فصل 11

Chapter 11

HOW TO TURN DEFEAT INTO VICTORY

SOCIAL WORKERS AND OTHERS who work on skid row find many differences in age, religious faith, education, and background among the tragic souls who have dropped into America’s gutters. Some of these citizens are surprisingly young. Others are old. A sprinkling are college graduates; a few have essentially no formal education. Some are married; others are not. But the people on skid row do have something in common: each one is defeated, whipped, beaten. Each one has encountered situations that conquered him. Each is eager, even anxious, to tell you about the situation that wrecked him, about his own private Waterloo.

These situations cover the waterfront of human experience from “My wife ran out on me” to “I lost everything I had and had no place else to go” to “I did a couple of things that made me a social outcast, so I came down here.” When we move up from skid row into the dominion of Mr. and Mrs. Average American, we see obvious differences in living habits. But again we discover that Mr. Mediocre gives essentially the same reasons to explain his mediocrity as Mr. Skid Row gave to explain his complete collapse. Inside, Mr. Mediocre feels defeated. He has unhealed wounds suffered in situations that beat him. Now he is supercautious. He plods along, ducking the thrill of living victoriously, discontented with himself. He feels beaten but tries hard to endure the sentence of mediocrity that “fate” has handed him.

He, too, has surrendered to defeat, but in a reasonably clean, socially “accepted” way.

Now, when we climb upstairs into the uncrowded world of success, we again discover people from every possible background. Corporate executives, leading ministers, government officials, top men in every field, we discover, come from poor homes, rich homes, broken homes, cotton patches, cornfields, and slums. These people, who lead every branch of our society, have experienced every tough situation you can describe.

It is possible to match every Mr. Skid Row with a Mr. Mediocre and a Mr. Success on every score—age, intelligence, background, nationality, you name it—with one exception. The one thing you can’t match them on is their response to defeat.

When the fellow we call Mr. Skid Row got knocked down, he failed to get up again. He just lay there, splattered out. Mr. Mediocre got up to his knees, but he crawled away, and when out of sight, ran in the opposite direction so he’d be sure never to take a beating again.

But Mr. Success reacted differently when he got knocked down. He bounced up, learned a lesson, forgot the beating, and moved upward.

One of my closest friends is an exceptionally successful management consultant. When you walk into his office, you feel that you are really “uptown.” The fine furniture, the carpeting, the busy people, the important clients, all tell you his company is prosperous.

A cynic might say, “It must have taken a real con man to put across an operation like this.” But the cynic would be wrong. It didn’t take a con man. And it didn’t take a brilliant man or a wealthy man or a lucky man. All (and I hesitate to use the word all because all means so much sometimes) all it took was a persistent man who never thought he was defeated.

Behind this prosperous and respected company is the story of a man fighting, battling his way upward: losing ten years’ savings in his first six months in business, living in his office several months because he lacked money to pay rent on an apartment, turning down numerous “good” jobs because he wanted more to stay with his idea and make it work, hearing prospects for his service say no a hundred times as often as they said yes … During the seven unbelievably hard years it took him to succeed, I never heard my friend complain once. He’d explain, “Dave, I’m learning. This is competitive business, and because it’s intangible, it’s hard to sell. But I’m learning how.” And he did.

Once I told my friend that this experience must be taking a lot out of him. But he replied, “No, it’s not taking something out of me; it’s putting something into me instead.” Check the lives of the people in Who’s Who in America, and you’ll find that those who have succeeded in a major way have been pounded by losing situations. Each person in this elite corps of successful men has encountered opposition, discouragement, setbacks, personal misfortune.

Read the biographies and autobiographies of great people, and again you discover that each of these people could have surrendered to setbacks many times.

Or do this. Learn the background of the president of your company or the mayor of your city, or select any person you consider a real success. When you probe, you’ll discover the individual has overcome big, real obstacles.

It is not possible to win high-level success without meeting opposition, hardship, and setback. But it is possible to use setbacks to propel you forward. Let’s see how.

I saw some commercial airline statistics recently showing that there is only one fatality per 10 billion miles flown. Air travel is a magnificently safe way to go these days. Unfortunately, air accidents still occur. But when they do, the Civil Aviation Administration is on the scene quickly to find out what caused the crash. Fragments of metal are picked up from miles around and pieced together. A variety of experts reconstruct what probably happened. Witnesses and survivors are interviewed. The investigation goes on for weeks, months, until the question “What caused this crash?” is answered.

Once the CAA has the answer, immediate steps are taken to prevent a similar accident from happening again. If the crash was caused by a structural defect, other planes of that type must have that defect corrected. Or if certain instruments are found faulty, corrections must be made. Literally hundreds of safety devices on modern aircraft have resulted from CAA investigations.

The CAA studies setbacks to pave the way to safer air travel. And it’s obvious that their efforts pay off.

Doctors use setbacks to pave the way to better health and longer life. Often when a patient dies for an uncertain reason, doctors perform a postmortem to find out why. In this way they learn more about the functioning of the human body, and lives of other people are saved.

A sales executive friend of mine devotes one entire sales meeting a month to helping his salesmen discover why they lost important sales. The lost sale is reconstructed and carefully examined. In this way, the salesman learns how to avoid losing similar sales in the future.

The football coach who wins more games than he loses goes over the details of each game with his team to point out their mistakes. Some coaches have movies made of each game so the team can literally see its bad moves. The purpose: to play the next game better.

CAA officials, successful sales executives, physicians, football coaches, and professionals in every field follow this success principle: salvage something from every setback.

When a setback hits us personally, our first impulse is often to become so emotionally upset that we fail to learn the lesson.

Professors know that a student’s reaction to a failing grade provides a clue to his success potential. When I was a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit some years ago, I had no choice but to turn in a failing grade for a graduating senior. This was a real blow to the student. He had already made graduation plans, and canceling was embarrassing. He was left with two alternatives: retake and pass the course and receive his degree at a later graduation, or quit school without earning a degree.

I expected that the student would be disappointed, perhaps even somewhat belligerent, when he learned of his setback. I was right. After I explained that his work was far below passing standards, the student admitted that he hadn’t put forth a serious effort in the course.

“But,” he continued, “my past record is at least average. Can’t you consider that?” I pointed out that I could not, because we measure performance one course at a time. I added that rigid academic codes prohibited changing grades for any reason other than an honest mistake on the part of the professor.

Then the student, realizing that all avenues toward a grade change were closed, became quite angry. “Professor,” he said, “I could name fifty people in this city who’ve succeeded in a big way without taking this course or even knowing about it. What’s so blasted important about this course? Why should a few bad marks in one course keep me from getting my degree?

“Thank God,” he added, “they don’t look at things on the ‘outside’ like you professors do.” After that remark I paused for about forty-five seconds. (I’ve learned that when you’ve been sniped at, one fine way to prevent a war of words is to take a long pause before answering.) Then I said to my student friend, “Much of what you say is true. There are many, many highly successful people who know absolutely nothing about the subject matter in this course. And it is possible for you to win success without this knowledge. In the total scheme of life, this course content won’t make or break you. But your attitude toward this course may.” “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“Just this,” I answered. “Outside they grade you just as we grade you. What counts there just as what counts here is doing the job. Outside they won’t promote you or pay you more for doing second-class work.” I paused again to make certain the point got through.

Then I said, “May I make a suggestion? You’re highly disappointed now. I can appreciate how you feel. And I don’t think any less of you if you’re a little sore at me. But look at this experience positively. There’s a tremendously important lesson here: if you don’t produce, you don’t get where you want to go. Learn this lesson, and five years from now you’ll regard it as one of the most profitable lessons you learned in all the time you invested here.” I was glad when I learned a few days later that this student had re-enrolled for the course. This time he passed with flying colors. Afterward, he made a special call to see me to let me know how much he had appreciated our earlier discussion.

“I learned something from flunking your course the first time,” he said. “It may sound odd, but you know, Professor, now I’m glad I did not pass the first time.” We can turn setbacks into victories. Find the lesson, apply it, and then look back on defeat and smile.

Moviegoers will never forget the great Lionel Barry-more. In 1936 Mr. Barrymore broke his hip. The fracture never healed. Most people thought Mr. Barrymore was finished. But not Mr. Barrymore. He used the setback to pave the way to even greater acting success. For the next eighteen years, despite pain that never abated, he played dozens of successful roles in a wheelchair.

On March 15,1945, W. Colvin Williams was walking behind a tank in France. The tank hit a mine, exploded, and permanently blinded Mr. Williams.

But this didn’t stop Mr. Williams from pursuing his goal to be a minister and counselor. When he was graduated from college (and with honors too), Mr. Williams said he thought his blindness “will actually be an asset in my career. I can never judge by appearances. Therefore, I can always give a person a second chance. My blindness keeps me from cutting myself off from a person because of the way he looks. I want to be the kind of person to whom anyone can come and feel secure, to express himself.” Isn’t that a magnificent living example of cruel, bitter defeat being turned into victory?

Defeat is only a state of mind, and nothing more.

One of my friends, who is a substantial and successful investor in the stock market, carefully appraises each investment decision in the light of his past experiences. One time he told me, “When I first started investing fifteen years ago, I really got singed a few times. Like most amateurs, I wanted to get rich quick. Instead I got broke quick. But that didn’t stop me. I knew the basic strengths of the economy and that, over the long pull, well-selected stocks are about the best investment anybody can make.

“So I just regarded those first bad investments as part of the cost of my education,” he laughed.

On the other hand, I know a number of people who, having made an unwise investment or two, are strictly “antisecurities.” Rather than analyze their mistakes and join in a good thing, they reach the completely false conclusion that investing in common stocks is just a form of gambling and sooner or later everybody loses.

Decide right now to salvage something from every setback. Next time things seem to go wrong on the job or at home, calm down and find out what caused the trouble. This is the way to avoid making the same error twice.

Being licked is valuable if we learn from it.

We human beings are curious creatures. We’re quick to accept full credit for our victories. When we win, we want the world to know about it. It’s natural to want others to look at you and say, “There goes the fellow who did such and such.” But human beings are equally quick to blame someone else for each setback. It’s natural for salesmen to blame customers when sales are lost. It’s natural for executives to blame employees or other executives when things get out of gear. It’s natural for husbands to blame wives and wives to blame husbands for quarrels and family problems.

It is true that in this complex world others may trip us. But it is also true that more often than not we trip ourselves. We lose because of personal inadequacy, some personal mistake.

Condition yourself for success this way. Remind yourself that you want to be as nearly perfect as is humanly possible. Be objective. Put yourself in a glass tube and look at yourself as a disinterested third party would look at the situation. See if you have a weakness that you’ve never noticed before. If you have, take action to correct it. Many people become so accustomed to themselves that they fail to see ways for improvement.

The great Metropolitan Opera star Risë Stevens said in Reader’s Digest (July 1955) that at the unhappiest moment of her life she received the best advice she’s ever had.

Early in her career, Miss Stevens lost the Metropolitan Opera “Auditions of the Air.” After losing, Miss Stevens was bitter. “I longed to hear,” she said, “that my voice was really better than the other girl’s, that the verdict was grossly unfair, that I had just lacked the right connections to win.” But Miss Stevens’s teacher didn’t coddle her. Instead she said to Miss Stevens, “My dear, have the courage to face your faults.” “Much as I wanted to fall back on self-pity,” continued Miss Stevens, “they [those words] kept coming back to me. That night they woke me. I couldn’t sleep until I faced my shortcomings. Lying there in the dark, I asked myself, ‘Why did I fail?’ ‘How can I win next time?’ and I admitted to myself that my voice range was not as good as it had to be, that I had to perfect my languages, that I must learn more roles.” Miss Stevens went on to say how facing her faults not only helped her to succeed on stage but also helped her win more friends and develop a more pleasing personality.

Being self-critical is constructive. It helps you to build the personal strength and efficiency needed for success. Blaming others is destructive. You gain absolutely nothing from “proving” that someone else is wrong.

Be constructively self-critical. Don’t run away from inadequacies. Be like the real professionals. They seek out their faults and weaknesses, then correct them. That’s what makes them professionals, Don’t, of course, try to find your faults so you can say to yourself, “Here’s another reason I’m a loser.” Instead view your mistakes as “Here’s another way to make me a bigger winner.” The great Orville Hubbard once said, “A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience.” Often we blame luck for our setbacks. We say, “Well, that’s the way the ball bounces,” and let it go at that. But stop and think. Balls don’t bounce in certain ways for uncertain reasons. The bounce of a ball is determined by three things: the ball, the way it is thrown, and the surface it strikes. Definite physical laws explain the bounce of a ball, not luck.

Suppose the CAA were to issue a report saying, “We’re sorry the crash occurred, but folks, that’s just the way the ball bounces.” You’d say it’s time to get a new CAA. Or suppose a doctor explained to a relative, “I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know what happened. It’s just one of those things.” You’d switch doctors when you or another relative became ill.

The that’s-the-way-the-ball-bounces approach teaches us nothing. We’re no better prepared to avoid a duplication of the mistake the next time we face a similar situation. The football coach who takes Saturday’s loss with “Well, boys, that’s the way the ball bounces” isn’t helping his team avoid the same mistakes the next Saturday.

Orville Hubbard, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, for seventeen consecutive years, was one of the nation’s most colorful and respected urban administrators.

For ten years prior to becoming mayor of Dearborn, Mr. Hubbard could have used the “bad luck” excuse and stepped out of politics.

Before becoming a perennial winner, Orville Hubbard was “unlucky” three times in trying to get the nomination for mayor.

Three times he tried to get the nomination for state senator, but failed. Once he was beaten in a race for a congressional nomination.

But Orville Hubbard studied these setbacks. He regarded them as part of his political education. And today he is one of the sharpest, most unbeatable politicians in local government.

Instead of blaming luck, research those setbacks. If you lose, learn. Lots of folks go through life explaining their mediocrity with “hard luck,” “tough luck,” “sour luck,” “bad luck.” These people are still like children, immature, searching for sympathy. Without realizing it, they fail to see opportunities to grow bigger, stronger, more self-reliant.

Stop blaming luck. Blaming luck never got anyone where they wanted to go.

A friend who is a literary consultant, writer, and critic chatted with me recently about what it takes to be a successful writer.

“A lot of would-be writers,” he explained, “simply aren’t serious about wanting to write. They try for a little while but give it up when they discover there is real work involved. I haven’t much patience with these people because they’re looking for a shortcut and there just isn’t one.

“But,” he went on, “I don’t want to imply that pure persistence is enough. The plain truth is, often it isn’t.

“Just now I’m working with a fellow who’s written sixty-two short fiction pieces but hasn’t sold one. Obviously, he is persistent in his goal to become a writer. But this fellow’s problem is that he uses the same basic approach in everything he writes. He’s developed a hard format for his stories. He has never experimented with his material—his plots and characters, and perhaps even style. What I’m trying to do now is to get this client to try some new approaches and some new techniques. He has ability, and if he’ll do some experimenting, I’m sure he’ll sell much of what he writes. But until he does, he’ll just go on receiving one rejection slip after another.” The advice of the literary consultant is good. We must have persistence. But persistence is only one of the ingredients of victory. We can try and try, and try and try and try again, and still fail, unless we combine persistence with experimentation.

Edison is credited with being one of America’s most persistent scientists. It’s reported that he conducted thousands of experiments before he invented the electric lightbulb. But note: Edison conducted experiments. He persisted in his goal to develop a lightbulb. But he made that persistence pay off by blending it with experimentation.

Persisting in one way is not a guarantee of victory. But persistence blended with experimentation does guarantee success.

Recently I noticed an article about the continuous search for oil. It said that oil companies study the rock formations carefully before they drill a well. Yet, despite their scientific analysis, seven out of eight wells drilled turn out to be dry holes. Oil companies are persistent in their search for oil, not by digging one hole to ridiculous depths but rather by experimenting with a new well when good judgment says the first well won’t produce.

Many ambitious people go through life with admirable persistence and show of ambition, but they fail to succeed because they don’t experiment with new approaches. Stay with your goal. Don’t waver an inch from it. But don’t beat your head against a wall. If you aren’t getting results, try a new approach.

People who have bulldog persistence, who can grab something and not let go, have an essential success quality. Here are two suggestions for developing greater power to experiment, the ingredient that, when blended with persistence, gets results.

1. Tell yourself, “There IS a way.” All thoughts are magnetic. As soon as you tell yourself, “I’m beaten. There’s no way to conquer this problem,” negative thoughts are attracted, and each of these helps convince you that you are right, that you are whipped.

Believe instead, “There is a way to solve this problem,” and positive thoughts rush into your mind to help you find a solution.

It’s believing there is a way that is important.

Marriage counselors report no success in saving marriages until one and preferably both partners see that it is possible to win back happiness.

Psychologists and social workers say an alcoholic is doomed to alcoholism until he believes he can beat his thirst.

This year thousands of new businesses are being formed. Five years from now only a small portion will be still in operation. Most of those who fail will say, “Competition was just too much. We had no choice but to quit.” The real problem is that when most people hit the TAR (Things Are Rough) barrier, they think only defeat and so they are defeated.

When you believe there is a way you automatically convert negative energy (let’s quit, let’s go back) into positive energy (let’s keep going, let’s move ahead).

A problem, a difficulty, becomes unsolvable only when you think it is unsolvable. Attract solutions by believing solutions are possible. Refuse, simply refuse, to even let yourself say or think that it’s impossible.

1. Back off and start afresh. Often we stay so close to a problem for so long that we can’t see new solutions or new approaches.

An engineer friend was retained a few weeks ago to design a distinctly new aluminum structure; in fact, nothing even resembling it had even been developed, or designed, before. I saw him just a few days ago, and I asked him how his new building was coming along.

“Not too well,” he replied. “I guess I haven’t spent enough time with my garden this summer. When I live with tough design problems for a long stretch, I’ve got to get away and let some new ideas soak in.

“You’d be surprised,” he continued, “to know how many engineering ideas come to me when I’m just sitting beside a tree holding a water hose on the grass.” President Eisenhower once was asked at a news conference why he took so many weekend vacations. His answer is good advice for everybody who wants to maximize his creative ability. Mr. Eisenhower said, “I do not believe that any individual, whether he is running General Motors or the United States of America, can do the best job just by sitting at a desk and putting his face in a bunch of papers. Actually, the president ought to be trying to keep his mind free of inconsequential details and doing his own thinking on the basic principles and factors … so that he can make clear and better judgments.” A former business associate of mine takes a seventy-two-hour out-of-town vacation with his wife once each month. He found this backing off and starting afresh increased his mental efficiency, thereby making him more valuable to his clients.

When you hit a snag, don’t throw up the whole project.

Instead, back off, get mentally refreshed. Try something as simple as playing some music or taking a walk or a short nap. Then, when you tackle it again, the solution often comes almost before you know it.

Seeing the good side pays off in big situations, too. A young man told me how he concentrated on seeing the good side when he lost his job. He explained it this way: “I was working for a large credit reporting company. One day I was given short notice to leave. There was an economy wave on, and they dismissed the employees who were ‘least valuable’ to the company.

“The job didn’t pay too well, but by the standards I grew up with, it was pretty good. I really felt terrible for a few hours, but then I decided to look at being bounced as a blessing in disguise. I really didn’t like the job much, and had I stayed there, I’d never have gone far. Now I had a chance to find something I really liked to do. It wasn’t long until I found a job that I liked a lot better that paid more money, too. Being fired from that credit company was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Remember, you see in any situation what you expect to see. See the good side and conquer defeat. All things do work together for good if you’ll just develop clear vision.

IN QUICK REVIEW

The difference between success and failure is found in one’s attitudes toward setbacks, handicaps, discouragements, and other disappointing situations.

Five guideposts to help you turn defeat into victory are:

1. Study setbacks to pave your way to success. When you lose, learn, and then go on to win next time.

2. Have the courage to be your own constructive critic. Seek out your faults and weaknesses and then correct them. This makes you a professional.

3. Stop blaming luck. Research each setback. Find out what went wrong. Remember, blaming luck never got anyone where they wanted to go.

4. Blend persistence with experimentation. Stay with your goal but don’t beat your head against a stone wall. Try new approaches. Experiment.

5. Remember, there is a good side in every situation. Find it. See the good side and whip discouragement.