“Life is destined to be a story of achievement in spite of adversity, not in the absence of adversity; for without adversity, achievement could not exist…. Smile at adversity and act quickly to eliminate it. Expect adversity, for it shall surely appear. Be grateful for adversity for it forces the human spirit to grow – for surely the human character is formed not in the absence of difficulty but in our response to difficulty. All things, even adversity, have their worthy purpose.” – Jim Rohn

I defy adversity.

By that statement I mean that I have made REFUSAL to give in to difficulty, hardships, delays, disappointments or setbacks MY way of life.

Indeed, you could even call it my personal motto!

In the rest of this piece, I explain, using my experience based achievements, why I believe it pays to make DEFYING ADVERSITY a way of life, and how doing things differently and better can help you successfully defy adversity to succeed – repeatedly.

Before I begin, let me make it clear that I NEVER compare myself with others – neither do I seek to compete with anyone.

Instead, as my popular article on the same theme explains, I focus on competing against myself.

Read: Compete ONLY Against Yourself & Enjoy the Benefits of Being a Truly Liberated Mind

In sharing my ideas here, therefore, I want YOU – the reader – to understand that when I say “doing things different and better”, i refer to my ability to IMPROVE on what I do/did, over time.

In other words, I’m saying that I have a keen drive and passion to pursue continuous improvement of myself in what I do, so that at any point in time I am able to evolve newer, better and therefore  (even if minutely) different ways of doing what I do, in a manner that benefits my target audience.

And if you’re going to use the ideas I offer here, I recommend you adopt a similar disposition.

Having provided the above clarification, I discuss below, 2 examples of how to succeed by doing things differently and better – based on what I do…

1. Creating and Delivering Your Products/Services

When people order your product, what is the experience that they come away with, or the feeling they have after interacting with you to purchase it?

Do they end up thinking they’ve been had? Or do they feel their money has been well spent – and/or even express interest in buying more from you?

My primary focus is always to make every buyer feel s/he has gotten more value than s/he paid for. And that mindset is one that constantly drives me to think up new and different ways to give value to each buyer that will make him/her feel that way.

This is why most buyers of my multidisciplinary range of products and services EACH rarely have the same buying experience, as I AM constantly offering new variants for them to choose from.

As a result, 2 people may buy my Excel-VB Ration Formulator software in a month, but end up getting special discount (or even FREE) bonuses on top of the standard offers they ordered, via time limited promos.

I’ve done this with great success countless times, and it has often endeared me to many of my buyers, because they usually get stuff they want at MUCH lower fees than my standard pricing would have allowed them to.

Since I DO NOT offer other people’s products for sale, and often create my own products, including those to be given free or for a low fee as bonuses, it goes without saying that my buyers end up with something that cannot be had elsewhere.

In addition, since I generally insist on interviewing most prospective buyers before I sell to them, I am able to gain good insights into what they are likely to need or appreciate. And that consequently influences what offers of extras or bonuses I make to them.

The result of this strategy has been that many times I end up selling other solutions to my buyers, that they would otherwise not have purchased – and earn more in the process

So, how does my habit of defying adversity help me with creating and delivering products and services?

It’s simple really.

That mentality equips me to CONTINUE creating and delivering solutions that add value to my clients, no matter how hard things get or how slow progress may seem to be!

Now THAT is NOT as easy to do as it is to say, I can tell you!

Many people simply do NOT have the mental toughness (what I call MENTAL STAMINA) to keep creating and innovating when adversity knocks and it shows in the way they act during tough times.

Those periods when things fail to go as planned e.g.  When they fail – repeatedly – to make sales and money does NOT come into their hands, pockets or bank accounts!

Instead of “steeling” themselves, and digging in to create and innovate with more intensity, based on intelligent analysis of potential opportunities in the seemingly unresponsive marketplace, they withdraw and adopt a WAIT and SEE attitude .

I’ve seen many people do this countless times. It’s almost as if they’re challenging “life” to give them a break they consider worthwhile before they put in extra effort. Some even speak as if to give “God” an ultimatum to show them a sign by IMPROVING their circumstances BEFORE they feel it’s worthwhile to put in more effort!

Little do they know that exactly the opposite mental attitude is what they need to adopt, IF they really want to succeed in spite of adversity!

Their attitude towards adversity shows in results they get = LITTLE sustainable progress.

Those who respond to adversity by INTELLIGENTLY doing more, in defiance of it often tend to achieve breakthroughs that others rave about.

Proof of this is apparent from the testimonies of many successful people who have readily attributed their success to those periods when they had to overcome exposure to prolonged and potentially traumatizing periods of adversity, to succeed.

The quote by Jim Rohn about how to deal with adversity, that I began this writeup with,  perfectly sums up the benefits to be had from persisting in the face of adversity

TIP: Scroll up and read it again – so it can sink fully into your consciousness 😉

2. Handling Customer Complaints

Nobody is perfect, and it is impossible to maintain a 100% success rate indefinitely.

Every once in a while, something(s) will go wrong. You can aspire to perfection, BUT it will be a continuous endeavor.

What matters is how you deal with the experience when it happens. How do you respond to buyers who tell you they are not happy with their purchase?

I’ve experienced that with both my products and services in various markets.

The last thing you want to do is react negatively.

For me, it’s always been easy to NOT reach negatively, because I put my heart and soul into creating, testing and delivering the solutions I sell.

As a result, I am usually reasonably confident that when complaints come, it will often be something I can clarify for the buyer, and NOT require me to do any rework.

Over 90% of the time, THAT has been the case with most of the complaints I’ve gotten from my buyers.

However, when the problem has indeed been found to be from my end, I’ve always gone out of my way to ensure the client never feels s/he made a wrong buying decision.

As a result I’ve often won the respect and trust of the complaining client – who in some cases even return to make other purchases from me, over time.

Regarding doing things differently and better, I constantly reflect on every client complaint I get, and diligently try to outdo myself in terms of how I handle future occurrences.

In addition, I use the feedback from the client coupled with the insights gained from handling the complaint, to improve on the product and/or service.

So, even though customer complaints may not come with a selling opportunity, I choose to use my attitude of defying adversity to turn the experience into a positive one for both myself and the buyer.

And sometimes doing so has actually led me to make additional sales – like I noted earlier.

In summary, therefore, what I’m saying is that people just need to be sure you CARE enough to make sure they get value for their money.

Once they see that, they will buy more readily from you.