I was in Melbourne recently and caught up with a friend of mine we'll call Tina. When I saw Tina her arm was in a sling and she was wincing in pain. You see Tina had been out early 10 days ago on a typical cold Melbourne morning walking her dog across a park in St Kilda. She tripped on a tree root, slammed into a fence and broke her arm in four places above her elbow.

She had trouble getting up and persuading the dog that it really was time to go home. Fighting incredible pain she limped home, woke her husband and he drove he to the hospital, where she was eventually diagnosed. She spent two days in hospital and learned that the arm could not be put in a cast, it would just be held in a sling, she would have to manage walking, sitting, sleeping without any splint and every small unusual or even usual movement would involve excruciating pain in her arm. She was given pain killers and sent home.

The story goes on and on, you get the idea. I rang Tina today to see how she was getting on, it's now been four weeks since the injury and she is still suffering. Here's where it gets interesting,Tina runs a training brokerage business and has hardly missed a beat, well she has been hampered severely by her injury and has been forced to slow down a little, though she still goes to the office every day. Her husband drives her and she openly admitted she has been unbeaable to live with, though she perseveres. She persists because she is fiercely independent and determined to keep going, she is determined to succeed and to get better and to keep running her business despite her physical setback.

There are many stories of persistence and perserverence in books and magazines around the world, some with far more trying circumstances than this, though this woman is still an inspiration. She demonstrated how easy it can be to lay down and admit defeat, sit back and let someone else do it for us, or perhaps to take a few weeks off because "I" deserve it. Success comes to those who persevere, those who face their challenges and meet them head on. They recognise that sometimes they can be hard to live with and persevere anyway.

Being a leader in an organisation can sometimes be just as challenging as breaking an arm and suffering pain for 20 out of 24 hours, it can be damn inconvenient,it can get in the way of our personal enjoyment of life and above all it can throw up unexpected challenges we absolutely have to deal with.

Do you have the ability to persist?

Lindsay Adams

Labels: leadership, perseverance, Persistence

I have just spent an interesting day driving across town from appointment to appointment, talking with clients and also spent time coaching a sales team,a regular commitment I have. The crazy thing is the number of people who are talking down their sales and opportunities at the moment due to the so called "financial crisis". It is my belief that a lot of the attitude and results in the market today are driven by the thinking of the sales people before they even ask for the sale.

The sales team I spent time with today were planning for a reduction in sales for the next few months and didn't really have any hard data to support their planned reduction in sales other than reading negative articles in the newspaper and listening to the TV doom and gloom sayers. They had already decided that sales would fall before they left their office. Their attitude had affected the outcomes, not the customers saying no!

A lot of people are affected by what they hear or what they read and take action based on this negative news. Newspapers and financial journals feed on and thrive in times of doom and gloom. If you are to make a success of your business you must persevere, maintain a positive attitude and adopt an atitude of gratitude. be thankful for the opportunity to have a business, be thankful for the ability to continue to provide outstanding service to your existing clients and the many new clients that you will surely serve if you continue to deliver positive, quality service.

To maintain a positive attitude in negative times takes perseverance, so rally round your team and encourage each other to remain positive and keep making the calls, keep delivering outstanding service and your business will surely prosper in good times and in even better times.

Lindsay Adams
Team Transformer

Labels: gratitude, perseverance, positive attitude, team work