Remember This...Always Keep The Faith.

Faith, Learn How To Keep It.

There is something to the idea of keeping faith.  I know a lot of people in the world, smart ones too, that will dispel the idea of keeping faith.  They just do not want to believe that something like faith can carry a huge advantage in the marketplace.  Although there are tons of great examples scattered all over the trail of business success, where faith has won its presence, they continue to dispel it.  They have that right.  They can believe what they want to believe.

I, on the other hand, have seen too many wonderful examples of the opposite.  I have seen how keeping the faith has helped to inspire many business leaders to do some things they might otherwise never attempt to do.  I have witnessed faith do its magical work, over and over.  There are not a limited supply of examples.

Faith is a very powerful deal.  Faith is also one of those things that is difficult to teach.  You cannot tell someone to keep up the faith and it automatically sticks solid in their mind and actions.  Faith is a process that requires some practice.  Faith is a process that requires support when it does not deserve support.  Faith is a process that occurs when all else makes sure it cannot occur.  Faith is amazing.  It works best when it is least likely to be proven.

There are thousands upon thousands of business leaders in this world who are managing their business models through some very tough economic times.  The past five years have been especially difficult.  The road to profits have been a real bumpy ride.  In fact, some of that ride has come to a complete stop in certain circumstances.  The pain felt when the activity stops for a short period of time is not a good pain to experience.  There is not a business leader alive who has not had this terrible feeling.  The fear of business failure is a real and devastating feeling.  Business leaders deal with it off and on in their careers.

Sometimes the pain of feeling the loss a business can produce overcomes the business leader.  They can become depressed and filled with added anxiety.  I have seen this happen to me, my associates, my business friends and many other business leaders in the business world.  Anxiety for business failure is a real thing to navigate.  It can take possession and dominate the business decision process.  It can cripple the good efforts a business leader needs to perform.  It can alter the clean thoughts, the healthy procedures and the needed clarity for a business leader to find their way through some tough times.  Anxiety and the fear of business failure can become a very devastating process.

Faith becomes the hero of the day.  Faith provides a solid way to help struggling business leaders get through some of the most difficult times they will or have ever faced.  Faith is likely the only thing that provides the necessary strength for a failing business leader to get on with getting on.  When all else fails, grab some faith and move on.  Do the next best thing and work your way out of where you are.  It will work out and your faith will help see it through.  Learn how to practice the art of faith.  Learn how to believe in doing well.  Learn how to practice reaching the improvement side.

Have faith.

Page two.

Faith Is Not Foolish Stuff!  It Is Serious Business.

When all else fails, remember this...always keep the faith.

 I can remember being placed with my back against the wall many times in my business career.  One time, almost thirty years ago, the tax collector came to my business with a United States Marshall.  He was done with his patience.  He gave me until 5 P.M. that day to come up with $15,000 that I did not have.  I had already liquidated everything I owned that had any value enough to muster up that kind of cash.  I was way over extended at my bank and that opportunity was as dry as ever.  My resources were very limited.  My time of grace was coming to an end.  I was stressed out, filled with anxiety and losing faith.

The U.S. Marshall was there to lock the doors to my business and start the process to seize my house.  I was standing in a very deep hole with little light left to see.

When they left my office, promising to come back later that day, I was numb.  I sat for a few minutes to collect myself.  I had been working with them for a period of time and they were done waiting for the balance to be satisfied.  It felt much like working with a mob boss from some group involved with organized crime.  I felt defenseless.  I felt defeated.  I felt exhausted.

Then something came over me.  I began to believe I could do it.  I started to tell myself that this was not the end.  I started to tell myself that I could make this happen.  I began to develop that invisible element of keeping faith.  I started the process for convincing my mind that I could do this thing and find that money.  I knew what I was doing was right, healthy and good.  I knew I could survive the recession we were having in this region.  I knew I could reach out and find the revenues these guys were expecting to me to find.  I mustered up enough faith to get out of my weeping chair and do something about the rotten position my business was facing.

I pulled over next to my telephone.  I started to call every single customer who owed me money.  I called ever single account on my receivables list.  I described to all of them what my position was.  I asked for their support to pay their balances in full, today, as soon as they could.  I rounded up nearly $6,000 by the early part of the afternoon in that process.  When I returned from collecting one of those checks, two customers had come into the store and made purchases worth $3,500.  It had been months since we had been able to produce any daily volume that exceeded a thousand dollars in a single day.  I took all of those funds, walked over to my bank and sat down in front of the desk of my bank manager.  I told him my story.  He knew the details.  The tax collector and the U.S. Marshall had already made their way to visit him, with a subpoena, just before I arrived to his desk.

I told the banker how I had just rounded up almost $10,000.  I also told him that I needed $5,500 more to finish the task.  I made some promises to him like many would do under the pressure of those kinds of moments.  He shut me up.  He said he would have me deposit the funds I collected today into my account, a total of $9,500.  Then the banker would place the remaining amount into my account and extend my credit beyond what I was able to support at that moment of time.  The $15,000 would be prepared to be transferred to the IRS guy and satisfy the request that was resting on my day.  It was one of the most exhausting days of my life.  Nobody was happy.  A lot of people were stretched.  A lot of people came through when it was tough for them to do.  I was completely drained of energy.

Faith.

Keep the faith.

Many of those customers who paid up on their balance that day had been asked many times in the past to satisfy their balance.  That day, most of them finally paid up.  It was as if the magic was playing its cards into my hand for a change.  Maybe it was my desperation, my request methods or the sympathy they felt to deliver what they owed.  Whatever the case, those few hours produced favorable results that months of effort could not deliver.  All I can truly remember is sitting at my desk, watching those two collectors leave my office, and feeling as if I had been defeated.  My thoughts were empty, exhausted and beaten.  I was drained.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell my wife that we had finally lost the business.  How was I going to tell her that our business was another casualty of the recession we were facing?  I could not think of what to say to her, but I knew I needed to call her.

Then that feeling came alive.  Out of nowhere came the feeling that felt like there was hope.  I had people on account that owed me money that were excusing their way through paying up their total balances.  I would just need to convince them we were all out of time carrying their unpaid balances over for another day.  My faith came alive.  I began to believe in something that had not occurred.  I had no previous evidence for this kind of support.  In fact, my efforts of the past for collecting those funds was not very strong on the evidence side of that belief.  I would need some unfounded faith to get me through it.  I did not even know about the potential sales that would occur.  I was certain that the bank was not going to be one of my sources.  It was faith that pulled me out of that chair of defeat and put my actions into motion.

Faith came alive to provide the necessary determination to do what needed to be done.

Learn how to keep the faith.  Work hard on supporting what does not look like it is evidently worth supporting.  That is exactly how faith works.  It arrives against the evidence that success cannot happen.  Faith runs against that proof.  Faith overcomes what does not appear to be likely.

Keep the faith.  Always remember this...always keep the faith.  As once put so precisely..."Never, never...never give up."  Winston Churchill.

Until next time...