What’s Your FQ?
Robert M. Gignac
Taynac & Associates
54 Crawford Rose Drive
Aurora, Ontario
L4G 4R4
(905) 841-0837
I was standing at the podium arranging my notes,
advancing through my PowerPoint slides, my usual pre-presentation ritual. I
stopped when the words on the screen caught my eye. “It’s your attitude, not
your aptitude that will affect your altitude”. I’ve liked the phrase from the
first time I heard it, and I was using it as slide number five in my
session entitled “Leadership & Commitment = Success”.
I was in Indianapolis, Indiana presenting at a
conference of information technology professionals, a group I had presented to
on several occasions with great success. On this morning, I came to the sudden
realization that this breakout session would not be as successful. Was it me?
No, it was them. Or rather, the lack of them. Nobody showed up for my 10:00am
session. The room host who had been looking uncomfortably at her watch slowly
walked up the aisle toward me. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. Here’s
your speaker’s gift, I guess it’s not a total loss”. With that she left me
alone in a room set up to handle 100 people. Just me and my PowerPoint slides.
“Attitude, not your aptitude”. The slide hit home.
It would have been easy for me to get an attitude at that moment. Didn’t they
know about the 10-hour drive I made yesterday to be here? Didn’t they know that
I customized my slides to fit their conference theme? Didn’t they know I
created 75 copies of my presentation material for them to take away? How could
they not be here to listen to me!
“Attitude, not your aptitude”. Emotion versus
logic. Much has been debated over the issues of EQ (Emotional Quotient) and IQ
(Intelligence Quotient) and the relative importance of each in the business
world. As an entrepreneur I’d like to add another acronym into the mix: FQ.
What is FQ? Failure Quotient. Your ability to handle adversity, disappointment
and the inevitable ‘no’s’ you’ll hear as you build and develop your business.
EQ and IQ are important, they allow us to bring our
personality and intellect to our products and services, but FQ is what
determines the winners in the entrepreneur game. How many times can you hear
‘no’ before you quit? It was a surprise to me that not everyone I talk to wants
to hire me to speak to their organization. Can you handle 5, 10, 15, 25, 50
‘no’s’ in a row? Getting even a single ‘no’ is hard and tests your FQ. Most of
us face this test daily.
I went through a period two years ago when I didn’t
get a single ‘no’ for seven consecutive weeks. Seven weeks without a ‘no’! How
did I do that? Easy, I didn’t ask anyone for their business. Since I didn’t
ask, I couldn’t get a ‘no’. An excellent experiment, but certainly not the
brightest way to build one’s business.
Since my session at the conference was obviously a
complete failure, it would have been easy to just pack up and leave. Instead, I
took the time to walk through my presentation, mentally rehearsing the key
points, looking out at the empty seats as if they were full of eager attendees.
At 10:28 a head poked through the door at the back
of the room, “Are you Robert?”. I confirmed that I was, and he told me he had
wanted to be in my session, but had a pressing need to be in another. He asked
if I would mind giving him a personal one-on-one since he was the only person
there. Think about the FQ - what do you think I did? In the 20 minutes I had
before the next speaker was due, I presented the material as if there were 100
people in the room. We took our conversation out into the hallway when we had
to vacate, and I finally asked him the all-important question - “Is this a
message that your organization needs to hear?”
The answer I wanted to hear didn’t come that day
standing in the hallway. It did arrive three weeks later during a follow-up
phone call. This was after an initial ‘maybe’ in the hallway, followed by a
‘no’ via e-mail, followed by two more ‘maybes’ on the phone. Later this summer
I’ll be delivering a session on leadership at their organization’s annual sales
conference. I would have never received
this opportunity had I just packed up and left.
My point? Work on developing your FQ, your ability
to respond to ‘no’s’, ‘maybes’ and business disappointments. I know that after
this recent experience, my personal FQ is certainly larger.
Bio:
Robert
Gignac is the owner of Taynac & Associates, providing keynote speeches,
seminars and workshops on personal development, motivation, and leadership. To
book Robert to speak at your next event, please contact him at: rgignac@taynac.com or check their website
at www.taynac.com.
Copyright 2002 - Taynac & Associates