Meg Poag - The Adversity Hack: Get Out of Your Own Way, Shift Your Thinking, and Change Your World

Make life deeper and more joyful! Meg has a natural way of explaining things, offering good, relevant examples, and showing us a clear-cut method to developing our spiritual intelligence (SQ). SQ changes how we see things, giving us much better options for living life with wisdom and compassion. Use The Adversity Hack to break out of old habits and find sustainable joy.

CINDY WIGGLESWORTH, MA, best-selling author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence and Founder and President of Deep Change, Inc.

I recommend Meg's excellent guidelines to anyone wanting to turn stress into sound action.

DR. BARRY MORGUELAN, Founder of Energy for Success, world-renowned surgeon, and pioneer in gastroenterology

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. Nothing herein shall create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing herein shall constitute legal advice or a solicitation to offer legal advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Published by River Grove Books

Austin, TX

www.rivergrovebooks.com

Copyright 2021 Margaret Poag

All rights reserved.

Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by River Grove Books

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group and Lindsay Starr

Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group and Lindsay Starr

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Print ISBN: 978-1-63299-419-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63299-420-2

First Edition

This book is dedicated to all my clients who diligently explored this crazy work with me and opened themselves up to this powerful tool. Your vulnerability, honesty, courage, and growth inspired me to create this book. Thank you for honoring me with your trust and engagement in this work!

Im trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. Youre the one that has to walk through it.

MORPHEUS, THE MATRIX

W eve all seen inspiring quotes like Things always turn out for the best, and Everything you want is on the other side of fear. OK, these are nice sentiments. When I read this kind of wisdom, Im reflective for about 2.5 seconds. Then I turn back to my same old life, live by my same old patterns, and experience the same frustrations, anger, hurt, resentments, and regrets about my past choices, big or small. And I would appreciate those small moments of joy, surprise, or having things to look forward to, but they were just a moment or two per day, with a lot of doldrums and frustrations in between.

For the longest time, I thought this was just the nature of existence. While I accepted it, I hated those intense moments of sadness, regret, resentment, and anger toward the people around me, politicians I read about in the news, or pretty much anyone or anything I blamed for making me unhappy or undermining my efforts.

I experienced these moments over and over. And I accepted this dull, depressing reality because it was largely accepted by those around me, particularly when it came to work. We spend so much time at work, allowing our jobs to suck our passion and inspiration right out of us. So many of us passively float along in our professional tracks and our daily work experience. And most of us just accept that work kind of sucks and that its generally not going to be fulfilling, and well probably never have that dream job, since it only exists for that rare sliver of the working population thats incredibly talented and driven, or super lucky.

But I, like many people, eventually hit a point when it was all too much for me to bear, and I sought help. I found a therapist, an executive coach, a loving friend, a spiritual guide, and a mentor. Id ask them to tell me how to get out of my pain and maybe even how to get what I wanted in life. For a short while Id feel uplifted and guided to make different choices, and then, for a brief moment of clarity, Id see the fruits of those choices in my life! But then, in all my brilliant humanity, Id walk away from the support and guidance that I was given and completely regress.

This, of course, resulted in my experiencing the same old frustrations and resentments. I still had the same lame workday that left me exhausted and lifeless. I still had the same frustrations of not feeling valued at work, not knowing if I was really making the difference I wanted to make. And I still had the same enraging situations and feelings of being stuck, undervalued, and overwhelmed.

And then I started to reflect on this cycle. I began to wonder if it was simply the nature of human existence to suffer over and over. Were my dreams of feeling peaceful, loved, supported, accepted, powerful, successful, and joyful all a joke? Was it all some giant trick? Was my dream of having fulfilling, thrilling work an impossibility? And was it completely unrealistic of me to want to work with people who loved their jobs and showed up with their whole selves to create something awesome together?

After careful consideration I came to an astounding conclusion: Hell no! I do not have to accept this as my fate. And you dont either!

It seems everyone has different advice for how to emerge from suffering and experience more joy, based largely on how they have worked through the suffering and come out the other side. Unfortunately, much of their advice might not quite work for you. There are thousands of peopleauthors, professionals, perhaps even some friendswho want to help you and have tried to no avail. All the books, advice, coachingit can become overwhelming. It also might not be what youre looking for, and it might not work. And maybe youre not sure what you want or what kind of a life is even possible for you. Sound familiar?

Well, Im going to tell you something that may surprise you: You have everything you need to do this yourself. And youve already got a ton of talents, strengths, and experiences to apply to this effort. What if all you needed was a simple but powerful tool to get on a path that actually works? What if there were a tool that took all that age-old wisdom and priceless guidance, and enabled you to apply it to your lifeto change your life by changing the way you were thinking and livingso you could recreate the world around you?

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, Ive been using the Adversity Cycle with hundreds of peopletailoring it and perfecting itand I have never seen it fail when someone is committed to using it. In fact, Ive devoted most of my professional life to helping leaders in the workplace find their joy, so they can interact with more empathy, rapidly tap into their superpowers, identify their blind spots, and leap over the hurdles that have stifled them for years.

This book will help you dramatically improve your emotional intelligence. It will help you transcend the things you struggle with now so you will not have to struggle with them in the future. You also will realize what you want and discover what brings you joy. You will know exactly how you want to live and what you need to do to get there.