Born Winner

“It’s not what happens to you,” says W Mitchell, “it’s what you do about it.” He should know. At age 28, Mitchell had his youth, health, money, friends, a great job, a beautiful girlfriend and his whole life ahead of him. Then on July 19, 1971, his good luck turned horribly bad. A collision with a laundry truck left him without fingers, without a face and burned over 65 percent of his body. During his slow, painful recovery, Mitchell learned to walk again and returned to as normal a life as possible.

Incredibly, Mitchell still hadn’t used up his share of misfortune. On November 11, 1975, during an aborted takeoff, the Cessna airplane Mitchell was flying crashed. Although none of the other four people on the plane was seriously injured, the accident crushed Mitchell’s 12th thoracic vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Despite the beating his body has taken, Mitchell’s spirit has only gotten stronger. He insists that even the worst of circumstances is only as bad as you think it is, and his decision to give life all he’s got instead of giving up has helped make him mayor of Crested Butte, CO, a congressional nominee and co-founder of a $65 million company.

In his book It’s Not What Happens to You, It’s What You Do About It (Phoenix Press, 1997, $19.95, 1-800-421-4840), Mitchell uses his story to inspire others with the motivational lessons he has learned from his devastating experiences. By studying these lessons, you can learn how to turn even the most bitter disappointment into sweet success.

1. Take responsibility for your own life. Choosing to be responsible for your life puts you in control over it. Mitchell says taking charge of your circumstances instead of waiting for your luck to change helps determine whether you win or lose. At one point during his recovery, Mitchell couldn’t sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time because he needed to undergo different treatments and procedures around the clock. Mitchell says that when a doctor gave him the option of making some changes to the routine, “what he did in that moment was allow me to take responsibility for my life, allow me to recognize that I was the one to make the choice and I was the one to decide what I was going to do. I believe in that moment that doctor literally gave me back my life. The bottom line is that within us we have phenomenal resources that just get smothered by our spending all this time waiting for someone to fix things. You appoint yourself your own winner.”

2. Find lessons in adversity. We can learn valuable lessons when things go awry. Your attitude will determine whether you let adversity hold you back or use it as a learning experience to move you forward. Just as Mitchell says, you may not get to choose what happens to you, but you can choose how to handle it. “You get a choice as to how you will deal with adversity and how you are going to react to it,” he says. “Adversity introduces you to yourself. You learn a lot more from failure than from success.”

Eventually, the going is bound to get tough on your way to the top. Those most likely to succeed are those who stick it out and fight back. Devise a strategy for dealing with setbacks that allows you to feel disappointed if you must, then impels you to move on. Revise your working or selling habits based on the lessons you learn, to prevent future disappointments. Finally, lean on co-workers and friends for support and encouragement.

3. There are no absolute relationships between any two variables in life. Many times, we excuse ourselves from pursuing our goals by telling ourselves that we don’t have what it takes to win. But as Mitchell learned long ago, success has no prerequisites. You don’t have to be intelligent, good-looking or rich to get what you want out of life. “There are lots and lots of situations which you can use as an excuse to win or as an excuse to fail,” he says. “So often we say, ‘I’m not good-looking enough,’ or ‘I’m not smart enough,’ as if somehow looking like a movie star or a model is an instant key to success. It’s not so. There is no absolute relationship between any of these things that we so often tag as excuses for our own failure. We are trying to find an excuse to fail instead of trying to find an excuse to win.”

Learn to recognize negative self-talk, and stop it before it stops you. When you catch yourself listing the reasons why you can’t do something, remember that history books are full of people who had every reason to fail and instead chose to win. Thinking more positively can help you become that kind of person.

4. Stay mentally fit. Mental fitness is to your sales success what physical fitness is to your health. To maintain positive thinking habits and a high level of motivation, give your mind a steady diet of inspiring messages and instruction. Mitchell reminds us that, as a rule, we’ll get out of our minds what we put into them.

“The idea of the garbage-in, garbage-out idiom we hear about computers is very true of the computer we have on our shoulders,” he says. “The more garbage we allow in, the more we have to displace with positive, helpful, useful information. Feeding the brain is one of the things we may do least well in our lives, and it is such an important element.”

Mitchell recommends tapes, books and videos as good sources of motivation and maintains that during the darkest times of his life, the positive people around him helped him pull through. Surround yourself with upbeat, energetic people and let their good attitudes help you with yours.

5. Give your best hour to someone you love. As important as sales success may be to you, Mitchell reminds you that strong personal relationships make professional victories more rewarding. As your income improves, take time to enjoy it, and let the way you live your life reflect your priorities. “We certainly should spend more time with our loved ones,” Mitchell says. “You shouldn’t give the best hour of your day to your boss, your employer or your corporation. Save it, guard it, take it home and give it to somebody you love. We all want to be financially successful at the end of the day. I am very pleased that I am. However, if that is the number-one priority and the only priority, then maybe we have to stop and refocus.”

6. Visualize your victory. If your life is a movie in which you create the ending, then the images in your mind are the sneak previews. Mitchell says that by dreaming and envisioning what we want to do and be, we help ourselves achieve it. The plan in your head becomes a blueprint for the body to follow. “What do you think Olympic champions do just before they compete?” Mitchell asks. “They visualize their success and the way they are going to achieve their goals. We all have the power to do that.”

Your visions aren’t unattainable fantasies – they are indicators of your potential. Translate them into reality by realizing that you can reach them, preparing yourself for the attempt and setting goals to challenge you. Your visions also have motivational value, so recognize their worth and keep dreaming.

7. Act like a baby. Although “stop acting like a baby” is advice most of us have probably heard, Mitchell says acting like a baby is actually a key to achievement. A baby’s determination to keep getting up and trying to walk even after repeated falls should be a lesson to us all, he maintains. “A baby never fails in its attempt to learn to walk because the baby has never been introduced to the concept of failure. The baby only knows it’s going to try to walk no matter how hard or how painful it is. Babies face lots of adversity – it must be difficult not to be able to do the things they see older kids and adults doing around them, but babies don’t quit. They keep going until they get the job done.”

Nothing can take the place of persistence. You never know when, for example, that hostile but lucrative prospect you’ve been pursuing might cave in and place a big order, so keep calling after your competitors have quit, and you’ll be the one who gets it.

People generally attain hero status after triumphing over one tragedy – the fact that W Mitchell’s achievements came in the wake of two horrific accidents reveals the true significance of his success and raises questions regarding our own potential. If Mitchell has been able to do what he’s done with his disadvantages, what might the rest of us be capable of accomplishing?

“The reality is we can spend a lot of time thinking about how wrong, how unfair and how unjust things are, and that will dominate our thinking,” Mitchell says. “Or we can choose to say for this hour of the day, even if only for an hour, I am going to start thinking about what I can do that is good. It doesn’t matter how many times life knocks us down; what matters is that we get back up.”

Editor’s note: This article is based on an interview for Selling Power Live! produced by Lisa Ferrari.