How to negotiate with someone more powerful than you

From below $18 to $483 - shares of the company GameStop rocketed when WallStreetBets, the Reddit army of retail investors took on hedge funds – and won! One loser, Melvin Capital Management, a hedge fund, has lost 30% of $12.5bn under management on exposure to GME. A modern-day David-and-Goliath battle between regular people versus financial titans. How do you negotiate with someone more powerful than you? What do you do if the other side is richer or better connected? I mean, have you ever tried to work out a win-win solution with a guy who thinks he’s the messiah? As a negotiator, you’re going to run into guys who lie to your face and try to scare you into agreement. Dealing with aggressive jerks and serial fabricators is something you have to do. In the Chinese martial art of tai chi, the goal is to use your opponent’s aggressiveness against him. A repetitive series of “what” and “how” questions can help you overcome the aggressive tactics of a manipulative adversary. “Here are some great standbys that I use: “What about this is important for you?” “What is the biggest challenge you face?” “How am I supposed to do that?” Don’t ask questions that start with “Why” unless you want your counterpart to defend a goal that serves you. “Why did you do that?” is an accusation, in any language. How you negotiate (and how you prepare to negotiate) can make an enormous difference, whatever the relative strengths of each party. Of course, no matter how skilled you are, there are limits to what you can get through negotiation. The best negotiator in the world will not be able to buy Buckingham Palace. How do you enhance your negotiating power? There is power in developing a good working relationship between the people negotiating. It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective mean to increasing your negotiation power. Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to become less defensive and more willing to listen to other points of view. This is listening as a martial art, to gain access to the mind of another person. Negotiation serves two distinct life functions – information gathering and behaviour influencing. Your career, your finances, your reputation, your love life, even the fate of your kids at some point all these things hinge on your ability to negotiate. Negotiation is nothing more than communication with results. In my Effective Negotiation training program, I draw on my more than two-decade career in sales to distill the principles and practices I deployed in the field into an exciting new approach designed to help you negotiate a lower car price, a bigger raise, and a child’s bedtime. You’ll learn to use your emotions, instincts and insights in any encounter to connect better with others, influence them and achieve more. It works for one simple reason: it was designed in and for the real world. It was not born in a classroom or a training hall, but built from years of experience that improved until it reached near perfection. I’ve always thought of myself as just a regular guy. Hardworking and willing to learn, yes, but not particularly talented. But with the skills I’ve learned, I’ve found myself doing extraordinary things and watching people I’ve taught achieve truly life-changing results. Your goal at the outset of a negotiation is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators – they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover. In my negotiation course, I tell my students to try to understand the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and to hearing what is behind those feelings. It’s emotional intelligence on steroids. Most of us enter verbal combat unlikely to persuade anyone of anything because we only know and care about our own goals. But the best sales people are tuned in to the other party – their audience. They know that if they empathize, they can mold their audience by how they approach and talk to them. Negotiate in their world. And so I’m going to leave you with one thought: Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Whether it’s in the office or around the family dinner table, ask them questions that open paths for your goals. It’s not about you. It will get you the best car price, the higher salary and the largest contract. It will also save your relationships, your friendship and your family.

Build a meaningful life by building relationships

Trading places. Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th US president. Trump was the first president not to attend his successor's inauguration since 1869. Meanwhile, Elon Musk edged past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to grab the title of world's richest person. Bill Gates is now a distant third at $132 billion. In the Entertainment world, after nearly a decade of borrowing $15 billion, Netflix said it would consider buying back shares for the first time since 2011. Disney, meanwhile, temporarily halted its dividend last year. Netflix was founded in 1997, while Disney has been around for nearly 100 years. But in the streaming video world, Netflix is the incumbent and Disney the upstart. The student has become the teacher. We are living during a very interesting period of history, a time of transition. Life is littered with great rivalries. As a sales leader, I don’t remember a time when I was not thinking about rivalry and competition. Sales was tailored for my personality because winning and losing is so clearly defined and measured so often. Ever since I was a boy, I’ve never wanted anyone to beat me. After a lifetime of “warfare” this now I know. Look in the mirror. That’s your competition. If you look closely at transition periods in history, one group of people emerge very strongly. They are leaders. They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. But from the dark hours of history are born legends, heroes, champions, leaders and great teachers. Granted, some people exert more influence than others, but all of us exert some, and by our influence, people’s lives are touched. People hear what you say and they listen, and they are affected. People watch how you live, and they learn, and they are influenced. The emphasis in all dealings is on developing and nurturing long-term, constructive relationships. Think of every interaction as an opportunity to establish or further develop a long-term, positive relationship. You can only do this with a personal touch. How do you know if you have a great relationship? If you were to ask each person in the relationship who benefits more from the relationship, both would answer, “I do.” Each person contributes so much to the relationship that both feel enriched. Despite some of the best information available on how to accomplish any task, most people still tend to ask their friends, neighbours, coworkers and siblings for advice on key issues they may be facing. Too often, they ask the advice of others who have never triumphed over the specific hardship they are facing or who have never succeeded in their specific area of endeavour. I do my best to be a generous mentor. In the last quarter century of my life, many young people got a slice of my mentorship. I always felt that I’d gained so much from my mentors than I was able to repay them. I expect the people I mentored – the mentees – to become mentors of the next generation, and to keep the cycle going. If you’re going to climb a big, scary mountain that’s never been climbed before, your best hedge is making sure you have the right partners on the other end of the rope, people who can adapt to whatever you encounter on the mountain. Connection was how I got my job done. Who I knew translated very much into what I knew. The first third of my life, connections were essential to get from where I was, a young man with big dreams in the small town of Johor Bahru with no money, no influence, no connections. The second third of my life as an individual contributor, I was only as good as my contacts. I learned very quickly as a young sales person that everything was about connections; that’s how I got my leads and secure the contracts. It began with who your contacts were and how strong your connections are. I learned to keep in touch; to cultivate contacts, to strengthen connections. Now, I think about connection more in terms of life as much as work. My connections are much more about who I want to know, be friends with, spend time with and who enhances my life in some meaningful way, the pleasure of knowing people and through them, experiencing the power of sharing.

Sharpening your virtual selling skills

Twitter permanently bans President Donald Trump’s personal account after he incited mob that stormed Capitol, marking the most high-profile punishment the company has ever imposed. Facebook, too, has blocked Trump from using its service—including Instagram. Trump has more than 88 million followers on Twitter and 33 million on Facebook. For the past 100 years, letters and emails have been signed with – sincerely yours or some form of pleasant goodbye. Today, “virtually yours” has taken over. And, just like that, everything changed. During the pandemic period, virtual was the ONLY way to communicate and sell. In a heartbeat, we went from happy hours to virtual happy hours. From conferences to virtual conferences. Virtual selling will become the new normal, there is no turning back, and the only question is: are you ready? Can you do business over email or chat? Can you close a high-value, enterprise-level deal over the phone without ever meeting face-to-face? Of course you can. In sales, everything works some of the time. The most effective way to build relationships and trust, resolve conflict, brainstorm ideas, gain consensus, present ideas, negotiate and close deals is a physical face-to-face meeting. You know this and I know this, because we are human. When it comes to account management, there really isn’t anything like being there. With your top accounts, those face-to-face meetings are gold. They help you get high, wide and deep in your accounts, strengthen relationships, find opportunities to add more value, expand the relationship and lock out your competitors. When you are on face-to-face sales calls, you also have the luxury of reading their eyes, the micro-expressions on their face and the entirety of their body language. Though you can see the other person on a video call or hear their voice over the phone, it is not the same as being in person. Because face-to-face meetings require both parties to make a significant investment of time, it increases the probability that there will be meaningful outcomes. For my entire career, I’d sold face-to-face. I was damn good at it. When I started in the hotel industry, my prospects were spread out all across the globe. If I wanted to grow my business (and I did), my only choice was virtual selling. It required a massive mindset shift. Out of pure necessity, and many mistakes later, I eventually mastered virtual selling. To avoid confusion surrounding the term, let’s stop and define virtual selling. It is simply leveraging virtual communication channels in place of physical, face-to-face interactions. These channels include video calls, telephone calls, text messaging, email, social media. If you look closely that the list, you’ll notice that you are already using some, if not all, of these channels. Therefore, it is not about “revolutionizing” the way you sell. Rather, it’s a laser focus on applying virtual selling tools more effectively to engage and connect while boosting your sales productivity. I don’t want to discount just how challenging virtual selling can be. It requires constantly learning, adopting and adapting to new technology while applying interpersonal skills in new ways and getting out of your comfort zone. When I got my first start in sales, back in my early twenties, I worked in an assigned territory in Malaysia. Because the competition was insanely fierce, it was relationship that mattered most. Those face-to-face interactions mattered dearly, because it was there that I built trust, reduced risk, differentiated and locked my competitors out. I remember my sales manager telling me to “go get lost in my territory” and that he “didn’t want to see me in the office during the day.” If you can’t be there face-to-face, the next best thing is a video call. According to a Forbes Insight study, 62% of executives said that video improved communication versus the phone. Video is more personal than any other form of virtual communication. Yet, the number one challenge of sales professionals is “being uncomfortable on camera.” I get it, because I’ve been in those same shoes and experienced the same fear. Even though I could stand in front of 800 people and deliver a speech, I sounded like a blithering idiot when speaking to the camera. I hated video. There were some incredibly embarrassing moments like the time I did a webinar with over 300 people on the call. I was so nervous I didn’t notice that people could only see half my face. I looked like a Muppet. Over time, though, the more I did it, like everything else in life, the better I became. If you fear or uncomfortable with video, I promise that you can learn to master it. There is no easy button, though. The good news is, most of us have become comfortable interacting with family and friends via video. We’ll FaceTime Grandma on a whim. However, as you likely know, making a video call to your mum on FaceTime is far different than conducting a professional video sales call with prospects and customers. The stakes are higher. The trap salespeople fall into, though, is the false belief that good intentions are enough. They show up on video calls, forgetting the perceptions they are creating within their video frame. Think about it. Would you walk into a corporate boardroom to deliver an important presentation to wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops? Rule number one is that you must dress at the same level you would if you were going into a face-to-face meeting with your stakeholders. In most cases, this means conservative business casual. It takes effort to get it right. You need to care about the details and your audience. Some elements of a highly effective call are: • Your internet connection has a great deal of impact. No internet connection, no video sales call. Poor internet connection, poor video sales call. • Do not run video calls in rooms where irritating and random background noise is an issue. Alarms, traffic, doorbells, pets and random loud noises affect your audience’s experience and your ability to maintain attention control. • Few things are more irritating than audio that is echoing off the walls. You will sound like you are in a cave. • Good lighting makes you look natural and accessible. It also illuminates your facial expressions, making you appear more human and trustworthy. When the light is behind you, your face becomes a dark blob. I call this look “witness protection.” On the other hand, if it is too bright, it can be distracting and wash you out. • How you are positioned within the video frame has a massive impact on you looking professional and confident. Looking down into the camera is the most common framing mistake. This “skydiver look” is typically caused by your laptop being lower than your face. In extreme cases, you can even see the skydiver’s ceiling. If you are too close to the camera, your head will fill the entire frame. In extreme cases, parts of your hard are cut off. If there is too much space between the top of your head and the top of the video frame, your head appears teeny tiny at the bottom of the frame like “Mini-Me.” • Your backdrop represents your personal brand. When I use background replacement on calls, I like to place my customer’s logo in the background image. • Sadly, eye contact is the most challenging aspect of video sales calls. So much so that Apple is working to perfect software that creates the illusion of eye contact on video calls. One of the big reasons why maintaining eye contact on video calls is so difficult is that we tend to look at ourselves. A study indicated that most people spend between 30% and 70% of the time on video calls looking at their own face. Looking at the camera instead of the screen takes effort, though. When people were not looking at themselves on screen, they were looking at the other people on their screen. Thus, breaking eye contact. When you look into the camera, the stakeholder feels that you are making eye contact. Yet, paradoxically, when you are looking into the camera, you cannot see them. When you cannot see them, it does not feel to you that you are making eye contact. This causes you to feel uncomfortable and disconnected. In this state, you look down at their image on your screen to make eye contact, which causes the other person to feel that you are not making eye contact. Since you are the salesperson, it is your responsibility to connect with them, not their responsibility to connect with you. To build that connection, you must make eye contact. So despite what your rain is telling you, when you are unable to see their eyes, you must have faith that when you are making eye contact with the camera, you are making contact with the stakeholders – and they will like you more, become more engaged and feel more comfortable. I trust that this provides you a roadmap for engaging remote buyers and closing deals. I welcome opinions, debates, enquiries from any sales leader or salesperson looking to gain a competitive advantage in the mind, the wallet and the loyalty of your customer.

Would you do anything differently if you know you only had a year to live?

The Worst Year Ever. TIME magazine has a drawing of a red “X” over 2020 on its cover with a heading which many will agree with. From the time it has started, the pandemic has killed millions of people across the globe. It has changed everyone’s lives completely. We may not say it, but deep down we act and behave like we’re invincible. That stuff happens to other people, not to ME. I have plenty of time left. We forget how light our grip on life really is. I urge you to give serious thought to the question posed in this posting heading. I guarantee your priorities will come sharply into focus if you do. We all need reminders of what’s really important from time to time. Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful. Our fear of death shapes our decisions, our outlook and our actions. Is the ladder you’re climbing up leaning against the right wall? Make the most of living life instead of mostly living with regrets. I can’t remember a single person who was ever completely satisfied with their work/life balance. Too many of us tend to believe the hype that age defines and limits our potential. Science suggests that the best path to sustaining physical and intellectual achievement is to never hit a stop sign. The research showed that when people are afflicted with arthritis, they tend to move less, because movement is painful. But movement actually helps ease the pain. Why should we ever think about retiring, when we could be “rewiring”? Retirement is another cultural idea that may lead people to give up career and life goals years before they might actually want to stop working. The fact is, retirement was not created because older people were incapable of doing good work, but rather, it was invented by a 19th century German chancellor in response to rising Marxism in Europe, because young people wanted their jobs at a time when there were not enough jobs to go around. Furthermore, older workers are not less productive. Researchers at the University of Mannheim in Germany looked at teams of workers at a BMW plant. Productivity increased right up until the mandatory retirement of 65, because these veterans knew how to handle problems and prevent mistakes. Be a (re)inventor. My definition of retirement is doing what you want to do. Loving what you do can make you more productive, sociable and innovative. That kind of enjoyment can help fuel the grit needed to help us persevere when we face the inevitable challenge. The great law of nature is that trials and tribulations never stop. There is no end. Just when you think you’ve successfully navigated one obstacle, another emerges. As the Haitian proverb puts it: behind mountains are more mountains. There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges. You’re always fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly. Knowing life is a marathon, not a sprint is important. Understand that each battle is only one of many. More important, you must keep them all in real perspective. Never rattled. Always hustling and acting with creativity. Simply flipping the obstacles that life throws at you by improving in spite of them, because of them. People will make pointed remarks. They will cut us off in traffic. Our rivals will steal our business. We will be hurt. Forces will try to hold us back. Bad stuff will happen. We can turn even this to our advantage. Always. It is an opportunity. Always. Forgiving you means I no longer dwell on what an asshole you are. It doesn’t mean you’re no longer an asshole. What stood in the way became the way. Not everyone looks at obstacles – often the same ones you and I face – and sees reason to despair. In fact, some see a problem with a ready solution. Leaning into their problem or weakness or issue, they see a chance to test and improve themselves. Nothing stands in their way. Rather, everything guides them on the way. It is much better to be this way, isn’t it? There is a lightness and a flexibility to this approach that seem very different from how we - and most people – choose to live. With our disappointments and resentments and frustrations. To be sure, no one is saying you’ve got to do it all at once. Margaret Thatcher didn’t become known as the Iron Lady until she was sixty years old. So under that pressure and trial we get better – become better people, leaders and thinkers. Because those trials and pressures will inevitably come. And they won’t stop coming. Like Rockefeller, you’re cool under pressure, immune to insults and abuse. You see opportunity in the darkest of places. You are iron-spined and possess a great and powerful will. Like Lincoln, you realise that life is a trial. It will not be easy, but you are prepared to give it everything you have regardless, ready to endure, persevere and inspire others. The names of countless others escape me, but they overcame what life threw at them and in fact, thrived because of it. They were nothing special, nothing that we are not just as capable of being. What they did was simple (simple, not easy). But let’s say it once again to remind ourselves: See things for what they are. Do what we can. Endure and bear what we must. What blocked the path now is the path.

Successful aging

TIME's first-ever "kid of the year" Gitanjali Rao, created apps to tackle contaminated drinking water, cyberbullying, opioid addiction and other social problems. She is 15-years-old. Speaking about age, mum, dad, your baby turned 56! And, like most, I wonder how it all happened so fast. Like a lot of people, I had an exciting, eventful twenties. Wild, free, energetic are words I would use to recall that period. My thirties brought responsibility. At thirty-one, I became a parent. I would describe my thirties with the words, confused, searching, scared. I didn't have time for a midlife crisis; by the age of forty I had a new job and relocated to a brand-new country. I was on top of my game and made a name for myself. To chararcterise my forties, I would use the adjectives "stressed" but also "appreciative" and would rate my life statisfaction at nine out of a possible ten. I was ecpecting less, and appreciating more. Now in my mid-fifties, I have to grapple with, "Well, things hasn't turned out the way I expected." I have run up against a reality that looks pretty different from the future I anticipated for myself at age 45. With not only a professional transition,but a personal one too, it would seem my most exciting days are behind me. But as I look back on my life, I realise that everytime I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better. What Sophie Tucker used to say - "I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better" - is true. The seven big factors in the happiness economics are relationships, our financial situation, our work, our friends, our health, our personal freedom and our personal values. One secret of happiness is to ignore comparisons with peiople who are more successful that you are: always compare downwards, not upwards. Unfortunately, that advice, while sound, is difficult to follow; how difficult depends on not just our attitude, but also our age. As you get older, your ability to benchmark a bad experience against other things you've navigated just puts it all in a very different perspective. You do get wiser. The passage of time is inevitable and inexorable; the clock ticks at the same rate for all of us. Aging is a more subtle, more relative phenomenon. For one thing, people age at visibly different rates. Some people, at age fifty six are more physically active and fit than in their days of beer and pizza. Others struggle with painful backs and aching knees and have been forced to relinquish their vigorous self-images. A life in memory, like a great painting, changes with the light it is seen in. In my mind's eye, I am almost twenty again. I want to make a mark on the world. I would do well professionally. I would have everything to be grateful for. I have a sense of what my limitations are, what my strengths are, and I can now organize my life so I an play to my strengths. I can do life. Life gets better. Much better. Growingt old isn't for sissies. Don't let age change you. Change the way you age. Sometimes you will never the the true value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.

Do what you love - the money will follow

Black Friday is over. In recent years, however, Black Friday’s importance has faded as more online sales make it possible for shoppers to browse and buy from their couch or on their smartphone. I  n our Covid-riven world, crowds are the thing to avoid. The coronavirus pandemic could be what finishes it.

Repurpose and Retool, for finding a solution to the problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Everyday, there are reports on how companies are laying off more and more people - both blue and white collar workers. "Downsizing," "rightsizing," "reengineering" are the current buzzwords of the corporate environment.

In difficult times, people too often lose the ability to face the future optimistically. They begin to think about their tomorrows negatively. Undoubtedly some great tasks lies ahead of you. Get up, get over it, get going.

Sometimes good-bye is a gift. In the moment you don't realise it, you can't see it, you don't understand the reason why it happened.  But looking at it in retrospect sometime later, it might turn out that good-bye was a blessing.

Starting over usually isn't easy, to say the least, but it sure can bring incredible results. Just like when Malaysia severed ties with Singapore, the country's leader, felt that the country has been cast adrift - with few prospects and little hope. There was only one thing to do: Work themselves out of their horrible situation.

Too late to start? It may be late, but it’s never too late.

Both Jan Koum founded Whatsapp, Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia at 35. Mark Pincus and Robert Noyce founded Zynga and Intel respectively at 41. Ray Kroc started McDonald’s at 52 and John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola at 55. Let’s not forget that Harland Sanders started KFC at that ripe old age of 65.

Don't worry so much about what you can't do; just do what you can as only you can do it. I believe you have inside you a core genius - some one thing that you love to do and do so well that you hardly feel like charging people for it. It's effortless for you and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you'd make it a lifetime's work.

Any idea is worth considering. We waste money, time, and paper. But nothing is as tragic as the waste of a good idea! So, if there's a good idea in your mind right now, don't waste it!

Desire alone will not allow you to do something new; you must create the capacity to do it. Realize too, that you are in unfamiliar territory, and it may take some practice before you feel comfortable. Eventually, however, you will find a way to regain control of your own life.

Let me say this to you now: Don't wait for an inspiration. Use your head and your heart will follow. Don't wait until you feel like it to make the move. You may need to go on a diet, but you don't feel like dieting. You're waiting until you feel like it. Don't! Winning starts with beginning, and beginning starts with a single action.

Life today is nothing more than a collection of results of the choices you have made. And I would add this sentence: Today's decisions are tomorrow's realities. Any path in life can be either a dead end or a stepping stone, and the deciding factor might arguably be the degree of imagination and creativity one brings to it.

Nike has tapped into the sentiment that is so appropriate for a lot of us at this stage of our lives: just do it. There comes a time when you have to say to yourself, "I may not have all the answers yet, and I'm not exactly sure where this is going to go, but that's oaky. I'm going to take charge of my life and go for it!" 

 Straight ahead lie the greatest years of your life.

There is always a way

Mulan is the year's most beautiful letdown...so screamed the headlines on The Verge. Disney's $200million production has received a torrent of negative reviews. On Douban, China's largest movie rating website, 70% gave negative reviews, compared with 13% of positive ratings. 

Sometimes criticism comes in the form of such reviews. Other times, criticism comes in different forms - like an email from a client or boss, or a comment from a family member or friend and it's never a fun experience.  

Everyone's grappling with some kind of challenge. It might be happening privately or publicly, or even on live TV. But everyone's  dealing with something, and everyone has moments where they wonder, "Am I going to make it?" "Why are people so cruel?" I've felt that way many times. The person sitting in the cubicle or coffee shop seat next to yours - they've felt that way too.

I am writing this because I wanted to remind people (including myself) that feeling frustrated, discouraged, criticized and rejected in the course of your career is actually...very normal. Every career has its ups and downs. Everyone goes through dry spells, difficulties, setbacks at some point or another - even A-list celebrities and presidential nominees. 

Let's be honest...it's not fun when you're job-hunting and you apply for 100 different positions and don't get a single response. It's not fun when you watch your colleague get chosen for a promotion that you wanted.  (even though you're more qualified and everyone knows it)

But this kind of stuff happened. Sometimes, things just.....seriously suck. How can we survive moments like that? How can we stay optimistic, motivated and inspired to keep marching forward? Seriously, how? 

Yeah, you might cry. Of course, you might want to crawl under a blanket and self-medicate with Netflix because you're a human being with human feelings and sometimes things hurt. 

Whatever you're going through right now, or whatever you're worrying might happen next, I want you to know: You're going to survive. And the silver lining is that you're become a smarter, wiser, funnier, more compassionate person because of whatever you've endured in your life and career.

Despite its hard body, bamboo is incredibly flexible. It will sway even in the gentle breeze. Yet it will often be the only thing standing after a typhoon, its roots firmly anchored. How we react when faced with a shifting landscape - from handling more challenging assignment at work to a critical situation in our personal lives - is affected to a large degree by our sense of grit.

My life has been a long series of zig zags. When something doesn't turn out the way I think it should...I'm good at dusting myself off and saying, what did I learn and how can I use that to tackle what's next? That's the ability to bend, flow and adapt - negative experiences force me to dig deep within myself out of sheer necessity. 

We face challenges in life, whether they are physical, emotional, financial or circumstantial. Why is it that some people have the grit and determination to succeed against all odds, while others do not? Research shows it's not about having nothing to lose; rather, it's about believing there is much to gain. 

I am now into Wait training. Achievement of any kind, I have recently been reminded, requires patience. It means clocking endless hours on the treadmill to train for a marathon, or taking night classes for a year or two to finish that degree. And often it gets harder to stay the course. It's not easy to persevere when we don't know how long we have to wait, or whether or not our imagined future will ever come. It's why those signs in train stations that tell you when the next train will arrive are so comforting - just knowing that makes the wait less torturous. But even when the trains run on schedule, there can be derailments along the way. Dealing with them may force us onto a new track. And that could be a good thing. 

Imagine failing more than a thousand times at something. Or three thousand. How many of us wouldn't give up? Well, meet James Dyson. Dyson failed more than five thousand times as he struggled to create his first Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner. The knighted British inventor finally brought it to market 15 years after his initial effort. 

But how do you turn your life around when you've lost all hope?

When I'm feeling discouraged, what helps me is hearing stories about people wo have experienced a similar type of discouragement. I like reading about what happened, how they felt, how they survived the bleakest moments and how they got stronger, even if it's someone I've never met in real life before. They help me feel a little calmer. A little more hopeful. A little less alone. 

No pressure, but if you do feel like it, I encourage you to share your survival story here about terrible bosses, unimpressed clients, vicious comments, betrayals, embarrassing mistakes, misery, discouragement, defeat...and how you got through it, what you'd learned. Your story could change someone's whole day - or life. So you should probably tell it.

I hope you will.