This is all captured on tape.  But as soon as the ornament breaks, my brother turns to the camera and screams, “Haley did it!”

The video pans to me in my footie pajamas, minding my own business on the floor.  Not being very productive, but definitely not dropping ornaments from 6 feet above.  For my 4 year old brother, his diversion of blame was quite clever, even cute.  But to divert blame as an in independent adult – not so cute.   A waste of energy, more like it.  

We, and we alone, are 100% responsible for our own lives.  (Remember that from Southwestern’s Sales School?)  We are the ones who should take the blame for the status of our grades, the quality of our relationships, the state of our health, our careers … everything!

And when it comes to selling, and specifically, to recruiting… every result, every output – is your responsibility.  Is everything that happens completely under your control?  Ha, we wish.  But how you respond to those circumstances absolutely is.  It’s not someone else’s’ responsibility to recruit a 10-man team for you, or collect a pool of hot prospects, or get you an A in Philosophy, or make you magically feel fulfilled in the process.   Nor is it anyone’s fault if you fail to do any of these things.  There’s no one coming to the rescue… but YOU.

And once we accept this responsibility, and hold ourselves accountable for every aspect of our lives – we can much more effectively create our experiences to be the way we want them to be.    Blaming “bad PR”, or “jerky people”, or crummy facilities – doesn’t do us one bit of good.   Instead, use that energy to pick up the pieces, and proactively work to create the results you want.    You know what you want to accomplish this year, and you know what it’s going to take to get you there.  Accept that it’s your responsibility to get there, and decided that you ARE going to get there, no matter what crazy stuff happens in between.  Thoughts?  Please comment!

The players had varying reactions: some wept, some were angry, some sat stunned–all were disappointed.  Now the character of the team will be revealed.  Aside from trades, the draft, salary caps, etc., we will see how this cohesive team responds to big-time adversity.  As Coach Fisher said in the post-game interview, “Most of the players are in disbelief because we had goals all year that we planned to accomplish.  There was no question that we planned on winning it all.”

So, what do we do with adversity?  What happens when you blow a big sale?  when your potential recruit goes elsewhere?  when everything you’ve worked for goes awry? 

At the Southwestern Company, we’ve always taught students that it’s not important what happens to you, what is important is your response–your reaction.  I remember my third summer selling books which turned out to be a disaster: everything that could go wrong, went wrong.  My roommates quit, my sales locality (seemed to) suck, I was steadily decreasing in sales production, nothing was clicking.  My team was large…largely unproductive that is to say.  I had a mild car wreck to top things off.

Needless to say, when that summer ended, I was ready to throw in the towel.  (“Thanks, Southwestern!  I learned a lot, I grew a lot…now I’m outta here.”)  I was rationalizing and responding to my defeat in a negative way.  I had no intention of returning the following year for another dose of failure.  Thankfully, I had senior managers and mentors who were willing to listen to my frustrations and offer hope that things could be different next year.  After much processing, I decided to return. 

The good news is the next year was great!  I rebounded in sales, recruiting, and in my team production.  A happy ending to the dismal previous performance.  The problem was not the program–the problem was how I performed at it. 

So back to sports.  We’ll see how the Titans players respond to this major setback.  Can they rebound and learn from their experience?  Will they be willing to pay the price again to get as far as they did this year?  Or will they disintegrate as a team and become mediocre?  I hope not.  We’ll see how their collective character responds to adversity.