“We’re tied with straw and think it’s chain.” Danny Cox
I was the new manager of the company’s top office out of thirty-six offices. Three months later we were thirty-sixth and all because I made a common managerial mistake––trying to get everyone to be like me. And my boss was looking for my replacement!
Somerset Maugham, the great English author, once said, “Adversity puts iron in your flesh.” Another one of my favorite authors, a man by the name of Orison Swett Marden, said, “Adversity sometimes strips a person, only to discover the person.” Well, through adversity I discovered quite a lot about my self. I went back to square one and started learning not only about my own potential, but also about the potential of the people who worked for me. And the biggest lesson I learned was that salespeople can get better––right after the sales manager does.
There are universal applications in that principle. Employees get better right after managers do. Kids get better right after parents do. Students get better right after teachers do. Audiences get better right after speakers do. Customers get better right after salespeople, sales managers, upper management, receptionists, secretaries, order clerks, and anybody else who happens to be in the company get better. That’s a lesson we often learn the hard way, through adversity.
It turned out that I didn’t lose my job. I started studying and listening to the people who worked for me, and I stopped trying to turn them into reproductions of myself. I started encouraging a more creative approach to the problems we faced. And 120 days later, we were back up to Number One.
That was a moment to be savored, not only because of the sense of achievement, but because it would then be possible to ease off a bit and relax after that incredible climb back to Number One. Or so I thought. There’s a certain danger in taking that kind of attitude. If I had hung on to it, you know what would have happened, don’t you? Our sales would have plateaued back out and you’d be reading a book by some other author, not me!
Well, my salespeople and I started talking about this phenomenon. It can happen to anybody working in any job at any level: When you get to a certain way of doing your job, it’s tempting to just quit getting better at it. That is what is called a self-imposed barrier.
Nobody builds a self-imposed barrier for you. You build it for yourself. A self-imposed barrier is not a wall around your life; it’s just the margin of your life. It’s the dividing line between developed potential and undeveloped potential. It marks the spot where you’ve stopped growing. These barriers can rise up at just about any level, whether it’s low, medium, or even high productivity!
Immediate Action: Think of a time when you’ve told someone––perhaps a friend or family member––“Come on. You can do better than that.” Did you ever hear that person reply, “No, I can’t––I’ve never done this job better than that.” The truth is, that’s not a reason. That’s not even a good excuse. It’s only the flag atop the so-called barrier. It shows where the new potential starts.
Point to Ponder Before You Go On: Phillips Brooks, the minister who wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” had a powerful thought: “When you discover you’ve been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it.” He was absolutely right!
No-limits thinking is the kind of thinking that’s dedicated to finding a way to live a full life––so that the unexplored half of your identity, the half you can develop but don’t, doesn’t come back to haunt you.
Go ahead! Pull the trigger and ride the bullet!
Showing posts with label adversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adversity. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The No Limits Story of Mary Lawrence
Mary Lawrence was no stranger to tragedy. For five years after her husband’s death she wandered through life with no real direction. Then late one night, a driver ran a stop sign and what had been two cars was a mass of twisted rubble.
When one of the paramedics found her broken body, he said, “Get the others. This one’s gone.” But she wasn’t and her spirit was uninjured. On the way back to town, an amazed medic had discovered she had a pulse! At the hospital the doctor said she wouldn’t live through the night. She did.
She spent the next year in the hospital. Her teeth and facial bones wired together. Later they performed fifteen root canals. They explained they had to do two facial reconstruction surgeries where no anesthesia could be used. Her response! “Let’s get started.”
A year later, she was released. Her doctor told her to go home and “take it easy.” You don’t say that to “No Limits” people unless you get out of the way first!
When she went shopping, her face still swollen, she would see people she knew were friends. She couldn’t remember their names because of the permanent brain damage. They didn’t recognize her and turned their heads rather than look at her. She said that really hurt.
Her memory was so bad she concentrated on each word of a sentence so she wouldn’t forget what she had said at the beginning. She discovered that getting a California real estate license was very difficult because of the memory work. Typically, she said that’s what she’d do.
She would read each page of that thick real estate manual fifty to sixty times until it was engrained. She passed the full day test the first time!
Mary went to work for one broker who terminated her after a month because she was slow in memorizing the inventory. At the second company, it was the same scenario.
An hour after the second termination my phone rang. This very determined voice said, “I’m Mary Lawrence and I want to work for you.”
She was in our three-week training program a few days later. After she graduated I placed her in one of my offices. WOW! Her sales were incredible.
A year later at our annual banquet I announced from the stage her name as one of our ten Outstanding First Year Salespeople. She came up on the stage. As I handed her the plaque, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Save me a place. I’ll be back up here next year.” As I watched her walk away, I thought, she means that.
The very next morning Mary bought a long pink dress to wear one year later. She hung it up in the very center of her closet to remind herself daily of her goal.
The next year I stood on that Grand Ballroom stage of the Disneyland Hotel. I told this story that she had finally told me only a month before. At the end of this triumphant story I announced that she was #1 out of our 700 salespeople in listings taken, listings sold, sales and gross commission. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mary Lawrence.”
The band played “The Impossible Dream” as that no limits champion floated across the dance floor in that long pink dress. A standing ovation!!! Not a dry eye in the audience. As I handed her that big #1 trophy she again leaned over and whispered to me, “I told you I’d be back.”
There are no Limits! The best is yet to be!
Danny
When one of the paramedics found her broken body, he said, “Get the others. This one’s gone.” But she wasn’t and her spirit was uninjured. On the way back to town, an amazed medic had discovered she had a pulse! At the hospital the doctor said she wouldn’t live through the night. She did.
She spent the next year in the hospital. Her teeth and facial bones wired together. Later they performed fifteen root canals. They explained they had to do two facial reconstruction surgeries where no anesthesia could be used. Her response! “Let’s get started.”
A year later, she was released. Her doctor told her to go home and “take it easy.” You don’t say that to “No Limits” people unless you get out of the way first!
When she went shopping, her face still swollen, she would see people she knew were friends. She couldn’t remember their names because of the permanent brain damage. They didn’t recognize her and turned their heads rather than look at her. She said that really hurt.
Her memory was so bad she concentrated on each word of a sentence so she wouldn’t forget what she had said at the beginning. She discovered that getting a California real estate license was very difficult because of the memory work. Typically, she said that’s what she’d do.
She would read each page of that thick real estate manual fifty to sixty times until it was engrained. She passed the full day test the first time!
Mary went to work for one broker who terminated her after a month because she was slow in memorizing the inventory. At the second company, it was the same scenario.
An hour after the second termination my phone rang. This very determined voice said, “I’m Mary Lawrence and I want to work for you.”
She was in our three-week training program a few days later. After she graduated I placed her in one of my offices. WOW! Her sales were incredible.
A year later at our annual banquet I announced from the stage her name as one of our ten Outstanding First Year Salespeople. She came up on the stage. As I handed her the plaque, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Save me a place. I’ll be back up here next year.” As I watched her walk away, I thought, she means that.
The very next morning Mary bought a long pink dress to wear one year later. She hung it up in the very center of her closet to remind herself daily of her goal.
The next year I stood on that Grand Ballroom stage of the Disneyland Hotel. I told this story that she had finally told me only a month before. At the end of this triumphant story I announced that she was #1 out of our 700 salespeople in listings taken, listings sold, sales and gross commission. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mary Lawrence.”
The band played “The Impossible Dream” as that no limits champion floated across the dance floor in that long pink dress. A standing ovation!!! Not a dry eye in the audience. As I handed her that big #1 trophy she again leaned over and whispered to me, “I told you I’d be back.”
Adversity sometimes strips a person only to discover the person.
And that person is a no limits person.
And that person is a no limits person.
There are no Limits! The best is yet to be!
Danny
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