How To Excel During Challenging Economic Times

I want to share some ideas about how we can excel during these most challenging economic times. I have been reading about Winston Churchill, and I believe he is one of the most interesting characters in the history of mankind. Further, Churchill led England during the most perilous times of the 20^th century, World War II.

There is a short biography about Churchill by English writer Paul Johnson, who has the advantage of being likely the last biographer who actually knew the great man. The story of Churchill is about how a man fights on in the face of overwhelming failures, frustrations and overwhelming opposition and scorn. These are the lessons we need to learn to succeed in what is the toughest business and economic environment in the last at least 70 years.

The author identifies five Churchillian attributes that guided his eventual success: 1) He aimed high, but never cadged (begged or groveled) or demeaned himself to gain office or objectives. 2) There was no substitute for hard work – even though he was brilliant. 3) Churchill “never allowed mistakes, disasters – personal or national – accidents, illness, unpopularity and criticism to get him down. His powers of recuperation, both in physical illness and psychological responses to abject failure, were astounding.” 4) Churchill wasted extraordinarily small amounts of energy on hatred, recrimination, malice, revenge, grudges, rumor mongering or vendettas. Energy expended on hate was energy lost to productive activity, and 5) he always had something other than politics to give joy to his life.

Of course, there are so many other attributes that made Churchill a great man, but it seems to me that the above principles are definitely transferable to our lives and how we all need to overcome adversity in everything we do. As I observe our top performers, as well as successful people in most walks of life, they all seem to embody most or all of these attributes and behaviors. Another behavior that I observe among top producers and successful people is that unlike unsuccessful or very low producers who are often very focused on themselves, successful producers are most often focused on others and how they can be a benefit to the world they live in. In other words, successful people are outward looking, concerned with the needs of others while unsuccessful people are inward looking concerned with their own needs.

This is true regardless of endeavor. Families, friendships, associates, teammates, whatever, are always best with people who care about other people. Selfish, self centered people are always the most frustrating and difficult to deal with. What is also very interesting and seems contradictory, but is really not, about the differences among top producers compared to low producers is that top producers seem to look to themselves for answers and take personal responsibility for their lives, while the less successful look outside themselves for answers, take little or no personal responsibility and blame others, outside factors, anything but themselves for their lives. I can’t stress enough that successful people seem to be learning based, always trying to grow and learn as a person, while unsuccessful people seem to be knowledge based, they know everything already and are often closed to new ideas.