4

When Adversity Strikes

For over thirty years I have preached one strong constant to my players—that when you tell the truth your problems become part of your past, but when you lie they become part of your future. That was never more evident than in a vicious extortion ordeal that I experienced, or in the difficult trial and testimony I had to endure as a result of it. In this chapter, I will share how I handled those things, how I navigated that time, and emerged with my life intact. This is a difficult chapter to write, because it deals with some agonizing times in my life. I write it knowing that there are many people who will open this book and seek out these pages first. That’s how life is today. I write it not to offer explanation, but because it was a chapter in my life and not to write it would be wrong. More than that, however, I write it because it may be of some use. Some of the things I share with you here, in fact, may be among the most useful things you encounter in these pages.

I’m not going to recount the actions that got me into that situation. I placed my hand on a Bible, went under oath, and spent hours testifying in excruciating detail. When it comes to telling my side of that particular story, it’s been told. I will say that how it happened, how I got into that situation, I still don’t completely understand. I’m not sure I ever will. Here I was, a married man with a high-profile job, interacting with the wrong kind of person. It was a personal and moral failure. I should not have been within a hundred yards of that situation. There are only so many ways I can say that I made a mistake, and I let people down. I was wrong.

I am not minimizing those actions. But the subject here, handling adversity and getting through difficult times, is less about how we get into difficult situations than how we get through them. Whether we bring them on ourselves or they are forced upon us, difficult times come, and it is what we do once they have arrived that is important. Here I was, having made a terrible mistake, and I knew that it sat like a powder keg under my life and my family. More than anything, I wanted it not to blow up. I knew the consequences of it going public. I knew, or thought I knew, what it would put my family through, not to mention my university and myself. I did not want the truth out there. But the truth was the only road out. I knew it was going to hurt many people, and for a long time. But the truth was what was called for. There was no other way.

I’ve been through some difficult times in my life. I don’t know that I’ve done anything more difficult than telling the truth to my wife, Joanne, and my family. My pain during that time was severe. There may be no worse feeling than being the source of immense pain to people you love. The guilt involved, along with having to watch them suffer the consequences of your action, only magnifies your own pain. But as bad as I felt, I could tell that they were hurting more. Not only were they disappointed, angry, and hurt by my actions, but they had to deal with watching someone they love and respect go through this very public spectacle, to reach rock bottom, in some ways. I wanted there to be something I could do to ease the pain that my family felt. But when you’re the source of the pain, sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Time and forgiveness are the only things that can heal such a situation, and neither of those will be rushed. They come on their own timetable. In a mess of this magnitude, you pay day by day.

Part of that payment is being open with all of the parties involved. For me that began at home, but it quickly extended to my employers at the University of Louisville, people within my program, and finally the media and fans. It started with Tom Jurich, my boss and vice president for athletics at Louisville. I went to him and explained everything, leaving nothing out. He listened to me, nodding, asking questions here and there, including some hard questions. It was a difficult conversation to have, because I knew that I was putting both him and the university in a terrible situation. After telling Tom everything, I told him right up front, “If it will make it easier on you for me to step down, I will.” He did not hesitate before answering, “As long as I am athletic director, that will never happen.” As a trusted friend, Tom was able to help me. When the time came to meet with university officials and attorneys, Tom came in with me, and my wife was nearby in case they wanted to question her. Again, I explained the situation and answered their questions. After I finished, there was some talk by university lawyers that maybe I should take a leave of absence for family purposes, and for them to look at the matter more closely. They were still debating it when Tom spoke up, and said that if I were off the job for even one day, they would have the added task of looking for a new athletic director. I stayed on the job. Looking back, staying on the job was an important factor not only in my getting through the whole experience, but also in building the success we would eventually recapture.

You learn a lot of things during an ordeal like that. You learn about yourself and what you can take. You find out about your capacity to disappoint people and how much your actions can hurt them. You learn how much stress your mind and body can endure. And you find out who your true friends are.

It didn’t take this experience for me to find out who my friends were, but it certainly confirmed it, in case there was ever any reason to wonder. You’ll also learn about your capacity for gratitude, because the friends who stand by you and help you when times are that tough are some of the greatest gifts in all of life. Ralph Willard has been one of my closest friends for decades. He was coaching at his alma mater, Holy Cross, and he loved coaching there. He had been a three-time conference coach of the year, a national coach of the year finalist, and had one of his best teams coming back. It was going to be a season for which he had been building. And when my crisis hit, he just walked away. He resigned and came to Louisville because he felt he needed to be here beside me. It was the greatest gift of friendship I’d ever witnessed, and certainly ever received. Ralph went through every difficult moment with me. He supported me, worked long hours, did a phenomenal coaching job with our guys, and was with me for every step. He was by my side the day I told my son Richard, an assistant coach for us, what had transpired. It was an act of friendship vast enough for a lifetime. And there were others, which you’ll read about in the coming pages.

One thing you will encounter if you find yourself in such a crucible, whether of your own making or not, is that there will be advice on all sides. I’m used to receiving a lot of input from assistant coaches, but this was something different entirely. The number of opinions on what I needed to do or how I should handle things was both fascinating and exasperating. The lawyers had one kind of advice. The FBI had another. Then there were friends, family, and we even consulted some public relations firms. We spoke to Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary. But in the end, I decided against bringing in any advisor. I realized I would have to make the ultimate decisions myself. There were so many differences of opinion that I was going to be deciding myself, anyway. All of that input, however, did serve a valuable purpose.

Another lesson: When you are strapped in to take a lie detector test, your life changes in front of you. I was on the road when my attorney, Steve Pence, called and said that this woman was making all kinds of accusations on ESPN. He told me, “We know that you’re telling the truth, but would you take a lie detector test?” I was back on a plane to Louisville immediately. I told Steve to get the best person in the country and he said he already had the guy. Carl Christiansen is a former FBI special agent who travels around the country instructing on how to administer polygraph tests. He was living in nearby Simpsonville, Kentucky, and was able to come in and administer the test to me. I passed.

But even Carl had an opinion on what I should do. He told me to urge the FBI to settle, to offer her some kind of deal. “Don’t get on that witness stand,” he told me. “When you get up there, her lawyer will humiliate you. I’ve been in many courtrooms and have seen it happen. I always cringe. You are better off staying off that witness stand, no matter what.”

Those words echoed in my mind for a long time. But the FBI had another opinion. They wanted me to cooperate with their prosecution. They told me that this woman didn’t want a plea deal, that this situation had happened before with other men, and that it would not stop unless I went through with this. I told them that was easy for them to say. For them, this was a potential victory in a big case. That was their game. But for me, I’d be on the stand alone, for everybody to see with nowhere to hide in an excruciating situation.

This is where Whitey Moynihan entered the discussion. A close friend of Ralph Willard’s and mine, Whitey is an international covert specialist. That’s the best way I can describe his job without going into more detail than I should. Like everyone else, Whitey had an opinion. He said, “It’s time for you to eat your ten tons of crap.” Except he didn’t say “crap.” He told me to fight for my family. “Eat crap for a long time,” he told me repeatedly. “This is just something you’re going to have to go through.”

That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. I argued that it would hurt my family and me. I argued that would humiliate my family and me. He agreed. “Yes, it will,” he said. “But the hurt will go away with honesty. The hurt will go away with telling the truth.”

He was right. I can tell you today that the hurt has subsided. Now, what happened will never go away. My actions cannot be erased. This situation will always be a footnote on my story in certain situations. But the more truth you tell, the more you shrink the problem down in size, and the more it shrinks in your mind.

You might not have to climb onto that witness stand. You might not have to be strapped into that polygraph chair. But you will encounter circumstances and difficult situations that require you to make a decision on the truth. The interesting lesson from my situation was that there was no way out but the truth. The only alternative was losing everything I had worked so hard to build, and letting down the people I love even more. The truth was the only way. Period. The slightest little cover-up, the smallest lie or bending of the truth, will cost you dearly.

We all fear telling the truth at times. We tell ourselves that a lie would help ease the pain for others, and minimize the consequences for ourselves. I told myself that. I never wanted any of this to see the light of day. Even once the truth is told, when you return home and look in the mirror, the feeling of personal disgust doesn’t disappear overnight. What the truth does, however, is create a path to solutions.

In looking at people who have been cut down by scandal, I think about Eliot Spitzer in politics, or more recently Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino or Congressman Anthony Weiner, who lost their careers, at least for a time, to scandal. With them and others in similar situations, there is one constant. They did not tell the truth. Coach Petrino came out in a press conference and didn’t disclose the details of his motorcycle accident. Better to say nothing than to go public with a story that was not the truth. Weiner originally said his improper conduct on Twitter was a prank someone was playing on him. These only compounded already ugly truths.

Show me someone who has been cut down by events—either self-inflicted or from outside influences—and I’ll show you someone who could not find the strength to at long last tell the truth. That is what people are looking for from people in tough situations. On the flip side, show me someone who has weathered those crises and gone on to prosper, and you will find at some point they had to level with themselves, their families, their coworkers or companies, and in some cases, the public. Bobby Petrino lost his job at Arkansas, but during the offseason sat down with ESPN and endured an interview that I know was personally painful for him. To admit your wrongdoing, to lay it out publicly, is a difficult thing. But having done that, Bobby freed himself to move forward. Once he did that, his mistakes were part of his past, and he was able to begin building his future, which he now is doing right down the road at Western Kentucky University.

I wish I could tell you that after all my dread of getting up on the witness stand, the experience wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. I’d like to be able to tell you that my absolute terror at the prospect was worse than the reality of going through it. I can’t tell you that. As much as I feared this time on the stand, the actual experience was worse.

Confession may be good for the soul, but it also can be hell on it. It was an ordeal. To tell the most intimate truth on the most public stage, the media reporting every detail, I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I didn’t want it for myself. It came to a point on the stand, with the public defender aggressively cross-examining me, where I wanted to take him outside and whip his ass. But Carl had told me ahead of time, that’s his job, don’t make it personal. And Whitey convinced me, “You have to go through this, because it’s your punishment for screwing up. Think of it that way. Not only are you doing the right thing by doing this, but it’s your punishment. And when you go on the road, that’s your punishment, too.” Whitey convinced me that it was basic penance, and that I was going to have to go through it, there was no way around it. Sometimes it is as simple as that. You sow with your actions, you reap the consequences.

At every step, Whitey told me exactly what was going on and what was going to happen next, and the more he talked the more afraid and nervous I became. But I needed to know the truth and how to deal with it. Unsettling as it was, it still was preferable to being hit with the unknown. In difficult times, fear can make us retreat into a shell, to ignore the consequences that are coming, as sure as the sunrise. But it’s always better to know what is going to be there when the light of day comes. Value those people who are willing to give you the hard truth during those dark nights of the soul. And don’t shy away from hearing it in times of crisis. It will prepare you for the hard work of healing.

Another interesting thing happened during my most difficult times. Bob Russell, the gifted preacher who helped build a congregation of a hundred or so people in Louisville into one of more than 20,000—one of the nation’s largest churches—at Southeast Christian Church, called me one day and wanted to see me. He came to my office and said, “You don’t know me very well, I’ve prayed with your team a couple of times before games, but I had somebody tell me I needed to come see you, that you needed a friend right now, maybe someone to be with.”

I asked him, “Who was that, Bob?”

He answered, “The Lord.”

That took me aback. I had never had someone say that the Lord had sent him to me. But we sat and talked. And then he talked to my wife, with me, on two occasions. Then we started meeting regularly.

He asked me how much I knew about the Bible, and I said, well, eight years of Catholic school, four years of high school, countless church services, but I really didn’t give it deep thought. I listened in church, but really didn’t put much interpretation into the meaning of it. He said, “Would you like to find out more about it?” At the time, I said yes, but didn’t know I truly meant it, because of so many things that were going on in my life. It seemed like a good thing to do, but I did not know what to expect. I can tell you now, however, that I wound up enjoying and appreciating those times of reading the Bible and discussing it with Bob as much as anything I did during those difficult times, because he was able to share so much insight, and to give such a human touch to all of these things that were going on centuries ago.

Just like reading a great book, sitting down and looking at the Bible and the interpretations and insight that Bob had was something I found fascinating. You get the perspective that human beings are much the same today as they were thousands of years ago, struggling with the same trials and temptations. At some point, Bob asked if I minded having someone join us, and he invited David Novak, the CEO of Yum! Brands; David is known as one of the top CEOs in the world. Because of our time in Bible study, I developed a strong friendship and great respect for David. We truly enjoyed discussing the applications and interpretations of everything we were reading. And Bob always kept in touch with me throughout the season. When he could hear on TV or radio broadcasts that I was taking a lot of heat on the road, he would text me, “How you doing? Great win. Did you turn the other cheek? Were you able to get through it?” And I would text back and we would talk about it. And he will still text me things from time to time.

The road was a difficult aspect in all of this. With the notoriety of my story, opposing fan bases were lying in wait. One surprising thing was that, with the exception of fans at West Virginia, which was the worst, the fans at Catholic schools were the hardest on me. The best? Surprisingly, because of the rivalry, fans at the University of Kentucky were the classiest to me. Their student section could have really buried me, but didn’t.

All through that period, I kept saying the same thing over and over, “Win the game.” When I would hear things. “Win the game.” When the stories would come out. “Win the game.” When someone would say something insulting. “Win the game.” I was like a toy with a string in the back. (It gives me chills to think about it today. Those are the same words that Kevin Ware, with his broken bone having torn through his leg, kept repeating to our team on that sideline against Duke. A different kind of adversity, to be sure, but interesting that the mantra was the same.) I never considered myself a person who could turn the other cheek, and didn’t know if I could do it. But Bob really convinced me of the importance of doing it, gave me biblical examples of it, and I was able to do it in most instances without any problem. Without him, I don’t know if I could have turned the other cheek as often as I did.

For a renowned preacher like Bob Russell, and for a guy like David Novak, the CEO of the largest food company in the world, to care enough to sit down and open up with me is something I’ll never forget as long as I live.

I didn’t always turn the other cheek. When you feel you’re being lied about and your character is being distorted, it’s difficult to sit still. It’s bad enough that you have brought this awful blot on your own character, but when you feel people are lying about it and giving a platform to put forth sheer falsehoods about you or your actions, it makes you very competitive in wanting to get your side of the story out there. And that’s what I did. Months after the original story broke, local outlets began to air tapes with the same ludicrous allegations against me that, in the end, were proven to be nothing but illegal and false accusations aimed at extorting me. There was nothing new. Every bit of it had been printed in the news media already. Our sports information director, Kenny Klein, even told me one local television station cut into coverage of the death of Ted Kennedy with a story about me, because now there were allegations on tape, and I was disgusted. I was angry, and wanted to set the record straight. I called a press conference and said my piece. I wanted to get up and say, “These are lies you are putting on your airwaves,” and I did. But nothing good came out of it. I accomplished nothing but looking angry on television. I was criticized for holding the press conference and I was criticized for what I said during the press conference. One thing that I came to realize is that in the midst of a bad situation, when something comes out and you want to answer it, don’t answer it. Nothing good can come of it. If somebody needs to give an answer, let your attorney do it. After the press conference was over and I saw the response, I told myself, “That’s it. I’m only talking when I have to—no more press conferences, and I’m not discussing it anymore.” Having gone through it, I’m convinced that’s the best way to handle it.

These truths are easy to understand, but hard to practice. I see it with our players. I remember one night a player letting a female into our dormitory and breaking curfew. Security cameras caught his actions. When confronted, his response was almost laughable. He said he heard a knock at the outside door (which was physically impossible), then came down the steps and checked the girl’s identification before letting her in the door. My look of disgust and disbelief gave away my feelings. I explained that if he had owned up to the truth, the punishment would’ve been physical training in the early morning hours. But now it would be worse. The lie would get worse as he watched more action on the surveillance tape. I tell our guys, when I was their age, there was no technology to tell if we sneaked out or broke curfew. But with technology today, you can’t do anything without everybody finding out within minutes. If you’re drinking alcohol, the public will know. If you’re doing the wrong thing, the public will know. If you’re doing the right thing, the public will know. Your life is an open book now if you play sports. And we give our players examples and talk about it and showcase it.

The truth, on the other hand, stimulates growth in relationships. It builds character in those who tell it. And most of all, the truth allows you to solve your problems, to manage your difficult times, and maneuver through all the roadblocks that stand in your way.

The major problem with lying is that it never stops. More lies will have to come to cover up the original lie. I could give a hundred experiences from players over my thirty-five years in coaching. The stories are always the same. That’s why it’s been such a blessing the past two years. The current group of players I coach understand the importance of telling the truth regardless of the ramifications. The truth allows them to move forward. They own up, pay the consequences, and their errors are learned and thus become part of their past. It’s no different for anyone, the careers lost and lives destroyed span every field. If the original mistake doesn’t ruin people, the cover-up finishes the job.

As I look back on my life of teaching players, so many lie to themselves to take the easy road. The simple question “Did you put in a hard day’s work in the offseason to improve?” often gets the easy answer: “Yes, Coach.” The truth always is revealed when the time for supervised workouts begins. The bigger problem is the lie to one’s self. The best answer in such situations is: “It could always be better.” Just as lying breeds more lies, telling the truth becomes a natural habit—and one of the best that can be formed. I’ve learned the easy way, from watching the consequences for players, and the hard way.

One of the toughest aspects of this kind of adversity is that you have to start by telling the truth to yourself. So many of us don’t view ourselves realistically. We believe the lies we tell the world. The first person you have to be truthful with is yourself. If you are not, one personal failure can compound to every area of your life. It is well documented. To the outside world, to your boss and everyone else, telling the truth is not the most difficult thing. Accepting the truth for yourself, then telling the truth to your family, is the most difficult thing in the world, but it’s the only way for forgiveness to take shape. As Bob Russell told me, it’s not going to happen instantly. It could take months, even years. But you will be forgiven. And his main point to me was, in the end, the most important one you’ve got to make sure of—and you’re going to think of your spouse right away—the most important one you’re going to find is the Lord. You better make sure you’re forgiven by him, first and foremost.

The other tough part of this kind of truth telling is that it is better for everyone involved if they hear it from you. For a short time before the news of all of this broke, I knew that this woman was going to the media all over town to try to tell her story. No one could find any evidence that any of the allegations were true, so no one ran a word about it. But the allegations were out there, and I knew it was only a matter of time until they became public. In this day and age, everything will become public. You can count on it. I had been talking to the FBI for some time once the extortion attempts began. My son Richard had already made the decision to leave to join Billy Donovan’s staff at the University of Florida. When Eric Crawford, then with the Courier-Journal, called me to say he had heard that the allegations were around town, I knew that the awful time had come that I was going to have to speak about this. I was already prepared, as well as I believed I could be. I had already spoken to my family, to Tom Jurich, to my university bosses and attorneys and public relations staff. It was time. I released a statement, one that had been crafted in consultation with my attorney, saying that I was cooperating with the FBI, that many of the allegations against me were wrong and part of an extortion attempt against me, and that I would defend my character and fight for my family. Over time, I would have to disclose many more things that were painful and embarrassing. It was an action I had hoped I never would have to take, and one I tried to avoid. But it was, in the end, unavoidable, and when the time came, I felt it was important for me to say the first word publicly.

I’m not sharing these things as someone who has always had all the answers. I’m writing this knowing that I’ve made big mistakes. And when these truths were presented to me with the prospect of an extortion trial, a large part of me did not want to go ahead with the trial. I wanted anything but that. I wanted something that would make it all go away as quickly as it could. A trial would be painful, most of all for my family. And it would be humiliating and infuriating to take the witness stand and be grilled by a defense attorney. From the minute I embarked on that course, there were miserable days ahead for my family and me. My only escape was to work with my players and my team, and to talk with my friends. And my only way out was facing the truth.

Until you tell the truth, starting with the person in the mirror, nobody’s forgiving you. Nobody. Not yourself, not your family, not your friends, until you own up to things as they truly stand.

Now I want to stop for a moment and talk to a special group of you out there—those who have endured tragedy in their lives. Not all adversity in life is self-induced. I have written about these things before, but in some ways I think they need to be revisited now more than ever. Tragedy is a part of all our lives now—real, genuine, heartbreaking tragedy—whether it hits us directly or we watch it from afar. There are images on television you cannot watch without tears. There is violence; the shootings at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and the terrorist bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon are only the most recent examples. But such senseless events have happened in increasing number since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: the Virginia Tech massacre, a pair of snipers in the Washington, D.C., area, a mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater, the headlines only grow worse. And when it isn’t violence, it’s natural disaster. Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the Northeast. A tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, with a direct hit on an elementary school. I pray that not many people reading these pages have been touched by this kind of sudden tragedy, but I know that many of you have. And certainly, many know that I have.

I lost an infant son, Daniel, to crib death. He was born prematurely and weighed only four pounds. There was a host of complications. He had a hole in his heart that would require surgery when he was strong enough. He had a space in his palate that made eating difficult. We were living in Providence, Rhode Island, where I was coach and Joanne was driving the hour and a half each way every day, spending twelve-hour days at the Boston hospital where Daniel was being cared for, feeding him with a special nipple. Under her care and the doctors’ care, he thrived. He grew enough to come home until the time came for his heart surgery. Doctors told her it would be good for her to get away when our Providence team was playing in the Big East Tournament, which was two and a half hours away in New York City. Daniel and his three older brothers were left for the weekend with the nanny.

But on a jubilant bus ride back from New York, after the Big East Tournament, a state trooper pulled our bus over to the side of the road. I thought he was just there to tell us where we’d be playing in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, he said I needed to come with him. They took me to a phone booth and put me on the line with the hospital in Providence. I asked to know what was wrong and they said they would rather tell me in person. I demanded that they tell me right then, and Dr. Joe Flynn, crying, told me that Daniel had died. For anyone who has ever experienced that moment, you know that you are never the same person again, as long as you live. I could not bring myself to say the words. I had to lean down and whisper to Joanne. She collapsed, unconscious, in my arms, right on that Rhode Island roadside. The sight of the tiny casket, the chilling numbness of the coming weeks and months, they never completely leave you.

In the aftermath of that, I wanted to stop coaching, to be with Joanne and my boys. But she wouldn’t let me. She told me I had to go on. And I did. I have learned over the course of my life that I was the lucky one. I could walk into the gym and put my mind on getting to work. I could focus on the step-by-step routine of the day, if only for a little while. Even the night Daniel died, when I got home, I could not sleep. I put on game tapes and watched them over and over. Others may tell you differently about coping with tragedy and adversity. I can tell you, in many ways, your work and your daily purposeful activity is your therapy. Our first NCAA Tournament game was just two days after the funeral, in Birmingham, Alabama. The NCAA allowed me to send Stu Jackson to the mandatory press conferences to represent our team. They told reporters that there would be no questions about my son. Joanne did not come to Birmingham, but I told her after coming home that if she did not come to Louisville, for the next round of the regionals, I wasn’t going either. So she came, and after the games we retreated to the hotel into our own world. People have described that amazing Final Four run with Providence in 1987 as magical, and over the years, I’ve come to realize that it was incredibly special. Those players and coaches who surrounded me have become friends for life. I saw them at our twenty-fifth reunion of that Final Four and we laughed and cried together.

What I learned through that is that we are called upon to move on with life. We have no choice but to move forward. The thing to which we have devoted our lives is the thing that will help us weather what life brings us. I would use that knowledge again after September 11. Billy Minardi, my wife’s younger brother, was my best friend in life. He died on the 105th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It came just months after Don Vogt, the husband of my wife’s sister, had been struck and killed by a taxi in New York City. I don’t know how long I lived in shock after those events. My life, again, and Joanne’s life, changed forever. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t miss Billy at some point, and during our national championship run in 2013, I thought of him even more. But his wife and children live in Louisville near us now. And I draw strength from family and from our team, which is a second family. There was a time after Billy’s death that the wind was taken from my sails. Basketball did not seem as important to me as it once did, and it never would. There was bitterness and anger to deal with. I’m sure I didn’t deal with all those things the right way. Moving on is not a fast process. It takes years. But the daily requirement of showing up for life, facing the days and making the most of them never stops. And it is in fulfilling those tasks that we begin our road back. There’s no easy answer. There’s no easy process.

There is a homeless shelter in Owensboro, Kentucky, named after Daniel. Our players’ dormitory at Louisville, and one tournament or special game per year is played in Billy’s honor and is named for him. If the adversity you are facing today involves the blows that tragedy can level in your life through no fault of your own, the difficult road back is no less rooted in the truth for you than for anyone else facing difficulty. Life won’t stop. And your charge is to live it as well as you can live it, and to achieve those things you believe you are here to achieve. Keep going. If there are good things around the corner, we cannot experience them unless we get there. There is no easy answer. There’s no easy process.

I only share these things for the same reason I talk about my experience in bringing adversity on myself, and that’s to show that there can be something good on the other side. I could make a list; I can try to share my truths; I can hazard some advice, but in the end the best thing I can show you is my life. The pieces can be put back together, no matter how they get broken, whether through blind misfortune or our own actions.

In the end, there will be times in life when you tell the truth that you will eat crow, or as my friend Whitey would say, eat your ten tons of crap. There will be times when you must swallow your own grief and bitterness and will yourself forward. Whatever the consequences are, you’ve got to get through them. And whatever the consequences are, hard as it is to see and believe when you’re going through it, once you get through them, these difficult times will be part of your past and not your future.

You may never face a public trial, but most of us face difficult times. And in those, our road map out is to tell the truth, seek valued friendships, maintain a focus on work and life, and take spiritual stock of ourselves. The road of deception and cover-ups leads to a fall. Only the truth can return us to a path of success and happiness.

I don’t want to wrap this up with too nice a ribbon. I don’t want to take the Pollyanna approach that all adversity can be peeled back to reveal a happy ending. I can only offer myself as proof that sometimes it does. And I can only give you the exhortation that the only way you will ever find out if it will for you is to keep pushing ahead. You cannot allow difficult times to swallow up your life. You must find a way to keep going, to keep doing those things you do well. They are your source of positive energy in your life, when you are surrounded by negative events.

For four chapters now, we have talked about some fundamentals of dealing with difficult times. We have talked about attitude (humility) and approach (focus). We took a timeout to deal with the trap of technology, and the immediate challenge of adversity when it strikes in its various and darkest forms. Now we will approach an important step in not only dealing with difficult times, but in bringing out your best in such a way that you can find your best days ever.