In 1991 Reebok was entrenched in a battle with Nike for top spot in the athletic shoe market. Looking to gain an advantage, Reebok gambled on an ad campaign featuring decathletes Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson — co-favorites to win a gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Dan was trendy and hip; Dave was straight-laced and steady. Dave held a 3-to-2 edge in contests against Dan, while Dan had recorded the highest-ever point total in a decathlon. The athletes’ good looks, dissimilar personalities, and tremendous talent made their rivalry the perfect fit for Reebok’s marketing strategy.

During the 1992 Super Bowl, Reebok introduced Americans to Dan and Dave. The cleverly written commercials were a sensational hit, and, almost overnight, Dan and Dave were vaulted to celebrity status. Sensing the popularity of the TV spot, Reebok poured $30 million into its efforts to put Dan and Dave at the forefront of their brand’s promotions.

From January through June, Dan and Dave were ubiquitous on television and in American pop culture. Anyone who cared anything at all about sports chose sides. Reebok executives patted themselves in the back (and padded their wallets) on account of their decision to market via Dan and Dave.

DAN & DAVE: THE EMBARRASING FAILURE

At the American Olympic Trails in June of 1992, the unthinkable happened. Dan O’Brien, gold medal favorite and marketing icon, failed to qualify for the Olympics!

Overestimating his ability in the pole vault, Dan set the bar too high — an epic blunder. On his first attempt, he missed. No worries though, he still had two more tries. On his second attempt, he didn’t even come close. By his final attempt, Dan was so tight with pressure that he had no hope of clearing the bar. His Olympic dream was dashed, Reebok’s ad campaign was trashed, and Dave Johnson headed to the Olympics alone.

DAN O’BRIEN: OLYMPIC CHAMPION

After the anguish and public humiliating of missing the Olympics, Dan could have given up his dream of winning Olympic gold. He was the laughingstock of the media, and he had missed a rare opportunity to compete on the world’s greatest stage. However, Dan was a competitor, and he bounced back.

For four long years, Dan O’Brien funneled the emotions of his failure to fuel his resolve to make the 1996 Olympic Games. Rather than drowning out the memory of his mishap at the Olympic Trials, O’Brien repeatedly watched his botched attempts in the pole vault. Refusing to wallow in his setback, he learned from it, and he redoubled his training efforts.

At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, O’Brien gained redemption and achieved his dream by capturing the gold medal in the decathlon.

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM FAILURE

“That failure set the path of my life for the next four years,” Dan O’Brien said in reflection. “I learned more from it than I had learned the previous 30 years combined.”

Dan O’Brien’s Olympic journey is instructive on the nature of failure. Here are a few lessons from his experience:

1. Failure is inevitable

Everyone, even the most decorated Olympian, knows the taste of failure. We all lose, fall short, or miss the bar during life.

2. Failure is a fork in the road

When we fail, we have several paths in front of us.

• We can blame our failures on others.
• We can identify with our setbacks to the extent that we view ourselves as failures.
• We can ignore or deny our failure.
• OR, we can embrace failure, learn from it, and use it as a springboard to get better.

Our response dictates where we end up on the path of leadership.

3. Failure is fruitful

Failure is the surest path to success. It tests, strengthens, and refines us. Passing through it qualifies us to lead.

The United States is experiencing an explosion of latin growth. By 2010 1 in 5 Americans will be Hispanic. Currently, there are 44.3 million Hispanics in this country representing  47% of the country’s purchasing power. California and Texas have 50% of the Hispanic population.

Hispanic young men are at an average age of 18 with white/non-Hispanics only at 27.6% is under 9 years of age. The countries coveted purchasing power being from 18 to 35 years old.

Latino owned business growth according to the 1997 Economic Census. In March of 2001 nearly 6% of all U.S. businesses were Latino owned.

As the Latin population continues to climb researchers and marketers are rushing to learn more about this culture and how it is changing our country.  

Everyone makes choices. Their outlook on life, whether at home, at work, behind the wheel or at the theater, directly correlates to the decision to be either positive or negative. In essence, it’s as simple as whether you see the glass half full or half empty. As author Stephen R. Covey puts it in his much publicized book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,* you can choose to be proactive or you can choose to be reactive. He takes his theory a step further, saying that a proactive stance leads to greater success and contentment. From that perspective, a reactive person is sabotaging himself or herself.

Covey contends that every single day, people have 100 opportunities to be proactive or reactive. Let’s say you’re in your car on the freeway and an overly zealous driver is practically sitting on your tail in the fast lane. You’re driving at the speed limit, actually a couple of miles faster than the law permits. But the motorist behind you thinks he’s at the Indy 500. You can stay where you are, infuriate him and possibly get rear-ended. Or, you can move out of harm’s way, to that opening in the right-hand lane and let him pass. He’s in the wrong, and there’s no question about it. Will you follow his lead? Will you be proactive or reactive? It’s up to you.

It’s very empowering to look at life from Covey’s point-of-view. If you moved to the right lane, the reckless driver didn’t force you. He didn’t win. A vehicle can be a deadly weapon and you made the sensible, mature decision that shows why you deserve a driver’s license and the other driver belongs on roller skates.

At work, you can be proactive if you take the time to learn about the principles of nature - in this case human nature and people interaction.

“If you ignore the principles of human effectiveness, you (can) work very hard, but still not get what you want,” Covey says. Say that you’ve been working with a prospective client for the past three weeks, really putting a lot of effort into the new relationship. Then you learn, through some mutual acquaintance, that this would-be client ended up going to a competitor for the same service. It happens, and you don’t have to necessarily blame yourself. But, you should take time to reflect on the past three weeks. Were you really proactive or were you reactive? How did you interact with the client?

Covey says principles are “natural laws that govern the world.” To attain a proactive mind-set, he emphasizes one must create beneficial relationships, build trust and commit to self-renewal.”To be trusted, you must be trustworthy over time,” Covey asserts. As for self-renewal, he says renewal means “preserving and enhancing your greatest asset - yourself.”

In the process of living, the winds of circumstances blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives.We have all experienced the blowing winds of disappointment, despair and heartbreak. Why, then, would each of us, in our own individual ship of life, all beginning at the same point, with the same intended destination in mind, arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all been blown by the winds of circumstances and buffeted by the turbulent storms of discontent?

What guides us to different destinations in life is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sail. The way that each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrive. The major difference is the set of the sail.

The same circumstances happen to us all. We have disappointments and challenges. We all have reversals and those moments when, in spite of our best plans and efforts, things just seem to fall apart. Challenging circumstances are not events reserved for the poor, the uneducated or the destitute. The rich and the poor have marital problems. The rich and the poor have the same challenges that can lead to financial ruin and personal despair. In the final analysis, it is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, it is what we choose to do when we have struggled to set the sail and then discover, after all of our efforts, that the wind has changed directions.

When the winds change, we must change. We must struggle to our feet once more and reset the sail in the manner that will steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing. The set of the sail, how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly and responsibly we react to adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally and willingly conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our thinking.

Learning to reset the sail with the changing winds rather than permitting ourselves to be blown in a direction we did not purposely choose requires the development of a whole new discipline. It involves going to work on establishing a powerful, personal philosophy that will help to influence in a positive way all that we do and that we think and decide. If we can succeed in this worthy endeavor, the result will be a change in the course of our income, lifestyle and relationships, and in how we feel about the things of value as well as the times of challenge. If we can alter the way we perceive, judge and decide upon the main issues of life, then we can dramatically change our lives.

One of the biggest barriers that all people have to overcome on their journey of success is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of change. Fear of responsibility and commitment. And the big one – Fear of success. It is fear (and all of its cousins like worry, anxiety, depression and self-doubt) that will turn your dreams into a chilling nightmare. This nightmare can turn into something so daunting that it causes you to loose hope. It doesn’t have to be this way. Fear was never intended to put you in a state of paralysis.

The reality of fear is that fear is human. Fear is part of growing and it isn’t going away. It is part of every person’s life and exists in every success story. In all the research I did for my book, “Conquer Fear!” I heard story after story of successful people who experienced fear. The names would change. The circumstances were different. But the fear was the same – and very real. What I noticed was the successful person was willing to face and expose their fear.

The difference between a mediocre success and a breakthrough success is your willingness to deal with your fears.

What about you? What hidden fear are you ignoring that is causing you to repel success? Acknowledging the fear is the first step to defusing its power over you and taking control over your emotions and your life.

One of the key principles of The No Complaining Rule is that we have a choice of how we invest our energy at home and at work. We can focus on the negative or the positive. We can focus on problems or use problems to create solutions. And we can focus on sharing positive energy or negative energy. It’s all about our intention, our focus and our habits. Bad habits create bad results and good habits create good results. And since one of the best ways to stop a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit, here are 5 positive things we can do each day instead of complain.

5. Pray and Meditate. Scientific research shows that these daily practices reduce stress; boost positive energy; and promote health, vitality, and longevity. When you are faced with the urge to complain or you are feeling stressed to the max, stop, be still, plug-in to the ultimate power, and recharge.

A good way to think of leadership is the process of freeing your team members to do the best work they possibly can. I have followed NBA basketball coach Phil Jackson’s career.

Like Phil Jackson who moved from the record setting Chicago Bulls to the Los Angeles Lakers. Jackson says his principal task is creating an environment in which his players can flourish. In communicating with his championship teams, Jackson convinced them that they had the talent to win championships, and that the main goal of the coach was going to be freeing them to use that talent.

Today’s business team members, say they want, more than anything else, the autonomy to do their jobs without the boss’s interference. In the new century, it’s already clear that the CEOs of our best-run companies believe that the more power leaders have, the less they should use.

The job of the team leader is to set a mission, decide upon a strategic direction, achieve the necessary cooperation, delegate authority — and then let people innovate. To do that we all could take a hint from the late football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant. Before his retirement as one of the leading coaches in college football history at Alabama, Bryant observed:

The key to authentic leadership is to listen to your followers, and then open the door for them to lead themselves. The secret is empowerment. The main incentive is genuine caring and recognition.

The five most important words a leader can speak are: “I am proud of you.”
The four most important are: “What is your opinion?”
The three most important are: “If you please.”
The two most important are: “Thank You.”
And the most important single word of all is: “You!”

The most important thing you do for your success is to take control of the suggestive elements in your environment. Be sure that what you are seeing and listening to is consistent with the goals you want to achieve.

Listen Your Way to Success
Listen to educational audio programs in your car. The average person drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles per year which works out to between 500 and 1,000 hours per year that the average person spends in his or her car. You can become an expert in your field by simply listening to educational audio programs as you drive from place to place.

Take Courses in Your Field
Attend seminars given by experts in your field. Take additional courses and learn everything you possibly can. Learn from the experts. Ask them questions, write them letters, read their books, read their articles and listen to people with proven track records in the area in which you want to be successful.

Get Around the Right People
Associate only with positive, success-oriented people. Get around winners. As we say, fly with the eagles. You can’t fly with the eagles if you keep scratching with the turkeys. Get away from the go-nowhere types and above all, get away from negative people. Get away from negative coworkers. If you’ve got a negative boss, seriously consider changing jobs. Associating on a regular basis with negative people is enough in itself to condemn you to a life of underachievement, frustration and failure. Associate only with positive people. Get around winners.

Visualize Your Goals
The last thing before you sleep and the first thing in the morning, think about and visualize your goals as realities. See your goal as though it already existed. Your subconscious mind is only activated by affirmations and pictures that are received in the present tense. See your goal vividly just before you go to sleep. See yourself performing at your best. See the situations that you’re facing working out exactly the way you want them to.

Feed Yourself Mental Pictures
See yourself living the kind of life that you want to live. See yourself with the kind of relationships, the kind of health, the kind of car, the kind of home you really want. Visualize just before you fall asleep at night. The first thing you do when you get up in the morning is to feed yourself mental pictures. Those are the two times of the day when your subconscious mind is most receptive to new programming, when you fall asleep and when you wake up.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do, all day long, to keep your mind and emotions focused on your goals and financial success:

First, listen to audio programs in your car and when you travel around. Continue feeding your mind with a stream of high-quality, educational, motivational material that moves you toward your goal.

Second, resolve to associate with positive, optimistic people most of the time. Get around winners and get away from negative people who criticize, condemn and complain. This can change your life as much as any other factor.

Chances are superb that when you saw the heading of this article you did a double-take and thought to yourself, “That is ridiculous!”  But, let us think together and I believe you will agree that the observation is correct.  Look at it this way: If you were to quit any endeavor because you did miserably on the first try, your life would be infinitely poorer.  Think of it this way: When you watch sports professionals, whether golf, tennis or any other sport, play near-perfect games, you probably stand in amazement.  What you’re watching is an individual who has literally hit thousands of golf balls, or tennis balls, many of them poorly, and has taken hundreds of lessons from teaching pros to improve his or her game.  They understood from the beginning that if they were going to play good golf or tennis, they would play a lot of poor games along the way.

The same applies in every area of life.  Most sales professionals probably blew many sales before they became consummate professionals.  They understood that every call, whether they made or missed the sale, was a marvelous learning experience.  They understood that if it was worth doing, it was worth doing poorly - until they learned to do it well.

The same can be said of the exceptional teacher or the master chef.  Each  undoubtedly made many mistakes along the way, but they considered those “mistakes” learning experiences.  So, whatever your endeavor, just remember that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly until you can learn to do it well.  Buy that idea and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Right hook to the jaw!  Uppercut to the chin!  Sucker punch to the gut!  Life can throw some vicious punches, can’t it?  With gas prices, food prices, and the continual stream of negative news pummeling us every day, we can be left feeling breathless - trying to get up off the mat before the referee counts 10 and the negative influence is declared the victor.  Like any prize fighter, what is needed is a strategy BEFORE getting into the ring.  A strategy for being a “converter” - someone who knows how to convert life’s negative blows and deal with them in a positive manner.   No matter what punches are thrown or what problems are faced, if you want to keep going and not throw in the towel, here are simple strategies for converting.

Convert it with a Smile!
Smile when there isn’t anything to smile about.  Did you know that a smile is the catalyst for all the positive emotions?  Faith, love, hope, and creativity all can begin with something as simple as a smile.   My youngest daughter wrote me a note nearly 10 years ago when she was in kindergarten that simply says: “Celebrate Dad.  I Love You.”  I have kept this small piece of paper folded in my wallet all this time.  Yes, it is worn and tattered, but when life hits me hard with negativity, I pull that little piece of paper out, read it, and it always makes me smile.  It’s a reminder of the simple joys that can seem so distant when we are scrapping with a formidable foe.  A smile (or even better, a laugh) can pull you up above your problems so that you can get the perspective needed to see things for what they really are.  Have a strategy to smile.  Write down a phrase or make a list of things that will instantly make you smile.  Keep it where you can easily access
it and refer to it when the negative punches start flying your way

Convert it by Being a Willow!
Willows are strong in their trunk and their roots run deep; however, their limbs are long and flexible.  A willow knows who he is, what he is about but is able to flex up top.  When we can stay rooted and flex, we are able to deal with life’s changes as they come rushing towards us.  We aren’t changing who we are, we are just trying to sway, adjust, and meet the situation as it comes.  As our branches reach out, chances are very good that we will touch another’s branches and gain strength.   Many times when we face a problem we think that we are the only ones that face it.  We become bitter, isolated, and brittle.  A branch that is brittle will break in the wind.  Staying firm, flexible and remembering to reach out ensures we will stay intact.  Throw those branches up and sway!

Convert it by Finding the Silver Lining!
Learn to look for the silver lining.  It may seem difficult at the time, but every dark cloud has a silver lining and we have to learn to look for it.  We may even have to stretch for it and continually repeat it to ourselves, but it is there.  Some would say that this is a form of denial but, truthfully, it is acceptance.  It is an acceptance that sometimes we aren’t in a fair fight but that does not mean we throw in the towel.  We keep going and keep plugging until the last round.  Even Thomas Edison knew the power of looking for the silver lining.  When asked how it felt to fail so many times without seeing a success he replied, “I’ve seen success.  I’ve found 10,000 ways how not to do something.  And for every wrong idea tried, a new path emerges.”  Looking for the silver lining gives us the strength to face another challenge and the hope to face another day.

In the end, life is made up of moments.  It’s made up of good moments - like the birth of a child or your first big “win” at work.  And it’s made up of not so good moments - such as losing the big account or failing in a relationship.  The good news is that life is also made up of moments of choice.  Where we can choose how we will take the punches that life throws at us.  If we are down on the mat, we can choose to stay there.  Or, we can choose to get up and keep going.   I choose to face the fight with a smile.  I choose to remain “willow like” and reach out to others - giving and getting strength as we forge ahead.   I choose to look for that silver lining and remain hopeful.  I choose to be a converter!