#Strategy : 4 Steps To Overcome Adversity And Amplify Your Success…When you Consider the Statistic that 60% of Americans are Unhappy With their Occupation, It Becomes Apparent That the Majority of Us are Not Aligned With our Purpose or, Consequently, our Potential.
“The truth is that customers don’t typically care who you are or what you have to offer unless they can see that there is clear and obvious value being offered in the exchange,” said Brad. “What drives the interaction is an exchange of value. As soon as the customer perceives that the value being offered is greater than the cost, there will be a natural urgency for the exchange.”
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference,” wrote Robert Frost in his famous poem “The Road Not Taken” in 1916. Our team at Fishbowl believes it is a metaphor for accepting accountability for our choices. We can remain optimistic through every breakdown or failure, learn and come back wiser and possibly even grateful for the experience.
“Life is difficult,” wrote Dr. M. Scott Peck in his bestseller The Road Less Traveled published in 1978. “This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
Frost and Dr. Peck make it clear that life is a journey and challenges are a given. Fast forward to 2015 and to a new generation of thought leaders and we learn that adversity in many experiences can be overcome with knowledge and viewing the situation from a different perspective.
We recently read The Laws of Influence by Brad Harker, a highly respected influence expert. He reminded us a lot of Dr. Peck. We liked his book so much that we connected with him to learn more.
Brad consults with professionals and organizations in the disciplines of sales, entrepreneurship and career development. With his entrepreneurial track record that includes a series of startups and more than a quarter billion dollars in sales, we were anxious to learn more about Brad’s theories on influence and the strategies he has introduced to his clients to help them reach incredible levels of personal and professional achievement.
Brad possesses more ambition, creativity and passion than we’ve seen in most experts. He has a unique ability to help others discover their purpose, amplify their strengths and leverage their potential.
Here are the four highlights from our discussion that helped our team and will hopefully help you overcome challenges and amplify success:
1. Everyone is in sales
Brad views selling as a function of influence. “Rooted in a distinct mindset, selling is in the way we think, act and communicate,” said Brad. “It is habitual. It’s not so much what we do or say, but how we do or say it. We all sell our ideas, beliefs, products or services every single day of our lives. No matter what our job title is, we are all active in the art of influence.”
Through his experience in sales and entrepreneurship, Brad has arrived at five conclusions:
- Selling or influencing others is an integral part of our daily experience, no matter what role we play in life.
- Our success in any endeavor depends on our ability to influence.
- We each have natural abilities that we can cultivate into habits of influence.
- By practicing these habits on a consistent basis, we can leverage the power of influence to reach our greatest potential.
- Once we have accepted the reality that we are always selling something, we can direct our attention to the most important sale we will ever face – ourselves. Our “pitch” to ourselves is that we each have unlimited potential and a unique capacity to realize our own version of greatness.
2. Align with your purpose
Brad believes that aligning with your purpose is the first step to build influence. He suggests that “each of us possesses unique traits and natural abilities, and our mission is to come into harmony with the gifts and talents that we have been given.”
We learned that Brad, in addition to his speaking and consulting activities, is an Adjunct Professor at Dixie State University. He thrives on the opportunity to help his students gain an awareness of their purpose and leverage their potential.
“Consider how much of your life you have spent acquiring an education,” said Brad. “It requires at least 16 years of school to earn an undergraduate degree! In all of that time spent learning, how much of that was spent on understanding exactly who you are? Education and experience are worthless if you don’t first understand who you are and what drives you.
“When you consider the statistic that 60% of Americans are unhappy with their occupation, it becomes apparent that the majority of us are not aligned with our purpose or, consequently, our potential.”
In the words of Mark Twain, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” If you follow our work at Fishbowl, you will know that we believe Twain got it half right. It’s what you do after figuring out the why that really matters, which leads to Brad’s next point…
3. Focus on creating value
Brad recently created an online webinar series called Sales Primer that is designed to simplify the sales process for sales executives, professionals and entrepreneurs. In the first section Brad shares what he calls the exchange model.
The model simplifies the process of exchanging products and services. The model highlights the fact that the true medium of exchange is value, not necessarily money or the product. Brad has found that far too many professionals lead with their title or product, expecting success as a result of who they are or what they think is great about their product.
“The truth is that customers don’t typically care who you are or what you have to offer unless they can see that there is clear and obvious value being offered in the exchange,” said Brad. “What drives the interaction is an exchange of value. As soon as the customer perceives that the value being offered is greater than the cost, there will be a natural urgency for the exchange.”
4. Find success in the midst of adversity
Brad has overcome significant obstacles throughout his career. What is more compelling is how he has been able to harness that adversity to educate and motivate himself towards his goals.
“Mental response to rejection is a major differentiator between average and successful people,” said Brad. “Resilience” is the word he uses when describing the degree of fortitude people are able to show in the face of adversity. You may wonder how much resilience you have. Brad suggests, “It is important to understand that resilience is largely based on perceptions. From our youth, we have formed habits and meanings for the events we experience.”
Here is a relevant example Brad shared with us: consider how you have felt after experiencing a significant challenge, such as being fired from a job, benched during a game or intensely reprimanded.
For most of us, those experiences evoke emotions of discouragement, failure or severe depression. The reason is because we have been conditioned through our experiences to respond that way. “Fears, doubts and worries are perceptions of a reality that exists only in your mind,” Brad explained. He believes that our biggest weakness as humans is what often keeps us safe: our protective mechanisms.
Brad teaches a powerful approach to “reframe failure” that helps his clients embrace and learn from the adversity in their lives instead of shrinking in defeat and losing confidence.
He believes that we have two options in the face of adversity:
1. We can conform to it by allowing fear and insecurity to construct facades and walls that allow us to pretend that we are okay. In this conformity, we deprive ourselves of valuable education and strength.
2. Or we can humbly embrace failure as the great teacher and refining fire that has proliferated great men and women from the dawn of civilization.
We all face challenges in life. Reframe what holds you down into a learning opportunity and your success will be amplified. “We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived,” said Dr. Peck.
Learn more about Brad and his concepts here.
Additional reporting for this article provided by Mary Michelle Scott, Fishbowl President
Forbes.com | September 29, 2015 | David K. Williams