"If the market never cocks a gun at your forehead and shakes you down for all you’re worth—you may never have the opportunity to build something of greater strength, proportion, or personal significance than that which you’ve already built."

As a young investor and student of the markets over the last 8 years, I have seen a correlation between life experience and the behavior exhibited by investors in the marketplace. In particular, the extreme bear markets which occur every 40-50 years or more carry quite an emotional and behavioral resemblance to the moments we experience once or twice in a lifetime---the one’s we call “hitting rock bottom”. In those moments in my opinion, we as human beings and investors are presented with an interesting choice. Let me share with you a short story.

“She peered over her eyeglass frames, looking at me with smiling brown eyes. Her graying black hair was unkempt and falling out of a day-old ponytail, while the 3:00 p.m. nightgown in my peripheral was distracting to say the least.

‘From that moment on,’ she said, leaning towards my face and raising a finger in the air, ‘I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I would never need a man to support me or my children---EVER AGAIN.’

As she worked her way up onto her feet and towards the bathroom, I reviewed the story she just told me. Twenty-five years earlier, this woman of three children separated with her husband. On the negotiation table one day was the subject of their jointly owned home. Her husband announced, “I’d like you to sign these papers transferring full ownership of the house to me. If you do not,” he commanded, “I will shoot and kill you.”

Stunned, his own family members advised her to ‘call his bluff’. However in the defense of the children, she signed over the deed and moved back home to her mother’s three bedroom concrete shack—creating a total three women and three children all living in the same cramped, humid space.

She was now a single woman with three children to feed, clothe, and care for, without a home of her own, and was robbed of nearly 10 years of financial progress--she had truly hit rock bottom!

In a moment of despair she looked herself in the mirror and made a promise. She vowed to get up, fight back, and never again allow a man to determine the destiny of her or her children.

Over the course of the next 5 years, she proceeded to work 2-3 jobs, 12-16 hour weekdays and Saturdays—providing for her children food, clothing, textbooks, notebooks, pens and pencils—everything they needed for a winning future. On Sundays, this pint-sized woman and her mother purchased bricks and mortar, and with her bare hands, laid one on top of another--building the home for herself and her children in which I now sat.

I heard a toilet flush and a returning shuffle of slippers, and found myself staring at the walls in a dazed wonder. Every square inch was fought for many times over—with all the intensity and spirit of a mama brown bear defending the cubs.”

This story and experience was shared to me two weeks ago, during a routine Saturday morning coffee. I saw such strength in this woman’s eyes—and I knew without a doubt that at her accelerated age she still had the power to pummel nearly every male reader of mine, many of whom cry uncle when their stock portfolios drop 25%.

Moreover, I was determined to find which lessons could be discovered in her experience, and how might we apply this psychology of endurance to business and markets.

I came to this final realization: A once in a generation difficult market and business environment offer us a once in a generational opportunity at personal growth and achievement. If the market never cocks a gun at your forehead and shakes you down for all you’re worth—you may never have the opportunity to build something of greater strength, proportion, or personal significance than that which you’ve already built.

Additionally—if we allow the moment to pass without taking arm in the fight, we may lose the greatest opportunity of all: to live a life worth living, with each savory square inch fought for many times over.

So as you glance at a declining stock ticker, stagnating business volume, or turn in a pair of keys, give yourself an excited grin and ask for more challenge. Wake up in the morning and silently pray for your moment and chance to give it all back--to hit, conquer, and climb out of your rock bottom.

Tekoa Da Silva is the publisher of BullMarketThinking.com.