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When money was tight or when thing's weren't going our way, she would always say this as I was growing up.
We lived in a small town in Ohio, my mom, step-dad, three younger sisters and myself.
I thought she was loony, thinking she was going to get some kind of trophy for last place.
I had competed in youth soccer, we won our season and local tournament.
At the awards ceremony at the end of the year we received trophies, the losing teams didn't.
I knew how winning and losing worked.
At least with a child's mindset I did.
So fast forward to my mid twenties.
I had moved to another state, recently gotten married, and was using my Associate's Degree in Visual Communications at a sign shop.
In my three years there I saw the local economy slowly begin to accept the idea that they were in a recession.
Even though I was one of the few trained Graphic Designers around, jobs weren't pouring in like they once were.
I wanted to improve my skills beyond what was being offered to me with my daily work, so I began to look for opportunities online.
Searching for contests I found crowdsourcing website I could compete in.
Plus they paid when you won, so I put in my application and was accepted.
Since jobs at the sign shop were becoming scarce, my paychecks from the sign shop began to come later, and later, and later.
Trying to work hard and prove my dedication to the company led me to not having a been a paid in over a month.
Naturally, this caused me a lot of stress and frustration.
Being a man of faith, I spent some extra time praying one day during my lunch break for my situation to change.
Pleading for God to do something, open a door, anything so that I could provide for my wife.
We had been wanting to start a family and move closer to town.
A call came in after lunch for me to deal with an accounting problem with one of our vendors.
I had been helping out with things outside of my job description, you know, to help the company, but this was a bit over my head.
I was completely uncomfortable with the request and having not been paid for doing my actual job, I took that moment to speak up about my "discontent.
" It truly is funny how God works sometimes, in this instance giving me a boost of boldness.
Needless to say I lost my job that day.
Really it had been lost a month earlier, but it took that long for me to let go.
In losing my job at the sign shop, I suddenly had more time to compete in online logo contests.
I dove in head first, winning my first competition after entering 20 or so contests.
Soon enough, while improving my approach and design ideas, the wins began to come in consistently.
I was not only able to pay for gas with my wins, but groceries and bills too.
There are quite a few contests that I do lose, it kinda comes with the territory.
But there's a lot of opportunity there, I can always pick up and move on to the next competition.
It's been almost two years now, and I find myself regularly one of the top designers on the site.
My wife and I just had our first baby, a happy little girl, we moved like we were wanting to, and I was just recently promoted as the Community Manager within the website.
In losing my "day job," I won an opportunity to better provide for my family.
Not quite what I think my mom was always saying, but seeing how loss can be beneficial helps me look for the "silver lining" in more areas of my life.
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