Great Post Mike!  I could not agree more!  "It is about finding purpose in the misfortune and intentionally learning from it that makes the difference."

For me finding purpose in a time like that came from this quote From Bruce Wilkinson's book The Dream Giver:  “The single best way to develop leaders is to take people out of their safe environments, and away from the people they know, and throw them into a new arena they know little about.  Way over their head, preferably.  In fact the more demanding their challenges, the more pressure and risk they face, the more likely a dynamic leader will emerge.”