I spend a lot of time with young people in my role as a regent at CU, and as the head of SheFactor, a company I founded with my oldest daughter to help young women launch a life they love.

Young people are hurting right now; 63% of young people are suffering significant symptoms of anxiety or depression.

They have ramped up their use of substances, including alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs. They are lonely, frustrated with social restrictions and they can’t travel. It’s hard to date, to eat out, it’s even been hard to see their grandparents. They’ve missed so many milestones. It’s heartbreaking.

How can we help them?

A few summers ago I did a TEDx talk on just that; maybe it can help now.

Things happen to us in our lives that impact us, influence us, change us. Life is hard. We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we choose to react to it.

That reaction is what I call the art of the comeback. It’s an art I had to learn the hard way.

On my first husband’s 25th birthday, a sunny day in May, we surprised him with a ride in a vintage stunt plane. The plane crashed — and Bion and the pilot died.

My life was changed forever.

Just before the crash, Bion and I had finished jotting out a business plan for Camp Bow Wow, a happy place for dogs, on the back of a napkin over some beers.

That plan sat on a shelf for a long time while I got my life back together.

A few years later I rolled up my sleeves and started. I invested the last of my savings, maxed out every credit card, and opened the first camp in Denver in the fall of 2000.

Camp Bow Wow took off and on the charity side, we rescued over 10,000 dogs. It filled my heart to help franchisees open a business doing what they loved, in turn making our human and furry customers happy too.

We faced adversity again when the great recession hit in 2008 and almost destroyed the franchise industry. We gutted it out by focusing on helping our franchisees get through it.

I sold the business a few years ago and turned my attention from K9s to my love of our country, and Colorado, and my passion for protecting it for our kids. I ran for regent in 2016 so I could help keep the American dream alive for future generations.

So how did all this help me? To come back, I gave back.

The “art of the comeback” came together for me in an unlikely place, my pediatrician’s office.

A while back, Dr. Bucknam and I were chatting about my daughter’s high school friends, and how sad and lost many of them were.

He told me in all his years as a doctor, his best advice to parents to help their kids who were sad, lost or acting out — was to simply turn them outward.

Focus them on the idea that they are part of something much bigger than themselves, than their pain.

Get them reconnected to people, to their community. Get them to give back.

The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me Dr. Bob’s suggestion was actually the secret sauce to how I had come back each time.

It was the common thread in all of my life stories, all the adversity. To come back, I gave back.

When the plane crashed caring for my dogs Mick and Winnie got me out of bed every day. Then caring for my daughter Tori brought me back to life. Helping franchisees see their dreams come true made me smile. Seeing the foundation give thousands of dogs a home made the comeback all the sweeter. Mentoring young women and helping them live a life they love makes me happy and proud of our next generation of leaders.

Helping others helped me heal! It kept me focused on the world around me that needed my help, rather than the lonely pain and grief I couldn’t solve for myself.

To come back — I focused on giving back. That is the art of the comeback.

Perhaps it can help us to help the young people in our lives who are dealing with so much pain right now.

Let’s help them look outward and teach them by giving back, they can come back.

Let’s remind them they are part of something amazing, and important, a world that can be changed by them looking outward, by giving back. And in doing so their own pain can be healed.

Heidi Ganahl is a businesswoman, entrepreneur, author and at-large member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, to which she was elected as a Republican in 2016.