#setbacks #OvercomingAdversity #LoseTheVictimMentality
Life is going your way. Suddenly, a setback – an injury, death, business disaster etc.
“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up,” says legendary football coach Vince Lombardi.
Andy Bailey, lead entrepreneur coach with the firm Petra, quoted Lombardi in an Oct. 11, 2015, column he wrote for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
“A setback defines your company or career only if you let it keep you from trying to move forward, “Bailey writes.
In other words, no matter how well things may be going now, setbacks will come. Perhaps you will lose a job. Perhaps your biggest client bolts. Perhaps the one person you relied on the most in life dies.
They all hurt, but they shouldn’t kill you. You can recover from almost anything if you want to. You just have to use the inner strength to move on.
Bailey suggests three things: lose the victim mentality, recalibrate and do the hard work.
Let’s discuss each of those. Do you know anyone who can’t escape “woe is me?” A setback will send them right into a tailspin. They will blame everyone and everything for ruining their lives. They will believe they were meant to have something bad happen to them.
They are the victims. However, good, strong people are NEVER victims. They believe when bad things happen, they can, and will, overcome them. It may take them a bit longer to achieve what they want, but no matter. They know to press on, and they do.
Maybe you’ve done something wrong in your great life plan. Presuming you can figure out what it is, you fix it and move on. Most strong people can determine what they should have done differently, and recalibrate, or adjust.
Of course, these same, strong people know about hard work and do it. They look at problems as fixable, as long as they are willing to do what it takes.
It’s not just working hard. Some very hard-working people lose their jobs every day. Sometimes it means finding something different to work hard at.
If you are someone who has worked hard, and suddenly have what you’ve worked so hard for disappears, there are many ways to recalibrate, or adjust. You don’t have to be a victim. If your job disappears, there are many ways to make money that have nothing to do with a traditional job. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Oh, you’ll still have to work hard, but you may find life more fun and more lucrative.
It doesn’t necessarily take a village to overcome a setback. But an individual could create a village to get him past what was holding him back. Let not your circumstances define you. If things go badly, turn them around. Anyone can do it, if you have the motivation.
Another tip: hang with people who encourage you, rather than those who discourage you. Sometimes, when one combines bad circumstances with pessimistic people, the mixture is toxic to one’s psyche.
As motivational speaker, author and leadership expert John Maxwell has said, one will not necessarily be a great singer just because he believes he can. He has to have some God-given talent to get him there. But, for many other things, you can achieve what you believe.
Follow Bailey’s advice: don’t be a victim, recalibrate if necessary and do the hard work. No matter what you are trying to achieve, don’t let setbacks squash you.
Peter
Tag Archives: Andy Bailey
A LEADER KNOWS WHEN TO FOLLOW
Good leaders follow.
Ask any Army general or Navy admiral. They would not have risen through the military ranks had they not been able to follow orders.
Business coach Andy Bailey, with the firm Petra, talked about leaders who follow in the Oct. 20, 2013, edition of The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville. His column says leaders are empathetic, show vulnerability and grow other leaders.
Unless you are a dictatorial leader, who tries to advance while holding others down, good leaders can’t exist without a great team, Bailey says.
Other leadership experts, like John Maxwell, also talk about vulnerable leaders. In his “5 Levels of Leadership,” Maxwell points out that vulnerability helps make leaders genuine. A good leader doesn’t have to know everything. He has to be able to find the people on his team who know more about a given subject than he does, and allow them to lead in that area.
As we grow as people, we learn that not knowing everything about everything is OK. Did you ever have a neighbor, friend or relative who could rattle off a lot of knowledge about anything and everything? Did you like being around this person? Sometime, you may have had to borrow a cup of sugar from this person, but that turned into an hour or longer conversation. He did most of the talking.
Good leaders are humble. They admit not knowing things, and they admit when they make mistakes. It’s part of the relationship the leader is building with his team.
Remember, too, that one does not necessarily have to have a high position or high authority to be a leader. He just needs to have influence. The difference between power and influence is that influence allows you to get people to do things for you willingly, instead of by force.
Good leaders, as Maxwell points out, have great relationships with each on his team. This relationship is cultivated without having to be “soft,” and unable to make hard decisions.
We’ve all worked for dictatorial leaders at some point. You don’t dare offer suggestions, or talk about any difficulties in getting a job done with that person. He doesn’t listen, and doesn’t care how difficult things are for you. He has no empathy. He’s working for his own success, and is using you to get what he wants.
Today’s leaders engage in the messy process of developing people, as Maxwell points out. Developing good relations with people is a deliberative process. First, the leader has to be likeable, though he doesn’t expect EVERYONE to like him. For some, becoming likeable is a messy process. For others, it comes naturally.
A wise person once said that people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care (about them). Good leaders care about their people first. The other things usually fall into place once that happens.
Want to be a good, empathetic leader but don’t have a team? Visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau and learn how to find, and build, a great team. You may not know who will be on your team ultimately, but if you follow the leadership guidelines that Bailey, Maxwell and others espouse, you’ll have a great time building your team, and growing as a person yourself.
Peter
INSPIRATION,DREAMS AMID GLOOM
Even tragedy can inspire.
The folks of Boston, Mass., are clear proof.
They could have sat on the pity pot and said, “why us,” after the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Instead, they reacted with resilience, inspired to not let terrorists ruin their city, their lives etc. They grieved the dead and wounded, and got right up and went after the perpetrators. They got two suspects in relatively short order.
One does not have to be a Bostonian, or a victim of a terror attack, to feel violated. A job loss, a drop in business or other economic calamities are common today.
Sure, things appear to be looking up, but if your personal situation is not improving, or may have gotten worse, it’s hard to find something that will inspire you.
Hard, perhaps, but not impossible.
In Boston, there was collective inspiration. You are looking for individual inspiration. Even a guy like Andy Bailey, who coaches entrepreneurs in Nashville, found inspiration in one of his clients.
As Bailey told it in an April 2013 column in The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville, his client emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, knowing no English to build his own company here.
Instead of looking for folks worse off than you to convince yourself of how good you have it, look to those who’ve overcome obstacles to achieve great things as an inspiration to you. Think of this down period as just one obstacle to success.
Success is defined in many ways besides financial. But financial success makes any dream possible. Puzzled at how to achieve financial success? Visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It’s one of the best vehicles for an entrepreneur to build success.
Oh, you’re not an entrepreneur? You’re just a “working stiff?” Entrepreneurs are just working stiffs with dreams and inspiration. It’s those dreams and inspiration that turn them from stiff to fluid. They’re fluid enough to find what will fulfill their dreams, and use their inspiration to make it happen.
Nike says “Just Do It.” Your dreams and inspiration will keep you on the right track. If you need dreams and/or inspiration, think of Andy Bailey’s client — or perhaps someone you know or know of who has beaten the odds. More than likely, you’ll find dreams and inspiration as part of his story.
Peter