Thank Your Setback: How Great Coaches Help You Find Hope

Four years into my brain cancer journey, I thought I had setbacks figured out. I'd survived the impossible odds, turned a terminal diagnosis into a testimony, and learned to see challenges as invitations to grow.

Then I had a series of breakthrough seizures.

Lying in that hospital bed, I felt something I hadn't experienced in years. Not fear of dying, but fear that maybe I'd betrayed the trust I'd built with my own body. Maybe I'd pushed too hard, ignored the signals, broken the partnership that had kept me alive.

That's when Alex said something that shifted everything.

Today, I was back at Peak Human Performance, the gym owned by Alex and Amy White, two humans who have transformed my life in ways they probably don't even realize. I was struggling through a workout that felt harder than it should have. My body felt foreign to me, like we were strangers trying to remember how to work together.

"It's hard because I feel like I just need to learn how to trust my body again," I said, more to myself than anyone else.

That's when Alex stopped what he was doing. He looked at me with that expression coaches get when they see something you can't see.

"You want to know what your body said to me?" he asked. "It said that it needs to learn how to trust you again. It sent you all the signs and signals but you ignored them."

I couldn't argue with Alex because he was absolutely right. I have made it past all the odds by breaking the boundaries my body was willing to go to. I forced it out of its comfort zone, and in doing that, I built an unshakeable trust with it.

But somewhere along the way, I had stopped being hyper-aware of what my body was telling me. I had gotten so focused on pushing forward that I missed the signals it was sending.

The seizures weren't a betrayal. They were a conversation I hadn't been listening to.

Every challenge carries a hidden gift if you're willing to look for it. Sometimes that gift is clarity. Sometimes it's strength you didn't know you had. And sometimes, it's the reminder that partnership requires listening, not just leading.

Great coaches like Alex embody everything the H.O.P.E. Algorithmteaches us:

Hyper-Aware: They see patterns you can't see, blind spots you've been living in, conversations you've been missing.

Open-Hearted: They show up when you need them most, often with some sort of cosmic intuition that makes them say exactly what you need to hear.

Persistent: They don't give up on you when you want to give up on yourself. They keep showing you who you can become until you start believing it too.

Empowering: They don't just tell you what to do. They help you discover what your body, your mind, your spirit has been trying to tell you all along.

When I came out of brain surgery, one of the first messages I received from Alex was simple but powerful: "This is what the last year and a half has been for. Now you heal. Now you go heal yourself."

That was huge. We had spent so much time digging through muck and mud, figuring out ways to push my body past where it thought it couldn't go. I would need to dig deeper than I ever had before to survive this disease, and having Alex and that environment to do it in was the key to all of it.

You may be up against a huge setback right now. The last thing you're thinking about is figuring out a way to be grateful for it. But don't forget that everywhere around you is somebody who might be your greatest coach.

They're going to see parts of you that you can't see. They're going to hear conversations you've been missing. This is the magic of life, the stuff we forget way too often.

Here's what that conversation with Alex taught me: trust isn't just about believing in yourself. It's about listening to yourself.

My body had been trying to tell me something for weeks, maybe months. But I was so focused on proving I could push through anything that I forgot the most important part of partnership: listening.

Alex helped me see that my seizures weren't a failure of my body. They were my body's way of saying, "Hey, remember me? We're supposed to be partners in this."

They help you remember that hope isn't a passive wish. It's a strategy. And sometimes that strategy looks like slowing down enough to listen to what your body, your intuition, your life has been trying to tell you.

So here's my challenge for you: What setback are you ready to thank? And what conversation have you been missing?

Maybe your body has been trying to tell you something. Maybe your relationships have been sending signals. Maybe your career has been whispering that it's time for a change.

Maybe it's time to trust the process, even when the process feels impossible. Maybe it's time to remember that you don't have to heal alone. Maybe it's time to find the coaches like Alex who can help you hear what you've been missing.

You're not broken. You're just waking up. And the coaches in your life, whether they know it or not, are there to remind you that impossible is optional.

Your comeback starts with gratitude. Your transformation starts with trust. And your hope? Your hope starts with saying thank you to the setback that's setting you up for exactly what you need.