by Robb Hiller
We’re each equipped with spiritual gifts to help us navigate adversity. The Power of 3 is a simple yet powerful framework to create clarity on how you’ve been uniquely prepared to overcome the obstacles in your life.
JOHN BUTCHER, CEO of Caribou Coffee
Robb Hiller has crafted an amazing story of tenacity, courage, and survival. His harrowing life story is a vivid reminder that, even today, miracles do happen when you least expect them. Adversity never leaves us, he writes, which is so true. We all face our own personal trials and tribulations. God doesn’t promise an easy life to any of us. It’s how we cope with trials and adversity that define us—how we play the hand we’re dealt. The eternal truths Robb discusses about asking, activating, and advocating can help anyone going through a rough patch, from family struggles to business challenges. The Power of 3 is real, and I predict that if you open your mind and your heart, this book can and will change your life.
PAUL DOUGLAS, WCCO radio show host, meteorologist, and serial entrepreneur
Robb has used a powerful and personal story to share a template for positive change—how to deal with life’s inevitable setbacks and make the most of the life that God has given us. The Power of 3 abounds with practical wisdom and encouragement on becoming a valued mentor, friend, or parent. Anyone in a position of leadership can benefit from this book.
JERRY MATTYS, former CEO of Tactile Medical
So much can be said about Robb Hiller’s amazing book, The Power of 3. However, one simple but powerfully life-changing word filled my being over and over again: hope. We all need it. This book gives it.
TOM LEHMAN, PGA Tour golfer, winner of the British Open, and the only golfer in history to have been awarded the Player of the Year honor on all three PGA Tours
The three fundamental questions of life are Who am I?, Why am I here?, and Where am I going? Robb taps into the Power of 3 resources that bring clarity to these life-giving questions. Your mind will be stretched, your heart enlarged, and your passions ignited when you discover the Power of 3 and apply it to your everyday life and relationships.
DR. JOEL K. JOHNSON, lead pastor of Westwood Community Church
Robb Hiller has written a very helpful and practical guide to being a better leader and a better person. It brings together concepts that might be familiar to readers of Edgar Schein, Carol Dweck, or Chip Heath and translates them into practical approaches that can be immediately applied. I would recommend Robb’s book to anyone who is committed to the improvement of their community, organization, family, or themselves.
JAMES HEREFORD, president and CEO of Fairview Health Services
Robb Hiller should not be here. Although a seemingly unsurvivable diagnosis should have claimed his life, he not only survived but thrived. In The Power of 3, Robb shares the process he’s learned throughout the journey that freed him to embrace the possibility of his life. In reading The Power of 3, you’ll be liberated to embrace the possibility in your life too.
JOHN O’LEARY, #1 national bestselling author of On Fire and In Awe
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The Power of 3: Beat Adversity, Find Authentic Purpose, Live a Better Life
Copyright © 2020 by Robb Hiller. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hiller, Robb, author.
Title: The power of 3 : beat adversity, find authentic purpose, live a better life / Robb Hiller.
Other titles: The power of three Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale House Publishers, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020030946 (print) | LCCN 2020030947 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496447289 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781496447296 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9781496447302 (epub) | ISBN 9781496447319 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology) | Motivation (Psychology) | Goal (Psychology)
Classification: LCC BF637.S4 H5457 2020 (print) | LCC BF637.S4 (ebook) | DDC 158—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030946
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030947
Build: 2020-10-22 15:02:45 EPUB 3.0
Contents
Chapter 1: Hope Is Here: When Adversity Walks through the Door
Part 1: The Power of Asking Chapter 2: Change Your Perspective: Ask the Right Questions
Chapter 3: DIP into Your Toolbox: Change the Game
Part 2: The Power of Activating Chapter 4: Step into Your Adventure: Activate Your God-Given Gifts
Chapter 5: Plug into Your Gifts: Help Others Become
Part 3: The Power of Advocates Chapter 6: Invite Advocates into Your Life: Accept Support and Strength
Chapter 7: Cultivate Life-Giving Connections: Lean On Family, Friends, and Faith
Part 4: Living in the Triangle Chapter 8: Coaching Yourself and Others in the Power of 3: Small Beginnings—Big Results
Conclusion: The Joy of Living in the Triangle: Help Yourself and Others Live Again
A Note from Robb
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER 1Hope Is Here: When Adversity Walks through the Door
Wherever there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.
JOHN MAXWELL
“ROBB!” A familiar voice called my name down a grocery store aisle. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
I smiled as Tommy excitedly waved both arms at me. “Well,” I replied, “you can’t believe how glad I am to be here. It’s wonderful to see you.”
For years, Tommy and I had been on-and-off basketball buddies. Now he grabbed me in a very public bear hug. When Tommy and I had last crossed paths six months prior, he’d concluded I didn’t have long to live. “You were in tough shape then,” he exclaimed. “You look so much better now!”
Our brief exchange reminded me how even our most casual relationships can be profound. Running into Tommy caused gratitude to well up inside me for the progress I had experienced in my battle against cancer, and I felt renewed joy at having a second chance to live.
As the founder and CEO of a nationally recognized consulting firm, I had long helped leaders and organizations across the country identify, attract, and develop talent. I am a certified professional behavior analyst, results coach, and talent-assessment expert who has evaluated more than twenty-three thousand individuals—everyone f
rom business-to-business sales staff to senior leaders at Fortune 500 companies. I recently was recognized as one of the top consultants among several thousand of my colleagues and presented with the Bill Bonnstetter Lifetime Achievement Award.
But more than these accomplishments, the greatest validation of my work has been the transformation I’ve seen as people have beaten adversity, found their true purpose, and broken through to a better life, at work and at home.
There was power behind my work. Over the years, I had discovered an astonishingly effective method for helping people get unstuck, conquer challenges, and dramatically change.
Yet when adversity struck close to home, that approach—indeed my whole outlook on how to succeed at work and life—was severely challenged.
Adversity Comes Home
Nine months before I ran into Tommy in that grocery store aisle, I awoke to a beautiful, sunny Thursday and was looking forward to exercising at my usual athletic club—a mix of working out inside and walking around the lake. The drive to the club made me smile. After long months of cold and snow, seeing green grass was thrilling. Golf season was almost here!
After a few minutes on the treadmill and a little weight lifting, I dropped to the ground and began performing planks, supporting myself on my elbows and holding my body in a rigid straight-backed pose. Almost immediately, pain jabbed my abdomen, like a hard punch in the stomach. Five minutes later, I tried again, with the same result.
What’s going on? I thought.
I made an appointment with my doctor, and after checking me over the next day, he suspected a hernia and referred me for a CT scan. The day after that appointment I was in the tube for the scan and feeling nervous, anxious, and downright fearful. A few hours after my scan, I was swiveling in my desk chair at my home office, enjoying the view of the undeveloped wetland beyond our backyard, when my cell phone rang. It was my doctor. He didn’t pause for niceties. “You have a large mass in your abdomen,” he said. “It’s definitely cancer, some type of lymphoma. We need you to come in for a biopsy.”
I leaned back in my chair in shock. I’d known for three years that I had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. With the incurable cancer in its beginning stages, my doctors had chosen to keep an eye on it rather than treat it. Now I was hearing I had a second cancer.
I soon underwent tissue and bone marrow biopsies. The needle looked big enough to go completely through any part of my body. I had neck surgery to remove cancerous lymph nodes, which was followed by a PET scan.
Within a couple of weeks, I was in an oncologist’s office, staring at colorful PET images of my insides. They showed a mass of bright red near my esophagus and stomach and throughout my insides.
I knew red wasn’t good. The doctor’s words went beyond my worst fears.
“You know you have leukemia,” he said. “The scan shows you also have two other kinds of cancer.” The new unwelcome invaders were diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma, another type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
“We’ll begin treating the large B-cell right away, as this form is aggressive. We should be able to help you with that,” the doctor went on. “As you know, there’s no cure for the CL leukemia. And I’m sorry, but there’s also no cure for the follicular lymphoma.”
On top of the incurable cancer we had been monitoring, I had not just one new cancer but two. “It looks like I got lucky,” I said wryly. “I got the trifecta.” Three deadly cancers were growing inside me.
As my wife, Pam, and I exchanged glances, tears filled our eyes. How was this even possible?
Your Challenges Large and Small
My experience happened to be acute, but life’s circumstances come to us in all shapes and sizes. They put us on a journey we didn’t choose, want, or expect.
Your own difficulties might be small-scale or far bigger than mine. They might come on suddenly or accumulate over time, one tough break after another. Whatever you face, you know how it feels to reach a point where you think, This is really hard. I don’t know if I can do it.
Maybe you have a lousy boss who sucks the joy out of your days. You can’t help but wonder if you’re on a short list to lose your job.
Or you have family or friends who have grown distant. It wasn’t that long ago that you felt close, but now the calls and texts are rare. You’re not sure what happened, but you feel alone.
Perhaps you’re struggling in your marriage. You’ve tried to convince your spouse to get counseling, but you’re not sure yourself whether it will do any good.
Or your kid is rebelling like a bull out of a barn. You’re doing your best, but nothing works. You feel like you’re losing your child.
Maybe you’re just getting started in your career. You’ve learned a lot in your studies, but you wonder how to move forward in real life. How do you pull everything together?
Or you’re in business, and sales are plummeting. Your team isn’t getting it done, and nothing you try gets the results you need. You fear the company will dry up and blow away.
Perhaps your faith is faltering. When you talk to God, the heavens feel like a cement ceiling. You’re not happy with the state of your life, and you just don’t know what to do.
Each of us could be struck by any of these problems and a million more. We begin to say, “This is bothering me. It has festered for a long time, and I still don’t know how to address it. I don’t have the strength to go on.” We feel helpless—or at least really frustrated.
Setbacks are inevitable. We all experience them.
But I want to show you a method to help you move forward. It consists of easy-to-understand steps for life, which I discovered long ago and have successfully used with thousands of people in business and beyond, and it’s the method I employed when faced with three deadly cancers. I call it the “Power of 3.”
You can learn this method quickly—and put it into practice immediately. Through any adversity, the Power of 3 can transform your life, whether your frustrations are day-to-day annoyances or far more serious issues.
While I’ve coached people in these truths for many years, I felt a final nudge to put this message in book form when I spoke at my college reunion. After my talk, an old friend who led an esteemed orthopedic surgery practice said, “Robb, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to hear how you used the Power of 3 to make it through your cancer treatments. You need to share this with others.”
Dr. Tom is known for his gruff, driven personality. Seeing him wipe away tears surprised me. “Thanks so much for your encouragement,” I said. “Are those tears because my message was so bad?”
Dr. Tom laughed and reiterated that this message could help anyone. He planned to use it himself. His words were an unexpected confirmation to start writing.
I promised myself this wouldn’t be just another business book, a few good tips wrapped in far too many words. Failure has been a great teacher to me over the years, and I have experienced it many times. But when I discovered the principles captured in the Power of 3, they guided and transformed my life. More important, they will make all the difference for you. This isn’t a book to read and then put on a shelf. It conveys practical wisdom and life-giving encouragement that I hope you’ll come back to again and again.
Out of the Ditch
When I was in my forties, I was looking for a fresh start in my career. For years I had led a telecommunications company as the CEO, but one of my greatest passions was helping people, and I wanted to try consulting work. I worked with a friend for close to a year before launching my own consulting business, Performance SolutionsMN.
Initially, I focused on guiding companies in sales growth, leadership training, and strategic planning. I was also introduced to Target Training International, an Arizona-based organization that provided science-based personal-assessment tools. The more I delved into the world of assessments, the more I realized their potential for pinpointing trouble spots in company practices and rel
ationships and for identifying potential solutions.
By combining these new tools with my own analysis, I began helping firms evaluate and hire candidates and place the right people in the right jobs. My clients observed dramatic improvements, which pleased them and excited me. They used words like empowering and inspiring to describe my impact. They were also thrilled with the upward growth in their profit margins.
As my consulting business grew and I worked with more clients, repeatable principles began to jump out to me as consistently effective.
For example, there was the fiery software company chairman who insisted his sales team was hiding low sales and poor performance behind complaints about the software itself. To calm him down, I asked a pair of simple questions: “In an ideal situation, how would you want your customers to respond to your software? What might they say that would indicate you’re on track?”
Shifting the chairman’s perspective from blaming his staff for poor sales to the goal of having satisfied customers quickly calmed him down. I began to see that asking the right questions could make a powerful difference in changing attitudes and eliciting vital information.
Another time, I was hired to help Eyal, the young director of operations for a medical device company, reorganize his department and cut costs. A survey of the staff also identified communication issues. Eyal was relatively inexperienced and younger than most of his team, so we faced a significant challenge. I soon discovered, however, that Eyal’s talents more than made up for his inexperience.
With my encouragement, he used his natural optimism, genuine personality, and conflict-resolution skills to inspire the team to catch his vision for the department. Eyal also shifted the responsibilities of his staff to better utilize their abilities. The outcome was a much more cohesive and effective team, as well as cost savings that reached $1 million within a year. Those impressive improvements were the result of Eyal activating his natural gifts, then putting people in positions that allowed them to embrace their own talents.