Last week I finished up in emergency hospital again, the second time in 6 months, even though I have never managed it before in 58 years.

I emerged some 5 hours later in plaster, from toe to knee, on my right leg with 2 broken bones.

You are probably wondering how I achieved such an injury this time. It wasn’t as colourful as being knocked off my bike, instead it was a late evening attempt to repair my reticulation which had been damaged by my lawn mower guy.

Given that I was flying overseas the next morning I decided to make the repairs then and there rather than have water spraying everywhere while I am away.

And here is where my problems started. I reached for the spade and promptly started chopping out a square of rather thick buffalo grass around the sprinkler. This was done by me jumping firmly on the spade to cut through the grass. It was taking about three hefty jumps on the spade of my ample 90 Kg to actually cut through the grass. And on my final jump I slipped off and landed awkwardly with all my weight on the kerb. Immediately I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere except to hospital.

But like a good trooper, although now crawling on the ground I completed the task and repaired the offending sprinkler, then crawled to the house on hands and knees. The rest you know about. So here’s the marketing message I can salvage from my second trip to emergency.

It reveals one of the most powerful success strategies possessed by most really successful people…

How you handle an emergency or disaster determines the level of success you achieve.

All really successful people have a way of dealing with difficulty and the inevitability of it that sets them apart from the rest.

A great characteristic of good leaders is their ability to make DECISIONS in a crisis or emergency. That’s why CEO’s get paid huge amounts of money. Think about what Iacocca did at Chrysler… SIMULTANEOUSLY when Chrysler was faced with obliteration, again this is an emergency in business but not the sort of emergency I found myself in with my broken foot.

Here Iococca did, first he took an axe to the expenses, negotiated a better deal with the creditors and the government, launched two new product lines, not one, two, SIMULTANEOUSLY: the mini-van and the convertible. You may recall also Iacocca and Chrysler invented the cup holder which was the single most important development in the automotive industry since the assembly line.

The convertible story is a fabulous one. It went something like this – Iacocca was walking around the factory, and a couple of workers came over and said, “You know that car would look great as a convertible!” Iacocca didn’t go back to step two, five or six, didn’t worry about what resources he didn’t have to launch a line of convertibles.

Instead, on the verge of bankruptcy and haemorrhaging money he said “Get a blow torch, cut the roof off and lets get in it and go drive around and see if girls look at it!” That’s called consumer research and then they came back and he said lets sell them. He didn’t say well get 15 engineers together and let’s start working on it.

See that’s acting as if it’s an emergency and it was. The convertible went on and has become an institution and it’s called the Viper and it changed the game in the sport car market by providing an affordable “muscle car” within the reach of ordinary consumers.

Let’s face it. If you are in business, or more particularly, if you are an entrepreneur, emergencies are like traffic jams. You are going to encounter them on a daily basis. What’s more important is HOW YOU RESPOND to the emergencies with MASSIVE ACTIONS, not some sequential 1 2 3 4 5 6 step by step process.

Ultimately, if you are not running your business as if it’s in crisis, it soon will be an emergency.

All the best,

Mal Emery
Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society
Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism

P.S. If you’ve missed any of my previous Rants, I have them all available
for you to see on my website.

Simply go to www.rebelliousrant.com and enjoy!