Look Adversity in the Eye and Keep Winning

Ambitious people don’t go looking for trouble. But they really know how to handle it when it comes along.

Look at Jet Blue CEO David Neeleman. He certainly didn’t want his airline to make front-page news a few months ago when a customer-service disaster struck. And I don’t think that Martha Stewart enjoyed being accused of insider trading. (Unjustly, in my opinion.)

But David and Martha certainly knew what to do when trouble knocked at the door. That ability is not innate. It is learned. You can only cultivate it by fighting through at least one major difficulty. Or often, quite a few of them.

So my advice is, don’t hide from trouble. Use it to build your resiliency.

To understand why David Neeleman was able to handle the recent Jet Blue disruptions so well, you need to know a little about his history. Before he founded Jet Blue, he was one of the top executives at Southwest Airlines. One day, his boss Herb Kelleher fired him. David was devastated. He went home in tears to tell his wife and children - nine children! He had an onerous five-year non-compete clause to deal with. But he weathered that and then launched Jet Blue.

Even at successful Jet Blue, David had more problems to deal with. A few years ago, the airline had a security problem when several million customers’ confidential information got sent off to Homeland Security and then to a third-party consultant, in violation of Jet Blue’s own policies. David stood up, took ownership of the problem and got stronger in the process. So just a few months ago when a service disruption stranded thousands of Jet Blue passengers, David could take charge so compellingly because he had already built the strength to handle adversity.

Martha Stewart teaches us another good lesson about dealing with disasters. When she got hit with her insider-trading accusation, she didn’t go hide. She didn’t wait for people to come to her and ask, “Martha, is this true?” No, she set up a Website to declare that the charge was false. She put ads in newspapers to fight back. And you know what? The only people who withdrew their support for her and her products were a lot of 25-year-old ad buyers. As you noticed, Sherwin-Williams and the other retailers who distributed her product lines never wavered. That was because she told her side of the story without waiting for someone to ask.

So don’t go looking for trouble. But when the hard times come, come out swinging. You’ll build the skills and resiliency to continue your fight right up to the top.