Dealing with Adversity

I’m nearing the end of the book Good to Great by Jim Collins this weekend. It’s a fantastic business book, particularly for those of you who have a future in leadership. There are tons of good lessons to be shared from the book, but I want to focus in on a small section in the book about ‘hardiness’. Hardiness is analogous to toughness and in this context is focused on how you recover from a negative event in your life. The excerpt below sums up key point.

Throughout our research, we were continually reminded of the “hardiness” research studies done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization. These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity – cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth – and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger. The good-to-great companies were like those in the third group, with the “hardiness factor”.

That is so insightful. I wish I had written it myself. How we deal with adversity is a key factor in the amount of success that we’re able to achieve but also in our happiness and self-worth. Most of us will never be a prisoner of war or suffer from a deadly disease but this reaction to adversity is applicable in both large and small things. All of us will lose loved ones. All of us will struggle with our work or our boss or our finances. None of us will live easy lives. In fact, even those people who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth think life is hard. How much more harder is it for those of us who have to work hard for everything that we have? Each day, each week, each month and each year you will experience adversity, you will feel like something didn’t go right and it will frustrate you. How will you handle it?

Teal Tuesday

I feel compelled to interrupt our normally scheduled blogging for some good old fashioned sports talk. Many of you already know that I’ve made my home in Jacksonville Florida for the last 16 years. On Tuesday of last week we experienced a convergence of Jaguars related news that boggles the mind (literally. Do you know how long it takes to get your mind unboggled… the amount of time is mind boggling as well, so watch out.)

The news is so big that that we need a nickname for the day so that we can always remember that this was the day it all happened.  Henceforth, the last Tuesday in November shall be known as Teal Tuesday and we will use it to celebrate the contributions of Wayne and Deloris Weaver to Jacksonville and also to celebrate the downfall of the long statewide nightmare known as the head coaching career of Jack Del Rio.

Let’s start there. Jack Del Rio is gone. He has been “dismissed” as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Classy as always Mr. Weaver. Let me paraphrase in my best Donald Trump – Del Rio, Your Fired! I know it’s not nice to feel joy over someone’s misfortune, but I really can’t help myself. I honestly got chills when I got the text message from my friend this morning telling me that Del Rio had gotten the axe (keep chopping wood Del Rio!). I’m serious, I almost got misty eyed in the middle of my business meeting. Del Rio has been so maddening over the last few years. The times weren’t always bad. Once upon a time I supported Jack, but year after year of blaming things on everyone around him would take its toll on the staunchest fan.