"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse." — Carlos Castenada Whether you're a man or woman, business-owner or corporate executive, young or old, life is programmed to throw a lot of obstacles in your path.
Work is just a series of problems that require someone to solve them in an efficient, timely, and cost-effective manner. Many people tend to worry, obsess, and outright fear certain outcomes from their daily work life.
Candidly, you're not going into an arena at the Colosseum to fight another warrior to the death. You might be pitching a new prospect and there's the fear of losing that account. I've been there.
2016 (as proposals go) sucked for me so far. Two major clients who REACHED OUT TO ME for my workshop skills asked for a number of different proposals to have me run events for their associates. In both instances, they ran me through multiple hoops to hone my proposal, tighten my pricing, and deliver the perfect solution to grow their organization.
Guess what? At the last minute, they pull out (for a number of reasons) and either cancel or go with another provider. (By the way — this is pro-forma for most businesses).
Now did I complain? Did I whine? Did I get mad? Did I curse my existence?
NO. I took the warrior's path and looked at it like a challenge. I had to step up my game.
Not only did I revamp my entire selling presentation structure, I reviewed my proposal template (and changed it), and developed a series of beautifully designed brochures as leave-behinds (to further cement my reputation once I left the room).
In addition, I re-doubled my efforts with all of my prospects and hit them twice as hard with TLC and many new ideas for in-house workshops. I WILL GET BUSINESS FROM THEM.
I keep coming back to an old movie I saw many years ago — Door To Door with William H. Macy: "Patience and Persistence will win anyone over in the end."
I didn't whine. I didn't complain. By the way, do you want to know something interesting about complaining?
“The only thing complaining does is convince other people that you are not in control.”
The Warrior is in control. I promise you I will host many more workshops this year compared to past years.
And that's a promise. Be The Warrior.