Resilient people don't wait for others to rescue them from business disasters. They work through their feelings, set goals, work to reach their goals, and often emerge from the process better than before. The resiliency response may take a long time – but it can lead to success far beyond what was imagined in the beginning.
While attending college as a music major, Bill Harris became fascinated with the positive mental and emotional effects that came from listening to combinations of pure sound waves on stereo headphones. After much experimenting, he created sophisticated audio recordings that put people quickly into the same deep meditational state that some people achieve only after years of practice. He found that listening to his recordings led to accelerated learning, enhanced creativity, clarity of consciousness, and even increased spirituality.
In 1989, Bill and one of his friends started a part-time business to market their specialized recordings. Their company, The Centerpointe Research Institute, wasn't very successful it's first year; they had only 43 customers and little profit. Then something happened that seemed disastrous. A competitor filed a one-million-dollar lawsuit accusing Bill and his partner of stealing the competitor's audio technology, customer list, and more.
Bill says, "My stomach turned as I envisioned losing my house and everything I owned, even though I knew the accusations were false and the lawsuit frivolous. My attorney said if the suit went all the way to trial, the legal fees could total $150,000 or more. At the time, I had perhaps $5,000, so this huge cost was quite a shock. My business partner, who was equally panicked, wanted to fold up and move on to something else. But I didn't agree. I was enjoying what I was doing -really for the ?rst time in my life – and was beginning to get some recognition as an expert.
"Over the next few months, I had many anxiety attacks as I contemplated the worst. My tapes helped me relax, and I'd been reading Napoleon Hill's famous book, Think and Grow Rich. In it Hill says, 'Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.' To experience this benefit, however, you must look for it and germinate it. I forced myself to sit at my desk and, with a shaking hand, begin to make a list of the 'potential benefits' of being sued for a million dollars.
"At ?rst, Hill's idea seemed ridiculous. What could possibly be beneficial about being sued for a million dollars? As I started my feeble list, the ?rst few benefits didn't seem very significant. However, over a few weeks, I thought of several others, and the list ultimately grew to contain over 60 benefits – every one of which ultimately came true.
"Here's how the biggest benefit came true. I did something that absolutely changed my life. I wish I could say that what I did was the result of a wise and well-thought-out plan, but it wasn't. It was simply an offhand, but fortuitous question. Knowing that from a rational point of view our company wasn't worth spending $150,000 to defend, I asked myself, 'What would Centerpointe look like if it was worth spending $150,000 in legal fees to defend?'
"In asking this question, I began to dream. 'Well,' I thought, 'if Centerpointe was worth spending $150,000 to defend, we would be advertising in national magazines. We would have a large headquarters filled with lots of activity and a lot of employees helping users of our programs to get the benefits we promise. I would be a published author and a sought-after speaker at conferences and seminars. We would have many thousands of customers all over the world, with millions of dollars in sales each year, and I would be a well-known expert in personal and spiritual growth. We would be one of the largest and most successful personal growth companies in the world.'
"As these improbable dreams occurred to me, I wrote them down and formulated my goals. I placed a magazine ad in a well-known magazine. To my surprise, it actually made money, so I placed the ad in another national magazine, then another.
"When orders started increasing, I bought out my business partner – who wanted out anyway – for one dollar and my promise to pay all the lawsuit costs. This gave me full control over the direction of the company.
"The lawsuit was eventually settled with no money changing hands. My only concession in the settlement was for me to send a letter to my ?rst 43 customers telling them that our technology was not the same as our competitor's, a distinction I was happy to make!
"One by one, I worked on each piece of my dream, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other, week by week, month by month, and year by year, until everything I had envisioned had been accomplished. As I checked each item off the list, I added new and bigger dreams – and eventually checked those off, too.
Today, Centerpointe is a multi-million dollar business with the beautiful headquarters building I envisioned, a large number of employees, and over 160,000 people in 172 countries who have benefited from our programs. I have written two books and over 140 articles. As I envisioned, I'm often invited to speak at conferences and seminars, and was even invited to speak recently at the United Nations on the subject of values.
"The whole thing is truly amazing. The 'disaster' turned out to be a giant blessing in disguise. Without it, Centerpointe would probably have limped along for another year or so and then quietly gone to small business heaven. All of this happened because I looked for the potential benefits in what seemed at the time to be a major disaster, then took action to make those potential benefits a reality. In the process, I learned a huge lesson. When something 'bad' happens, if you focus on what you want, keep your mind off what you don't want or are worried about, and take action, then miraculous things can happen."
Summarized from The Resiliency Advantage: Master Change, Thrive Under Pressure, and Bounce Back from Setbacks by Al Siebert, PhD. Al Siebert is Director of The Resiliency Center Website: http://www.resiliencycenter.com Email: asiebert@resiliencycenter.com.
