“But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.”

  ~ Paulo Coelho (Famous Brazilian Novelist)

I had a rough day yesterday.  Yes, I know – even Mr. Morning Mojo, right?  And it made me pause for some perspective; and I think it is a perspective we all are faced with from time to time.  What do we do when we are DOING all the things we are taught, all the things we have practiced - we are approaching our job with a great attitude… and we still don’t get the results we want; the results we deserve… Now what?

 The basic human reaction is to retreat – and we all do this from time to time – to blame someone, something, some factor beyond our control.  Our innate defense mechanism is to deflect responsibility, ergo deflecting “pain” (from an evolutionary standpoint.)

Let me caution each of us to not let a poor result define us, and to never cede control of our results to some arbitrary “thing.”  It is at that point, and only that point, that we experience “defeat” – every other setback along the way is simply a chance to learn, a chance to improve – and sometimes even just a chance to tip our head back, give a little chuckle and say, “um, yeah.. that one didn’t go so well.  We’ll get ‘em next time.”  The only danger of a setback is the risk we run of letting go of our sense of IMPACT and CONTROL of our environment and ultimately of our success.

It isn’t always going to be perfect – but that doesn’t mean the deck is stacked against us.  Sometimes we just need to shuffle.

Have a great day – and play today’s hand like a new game… a game of SKILL that we are likely to WIN.