7,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
Published in 17 languages, this extraordinary book by renowned therapist, motivational speaker and bestselling author Adam J. Jackson reveals how and why negative experiences can be catalysts for positive, life-affirming outcomes.
Full of life-affirming stories from around the world, The Flipside will change the way you approach everyday problems as well as how you deal with setbacks in life.
The Flipside is the opportunity hidden inside the problems we face in life. It is an opportunity so powerful that it often dwarfs the original difficulty.
Through a series of real-life inspirational stories from around the world, The Flipside takes you on an unforgettable journey that shows how even the darkest moments of our lives can shine a light that on a brighter, more positive future.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 381
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Ähnliche
The Flipside
Finding the hidden opportunities in life
Adam J Jackson
DEDICATION
Dedicated to and in memory of Sam Chapman 24th February 1990 - 3rd February 2020
Flipside: an opposite, reverse, or sharply contrasted side or aspect of something or someone.
Wikipedia
COPYRIGHT
Copyright©2009Adam J Jackson. All rights reserved.The right of Adam J Jackson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2009 by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
The right of Adam J Jackson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Every effort has been made to fulfil requirements regarding the reproduction of copyright material. The author and publisher will be glad to rectify any omissions at the earliest opportunity.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-912424-06-1
PRAISE FOR THE FLIPSIDE
By Adam J Jackson
‘Thisisaninspiring, really energising book. It is just the sort of thing you need when you have watched too many news broadcasts about how the world is going to the dogs...This is an empowering book. Read it first before you give it to that friend who really needs it.’
The Times - South Africa
‘Life-affirming stories guaranteed to make us change the way we look at adversity’
Publishers Weekly
‘An entertaining and relevant read when so many people are facing financial and emotional traumas.’
News of The World
‘I found it hard to put down, always wanting to see what the next chapter would reveal. It is a truly inspirational account, showing as it does, how people with the right attitude to life can overcome some of the most difficult еxperiences.’
Euro weekly
‘This inspirational chronicle of optimism might just change the way you deal with life’s challenges.’
The Daily Record
‘An exciting, life-changing phenomenon” but even if you don’t buy into that, you will find fascinating stories here of how others (some well known, some not-so- well known) have taken lemons and made lemonade. If nothing else, it’s incredibly inspirational.’
Stuff.co.nz
‘The Flipside...can help you in your career and with the problems you face every day.’
Third Sector
‘We are inspired by Adam J Jackson’s writings in his book “The Flipside” which is based upon a simple and inspiring idea that “every problem or obstacle in our lives however big or small contains an equivalent or greater benefit or opportunity.’
Mrs Miriam Segabutla. 18 June 2009. Limpopo MEC for Health and Social Development, Health budget speech Department of Health and Social DevelopmentLimpopo Provincial Government
Contents
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
PROLOGUE
1.
THE ROAD TO MADRID
2.
DEFINING MOMENTS
3.
CRISES & OPPORTUNITIES
4.
LIFE CHANGES
5.
THE OF TWO TRAUMA SIDES
6.
REASONS FOR OPTIMISM
7.
HEALTH AND OPTIMISM
8.
FINDING THE FLIPSIDE
9.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
10.
THE ENTREPRENEUR'S MINDSET
11.
REFRAMING YOUR LIFE
12.
LOST DREAMS & NEW DIRECTIONS
13.
EDISON’S LEGACY
14.
THE ART OF SEEING
15.
THE PARADIGM OF POSSIBILITY
16.
THREE AVENUES
17.
THE RELATIONSHIP FACTOR
18.
FOCUSING THE MIND
19.
REFLECTIONS
20.
CONCLUSION
21.
EPILOGUE
NOTES AND REFERENCES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CONNECT WITH ADAM
NEWSLETTER
PREFACE
3rd Edition
Fourteenyearshavepassed since I wrote The Flipside. The world had just gone through the biggest financial recession since the 1930s. Many people around the world lost their jobs and their homes; some lost their lives. Today, the state of the world is no less precarious. A global pandemic in 2019 caused politicians to lock down the entire world for the best part of two years. Russia invaded Ukraine, causing fuel prices to skyrocket and, as I write, people everywhere are facing a 'cost-of-living' crisis in which prices are rising faster than people's incomes. In addition, climate change and the effects this may have on the imminent future of the planet are causing genuine fear and concern. Few would disagree that we are living in very challenging times.
However, the story of The Flipside may help us reframe our views of world events. When asked about the lessons learned from the work of Albert Einstein, John Archibald Wheeler, a prominent U.S. theoretical physicist of the twentieth century, replied that Einstein's work revolved around three rules which apply to all science, all problems, and at all times:
'Out of clutter, find simplicity;From discord make harmony; and finallyIn the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.'
Difficulties, by their very nature, come with opportunities. And the biggest difficulties contain the greatest opportunities. I hope The Flipside helps explain this phenomenon and reveals how and why the difficulties we may face in life – things we may be tempted to curse and think of as personal tragedies - often turn out to be our greatest gifts.
This revised edition contains all the same stories of the original, except one. On January 13, 2013, Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor and seven times winner of the Tour de France, confessed to using illicit performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career, including during all seven Tour wins. Although cheating of that kind is reputed to be endemic in cycling (and in many professional sports) and Armstrong is certainly not the only cyclist to be found guilty of taking illegal drugs, his story is not a great example of someone finding the flipside in sport.
Almost a month to the day after Armstrong's confession, 14 February 2013, the legendary Paralympian, Oscar Pistorius, shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. Pistorius claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. After a long, drawn out and very public trial, Pistorius was cleared of murder. But he was found guilty of 'culpable homicide' (the negligent unlawful killing of another human being) and received a five-year prison sentence. I left Pistorius's story in the book because I believe that his struggle to overcome the challenges of growing up with no feet and later becoming the fastest man with no legs remains an inspiration.
All the other stories in the book remain. I have revised some of the wording, but the core messages are unchanged.
Adam JacksonHertfordshire, England, June 2022
INTRODUCTION
Eachproblemhashidden within it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognised a problem and turned it into an opportunity.
Joseph Sugarman
The first time I met someone who had found the flipside was on a cold winter evening in February 1981. In fact, that night I met not one but two remarkable people, both of whom spoke about tragic events that had changed their lives. While I don’t remember their names, the events of that evening have stayed with me.
I had just watched the student drama society at Southampton University perform an outstanding production of a play called ‘Whose Life Is It Anyway?’. The play tells the story of a man who wakes up in a hospital bed following a serious car accident and discovers that he is a quadriplegic. He has no feeling and no control over any part of his body below his neck.
Prior to the accident, the man’s life revolved around his work as an artist. Discovering that he is paralysed, the man is unwilling to face the prospect of a life in which he has no control of anything. He pleads with the hospital authorities to help him die. When they refuse, he initiates a legal battle for the right to end his life.
It is a brilliantly scripted courtroom drama that explores the emotional journey of a man whose bright, witty and vibrant mind has become trapped inside a useless body. It also highlights the legal and moral issues surrounding euthanasia. In the ensuing legal battle, it becomes apparent that the man gradually begins to feel differently about his life. He builds relationships with the people around him and the challenge of the court case gives meaning to his daily existence. I won’t tell you how the play ends. Suffice to say that, if you get an opportunity to see it (or the film version starring Richard Dreyfuss), I’m sure that you’ll find it thought-provoking and memorable.
As an undergraduate reading Law, I had been especially interested to see the play because, at that time, we were covering the legal and ethical issues around the subject of euthanasia in our degree course. One of the core issues that arose from the play was whether a person could be considered mentally stable or emotionally capable of making a rational decision immediately after they had suffered such a drastic physical and emotional trauma. If not, what period of time would need to pass, or what test would they need to take before they could be considered capable of making a rational decision?
I saw the play in the first semester of 1981. It was particularly memorable because the play was followed by an open discussion about the issues raised in the story. The play’s director was joined on stage by a law professor, a psychology professor and two other men, both of who were sitting in wheelchairs.
The Law professor spoke about the issues that need to be addressed when considering the legalization of euthanasia. Suicide is not a criminal offence in the UK, and therefore, one could argue that helping someone who wants to die but who is physically incapable of committing suicide also should not be a criminal offence. If an able-bodied person can swallow a bottle of tablets to end his or her life, should we should deny a paralysed person the same right just because he or she can’t physically pick up the bottle?The professor asked if someone you loved was suffering and begged you to help end their suffering by handing them a bottle of tablets, would you hand it to them? If you did, should you be guilty of murder? Or manslaughter? How far should the Law go in criminalizing the act of helping someone who wants to end their own life?
It seems straightforward enough; most people wouldn’t hesitate to end the suffering of a pet animal, so why should we not extend the same compassion to humans? But the more one reflects upon the issues, the more one discovers it is anything but straightforward.
The psychologist took up the discussion and explained that any trauma will affect a person’s cognitive and behavioural patterns. We know it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and it can manifest in a variety of symptoms including depression, suicidal tendencies, nightmares, anger rages and flashbacks. PTSD usually develops within the first three months following a severe trauma, although it can take up to a year before symptoms become apparent. Many trauma survivors will, at some point, consider ending their lives. But we need time to process experiences, the psychologist explained. And, as we do so, our thoughts and feelings about our future and our place in the world can change.
The two men in the wheelchairs then expressed their thoughts to the audience. Their comments had a deep and lasting impression on me, so much so that I can remember it over twenty-five years later. The two men explained that in the immediate weeks following their accidents, they had indeed wanted to die. Their losses were seemingly unbearable and they couldn't see a future. But, in the months that followed, their attitudes changed. They faced new challenges every day; challenges that were hardly challenges at all prior to their accidents, like getting washed and dressed in the morning. But there were daily challenges, nonetheless. Their accidents had also forced them to re-evaluate their lives and to reflect upon their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations. It was this, they both said, that brought about something they had not expected. As time passed, the two men, in their own ways, found the will to live.
What I found most astonishing was that both men said that their lives were far richer and more fulfilled following their accidents than they had ever been before their accidents. They claimed, years after their accidents, they were much happier than they had been as able-bodied men and they both went so far as to say that their accidents had been ‘one of best things to have happened to them’. I found their comments shocking. How could anyone claim that an incident that left them paralysed and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life was the best thing to have happened to them?
A $105 SOCIAL SECURITY CHEQUE AND A CHICKEN RECIPE
Harland Sanders was sixty-five years old when, through no fault of his own, he lost the business that he had spent the best part of his adult life building. Most men his age were enjoying retirement, but Harland was facing financial ruin. After a lifetime of hard work, Harland was having to survive on a social security cheque of just $105. But losing his business proved to be one of the best things to have happened to Harland, because it became the catalyst for something incredible. Without that loss, Harland may never have gone on to find the flipside.
Harland was no stranger to difficult times. He was born on 9 September 1890 in Indiana, USA, and his childhood was anything but easy. Before Harland had reached his sixth birthday, his father died and Harland’s mother had no choice but to go out to work. Instead of attending school, Harland had to care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. This meant that he had to cook and clean for his siblings. He excelled in both. According to his mother, by the time he was seven years of age, Harland was a master chef and could prepare many of the regional dishes.
At the age of 10, Harland got his first paid job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried, and he left his home near Henryville, Indiana, for a job on a farm in Greenwood. He held a series of jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six months in Cuba.
During the years that followed, Harland worked as a railroad firefighter, studied Law by correspondence, practised in Justice of the Peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tyres, until he finally ended up operating a service station in Corbin, Kentucky.
When he was 40, Harland tried a new initiative offering meals to hungry travellers who stopped at his service station. He served his customers simple, local recipes on the dining table in the living quarters of his service station. Harland soon realized that there was a genuine opportunity to expand his garage business by opening a restaurant. He acquired premises across the street that could seat 142 people and that was the beginning of what was to become one of the most sought-after restaurants in the county. Harland’s reputation for serving delicious home-cooked food spread far and wide. His restaurant was listed in Good Food Guides for the area and Harland received honours from the State Governor Ruby Laffoon in 1935 in recognition of his contribution to the state’s cuisine.
But life’s fortunes can quickly change. in the mid-1950s, a new interstate highway was built that bypassed the town of Corbin, diverting the traffic and, with it, the bulk of Harland’s customers. Harland was sixty-five years of age. A few months earlier, he had a successful business which could have been sold to pay for a comfortable retirement. Now he was facing financial ruin. His garage and restaurant, a mere fraction of their expected value, were auctioned off. After paying the last of his debtors, Harland had nothing but a $105 social security cheque.
However, within just a few years, Harland would look back on the catastrophe that befell him and saw it not as a disaster, but as the opportunity through which he found celebrity and success, the likes of which he could never have dreamed and would, in all probability, never have attained, had his garage and restaurant survived.
Having lost his business and livelihood through no fault of his own, it would have been easy for Harland to give up. Who would have blamed him, particularly at his time of life, if he had become resentful and despondent? Instead of complaining or finding someone to blame, Harland set out to look for the flipside and he found it in the unlikeliest of places – a chicken recipe!
Harland knew that his chicken recipe was special because it had been the clear favourite of his customers. So, armed with only his secret recipe – a coveted blend of eleven herbs and spices – he travelled throughout the state and then across the entire country visiting one restaurant after another selling his recipe to restaurateurs. Harland cooked batches of chicken for the restaurant owners and their employees and waited for their reaction. Almost all of them loved his chicken and, at that point, Harland entered a ‘handshake’ agreement on a simple deal that allowed the restaurant to use his recipe on the condition that he received a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold.
They rest, as they say, is history. By 1964, Harland, who became known as ‘The Colonel’, had over 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his business for $2 million to a group of investors. But the Colonel remained the public face and spokesperson for the company. In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world’s second most recognizable face.
Today Colonel Sander’s’ KFC (originally ’Kentucky Fried Chicken”) outlets are found in over 82 countries around the world and serve up over two billion dinners every year. The Colonel travelled over 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC empire he founded until 1980 when, at the age of 90, he died from leukaemia. And the greatest success of his life would never have happened had he not lost everything and been forced to become resourceful. Colonel Sanders refused to be beaten by adversity and, with nothing more than a $105 social security cheque and a fried chicken recipe, he found the flipside.
SMILING FROM CRACKED TEETH
When Simon Purchall had a biking accident that left him with a mouth full of cracked teeth, it could have ruined him financially. He had been cycling home from work and, as he turned a corner, he skidded and fell off his bicycle. He landed face down and smashed his jaw on the kerb of the pavement. Initially, he thought that only a few teeth had chipped, but four teeth then became infected. After a thorough examination, Simon’s dentist discovered that four of Simon’s teeth were badly cracked and would need to be replaced. The total cost to repair the chipped teeth and replace the cracked teeth with implants was in excess of £20,000.
Initially, Simon had little option but to borrow the money and have the work done. However, Simon’s wife, Veronika, who was a qualified dental nurse from Hungary, suggested that they look at having the work done in Budapest.
‘Like most people, I had a few reservations about going to an ex-Communist country for dental work, but it was amazing,’ Simon said. ‘The level of service and expertise was fantastic. I had all the treatment done there and saved about £16,000.’
When he returned to the UK, Simon found the flipside of his accident. He and Veronika thought that there could be an exciting business opportunity helping other people save money on their dental treatment by promoting and marketing the specialist dental treatments offered in Hungary.
The fact that Veronika was Hungarian and a qualified dental nurse made the decision to start the business that much easier, and within a matter of months, their company ‘SmileSavers’ was launched.
Today, SmileSavers is a hugely successful business which has enabled Simon to free himself from his previous work as an IT consultant. Both he and Veronika work in their own business, building a future together.
Whether it was down to fate or just the randomness of life that Simon suffered his biking accident is immaterial to him and to our search for the flipside. The injury itself would have been enough to send many lesser people into a state of depression and, on top of that, there was the huge financial burden of having to find £20,000 to repair the damaged teeth. But what is significant about this story is that Simon Purchall’s accident presented an enormous opportunity. It was the catalyst that would change his life. Simon grasped that opportunity and turned the incident to his advantage. Today, he looks back on the whole affair of his accident with a smile; a smile with a set of perfect teeth, knowing that, without that accident, he wouldn’t be enjoying the lifestyle he has today. Simon Purchall found the flipside.
THE SEARCH FOR THE FLIPSIDE
Wasitjusta matter of luck that the two disabled men confined to wheelchairs found something in their disabilities that brought their lives greater meaning and happiness? Would Harland Sanders have become a phenomenal worldwide success had he not lost everything first? And was it simply just good fortune that Simon Purchall built a hugely successful dental business following his bike accident? Or could there be something else involved?
Could there be a common thread that runs through these stories and many others like them? Something which enables ordinary people to literally ‘flip’ a seemingly adverse event or circumstance and find opportunities that would otherwise have remained hidden.
The Flipside is an attempt to answer these questions with the help of a simple yet controversial and life-changing philosophy. At its core is a belief that every problem or obstacle, however big or small, that life places in our path, contains an equivalent or greater benefit or opportunity. That benefit or opportunity is known as the ‘Flipside’.
To find the secrets of the flipside, I am going to take you to South Africa to meet the man with no feet who holds world records in 100m, 200m and 400m track running events and became a worldwide sporting phenomenon. We will visit Spain to learn from one of the most promising footballers of his generation who lost his career and his boyhood dreams in a tragic car accident, but went on to achieve other dreams, bigger dreams, that led to worldwide fame and fortune.
I will introduce you to a blind magician who will explain why the disease that took away 90 percent of his eyesight when he was just nine years old was a ‘gift’. We will hear from a man who lost his job but, in doing so, changed the face of entertainment in America, and we will meet a man who survived Auschwitz and transformed the world of psychology.
We will go back in time to witness past tragedies and personal disasters that were turned into life-affirming events. I will introduce you to many remarkable people and together we will learn from them and from the problems and obstacles that they faced. It will not be easy; we will bear witness to considerable suffering and trauma. We will discover tragedies beyond our own experience but, by the end of the journey, we may understand something that for many is, and has been, the single most important secret to achieving lasting success and happiness in life.
Welcome to the Flipside.
Adam J. Jackson Javea, Spain – November 2008
PROLOGUE
Alltheworldis full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
Helen Keller
The body was just twelve years old. He sat looking at the ground, picking nervously at his fingers waiting for the doctor to answer. The doctor, a tall, lanky man in his early sixties. There was nothing warm about him. He had slicked-back grey hair, a sharp pointed nose, and pursed thin lips. His small, round spectacles made his pale-grey eyes look like small marbles. He picked up his papers, squared the edges, and put them down again before removing his spectacles and looking straight at the boy.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ said the doctor. ‘But what you have will not go away. If I give you what you’re asking for, I’d be doing you a disservice. The sooner you learn to live with this, the better.’
’But if you could just . . .′ began the boy.
‘Listen to me,’ interrupted the doctor. ‘It’s for the best.’
The boy’s eyes began to well. He could feel his chest tighten. Without raising his head, he stood up and left the room. The condition the boy was suffering from was a skin complaint known as psoriasis. It is characterized by red, flaky lesions of the skin. In many cases it is confined to a patient’s elbows and knees, some people suffer with it on their scalp. But the boy had the thick, scaly lesions over his entire body.
He had first noticed it one morning when clusters of red spots appeared on the sides of his abdomen. That was only two months earlier, but over the ensuing weeks the spots had become bigger and spread over his entire body.
The boy had gone to the school doctor asking not for a cure; he had already been told by his family doctor that there was no cure. What the boy had asked the school doctor for, pleaded for, was an off-games slip so that he wouldn’t have to attend the swimming class.
As he walked along the corridor and out of the building, the boy could hold back his tears no longer. Oblivious to everything and everyone, his only thoughts were how all the other children would react when he turned up at swimming class looking like a leper. Then the inevitable questions would turn over in his head until he felt nauseous. ‘Why me?’Why did this have to happen to me? ‘Why is life so unfair?’
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find his form tutor, Mr Greenstein, standing beside him. Mr Greenstein was a small figure of man, hardly a few inches taller than the boy. He wore a plain grey suit with a white shirt and navy-blue tie. He was a gentle man, softly spoken, and well liked by the children.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mr Greenstein asked.
‘Nothing,’ sighed the boy as he wiped his eyes.
‘Come and take a seat. Just for a minute,’ insisted Mr Greenstein.
Mr Greenstein and the boy sat down on a bench under a large oak tree away from the school buildings.
‘Now, tell me what’s upsetting you? Perhaps I can help.’
‘No one can help,’ murmured the boy.
‘Well, let’s at least try,’ said Mr Greenstein. The boy rolled up his sleeve to reveal large red, scaly patches of skin and explained his situation. When he had finished explaining, Mr Greenstein put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Who takes your swimming class?’
‘Mr Cunningham.’
‘You know, if you like, you and I could go and speak to Mr Cunningham and I’m sure we could persuade him to excuse you from the class.’
‘Really?’ said the boy excitedly.
‘Absolutely...But before we do, let me tell you something. When I was seven years old my father died and I developed a stutter. it came on very suddenly, almost overnight. It became so bad that, like you, I didn’t want to go to school. I was frightened that the other children would make fun of me. I argued and argued about it with my mother, but in the end I knew that I had to go to school. And I’m glad I did. Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had an education. I wouldn’t have become a teacher and I wouldn’t be here sitting with you now.’
Mr Greenstein looked the boy squarely in the eye. ‘Every difficulty that we face in life has a flipside.’
‘What’s a flipside?’ mumbled the boy.
‘Problems and obstacles contain opportunities which are as big, and sometimes bigger, than the problems themselves. The flipside is that opportunity.’
The boy pulled up his sleeve. ‘What possible flipside could there be in this? What opportunity could there possibly be in having to look like a leper in front of all the other kids?’
’It will come, I promise you.′ answered Mr Greenstein. ‘You will find the flipside.’
PART 1
FINDING THE FLIPSIDE
A year ago, my life had collapsed around me. I worked myself into exhaustion. My father died and my relationships were in turmoil. Little did I know at the time, out of my greatest despair was to come the greatest gift.
Rhonda Byrne – The Secret
THE ROAD TO MADRID
ONE MAN’S JOURNEY TO THE FLIPSIDE
Whenonedoorcloses, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don’t see the one that has opened for us.
Helen Keller
On the evening of 22 September 1963, four young men set off in a car to travel from Majadahonda to Madrid in Spain. The four were all good friends enjoying the night out, but it was to be a journey they would never forget.
Julio was one of the four men in the car that night. His dream was to become a professional football player and play for the team he had loved as a boy, Real Madrid. He had nurtured his dream and pursued it from his earliest years, and that dream was just beginning to be realized. He had immense talent and emerged as something of a prodigy. Real Madrid had signed Julio as a goalkeeper and he was widely tipped to be the future number one goalkeeper for the Spanish national team. Life couldn’t have been better for Julio. His star was on the rise. Until one fateful evening, he stepped into the car with his friends, unaware that his dream would end that night.
At around 2.00 a.m., the car Julio and his friends were travelling in was involved in a serious accident. Julio awoke in Madrid’s Eloy Gonzalo Hospital to discover that he was semi-paralysed. The doctors informed him he would need to be confined to a bed for eighteen months in order to give his spinal injuries a chance to heal. Even then, the prognosis wasn’t good. They thought it would be unlikely that Julio would ever walk again. But they were certain of one thing; Julio’s football career was over.
At night, during those eighteen months in hospital, Julio would listen to the radio and write poems; sad, reflective, romantic verses that questioned man’s fate and the meaning of life. On reading the poems Julio had written, one of the young nurses who was taking care of him, a man called Eladio Magdaleno, gave Julio a guitar and suggested he turn his poems into songs.
Singing began as a distraction for Julio; a way of forgetting happier days spent as an elite athlete. But, as time went on, the singing became more of a passion than a distraction. He scribbled numbers on the guitar to learn the basic chords. Every week, more and more would appear, and within a short time, he was creating melodies for his poems.
When the eighteen months had passed, Julio had recovered from his injuries and he returned to Murcia University to resume his studies. Later, he travelled to England to improve his English, first in Ramsgate, Kent and then at Bell’s Language School in Cambridge. Occasionally at weekends, he would sing in the Airport Pub covering songs that were popular at that time from the likes of Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and The Beatles.
When Julio returned home to Spain, he looked for a singer to perform the songs he had written. He took his first song to a recording studio in Madrid and asked if they could recommend anyone. The manager listened to Julio perform one of his songs. He looked at him, confused. Julio had a distinctive, pitch-perfect singing voice. He was a strikingly handsome man with jet black hair, large brown eyes, a smooth, tanned complexion and a smile that could make most women go weak at the knees. Why would a man like Julio need someone to sing his songs? ‘Why don’t you perform it yourself?’ the manager asked. Julio answered, ‘Because I’m not a singer. I’m a songwriter!’
‘No. You’re a singer-songwriter!’ the manager replied.
In the end, Julio took the manager’s advice and entered one of his songs in a Spanish music competition. On 17 July 1968, a little over five years after the accident that so nearly destroyed his life, Julio won first prize at the Fiesta de Benidorm with the song ‘La Vida Sigue Igual’ (Life goes on the same) and soon after, Columbia Records offered him a recording contract.
Chances are, you know Julio and have heard him sing. You may even own one of his albums. Because the man who had lost his boyhood dreams in that tragic car accident went on to become the biggest selling recording artist in the history of Latin American music, and a household name the world over. The man who had lost his dreams found the flipside through a new, bigger dream than the one that was taken from him. His name was Julio Iglesias.
NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES, POSITIVE OUTCOMES
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
Richard Bach
The flipside is the other side of a problem or obstacle, the side that contains an opportunity that can change our lives for the better. While it may sound like something that is rarely seen, other than in a Hollywood movie or a novel, there is now a growing body of scientific evidence showing that the Flipside is a very real phenomenon, the secrets of which can literally transform people’s lives.
Julio Iglesias’ story, while remarkable, is certainly not unique. People of different backgrounds and races and from all walks of life have suffered setbacks and faced seemingly insurmountable problems and obstacles yet gone on to transform their setbacks into something positive life experience. This is because problems and obstacles are often events that trigger change and move us in new directions. In addition, it is not uncommon for people to look back and, with the benefit of hindsight, come to see their experiences in a different light. Some come away feeling that they have actually benefited in one way or another; certain that their lives had been enriched rather than injured.
Trauma and adversity of all kinds have literally been flipped into positive outcomes, and often the Flipside turns out to be something so powerful and meaningful that it completely overshadows the negative experience. More significantly, in recent years, scientists working in clinics, hospitals and universities all over the world have begun to explore the nature of the flipside and unlock its secrets. Evidence presented by eminent psychologists, behaviourists and economists clearly demonstrates that, more often than not, the greatest problems, obstacles and adversities we face in life are, at the same time, our greatest opportunities.
DEFINING MOMENTS
WHY THE LOWEST POINTS IN OUR LIVES OFTEN SHAPE OUR FUTURE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS
Mygoodfortunewas that I finally came to a point in my life when I felt like I had hit rock bottom.
Anthony Robbins
Peter Jones is one of a tiny, elite group of successful, high-profile entrepreneurs who have attained celebrity status both in the UK and North America. His business empire is said to be worth over £750 million, and he has an impressive CV that includes a portfolio with interests in telecommunications, consumer products, incentives and gifts, entertainment, publishing, property and, more recently, television. Following his success in the Dragons’ Den, Jones became a judge on the hit TV series American Inventor, a programme produced by his own television production company.
If anyone knows anything about what it takes to succeed in business, that person is Peter Jones. Yet when Jones looks back on his career, he will tell you that the single most significant event that changed his life and to which he attributes his success was not any of his personal achievements. It wasn’t the time that he had been selected to appear on Dragons’ Den; it wasn’t when he set up his first business (a tennis academy) at the age of just 17, and it wasn’t the time he received the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002. According to Jones, the one event that changed his life more than any other was the time early on in his career when he lost his business.
‘During my twenties, I ran a thriving computer business which allowed me to own a nice house, a BMW, a Porsche, and plenty of money to spend,’ Jones explains on his website. ‘However, through a combination of circumstances, personal mistakes and learning the hard way when a few major customers went out of business themselves, I lost the business.’ Losing one’s livelihood can be a devastating experience. Yet it can also be a turning point. Looking back, Jones believes that losing his business in his twenties was the crucial factor that changed his life because, he explained, it made him ‘more determined to succeed’.
HITTING ROCK ROTTOM TO REACH THE TOP
Tony Robbins is one of the best known and most successful personal development ‘gurus’ in North America. He is an extremely charismatic, inspirational man. His seminars and workshops are sell-out events. Even though the tickets can cost thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of people all over the world have gladly parted with their money to attend his events.
Robbins has coached CEOs of global corporations, presidents and political leaders. The New York Times reported in December 1994 that President Bill Clinton had invited Robbins, along with Marianne Williamson and Dr Steven R. Covey, to Camp David. Robbins has also helped some of America’s top sports teams and athletes to improve their performance, including golfer Greg Norman; former world number one tennis star Andre Agassi; the Los Angeles professional Ice Hockey team, the L.A. Kings, and former world heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson.
Today, Robbins is a best-selling author and vice chairperson of five corporations. Through his books and seminars, Robbins has directly impacted the lives of more than 50 million people from over one hundred countries. Yet, in his seminars, one of the first messages he shares with his audience is that the catalyst for his success was not a specific achievement, but the time when his life seemed to spin out of control. Only when he had lost everything, he says, and ‘hit rock bottom’ did his life finally begin to turn around. ‘I was totally broke,’ he recalls. ‘I had wiped out my company. I had wiped out myself emotionally, and I weighed about thirty-seven pounds heavier than I do today . . . having basically crashed . . . I began to look for what would be the foundational key to success.’
There is a saying I learned from an American friend many years ago: ‘People change, but only when they are sick and tired of being sick and tired’. Most of us have to reach a point when we say to ourselves, ‘Enough is enough’. Only then are we prepared to take the steps necessary to change our lives. This is supported by the science of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which suggests that we are all motivated by two forces – pain and pleasure – and, of the two, pain is the stronger motivator. Essentially, we will do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. This is the reason Robbins says that he was ‘fortunate’ to have hit rock bottom. Sometimes we have to feel like we’ve sunk as low as we can go before we attempt to make our way to the top.
Both Peter Jones and Tony Robbins experienced a personal and financial crisis early on in their careers, but both men acknowledge that their crises were largely responsible for their subsequent long-term success. Their assessment of this positive side, the flipside, of loss and the challenge of a major life crisis becoming the catalyst that helps propel us to success is not uncommon. Many of the world’s most successful businessmen and women agree and credit their long-term success to the challenge presented by a major crisis or loss.
DISASTER WAS PIVOTAL TO SUCCESS
‘We ran out of money. I was three weeks away from getting married, my fiancée had moved to California – jobless – to join me, and the investment market had collapsed in the wake of the telecoms meltdown.’ Peter Fiske was only nine months into his first business venture when he faced financial ruin. Today he looks back on the disaster as a defining moment in his career. ‘It was,’ he says, ‘absolutely pivotal to the success of our company.’
Peter Fiske is a Ph.D. scientist and co-founder of RAPT Industries, a technology company in Fremont, California. He is also the author of Put Your Science to Work and, together with Dr Geoff Davis, he comments on science policy, economics, and educational initiatives that affect scientists.
Fiske believes that very few things in business, or even in a scientific career for that matter, are safe and predictable. Things can, and do, go wrong. At the same time, he understands that a setback or even what some people would consider a complete disaster is often the catalyst that is needed for positive change. When he looks back on the cash-flow disaster that nearly ruined him, with the benefit of hindsight, he believes that the crisis was actually the making of him and his company. ‘We needed to run out of cash in order to learn what was really necessary to make our venture succeed,’ he says. ‘It forced me into a full-frontal assault on potential customers and sponsors.’ It was that new strategy that led his company to land a major contract with the US Army later that same year.
‘When I tell the graduate students and postdocs who attend my career-development workshops that running out of money was one of the best things that happened to my company, I get some confused looks,’ Fiske says. But, he is convinced that detours, setbacks and disasters ’are inevitable parts of the life of a start-up company. ‘Our near-death experience,’ he says, ‘forced us to develop the discipline that has allowed us to survive ever since.’
Peter Fiske offers a fascinating insight which is, in fact, shared by leading business people all over the world. Setbacks and disasters, he suggests, are ‘inevitable’ but they always come with a flipside. This is because contained within obstacles and challenges are opportunities to learn and to grow, and very often the obstacle itself is the stepping stone that lays the foundation for long-term success.
THE POSTAL STRIKE
Sir Richard Branson faced a serious obstacle early in his career when British postal workers voted to go on strike. Branson is one of the best known and most successful businessmen in the UK. He has built a business empire under the Virgin brand name which includes over 200 privately owned companies operating in an array of different industries from entertainment and leisure to travel, from communications technology (including mobile phones, broadband internet access and radio) to publishing, and from cosmetics to clothing. Since its inception in 1970, Virgin has become one of the leading brands in the UK.
Like Peter Jones, Tony Robbins and Peter Fiske, Sir Richard Branson’s success can be traced back to a very difficult period in his business life. In the 1970s new legislation in the UK allowed people to sell records at discounted prices, and Branson was among the first to exploit the situation by setting up a mail order company which he called ‘Virgin’. The business proved to be a tremendous success. Sales rocketed and Branson had the enviable task of constantly having to find more workers to keep up with ever-growing demand. Then disaster struck; postal workers in the UK went on strike. With no alternative mail service available, along with thousands of other mail order companies across the UK, Virgin was facing ruin.
However, history revealed the postal strike to have been a blessing in disguise. It certainly marked a major turning point in Virgin’s history because it forced Branson to rethink his business strategy and look for alternative revenue streams. As a result, in the following year, he opened a Virgin Records store, the first of what was to become a worldwide chain, and two years later he launched the Virgin record label.
