A lot of you are going through a great depression.

You're going through hard times, and I like being transparent, so I'll be transparent with you—I go through hard times too, even now. I go through depression, because nobody is exempt from the rough seasons of life. Right now, we're in the middle of a pandemic. A lot of things have changed for a lot of people. A lot of people's worlds have flipped upside down.

Everybody's talking about the physical crisis—the disease—but I think there's another crisis, as well. There's a mental crisis consuming the world right now, and there are a lot of people in our country today who don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. There are a lot of people who are worried and stressed about the future, and I can't blame them for that. However, if you're reading this, I'm here to show you a better way.

How do you protect your peace when the world seems to be falling apart? How do you retain normalcy when everyone seems to be losing their grip on reality? How do you hold onto your sanity when nothing seems to make any sense?

You've got to use your struggle to build something inside of you.

Sometimes, the only way out is through. Unfortunately, we don't always have complete control over our lives. There is no one on earth powerful enough to stop the pandemic from happening, and when I talk about control, I'm talking about a lot more than just the virus. I'm talking about relationships and opportunities. I'm talking about your whole life.

You can't avoid your trials, so you've got to use them to build you.

You've got to use your struggles to build something that nothing else could have built. You've got to find peace and make whatever you're going through your new normal. When I lost football, I thought I'd lost everything in my life. For so long, I just hoped and wished for things to go back to normal.

I kept asking God, "Please just put everything back." I kept asking the universe to give me exactly what I wanted, but, as most of us know, that's not at all how it works.

None of us have the ability to go back into the past, and that's something I learned the hard way when I lost the NFL. I realized that I couldn't force things back to be the way they were, so I had two options—I could lay down on the floor and die, or I could create a new normal for myself.

You are going to go through changes, but I am here to tell you that you can weather anything. When life gives you something other than lemons, you've got to get out your cookbook and be creative. That's easier said than done, but it's all any of us have got.

It all starts with you.