Today’s topic is resiliency -- an important characteristic for leaders and entrpreneurs.
I saw a quote by William Feather on the business 21 website the other day: “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go"...
This quote was helpful to me after my week last week. I live in Denver. I had business in central New Jersey on Tuesday, so I flew to Newark on Monday. Since I was going to be in New Jersey, I decided that I would take the opportunity to do some follow up marketing with two of my clients in the area. On Wednesday, I was scheduled to meet with one of them in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. On Thursday, I was scheduled to meet with the other in Northern New Jersey. All of this meant a fair bit of driving those two days.
On Wednesday, I got up early and drove to my appointment outside of Philadelphia. I had confirmed it the day before. When I got there, the exit I usually use to get to his office was closed do to highway work. I drove around a bit, and found a back way. This client is the head of Quality Operations at a large pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. A big part of his responsibilities is managing regulatory compliance.
When I parked the car, I noticed that the car next to me had US government plate. I thought to myself “I hope the FDA isn’t here”. The FDA regulates pharmaceutical production in the US. They can, and do, make unannounced inspections to check on whether or not a given facility is in compliance with all federal regulations. Sure enough, after I checked in with the receptionist, my client’s assistant came down to meet me and said, “sorry, the FDA is here for an unannounced inspection, John won’t be able to meet with you.”
I got back in my car and headed back to New Jersey. I thought “this isn’t so bad, I’ll use the time to get caught up on some of my other work”. I stopped at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike to check my e mail and voice mail messages. I had a voice message from the client I was meeting the next day. He asked me to give him a call. When I called, he said “I am planning on meeting with you tomorrow, but I wanted you to know that I’ve resigned from my company, so we won’t be meeting at my office. Please give me a call so we can find a place to meet.” We met, but with my friend and client temporarily out of job, I couldn’t close any business.
This really got me. Due to some circumstances out of my control, I was staying two extra days in New Jersey for sales meetings that weren’t going to happen. I would have preferred to been at home in Denver working in my office where I have everything I need, instead of working out of a hotel room.
I was pretty despondent – for about a half an hour. Then I went to my hotel, opened up my phone list and began calling other clients in the area to see if I could set up some appointments before I returned to Denver. I managed to set up one meeting that is likely to lead to some business early in 2007. I also used the time to do some writing on my current book project. In short, after 30 minutes of feeling sorry for myself, I settled down and decided to make the best of a bad situation. I call this being resilient. And being resilient is one of the most important traits for any leader, entrepreneur or small business owner.
The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines resilient as “tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” and “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture”. The latter one is more applicable to materials, not human beings, but most small business owners will tell you that it is applicable to entrepreneurs as well.
The quote at the beginning of this post characterizes resiliency pretty well too. In my experience, successful leaders and entrepreneurs hang on long after others let go. That’s why they are successful.
Resilience is key to succeeding as a leader or small business person. Life and the world throw a lot of things at you that are beyond your control. Successful people are able to recover easily and go on. They make the best of a bad situation.
There are a lot of clichés about this – sayings like “when one door closes, another opens”. This is true for resilient people. It’s not true for brittle people. Brittle is the antonym of resilient. The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines it as “easily broken, snapped, cracked, disrupted, overthrown or damaged”.
Good times come to and end. Bad times do too. Mike Ditka, famous tough guy American Football player and coach once said, “success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal”. Resilient people know this. They take advantage of good fortune and work hard to reserve bad fortune. Brittle people break when they encounter setbacks.
I believe we can all make a choice between being resilient or brittle. If you choose resiliency, you’ll see setbacks and problems as inevitable. You’ll choose to do what you can do to remedy or adapt to the situation. If you choose to be brittle, you’ll be overwhelmed by setbacks and problems. You’ll snap and crack, and your dreams will be left unfulfilled.
Resilient or brittle? It’s your choice. I choose resiliency.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blogs: www.CareerSuperStar.com for common sense advice on becoming the life and career star you are meant to be; and www.CommonSenseDay.com to learn more about Use Your Common Sense Day -- November 4, and to read stories of common sense in action.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
that was a good blog entry. personal, able to relate, and brings a message of hope.
Did the 30 minutes of feeling sorry for yourself end easily, or were you trying to feel better and pick up your spirits to get some work done, for the entire 30 minutes, and finally at the end it kicked in?
what were some of the things you were telling yourself to change your mood and get you back into a more productive frame of mind?
we could all use some of these helpful tips...
Posted by: steve | October 27, 2006 at 06:06 PM