A Lesson in Resilience from the Values Coach Office Hound

“I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure.”

Sir Ernest Shackleton

Our dog Dumpster, who is also the Values Coach office mascot, knows about resilience.

Fourteen years ago, when he was a 5-week-old puppy, he was thrown into a garbage dumpster on a frigid winter night. Fortunately, a passerby heard him whimpering and took him to the emergency veterinary hospital. At the time my daughter worked there as a vet tech. Dumpster has been a member of our family ever since.

Dumpster has now surpassed the life expectancy for the breed. Arthritis has slowed his running to an awkward trot, but he bears up with the stoicism of a Roman gladiator.

Several weeks ago Dumpster was viciously mauled by two other dogs. We rushed him to the emergency vet hospital where several of the long-term people remembered him from when he was there as a puppy.

After a week of intensive care he had made very little progress and was still, despite being on multiple painkillers, was in obvious pain. On the seventh day we had a melancholy talk with the veterinarian about Dumpster’s (dismal) prospects, and his likely quality of life (even more dismal) if he did survive.

Sally and I went home that evening and decided that we simply couldn’t put him through that sort of life, and that the time had come for him to join the many other rescued hounds that had been with us over the years before passing on.

The next morning, brokenhearted, we went back to the animal hospital to have the dreaded conversation with the vet. When we got there, though, Dumpster was alert, sitting up, and waiting for one of the vet techs to give him a treat.

A week later we were able to bring him home. He still moves slowly and awkwardly and sleeps a lot (well, he's always slept a lot). At his age we know that we have to be realistic about how much recovery is possible - though he continues to surprise us.

Napoleon Hill, the author of the classic self-help book Think and Grow Rich, wrote that every successful person finds their greatest accomplishment occurs just after they have become convinced that their ideas will not work - but they succeed because they kept working despite their despair.

If Dumpster could talk, he would say something very similar. If you are ready to give up on something, he'd say, give it one more day, one more try. You just might find that you step across “the thin line which separates success from failure” after all.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Dumpster and the team at Values Coach!

At Values Coach our purpose is transforming people through the power of values and transforming organizations through the power of people. We do that by helping leaders build a stronger Culture of Ownership on a Foundation of Values. Learn more at www.ValuesCoach.com.