Paul provides five tips for responding to adversity and how to build resilience.
Show Notes
Track your first response to adversity. How do you react?
Step out from what is comfortable. Put yourself in a position where failure is a possibility.
Conduct thorough post-mortem reviews after your sales calls.
“Embrace the suck.” Make the best of the situation.
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What’s the best response to adversity?
(Transcribed from podcast)
Today we’re going to talk about adversity. And, what triggered this, I’ve been on several other podcasts recently, and the hosts of these podcasts, they want to talk about the new book, Selling Through Tough Times. But they focus on this whole idea of overcoming adversity, and that tends to really steer the conversation. So, wanted to just speak to that topic today. And the question we’re going to answer is, “What’s the best way to respond to adversity and how do we build that resilience?” So, we’re going to focus on that question today.
Also as a reminder, Selling Through Tough Times—it is your go-to guide for building mental resilience. On the book website we’ve got so many free resources. We’ve got complimentary chapters of the book. We have presentation-planner templates. We’ve got pre-call planning guides. There is so much information and resources available at the website. So, please, check it out. Toughtimer.com: T-O-U-G-H-T-I-M-E-R.com. Check it out.
So let’s get into that question: What’s the best way to respond to adversity? How do we overcome adversity? We need to talk about the different types of people before we get into that—different types of people and how they respond. I believe people can be lumped into three categories when it comes to responding to adversity. You have one group that experiences adversity, even the mildest setback, and they quickly get frustrated and they quit; they just give up. I doubt that there’s really anyone listening to this podcast that falls into that category, highly doubt it.
Now, on the opposite end of that spectrum, we’ve got people who experience adversity, and they quickly push right through it. It’s like the adverse moment, or whatever happens, it doesn’t even really slow them down. In some ways it helps them generate even more momentum. So there’s a group that responds very favorably to adversity. It makes them stronger. They instantly are feeling motivated to push through those adverse moments. I’m sure there’s going to be people listening to this podcast that fall into that category. Then there is the third group, and this is where most people will fall. Most people experience adversity, they complain about it, they whine, they feel sorry for themselves. They pause, they wait it out, they stop. But then, eventually, they push through.
In that third group, what’s happening when you think about it is, it’s just a time-waster. We’re simply wasting time by complaining, by ruminating over the things that are going wrong, by feeling sorry for ourselves. Here’s the group we want to focus on. Because if you experience adversity and you waste time, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You’re slowing yourself down. So what we’re trying to do here is realize that, yes, if we’re in that third group, we’re going to eventually push through the adversity that we face in front of us. So why not push through it sooner rather than later? So, the goal of this podcast is to help you create a better response to adversity—develop a more immediate action-oriented response to adverse moments. So I’m going to give you a five tips, five ideas, that can help you overcome adversity quicker, [be]cause that’s really the goal.
The first thing you want to do, begin tracking your first response to adversity. That’s very clear. Start tracking how you respond to adverse moments. When I say adverse moments or adversity in general, it could be something minimal, like you spill milk when you’re pouring your cereal in the morning, or maybe you spill coffee on a shirt and then you’ve got to go back and switch your shirt out. It could be you break a shoelace when you’re tying it. It could be losing a sale. It could be losing a big customer. It could be losing your job. It could be anything that creates some sort of setback. You want to track your immediate response. And here’s what’s going to happen. As you track your immediate response, there’s going to be some self-correction that takes place. You’re going to be more aware of your first response and it’s going to help you develop a quicker response. So that’s the key. You want to just begin tracking your first response.
Now, the next thing you want to do—you’ve got to give yourself an opportunity to experience more adversity. You need to step outside of what is easy. You need to put yourself in a position where failure is possible—where you could fail, where it might not work out. And what that’s going to do, it’s going to give you more opportunities to flex that adversity muscle or “overcoming-that-adversity” muscle, I should say. But the key is, you want to do new things. You want to step outside of your comfort zone. You want to do things that are difficult, that are higher risk in the sense that you could fail. Because the fact that you could fail is not only going to make you work harder, but it means there’s a chance you’re going to experience that failure, and that failure is an opportunity for you to build resilience. So you need to give yourself more opportunities to build adversity. And that happens when you try new things. When you step outside of your comfort zone, when you engage in activities where failure is a possibility. So that’s the second tip.
Third, conduct thorough post-mortem reviews after your sales calls. This is an important tool because this is where a lot of the learning takes place. You think about it. When you have a sales call—you have an interaction with a customer or prospect, whoever it may be—and it doesn’t go that well. That’s a form of adversity. Well, afterwards, when you sit down and you analyze how the information exchange was: what went wrong, what went right, how was the chemistry between you and the prospect, what would you improve on, when did you sense that the call did not work out (or the interaction), what was the real reason they decided not to move forward? As you start asking yourself these questions, you’re challenging yourself. You’re almost forcing yourself to get better. You become more aware of your shortcomings, and you can only improve on something once you’re aware that you need to improve on it. So a post-mortem review—after a sales call, after an interaction—that’s an excellent way to build mental resilience to overcome that adversity.
Tip number four: stop procrastinating, at least some of the time. Now procrastination typically happens when we just don’t feel like doing something. It’s a pain in the neck. We just don’t want to do it. Every time we do something that we don’t feel like doing, we build discipline. Discipline is such a critical tool, especially when you sell through difficult times, uncertain times. When you’re facing adversity, you need discipline. So remember, every time you do something you don’t feel like doing, you’re building mental strength. And you’ll also notice, half the battle is just getting started. I think Mary Poppins says in the movie, “Well begun is half done.” And what’s interesting how that applies to procrastination. If we set out just to begin the project, begin doing the thing we don’t feel like doing, it’s amazing how much easier it is to complete it. It feels like it’s halfway done as soon as we get started. And that’s because half the battle is just simply getting started.
So remember, stop procrastinating, some of the time. I will admit it’s okay to procrastinate certain items, items that don’t really create any value for you—items that are just sort of time-sucks and that they just take up your time. They suck up your resources but don’t bring much value, procrastinate those items.
Now, the final tip: embrace the “suck.” This is a military term, and what it means is, hey, if the situation is bad, yeah, you get it, but just deal with. Just embrace the suck. You might as well make the best of a bad situation. And so you can’t get past it. Complaining about it’s not going to fix it. Feeling sorry for yourself is not going to fix it. The only thing that will fix it is that you simply must accept it and just move on. Embracing that attitude is going to help you become mentally strong.
So again, what’s the best response to adversity?
- Number one: track your first response.
- Number two: step outside of your comfort zone and what’s familiar. Do difficult things. Put yourself in a position where failure is possible.
- Third: conduct a thorough post-mortem after a sales call. Try to figure out what went wrong. Analyze how the sale went.
- Number four: stop procrastinating, at least some of the time.
- And then, number five: embrace the “suck.”
Make it a big day.
