Adversity Quotient
“Only 1 out of 10 new businesses will ever see a profit. An investor will only make a substantial profit off 1 out of every 1000 plans that they are presented with. Most of the best positions will never be posted on a job board.”
These statistics are true and frightening for many, whether you are trying to start your own business or grow your career within a given industry. Is there a solution? Is there a substitute? Maybe for some of us, but for 99.9% of us there is no substitute for hard work. What is the point of hard work when chances are you will fail with your new business venture or have a difficult time moving up in your field of choice? The point of all of this is that it all ties into the concept of adversity quotient.
What exactly is the adversity quotient? In the most common sense terms it is your ability to bounce back from a failure or mistake. It is your responsiveness to things not going according to plans.
Who cares about the adversity quotient? The answer is everyone does, from investors to top level management to key authority figures. The fact that you refuse to give up shows a lot about you and leads to people believing in you. There is no shame in having an idea rejected, there however is great shame in giving up.
Why is the adversity quotient so important? To be brutally honest it is what separates the winners from the losers. Everyone fails and in fact if you haven’t failed chances are that you haven’t tried hard enough or taken big enough risks. Your adversity quotient determines your ability to learn from the challenges and set backs that you will face in the real world.
Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, wrote the idea of the FedEx Company for a school paper and the professor failed him for the ridiculous idea of overnight delivery. Instead of sulking in his failure, Smith chose to pursue his idea and the rest is history.
Adversity quotient is the greatest measure of an individual’s strength and resilience. The higher the adversity quotient the higher the productivity, innovation, and creativity. A lower adversity quotient is usually synonymous with a poor attitude, feelings of being victimized, and a pessimistic view point. What kind of an employer would hire someone who can not overcome obstacles without feeling sorry for themselves?
Personal application… Well let’s be honest, not as many people are going to read this as I would like to. Instead of giving up I will continue pumping out quality content until people have no choice but to accept me as a great source of personal finance advice. The key is to turn obstacles into opportunities and learn from mistakes instead of giving up.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
You can learn a lot about people from working with them in a stressful environment. A couple of years ago, I used to serve tables. I had a co-worker who quite often had a negative attitude and perspective. She never made enough money; her food was always taking too long; she was always over-worked in her section; and she could never keep up. Funny thing is, all of us servers had the same problems, she just looked at it negatively. We were all in the same storm, but she was drowning in it. Her adversity quotient must’ve been very small.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Caleb for you I would say your adversity quotient is fairly high. I have seen your pf blog since the very start and it has grown exponentially. Instead of giving up, you continue to work harder and innovate more than any other new pf blogger I have seen. Your new layout looks amazing and I hope that everyone gives your blog a read.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
No one reads my blog but I still run it. And I have a second one no one reads LAL musings. But I can say whatever I want like a diary.