For my own good, we went broke.

Things do not happen to you; they happen for you.

This is something that we talk about all the time with our team, but what the hell does this mean, and how do we use it to help ourselves?

It reminds me of my first job out of school. I graduated from UW-Parkside with an accounting degree and needed to find a job to support Jill and I while she went to grad school in Virginia.

I found the perfect job as a personal banker for a credit union.

I went through a month of training and got to know some great people in the process. I was loving where I ended up and could not be happier.

That is when the bottom fell out. The recession hit; I was escorted out of the building following a very abrupt ending to my first professional job.

I was devastated. Crying in the parking lot before starting my car, I felt as if I not only let myself down but also Jill. How would we afford to live? How would I support us? Where would we go?

I started scouring the job market to find something to help earn some money. I was working part-time at the mall, but we needed something more than that. I found a job at Home Depot working in their nursery, and while it was not perfect, it gave me something to help.

If you have never been to eastern Virginia in July, let me tell you, it is hot and humid. This day was particularly hot and well over 100 degrees. It was so hot that we took shifts to rotate inside to cool off during my 8-hour shift. As I was watering the flat of annuals on the top of the rolling rack in the middle of the nursery, I finally came to the realization I needed.

We have all seen a hose that needed an O-ring replaced. The nozzle leaks just enough to send a bead of water down the hose. Now, remember I am watering plants that are over my head, so on the hottest day of the year, I am holding a leaking hose as high as I can while beads of water are running down my arm. It was at that moment that I decided I was going back to school.

You see, me being let go from the credit union and subsequently finding employment watering flowers happened for me. The recession happened for me, not to me. One of the hardest things I have ever had to face provided me with the lesson I needed. I realized I was meant to do more with the gifts I was given. Going back to school would help me refine my tools and allow me to make an impact in the world.

Huddles and roadblocks, hard things and struggles will come your way, but how you choose to attack them is up to you.

If you allow them to happen to you, you are giving those circumstances power over you. If instead, you embrace them and see these things as happening for you, you take that power back and control your fate.

Who is ready to take back that power? Tell us, what's something that's happened for you in the last year that has helped you tremendously!?