Adversity

One of the staples from my list of interview questions is to ask candidates to tell me about a time when they faced and overcame adversity. It can be personally or professionally but what I'm looking for is individuals who have overcome a difficult situation in their lives. Too many people crumble under pressure and in the workplace there will always be some level of pressure. There's an expression, "Tough times don't last - tough people do." I believe that to be very true and can substantiate it through many personal life experiences personally and professionally.

"Tough times don't last - tough people do."

I'm frequently bowled over by some of the responses. I think back to a young candidate who had an arm that was much shorter than the other. He shared with me that he was in a car accident as a two-year old so he underwent numerous complicated surgeries while he was growing up. As I recall, he had something like 15 major surgeries. Even though that meant he missed large sessions of school, he managed to keep up and even graduated on time. He went to college and still had surgeries while there but that didn't stop him from earning his degree and even playing some football. He became a certified SCUBA diver and, upon graduation, back-packed throughout Europe on his own for 6 months. He learned how to type 60 words per minute on a keyboard. He gave a lot of well-deserved credit to his parents for not treating him any differently and for their constant support and encouragement but he was the true warrior. He had faced and overcome more adversity in a year than most people face in a lifetime.

W. Clement Stone said, "Every great man (and woman), every successful man (and woman), no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit." How true. Our ability to face and overcome adversity helps define us. Overcoming adversity is one of the primary components of a "scrapper." You can learn more about "Scrappers" in Regina Hartley's TED talk, "Why the Best Hire Might Not Have the Perfect Resume."

Jim Carrey had to drop out of school when he was 15 to help support his family. His father was an unemployed musician and as the family went from "lower middle class to poor," they eventually had to start living in a van. Carrey didn't let stop him from achieving his dream of becoming a comedian. He went from having his dad drive him to comedy clubs in Toronto to starring in various blockbuster movies and being known as one of the best comedic actors of an era. Bethanny Hamilton started surfing when she was a child. When she was 13, an almost deadly shark attack resulted in her losing her left arm but she was back on a surfboard one month later. Two years after that she won first place in the Explorer Women's Division of the NSSA National Championships. Richard Branson, of various Virgin companies fame, has dyslexia. He was a bad student and did poorly on standardized tests. Instead of giving up, he used the power of his personality to drive him to success. Today, he is the fourth richest person in the UK. By his late twenties, Simon Cowell had made a million dollars and lost a million dollars. In an interview in 2012 he said, "I've had many failures. The biggest were at times when I believed my own hype. I'd had smaller failures, signing bands that didn't work, but my record company going bust, that was the first big one." In spite of that he became one of the biggest forces in reality television and Forbes has estimated his net worth at around $95 million.

Steven Spielberg was rejected from USC twice but was ultimately awarded an honorary degree. Charlize Theron witnessed her mother shoot and kill her alcohlic father in an act of self-defense. She later became the first South African actress to win an Academy Award. Franklin Roosevelt became partly paralyzed at age 39. Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. Jay-Z couldn't get signed to any record labels so he started his own. Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before creating the light bulb. Stephen King's first novel was rejected 30 times. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was 4 years old. Bill Gates first business failed - miserably.

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains it's own seed, it's own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. - Malcolm X

There are countless other stories of people who overcame adversity and went on to have amazing success but none of that success would have been possible if they had fallen at the first hurdle and not fought their way back.