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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Gary Smalley 
 
 
Question: 
 
How can I turn a crisis or problem into something positive? 
 
Answer:   
 
One of my favorite quotes, from M. Scott Peck, is, “Life is tough, 
difficult. Only the ones who realize that and know how to use trials are 
the ones who are going to make it, and really find the quality of life 
that you and I deserve to have.” 
 
Well, I agree. In fact, when you think about the number of trials 
you’ve had—just like myself, I got fired from a job—just think of all 
the things: accidents, heart attacks, kidney transplants, what have you 
had? Maybe your dad abused you. Your first husband left you, a mess 
of a divorce, the pain of a divorce. How can that turn into anything 
positive? How can you use that for yourself?  
 
One of my good friends in the country has a great counseling 
organization for couples who have divorced and remarried. The reason 
he’s so effective is because his wife left him. And in the middle of his 
divorce is when he started realizing that “I’m feeling the pain of many 
of my own clients that I see every day,” and he became far more 
compassionate as a result of the trial.  
 
Keep this in mind: all angry, hurtful experiences are really the seeds of 
love. That’s a heavy thing to think about, but that’s exactly what I’ve 
found. I was fired from a job one time. Very wounded by my boss. I 
was lower than a snake’s belly. I was so destroyed that I didn’t know 
who I was anymore. But, you know, out of that experience I learned 
what it feels like to be divorced.  
 
 
 
Because I was really divorced from this company that I loved. I started 
having a very effective counseling and speaking program because I 
was very compassionate. I was loving. I was concerned about their 
pain, and people could tell that I knew how they were feeling, and I 
cared for them. The reason I cared is because I already felt the pain 
and I know what it feels like to go through these tough things.  
 
So, I always can analyze—it’s kind of like this pearl bracelet here. 
They’re all made up of individual pearls—each one of them were once 
a single grain of sand inside that oyster. And it was the irritation and 
pain of the sand that was covered with whatever they cover it with 
that turns it into a pearl. What I have discovered in life is that all of 
my trials, past and present, are all there to help me to become a more 
loving person. I’ve never had an exception.  
 
I can remember talking to the most beautiful model—she was just 
gorgeous, and she was sexually abused by her father and her cousins 
and some people in her life, and she was just devastated. She had her 
first child, and she was really critical of her child. She was very 
unloving, because all of the memories were affecting how she was 
acting today. 
 
I had the privilege of showing her how to “treasure-hunt” the junk in 
our past, and got to show her how sensitive she is today in spotting a 
girl who has been abused. She can walk down the street—she actually 
works for an organization now with kids who are abused sexually. She 
can spot them! When she sits down and says, “Let me hear your 
story.” Then she gets tears in her eyes, and then she says to the 
person, “Let me tell you about my life,” and shares about her abuse. 
They’re amazed that she’s even there and has smiles! 
 
You will be amazed when you start looking at all the aspects of love 
that you have actually have been given, like sensitivity, humility, 
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compassion, patience—you will see all the qualities of love, and you 
get them to a degree with each trial, which I love. So, now I look on 
my difficult situations that I’ve faced and realize that I’ve been so 
benefited.  
 
I’m actually grateful to the guy who fired me! I’m actually his friend 
again. Because he didn’t ruin me. He didn’t take anything away from 
me. He actually contributed to who I am today, and contributed to my 
own success in my writing and speaking. So, I don’t get upset—well, I 
do get upset with trials and difficult times, bad times, but I don’t see 
them as my enemy. I see them as my friend, and I use them for my 
benefit. 
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