Handling setbacks

There are only a couple of ways we can handle setbacks when they come our way...we can lay down and feel sorry for ourselves-complain, bitch, ask ourselves "why me?". The other option is to dig down deep, find some gumption, and bare down... on guess what?....The Simple Disciplines.

Let me first explain that I'm experiencing some unforeseen challenges right now in one of my businesses. All of a sudden, the deals have stopped. Nobody seems to be pulling the trigger and signing contracts. Normally, by this time of the year, we've got a fairly full schedule of projects going on right now. But, right now, we've got very little happening. Lots of quoting, lots of sales presentations, people want to know how much it costs...but NOBODY is pulling the trigger. It's quite strange. My normal closing ratio is between 33% and 60%. In the past couple of weeks I've ran almost 20 leads and have inked zero deals. Never seen anything like this...ever. I'd normally be at $100,000 at least in sales volume for the month of April...right now I'm at $7800. I'm panicking a bit, to be forthcoming.

The angst has been building inside of me for the about the last five or six days. I guess I probably shouldn't be so quick to highlight my struggles, seeing as how I'm striving to set an example and help others get past their short and long-term struggles. But, the fact of the matter is I'm far from perfect, in any aspect of my life, and I've been shitting my pants over this. The last thing you'll ever get from me is a bunch of bs about doing all fine and dandy if I'm having some trouble. And like I said, the past few days have been a rough go.

In fact, the dark thoughts had actually taken over my brain as of about 2:00 this afternoon, and I had the urge to call up a bunch of my prospects and lower my prices, to try to get some momentum going. It made total sense to me at the time. I thought, this just might work...I could call them up, tell them we're struggling to get people on board, and that I could take some off the price if they'll commit right away. I began rehearsing the phraseology, going through it all out loud to see how it sounded. I used my voice recorder to check and see if it sounded desperate or not. I was on the verge of placing my first call and it hit me...luckily. My inner dialogue was something like this: "How in the world can I justify this to anybody in my peer group? I've always prided myself in being a man who refuses to come from a position of weakness. Is this a move coming from someone in a position of strength?" "Don't you write every night about what a person can do to improve his outcomes in his life, by simply changing his inner game?" "What would you say to one of your business buddies who came to you with this very same challenge?". No doubt this is the result of the thousands of hours of personal development study I've done over the past eight years and of the hundreds of hours of writing. All of these negative feelings and thoughts had taken over and my new philosophy kicked in to override these fearful attitudes just when I needed it most. The filter that really convinced me not to make these desperation attempts was the one in which I asked myself "if this is really the man I become when I'm faced with a real challenge? Is this the example I want to set for my friends and my family?" Hell no.

So, here's what I'm going to do, here's the Inner Game(my thinking and beliefs) change:

Instead of crawling into a hole, I'm going straight to what I know will never fail me...the fundamentals. I have 100% faith in the fact that the Simple Disciplines I've committed to will get me the results I seek, if I execute them every day with faith and enthusiasm. That being the case, I'm going to double the Simple Disciplines pertaining to the success of this particular endeavor. Instead of sitting around pondering a million negative scenarios, I'm going to focus all of my energy on visualizing me closing every deal I come across. I now refuse to engage in any negative thinking or speaking about this situation. When I think or speak of it, I will do it from a position of strength and positivity. I will expect great things to happen from this point forward. It's imperative because what I realized is that all of the "no's" I've been hearing have taken their toll on my confidence. Normally, I go into most every deal fully EXPECTING to get the deal. Lately, I've been expecting the opposite. That will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, no question.

So, here's what this outer game change is going to look like...

For the next two weeks, instead of canvassing for five hours per week, I'm going to canvass ten hours. Instead of visualizing for 15 minutes, twice per day, I'm going to visualize for 30 minutes twice per day..with an emphasis on seeing me close these deals with high profit margins.

In summary, I have two paths I can go down. One path is the path of worry, doubt, that will ultimately lead to failure. It might feel better in the short-term, I could go around and whine to all of my friends and family and my crews, talking about how none of this is my fault. We could all engage in the normal conversation in which we all blame anybody and everybody for the poor circumstances we find ourselves in. Or, we could go the other way. We can make a DECISION, that we will see this through and we will find a way to not only survive, but to hammer the numbers we committed to when we started. See, in times like these, we can't lose our perspective and focus on just surviving. When we focus on survival, that's what we get...survival. I'm not looking for that. I'm looking to thrive, to prosper. This is the path I'm choosing to take. Yes, it's going to require more effort, more time. But, I've got way too much skin in this game to hunker down in fear and quit. It's not in me anyway.

I'm hoping you're all rolling and don't have to use any of the stuff I'm faced with using here. I hope you're all on the right path and are seeing magnificent results. But, if you're not, then I know this perspective can help. It is really the only path we can take. The short-term pain we'll feel from doing this right will be nothing compared to the long-term pain and regret we would experience from taking the easy road and giving up.

Flip the switch