My friend James is one of the most inspirational people I know, he has done very well for himself, he travels to many parts of the world for business and is respected in his industry. However this was not always the case, when James graduated from university he went through a lot of trials and tribulations, he struggled to find a job and when he found one he suffered a lot of discrimination because he is black. He talks about going to a new job and been given the simplest work to do, if he ever made mistake everyone on the team was on him. This was putting him down and it got worse when the amount of work that was coming his way reduced. This happened because he had made a mistake in his first few weeks in the job. He realised that he was not going to be given a chance to prove himself; this was evident from the amount of work that was given to him. He was on a six months contract so he made a decision that he would not stay beyond the six months and he decided to do something with all the free time he found himself with. He was given work that only covered two and a half hours of working day so he decided to do something useful with the other five hours. He decided to pick a new subject which researched on everyday. No one cared what he was doing and in the third month he was told he would not kept on beyond the six months period which he had already worked out. He did not argue with anyone, he was accused of doing a lot of things wrong and sometimes people accused him of being at fault for work he has never done before. It was clear none his team liked him but he used this as an opportunity to learn.

It is easy to focus on adversity and let it define who you are but friend refused to do this. In the moment when a lot of people would have completely given up on their dream my friend focused on the opportunity the situation presented him and he made a success of it. My friend always tells me that every adversity always comes with its own solution. It is great when life is easy and everyone likes us but when we learn how to deal with people who do not like us and use this to our advantage. My friend always says that every problem always comes with its own solution. I can add on to this and say it is from the ashes of defeat that grows the roses of success.