Be Glad the Hard Times Are Upon Us!

If you ever had a hard-driving athletic coach, these and other phrases will probably bring back memories and might even summon his screaming face back into view:

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going!"

"Show me someone who loses and laughs, and I'll show you a loser!"

Vince Lombardi, legendary Green Bay Packers coach, said there's something in "good men" that loves a struggle. You're being beaten up on the playing field, bruised and bloodied, but you give the game all you have, exhausted as it ends, but you WIN!

Or, you may have heard it this way: "Winning isn't everything; It's the ONLY thing!"

I summon these quotes because they're designed to have what psychologists refer to as, "sleeper" effects. Like messages in bottles, they're cast across our consciousness from the land of our youth, and they're intended to wash up and be read some time later, on a distant shore of adulthood.

We might have goofed about them privately, outside of earshot of our coaches. But if these proclamations didn't rouse us and help us to perform in the games at hand, that grouchy leader with the whistle or clipboard knew these admonitions wouldn't be forgotten, completely.

Some day, circumstances would arrange themselves so we would feel deeply dejected, helpless and hopeless before seemingly overwhelming odds, and a small voice would echo in our mind:

"Winners never quit and quitters never win!"

And like Rocky Balboa, we'd struggle to our feet and miraculously knock out anything or anyone standing in our way.

Well, looking at our economy and world events, it seems like a fine time to deliberately awaken these sleeper messages, and to put them to work.

If you have ever played sports or striven in any competitive environment, you already have what it takes to respond to adversity. Recall all of the steps you took to achieve in those arenas.

Remember as well, the self-doubts you overcame. Because now, we have a chance to prove, yet again, what we're made of, who we are, and what we can do when we want to, and need to.

Someday, when these difficulties are overcome, you'll look back and realize times were hard, "But YOU DID IT HARD," as motivational speaker Les Brown would say.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top speaker, sales, customer service and negotiation trainer, best-selling author, and TV and radio commentator. He conducts seminars and convention presentations around the world and can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. His profile can be read at: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/a91/833.