There is an elephant in the room and he has two letters painted on the side of his big, grey body. The letters are: N-O. NO! How many meetings do you think go on every day around the world discussing everything but the elephant that is in the room. "What can we do to improve sales? Why aren't we hitting our numbers? How are we going to increase sales - or even keep our numbers from dropping?"
Have these questions changed much in the last few decades? Probably not. So, why do the same questions keep getting asked? Maybe it's because people keep expecting a different answer. But one of the biggest answers has to do with the elephant in the room - you know... the one that no one talks about.
And the people who are sitting in the meetings or dialing into the teleconference, are all keeping quiet. Because most people do not raise their hand and say they don't like being told NO. Most people do not shout out on a group call, finally saying, "Help, the rejection is killing me!"
But almost no one is immune. It's time to deal with the elephant in the room.
Showing posts with label Failing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Failing. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Failing Your Way to Success Part 2
When it comes to our ROAR! E-Zine, we are definitely living the fail your way to success philosophy more than we probably ever imagined. This evening I am faced with yet another technical difficulty (the e-zine was sent basically "unreadable") and I realize that I have a choice.
Having recently began an in depth study of the book Play to Win! Choosing Growth Over Comfort in Work and Life by Larry & Hersch Wilson (a brilliant book) I know that the key strategy in these moments is to: 1) Stop 2) Challenge and 3) Choose. The challenge part being to challenge our assumptions and paradigms about how bad the situation really is. The reality is many of us take failures to an extreme with "end of the world" thinking.
When we started our business, almost ten years ago now, Rich and I had a printed newsletter that we mailed out to subscribers. We would agonize for hours editing and making sure everything was perfect. Upon getting our second issue back from the printer we discovered that the footer of the front page still said 'Premier Issue'. We then agonized and debated on what to do about this. Finally we decided to print out fluorescent stickers (labels actually) with a little message to our readership. It fit perfectly over the words premier issue and looked decent enough. I remember being quite upset about this "fiasco" at the time plus all the extra work it caused but I think this story illustrates two key points.
The first is, we are brilliant problem solvers and the second is... we now look back on that and laugh. We aren't nearly as crazed. We know now that turning "failures" into catastrophes does not serve us. Failing is art of the joy of what we do, it means we are living, learning, and growing.
So I choose to relax, understanding that this is at most inconvenient and that some day soon even this minor annoyance will weave itself into the tapestry that are the failures and successes of my life experience.
Having recently began an in depth study of the book Play to Win! Choosing Growth Over Comfort in Work and Life by Larry & Hersch Wilson (a brilliant book) I know that the key strategy in these moments is to: 1) Stop 2) Challenge and 3) Choose. The challenge part being to challenge our assumptions and paradigms about how bad the situation really is. The reality is many of us take failures to an extreme with "end of the world" thinking.
When we started our business, almost ten years ago now, Rich and I had a printed newsletter that we mailed out to subscribers. We would agonize for hours editing and making sure everything was perfect. Upon getting our second issue back from the printer we discovered that the footer of the front page still said 'Premier Issue'. We then agonized and debated on what to do about this. Finally we decided to print out fluorescent stickers (labels actually) with a little message to our readership. It fit perfectly over the words premier issue and looked decent enough. I remember being quite upset about this "fiasco" at the time plus all the extra work it caused but I think this story illustrates two key points.
The first is, we are brilliant problem solvers and the second is... we now look back on that and laugh. We aren't nearly as crazed. We know now that turning "failures" into catastrophes does not serve us. Failing is art of the joy of what we do, it means we are living, learning, and growing.
So I choose to relax, understanding that this is at most inconvenient and that some day soon even this minor annoyance will weave itself into the tapestry that are the failures and successes of my life experience.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Going for No on American Idol
Our "go for no" philosophy was none more evident than on American Idol last night. Okay yes we admit it, we do watch the show. The fifth? sixth? whatever season began yesterday and the truth is we don't watch a lot of TV but we will watch Idol.
It reminded us that auditions are the breeding grounds of "No." A lot of No's were handed out last night on American Idol. Rejections are commonplace in the world of show business. Your favorite working actors are getting rejected still, all the time. It's par for the course.
In fact, in the February issue of BestLife, actor Jeremy Piven is interviewed and says, "The average person would never be able to take this much rejection... you have to understand the journey can be so brutal at times and there's so much rejection that weeds out people." And we say the more rejection, the more you are willing to hear "no" and move on, the greater your changes for ultimate success.
The reality is that a lot of the people told "no" on American Idol deserved to hear it. Yet, even on last season, Simon Cowell told the winner of the entire competition (Taylor Hicks) that there was no way he would make it to the final round. So, the question is who should quit? The bottom line is that for each and every one of us there is a unique formula and it relies on (in varying amounts) things like: talent, some timing and luck, and always the willingness to keep going forward, to fail our way to success.
It reminded us that auditions are the breeding grounds of "No." A lot of No's were handed out last night on American Idol. Rejections are commonplace in the world of show business. Your favorite working actors are getting rejected still, all the time. It's par for the course.
In fact, in the February issue of BestLife, actor Jeremy Piven is interviewed and says, "The average person would never be able to take this much rejection... you have to understand the journey can be so brutal at times and there's so much rejection that weeds out people." And we say the more rejection, the more you are willing to hear "no" and move on, the greater your changes for ultimate success.
The reality is that a lot of the people told "no" on American Idol deserved to hear it. Yet, even on last season, Simon Cowell told the winner of the entire competition (Taylor Hicks) that there was no way he would make it to the final round. So, the question is who should quit? The bottom line is that for each and every one of us there is a unique formula and it relies on (in varying amounts) things like: talent, some timing and luck, and always the willingness to keep going forward, to fail our way to success.
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