By: Kenneth Glenn Morgan

I attended FPRA’s Capital Chapter monthly meeting last week and heard Steven Moore share his amazing story of overcoming adversity and succeeding. He offered a four-point strategy that can be applied in many aspects of our lives – personal or professional:

  • Expect Success
  • Focus on your strengths
  • Pay attention to the details
  • Leverage relationships

Quick takeaways from my notes on Steven’s talk that each of us can keep in mind when facing challenges:

  • Expect success: Go into a situation, project or challenge with the mindset of a successful outcome. Stay positive and envision the outcome you want to see take place.
  • Focus on your strengths: Under pressure, people tend to remind themselves of their weaknesses. Overwhelming yourself with the areas you know you don’t do well in won’t help you focus on finding the answers you need to move forward. Instead, focus and invest in your strengths. Steven suggests using the 80/20 rule: spend 80% of your time or energy on your strengths, and only 20% on your weaknesses. Your strengths will get you through to where you need to go.
  • Pay attention to the details: The details of a situation often give us the insights and answers we need to figure out how to proceed or what to do next. Pay attention to the signs you might not be noticing amid the chaos or stress of the moment.
  • Leverage relationships: Don’t go it alone. Work with the people you know and trust. Success is built through the spirit of collaboration, dialogue and partnership. Each of us alone can’t have all the answers, skills or knowledge to find the victories or solutions we seek. Community (whether that be two, three or more people) makes a difference.

This is a guest post by Kenneth Glenn Morgan,  the PR Manager for VISIT FLORIDA. Kenneth writes in his blog, The Morgan Narratives, about the creative, professional and day-to-day observations and experiences in his life – including topics and insights from his career path in the hospitality industry and the marketing communications field. To reach Kenneth or make a comment about his blog, write to kennethgmorgan@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @kgmorganpr.