Can you remember a time in your life where you when you faced adversity? Perhaps you lost a loved one, you didn’t get accepted to your preferred university, or maybe you lost your job. How did you handle it? What did you do to pick yourself up and move forward? Looking back you probably see that some decisions were right and had a positive effect. In hindsight you might also see decisions you’d like to change or do differently. It’s worth a review.

The bad news: things happen that are beyond your control. The good news: you can choose how you react to everything in your life. This principle was driven home to me last night in a conversation with my wife. I was grousing about a recent (significant) change at work and she held up her hand and said simply, “it’s your choice; you can decide how this will affect you so make a good choice.” Her statement stopped my negative thought process in its tracks. She was absolutely right: I can make the choice of how I react.

When it comes to achieving success, the choice is yours to make. Mac Anderson summed up the importance of choice as follows:

In my 64 years on this earth, I have come to realize that the difference in our success or failure is not change, but choice. Because when adversity strikes, it’s not what happens that will determine our destiny; it’s how we react to what happens.

Mac created an inspirational movie about making choices and finishing strong. It will absolutely inspire you to make choices that will lead you to success (only three minutes and set to a great Survivor tune).

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The Product Management Perspective: Managing a product is all about making choices; few if any are easy. When you encounter decisions that must be made about your product, get the information and make the decision. Don’t procrastinate; your product’s success requires your willingness to make tough decisions.