Overcoming Professional Discouragement

Discouragement …?

????is a challenge …

????????for every executive.?

Discouragement is a challenge for every?one of us ?

????no matter what our role …

?????????in our professional?life and …

???????????????in our personal?life.?

As a teenager, I?realized I?could face discouragement without fear. I learned?I had control of my reaction to discouragement and …?

???if I put up a good fight …?

???????I would win.?

My fighting method was to?constantly?remind myself,?

????“I am not easily discouraged.”??

It was amazing how that helped me through difficult times.

Later, I learned what worked in my personal life also worked in my professional life.

It worked so well I made it one of my Principles of Creative Followership.?

I Am Not Easily Discouraged!?

Here is an?example of how?I practiced?it.?

It would have been easy to become discouraged in?1971, as we were working to expand Chick-fil-A.

By the end of 1970, we had seven Chick-fil-A restaurants in shopping malls—three in Georgia, two in North Carolina, one in South Carolina, and one in Texas. Not many for three years of effort.

Even though enclosed malls were opening at an increasing rate all over the country, we were having great difficulty getting locations. The malls wanted tea rooms, coffee shops, and fine dining. In addition, most of the major mall developers wanted only tenants with AAA credit ratings, which Chick-fil-A did not?have.

Chick-fil-A offered high-volume, quick service, but the response?of the?developers?was, “We are not interested.” I had heard those words before, many times, but …

I Am Not Easily Discouraged!

When we learned the Rouse Company, one of the premier mall developers, was to open a new mall in Atlanta in the summer of 1971, we went?after?a location. Off I went to their offices in Maryland, armed with determination and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, they did not want what they thought of as a fried chicken restaurant in one of their classy malls.?

I made so many trips to their office that when I arrived the receptionist would announce, “Chicken Little is here again.” They were courteous but firm in their reply: “We are not interested.” But …?

I Am Not Easily Discouraged!?

When we learned the leasing agents were visiting the construction site, Truett?Cathy?and I took Chick-fil-A food to them.?Still,?they said, “We are not interested.”?

To change their mind …

?????I started a postcard deluge.?

We had picture postcards of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and the Oglethorpe Mall restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.

Each day, every day, I sent a postcard to the vice president of leasing.?

Typical messages were:

“Only Chick-fil-A serves America’s favorite main dish as a sandwich!”?

“At Chick-fil-A in?Greenbriar?Mall, 1970 sales equaled?$626.32 per square foot, without opening on Sunday!”

“At Chick-fil-A, service IS instantaneous!”?

“At Chick-fil-A, we have no bones to sell, only chicken!”?

After several weeks, I received a telephone call:

????“Stop the cards; we will make a deal.”?

If I were easily discouraged, we would not have gotten the location in Perimeter Mall — a restaurant that has been one of Chick-fil-A’s top performing mall locations for?more than?fifty years.

Making the deal to locate in Perimeter Mall opened doors with many other developers, and it established for us a mutually beneficial, ongoing relationship with the Rouse Company.

The losses people experience when they are easily discouraged are immeasurable!

The gains from overcoming discouragement may be difficult to measure but are major contributors to our?success and satisfaction.

I recommend you work to develop this same attitude.

I Am Not Easily Discouraged!

Teach yourself not to be easily discouraged.?

????Are?you willing to try it?

???????Why not try it?

--- Jimmy Collins

Like stories? My latest book?Jimmy’s Stories?is available on Amazon.

More principles are in my book,?Creative Followership. Available on Amazon.

#discouragement #chickfila #leadership #followership

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