TRIP TIP #11 “If You Are on a Downhill Slide to Failure, Slide and Fail in Spectacular Fashion!”

Hi, this is Keith Renninson "The Tenacity Expert", professional speaker & author of “Tenacity, You Don’t Have to Get Lost in Nepal to Find Yourself, But it Helps!” with my next installment of my TRIP Tips for the financial services professional. 

Remember that TRIP is an acronym for TENACITY, RESILIENCE, IMAGINATION, AND PURPOSE.  This is the first installment on the second word of TRIP…Resilience.

So, let’s get started! 

I know the title of this session seems counter-intuitive, but I find resilience to be a game.  How can I win and not let the enemy win?  Enemy you say?  Yes, when we reach a bottom in our quest for success, often failing time and time again, the enemy becomes my own negativity.  I'm like everyone else, I get down, depressed, unenthusiastic, unhappy, lacking imagination and creativity.  All I want is to bounce back quickly, and to do that, I have to win the game against negativity and celebrate it big time!  Use that celebration to begin your recovery in spectacular fashion!  Find the humor in the failure!  It helps to know that you've hit bottom and that it can't get any worse.

There is something inherently fun about a celebration.  It can change your attitude, create a new energy, and propel you into a vibrant turn around. So, fail right to the bottom with a burst of new creativity and forward thinking on what you and your team will look like in the near future.  Paint the celebration with the vivid colors of a new logo, a new scheme, a new approach to your brainstorming.

This will build confidence in you and your team and put everyone on the same track to a new “you”.  Whatever it was that caused you to fail in attracting a new client, riding a stock market correction, falling interest rates, rising inflation, changes in company policy or compliance, consider it an opportunity to re-evaluate your game plan and do an overhaul.  Getting yourself and your team on-board to see that light at the end of the tunnel is paramount. 

Being ready to hit the road running will give you enthusiasm and a renewed energy to overcome the obstacles ahead, but with a resilient attitude they will seem like minor speed bumps.

When I started with New York Life in 1975 I had to meet preset target sales goals each month to keep my contract or be terminated.  If I didn’t meet them, I had a 30-day grace period to catch up.  Well, over the 36 months of my probationary contract I was terminated 33 times!  I found resilience to be my best friend and counted on it to help me forge ahead each and every month.  I retired from the company after 26 years, I guess my resilient attitude paid off!  It can for you too.

Well, that’s it for this installment, I hope you have some new ideas on how to proceed.

See you next time, and in the meantime be resilient!