One thing you should be truly excited about is the possibilities for having an outstanding business in 2012. The recruiting firm owners I have coached this year have seen increases in their business from 20% to 118% so far. Most owners I speak with are seeing a NICE surge in business. It even appears the recovery (for us as recruiters) is stronger now than coming out of the last recession in 2002.
I know you are reading this around Thanksgiving and we should all be grateful we survived and are poised for another large increase in our businesses the next few years. You see, gratitude is an attitude that attracts abundance.
I know I am truly blessed. Great family, great business, great friends, great lifestyle. One thing I really believe I have been blessed with is KNOWING I am truly blessed.
Sound silly? Think about it. How many people who have everything going for them always find things to complain about, to “nit pick” about? I have come to believe that many people, in the absence of any real problems, tend to manufacture some. Are there any petty complaints in your business you might be obsessing about right now?
For years, in good times and bad, I have thanked God for my situation in life. Times were not always easy, but I knew each challenge was placed there for a reason and as uncomfortable or painful as I was in the moment, I knew I would learn from that challenge.
So if you are a recruiter and/or a recruiting firm owner and you survived the great recession, get on bended knee and thank your God that you survived and for the lessons it taught you. You may want to even journal some of them so you don’t forget.
As an example, I almost went out of business in the recession of 1991. Surviving that recession positioned me for a 17-year run of huge profits in the recruiting industry. I learned how to set specific expectations, hold people accountable, and cut the dead wood early so as not to be a drain on cash. I learned how to be disciplined every day with my calls to keep billings up. I learned a bunch more too. Net-net, I NEVER lost a dime after that year, including the most recent recession. I am truly grateful, in hindsight obviously, for my experience twenty years ago.
Need more selfish reasons to be grateful? (quite an oxymoron, hmm?) According to an article by Melinda Beck in the Wall Street Journal, studies by really smart people at universities I couldn’t afford to attend have shown that people who feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections, and more happiness than those who do not. They are also less likely to be depressed, envious, or greedy. In addition, they earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.
Remember, we tend to get what we focus on most. If we focus on the areas of “lack” in our lives and our recruiting businesses, we often get more lack. If we focus on our losses the past couple of years, clients and recruiters lost, etc. we will get more of those losses.
If, however, we focus on what we are grateful for and what prosperity is in our reach, we’ll get more of that too as long as you are clear on what prosperity means to you specifically. This is not to be confused with the “touchy feely” new age ideas from the movie The Secret either. First define and then focus on prosperity as it pertains to your life and live in gratitude for whatever areas of your life in which you have been blessed. Your subconscious mind will work on that while you sleep and this, combined with execution, will draw you to prosperity.
Living in gratitude is a choice, and it’s your choice where to focus. Sure it’s hard to do this when times are tough, but that does NOT change the fact that the choice is still completely yours…. And don’t give me any “buts” either. “But Mike, I lost thousands during the recession, Mike, my biggest billers quit, Mike, my prospects don’t pay good fees any more.” The flip side of this is that you can get a fresh start with a new culture — a culture of high productivity and gratitude! Each setback can be an opportunity to leap forward if you CHOOSE it to be!
What are you grateful for? What lessons were given to you these past two years that will position you for years of prosperity? I am telling you — the lessons are there; just as sure as prosperity is for those who truly CHOOSE to look.
image source: Julie Jordan Scott