Once in a great while, I meet someone who helps me see the world a little bit more clearly…someone who describes reality in a way that brings me to say, "That’s it!"  I appreciate an individual who can successfully boil down his/her quest for success into firm ground rules of thinking, believing, and living that resonates with what we know, but haven’t yet articulated.  The following is a prime and inspiring example of this.

The below letter was written by someone in my personal network who has asked to remain anonymous.  The author has, however, given me permission to share the content of his letter with the readership of WorkPuzzle.  This individual is anonymously providing financial support for a young man that has been selected for a learning-abroad experience, and the letter is filled with his heart-felt advice to this young man.

Side Note: This is a long letter, but is worth reading.  If you’re skimming emails or your RSS feeds and don’t have time to digest this, please come back to it later.  I would recommend reading this in one setting and taking some time to digest what it says. 

"Dear [Name Withheld] ,

You’re probably wondering why I’m helping you in this way.  Well, last year I spent a lot of time in prayer contemplating my life.  If one phrase could sum it all up, I’ve come to believe that everyone deserves their shot – everyone.  So, God showed me that I could use my experiences by giving high-capacity kids a shot they might not otherwise have.

How any one individual defines their “shot” is really a function of how God has wired them.  For some, it may be auto mechanics, or flying planes; for others it might be teaching kids or trimming trees.  My ‘shot’ was Corporate America – I always wanted to be in business, even before I knew what business was.

I came from a horrifically bad family situation.  My ticket out was my education.  From the time I was about 8 years old, I dreamed of going to the University of Washington and proving to myself that I deserved a place at the table – I deserved my shot.  I was a prolific reader and knew that someday, if I worked hard, I could travel the world and see some of the places I read about.  There was nothing inherently wrong with the station my parents occupied – I just wanted something different.

Unfortunately, I got my wish too soon.  I was kicked out of my house in my senior year in high school – at 17 years old.  While I always got good grades and always had good jobs, I was a wild kid who hung out with the ‘wrong crowd’.

However, when graduation rolled around, I graduated with honors.  I didn’t say much in most classes, I just listened and watched.  I detested the lousy teachers (most of whom appeared lazy and incompetent) and figured that getting an 'A' in their class was my own form of revenge.

A lot has happened since then.  While my career has ebbed and flowed, I’ve had the good fortune to have worked in cities across the U.S. and across the globe.  I have friends who are far more successful and accomplished than I am, but through hard work I’ve been fortunate to work in or visit London, Rome, Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, Manila, Munich, Salzburg, along with almost every major city in the U.S.  I have sat on the boards of directors of five companies, two of which were successfully sold, one of which failed and one of which is still operating.  One is just languishing.

I have lived the American Dream.  I’ve made far more wrong decisions than right decisions, but as one board member once told me, ‘Knowing what NOT to do is 90% of the battle.’

So, with all that said, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned-

1) Everyone Deserves A Shot – The quiet kid at the back of the class may just happen to be the best student – The quiet gal always working at her cubicle may have the best ideas – The guy who rarely says anything in the meetings may have the next big breakthrough – They’re just waiting for someone to ask their opinion.

2) Everyone Deserves The Truth– Even if the truth is that someone is not a good fit for their job, everyone deserves to be told the truth.  The truth avoids misperceptions, misunderstandings and a host of problems.  To be successful, you simply have to tell the truth – everyday to everybody.  The truth is the ticket to the dance.

3) People Need A Goal Bigger Than Themselves – Effective people don’t want a job, they want a goal that’s just a little bit impossible (vision).  They want a leader who can paint the picture of how to get there (direction).  They want a leader who will be honest enough to tell them they are off track (feedback).  And they want a leader who, when the goal is achieved, remembers to say, ‘Unbelievable – What you just did was impossible.  No one will ever be able to take that experience away from you’ (recognition).

4) Don’t Be Confused by Reality – In reality there is never enough time, money or manpower.  The competition is always stronger and the customers are always too reluctant.  Anyone can understand reality.  I really struggle with this – I see the world in terms of possibilities but find the world is populated mainly by people who see limitations.  Leaders don’t let reality get in the way of accomplishing great things.  Companies need people who will willingly sign-up to produce impossible results without sufficient resources – Those that do eventually fly first class to overseas meetings…those that don’t stay back at the office.  How bad you want the American dream?  Nobody is going to just hand it to you.  You have to earn it, young man.  That’s just life – Get it?

5) Be Presumptuous – Your customers didn’t ask you to bid on the bigger deal, your boss didn’t ask you to make that last phone call.  But if you want to be a leader, you will consistently exceed the expectations of your customers, bosses, employees and peers.  You will do the thinking for them.  You will spend more time brainstorming solutions than your competition.  When you’re asked to present “A”, you will do so better than anyone else, then you will politely ask if you can also present “B” and “C” and watch as the group registers amazement.  You will tell your people that they have not come up with an idea that’s truly worthy of them, then you’ll send them back to work and you’ll work them until you and they, together, come up with ideas that you are convinced no one else has thought of.  If you don’t have that feeling in your gut, you’re not done.  If you’re as bright as I think you are, then prove it – every time.  Because when you do, it will be YOU who gets the call.

6) Be Unwavering in Your Commitment to Excellence and Personal Integrity– Be humble, but be the best – Talk about excellence and honesty.  Talk about it so often you’ll want to throw up- if only to remind yourself of your own standards.  A leader’s role is to set expectations.  If you expect people to be the best and if you expect them to be honest, even average players rise to the occasions and dishonest people get left by the roadside.  Show me a well-run organization and I can guarantee you there is a leader who expects EVERYONE working there to be great.  The reverse is true.  As a leader, if you don’t expect greatness, you are essentially saying to those in your charge – ‘I don’t care about you enough to help you get better.’  I can’t tell you just how much I hate that attitude – Whether the leader thinks that in their mind or whether they simply communicate that with their actions.  It’s wrong.  Expect greatness and you’ll find it.

7) Match Your Skills, Choose Your Boss – Most interviewers are horrible at interviewing.  Your job in an interview is to satisfy yourself that the tasks you’ll be doing are a good match with your skills.  Just as importantly, your job in an interview is to determine whether the boss will help you develop as a person.  A bad boss will inevitably ruin any job- so make sure you interview him/her carefully- respectfully, but with discernment and wisdom.  Again, most interviewers are terrible at interviewing, so take charge, keep your mind sharp, ask questions and keep your answers short.  Above all, find a boss you can grow with.  This world is run by teams of people who hook up on various deals at various companies and then consistently produce results.  Find then build one of those teams – beginning with the selection of your first boss.

So, to sum it up – Find people who can contribute, give them a goal a bit bigger than they’re comfortable with, don’t let people tell why something can’t be done, work harder and smarter than anyone else, expect people to be great, insist on absolute integrity and find jobs and bosses that will help you grow.”

I think this gentleman says it all – The “Essence of Success” is truly up to you!

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In the last entry, I had you assess your thinking style to better understand your chances of not only recovering from your lay-off, but using it to propel yourself to better things in the future.  Please review yesterday’s blog before reading further.

The reason a flexible, Realistic Optimist thinking style works best can be explained from several angles.  Although research has shown that you can learn to think/behave in a Realistic Optimist manner, it may be beneficial to learn about people who come by it naturally.

So, lets take a look at hard core survivors and explore how they think, what they feel, and what they do.  Specific characteristics (listed below) are found in almost every person who has survived and thrived following harrowing life and death events — Events like being lost at sea for 76 days (Adrift), or walking from Siberia to British India in 1942, approximately 3,000 miles (The Long Walk).

Characteristics of Survivors:

1. Move on quickly:  On the emotional level, resilient survivors don’t get stuck in the grief process. Resilient survivors have an uncanny way of recognizing, acknowledging, and accepting the reality of their dire situation more quickly than others.  They also move through the stages of grief (denial, anger, depression, and acceptance) more quickly.  In doing so they recognize that any possible solution must emanate from their own efforts.  They stop blaming, wishing and bargaining early on in the process, so as to focus their energy on a solution.

2. Think, analyze, and plan:  Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline.  They act on the anticipation of success.  They take correct, decisive action.  Those who end up surviving are able to transform thought into action when the non-survivors act aimlessly, or not at all.  They break down large (seemingly impossible) jobs into small manageable tasks, and are meticulous about performing those tasks well.  They deal with what is within their power from moment to moment, hour by hour, and day to day.

Touching the Void chronicles the heroic story of expert mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates.  Joe took a tremendous fall, losing the use of both legs and was essentially left for dead.  Whereas most of us able-bodied people would be goners, he managed to drag himself miles to access help.  Joe Simpson told Backpacker magazine:

“…you have to fight like a bastard.  You can’t just sit there and wait to get lucky.  It doesn’t happen.”

3. Celebrate minor successes:  Survivors take great joy in the smallest successes.  This provides relief from unspeakable stress, and helps create hope.

4. Believe in a successful outcome:  Survivors admonish themselves to do their very best all of the time and convince themselves (despite what appears to be hopeless odds) that they will succeed if they continue to execute their systematic plan.

5. Never give up:  Survivors are not easily frustrated and are not greatly discouraged by setbacks.

Laurence Gonzales (Deep Survival) summarizes his research on survivors by saying:

“Gratitude, wonder, humility, imagination, and cold, logical determination:  those are the survivor tools of mind.”

Next time I’ll discuss why this philosophy works.

No one enjoys being unemployed.  However, there is a way to make this unpleasant circumstance work best for you.

Most articles on this subject focus on the tasks you need to perform to get back on track.  While there is a place for understanding appropriate action steps, these steps do very little good in the wrong hands.  There is a much more important problem to address first:  What’s going on between your ears will influence the outcome of everything you do!  

Research shows that 35% of unemployed persons will come out of their ordeal stronger and more physically healthy.  Do you see yourself as naturally part of that percentage?  If so, great!  You’re a resilient survivor.  If not, the good news is you can learn to be resilient too.  As a result, you will be highly effective in any current or future challenge.

The first thing you need to understand is that how we view adversity affects our potential for success, both during a challenge and in future employment.  It also impacts our health, longevity, and our risk for depression.

One researcher sums it up this way:

“It is the thinking style that determines resilience – more than genetics, more than intelligence, more than any other single factor” (Shatté)

To learn this yourself, you need to know how resilient people think…how you can adopt this mindset…and why it works.

Over the course of our lives, we have all developed methods of explaining to ourselves how the world works and how we fit into that schematic.  This is called your “explanatory style”.  The more flexible it is, the better off you’ll be.  Here is what I mean:

Your explanatory style can be viewed along three dimensions:  (1) Personalization, (2) Permanence and (3) Pervasiveness.  (Martin Seligman)

More specifically:

• Who is to blame?  ME / NOT ME (Personalization)

• How long will this last?  ALWAYS / NOT ALWAYS (Permanence)

• How much of my life does this affect?  EVERYTHING / NOT EVERYTHING (Pervasiveness)

People who have a ME / ALWAYS / EVERYTHING style tend to blame themselves and give up easily because they see situations as unchanging and all-encompassing.  These characteristics are found in people who engage in habitual pessimistic and helpless thinking.  Ultimately they tend to view circumstances as hopeless and become easily depressed.

Those with a NOT ME / ALWAYS / EVERYTHING style tend to blame others and take little responsibility for their role in the adversity.  They tend to respond to stresses by becoming angry and pointing fingers.  These people fixate on viewing everything that doesn’t go their way as a violation of their rights.  Because they see events as permanent and affecting numerous areas of their lives, a sense of futility often results for these folks.  These individuals waste precious time blaming the economy, their employer, or the person who took their job, and believe that they will never recover.

While a NOT ME / NOT ALWAYS / NOT EVERYTHING style is often viewed as the most “optimistic” explanatory style, it still is not necessarily an accurate or realistic view of a given situation.

For example, perhaps you do have some responsibility in your company’s decision to let you go.  (They didn’t lay-off everyone!)  The “not me” people won’t consider the possibility that, perhaps, they weren’t in a position where they could maximize their strengths, and had simply stayed with the status quo because it was comfortable and secure…until their lay off.

Ideally, you do not want to fall on either end of the spectrum, rather learn to view events as a continuum along these three dimensions.  The goal is to maintain a sense of “Realistic Optimism” by thinking as accurately and flexibly as possible about each situation you face – Learn to challenge your previous, more rigid way of thinking.

Reivich and Shatté describe Realistic Optimism as:

“The ability to maintain a positive outlook without denying reality; actively appreciating the positive aspects of a situation without ignoring the negative aspects.”

Realistic Optimism also involves working toward positive outcomes with the knowledge that successful outcomes don’t happen automatically, but are achieved through effort, problem solving and planning.

If you review my entries regarding the Science of Survival, you will draw many parallels to our current discussion.  As you may recall, Anxiety can be reduced by executing a plan and finding satisfaction in the small, yet significant steps toward success.

In the next blog, I’ll tell you why it works to adopt a thinking style that embraces Realistic Optimism, and eventually will boil it down to some concrete advice.  Sign up to get Workpuzzle delivered so you don’t miss it!