Home Management Matters When adversity strikes, the choice is yours: Bitter or Better?

When adversity strikes, the choice is yours: Bitter or Better?

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Have you ever questioned yourself?

Why am I doing this? Is it all worth it? Have you ever wanted to throw in the towel?

As entrepreneurs we seldom take the easy road, meaning we often face adversity. Riding the ups and downs can feel like a rollercoaster at times.

While sometimes it can feel like most things are beyond our control, there is one facet of business development that inevitability comes down to you.

And that’s the attitude you choose to adopt.

When things turn sour, you can either become bitter or better about it.

The key is self-belief, coupled with strategies to ensure that you emerge from setbacks determine and not defeated.

Here are four entrepreneurs from around the world, from four different industries, but they have all faced and dealt with adversity:

Allan Pease grew up in the backblocks of Melbourne Australia, started out in sales at the age of 10 and faced a steep climb to success. Studying psychology, zoology, anthropology, every “ology” he could, Allan became Mr. Body Language.

He has tackled both thyroid and prostate cancer head-on. He has faced a financial disaster, with debts of $1.48million to the Tax Office. Allan sold almost everything and went on to write many bestselling books. Allan makes decisions to succeed. He made decisions to bounce back, decisions to overcome cancer, focusing on what can be achieved, rather than the things he couldn’t control.

Eric Bailey grew up in South Central LA, he was adopted at a young age. Challenged with a bone disease, he was told he would never play sport. At the ripe age of 14 and a towering 6’5, he was approached to play basketball. He believed he couldn’t, until a coach said to him “STOP IT”… stop living in the past, stop the excuses, stop saying what you are going to do and start saying, “I will and I must”.

Adapting these principles and mindset, resetting his self-belief, Eric went on to play basketball at the highest level. In 1996, he commenced his speaking career. He worried whether or not he was good enough to be effective and taken seriously in the business community because he had spent his life focused on sport.
By letting go the past and focusing on what can be and not what has been, his business and life changed dramatically. Eric is now ranked #22 globally for his speaking expertise.

Vikki Malmberg paved her way from Dental Nurse to Serial Entrepreneur by always looking for strategic and innovative business processes. Fortunately, her businesses were systemised when someone turned off the lights!

She lost her eyesight for 8 months due to a neurological condition. Vikki says, “When I was diagnosed the doctors didn’t know it would be temporary… challenging is an understatement.” She could have given up hope that she would regain her sight, but her mindset was whatever it takes, embrace it, enlist the help available and focus on what could be achieved.

Paul Dunn’s entrepreneurial journey hasn’t been met with any great adversity, yet he understands the affect it has on people every day. Paul is the Co-founder and Chairman of the B1G1 foundation, an organisation like no other. Imagine every time you had a meal, a hungry child would also receive a meal. Or imagine if every time you had a cup of coffee, someone received access to lifesaving water.

Adversity affects many people in many different ways, large and small. You can make a difference. B1G1 links arms with businesses to tackle the adversity of others every day. (It was also Winner of the Anthill 2014 SMART 100 Innovation Readers’ Choice Award.)

Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes and is different for all of us. Overcoming adversity begins with self belief and mindset, but this alone is not enough.

Once you establish the right mindset you need to arm yourself with strategies and a plan to guide you through. You too can find what these four entrepreneurs have found by gaining clarity and focus whilst executing your plan!

To meet these guys (and gal), check out MAG 7. It’s an innovative and inspiring event on 11 September 2015. Learn more here: https://mag7.com.au/event