Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Live Inspired podcast Monday morning moments with John O'Leary.

We're going to begin this episode with a quote from my buddy,

his name is Agmondino. And what this gentleman writes to us back in the 60s and it still

plays true in our lives today is this. I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will

endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. I love that quote. Here we go.

So it was at a conference in Chicago.

I was the opening keynote speaker and was about to take the stage.

The room was packed.

The lights were low.

And yet the mood was subdued.

You see, this was not a recent event.

It was years ago. It was in the midst of the

subprime mortgage crisis. The real estate world was tanking. The stock market was plummeting.

Unemployment was skyrocketing. There was real anxiety everywhere, but in particular in this room,

that we were on the cliff of a global depression

leaning forward and about to fall. I was invited to remind a room full of financial and business

advisors that their work even now, maybe in particular now, still mattered. Their individual

lives were still important. Their decisions to fight through adversity still critical,

and their willingness to believe that the best days remain in front of them still compulsory.

But the group was downtrodden. Many were at the meeting that they did not want to attend.

Many were working in a global marketplace they felt or they were sure was doomed.

All this filled my mind as the AV technician pulled me aside a few minutes before I took the

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