he still wasn't happy with how fast it was growing,

and he wanted to find ways to grow even faster.

On the weekends, he started to network,

and meet other successful people.

He started to pick up new hobbies, like golfing and boxing.

Jeff even met an older man that he shared his story with.

And this man could really relate to his story.

So much so, that this man became Jeff's mentor.

And he helped him grow his small business

to the point where he started to make more money from that

than from his normal job.

So as a result of this,

Jeff actually quit his nine to five job.

And, with his newfound freedom, Jeff did something

that he had always dreamed of doing,

since he was a kid.

Which was, moving to Italy to study Italian.

Jeff had originally given up on his dream of doing this.

Because he was in a committed relationship,

and he had a nine to five job, he was very comfortable,

and it just didn't make sense.

But because his girlfriend was gone,

because of his new online business,

he decided to pack his bags

and move to Italy for six months.

So as Jeff was sipping a beer on the beach,

with his laptop in his hand,

looking into the deep ocean with the sun out,

he had felt something that he had not felt

in a long time.

Which was happiness and gratitude.

He thought back to the last time he had felt like this.

And it was when he was with his girlfriend.

And then suddenly,

he had a flashback to her cheating on him.

He thought to himself, although seeing my girlfriend

cheat on me like that, cut me very deep,

and in a lot of ways, it broke my heart.

And, in some ways, I am still not over it.

But, in a way, it may have been the best thing

that could have ever happened to me.

If that didn't happen to me, I would have never started

working out on a regular basis.

I would have never improved my diet.

I would have never had time to start my own online business.

I would have never had the ability to come to Italy

and fulfill my dream.

I would have continued to work at my job,

and spend my evenings watching Netflix with my girlfriend,

in my comfortable state.

From that point on, Jeff continued to live his life

of trying to be better, every single day,

and he never stopped working on himself.

The lesson of these two stories are simple,

but it's crucial to understand.

Not only will this concept change your life,

but if you don't understand it,

it has the potential to ruin your life.

And the concept is actually very simple.

When tragedy happens in your life, from relationships,

loved ones passing, to getting fired, it's up to you

how you want to respond.

If you respond like Ben, it can be one of the worst things

that could have ever happened to you.

But, if you respond like Jeff,

it could be one of the best things

that could ever happen to you.