During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences guide readers to differentiate themselves and enable them to work smarter—not harder—to thrive in corporate chaos that, due to the current economic conditions, has taught the employed and unemployed alike to simply try to survive.

Following is the next chapter in Dowd's book, The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a cynic to a professional in the corporate world. Earlier chapters are linked at the end.

8. Understand that Winning Isn't Everything—Losing Is

I have lost many things in the professional world. I have lost promotions. I have lost the next great position. I have lost confidence. I have lost my passion at times, and sometimes lost my way. The great news is that there have been very few times that I can remember when things did not work in my favor after a loss. If things did not work out as planned, I at least typically learned a valuable lesson. When I have lost, I have found myself building up my character, or something better has come along. The premise of this book is obviously my transformation based on key lessons during my professional career. This premise is based on many of my losses that really turned into wins—this book being one of them. You have two paths to take when you lose. You can get up and do something about it, or you can lick your wounds and do nothing.

Tom has more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry in management and leadership roles, and runs his own business, Thomas Dowd Professional Development & Coaching, as a speaker, author, trainer and coach. Tom developed a series of management presentations into a speaking program called "Powerful Professional Transformation: Unleashing Leadership." The speaking engagements turned into "The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World," a book detailing Tom's own professional growth based on lessons learned in his career. "Transformation" received honorable mention in the business category at the 2012 New England Book Festival. Tom has since written his second book "From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide."

Tom is currently the vice president of education for Dirigo Toastmasters Club in Belfast. Toastmasters International is a supportive learning environment of more than 270,000 members worldwide looking to improve communication and leadership skills. As a founding member of the club, Tom has been involved in Toastmasters since September 2008. Tom holds advanced communication and advanced leadership certifications with Toastmasters International, including High Performance Leadership certification. In November 2011, Tom was selected as the District 45 Toastmaster of Year, which represents more than 100 clubs in the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and the three Eastern Canadian Provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Tom has also exhibited consistent success when competing at the division (state level equivalent) and district levels in Toastmasters speech contests, which include humorous, inspirational, impromptu and evaluation events. He was the Table Topics Impromptu 2012 District Champion. Additionally, he is a member of the National Speakers Association and a member of the Camden Lions Club.

Tom graduated from the University of Delaware in 1990 with a Communication degree, concentrating on interpersonal and organizational communication.

Tom currently lives in Camden with his wife and three daughters.

I was asked to apply for a position that many thought I was qualified for in a call center. It was in a place where I had extended family close by, I was willing to relocate, and I had more than fifteen years of call center experience in quite a variety of roles. I was not an expert in the new field I would be entering, but I had taught myself all of the positions in the past and I was eager to learn a new one. The final candidates were narrowed down to three of us for two openings. Can you guess who was ranked number three?

The other two candidates had fifteen or more years in this particular business. I'm sure each of them was qualified for the job and would be great hires. I felt I could have had an advantage and could make a difference by sharing my diverse background, my experience from my other internal businesses, and my objectivity as an outsider to the business. The decision makers didn't think so.

I was upset after learning I did not get the job, but, knew I had to do something positive about the experience. Instead of accepting the, "You didn't get the job" at face value, I dug in deeper with the decision maker. I learned through his feedback that I needed to sell my diverse background, my experience level, and creative objectivity better during the interviews. I was told I could have also networked more effectively in preparation for the interview process, and prepared differently. The difference with this lesson was that I stayed on the phone and had a real conversation about what I needed to do better the next time. I was asking questions and genuinely felt good after the conversation, reassured that I had been well thought of throughout the process, but I had room to improve for the next time. What I was beginning to realize was that the "next time" was all around me if I kept my eyes wide open.

Three days later, I heard about a brand new position that was in the works to increase employee retention. I proactively went after it. I produced a clear plan of attack to address the issue, spoke to the appropriate people about my interest, and utilized my background to effectively sell the point that I could build bridges across multiple businesses to expand the impact of the work. I didn't realize I would get to implement the feedback I had just received so quickly. I was given the job and taught a valuable lesson: certain things happen for a reason. I did have control of my career and could make a bigger impact to the overall company in my new role.

In another example, as an avid speech competitor with Toastmasters International, I have learned that competing helped to prepare me for the most stressful situations. The competitions also taught me how to clearly engage an audience for a short period of time, and showed me how to send a message that the audience would remember for a long time. I enjoy the challenge of these contests.

As I became more successful in the contests, I realized I needed to learn from my more-experienced fellow competitors. In addition to picking up many tips and learning how to broaden my style, I also learned to lose. Losing speech competitions was a great thing to push me to write a better speech, to prepare differently, and to get more people involved in the overall process by offering their input for the next competition. I knew I could always be better.

In the International Speech contest in the spring of 2010, I was the only competitor in my club who was available to continue in the next competition. I knew going in I would 'win' by default. I had practiced for over a month. You'll notice that I didn't say I prepared well for over a month. I practiced a speech that lacked a clear message for the audience. I finished in third place, out of three people. To increase the intensity of my loss, I found out that the second place finisher forgot he was in the competition until that day, and only practiced for forty-five minutes.

I was forced to rewrite my speech. Apparently, the weekend of the next contest must have been a bad date, because only two of us were there. Again, the top two progressed on to the next level. I had no idea if the changes I made worked or if I moved on by default again. I was not going to leave it up to the unknown. I asked everyone I knew what they thought. I presented the speech to my club more times than they probably wanted. I gave the speech as a guest to a club in Florida while I was traveling on business. I invested time each day on my week-long vacation with the family to fine tune my message. I interjected myself into a company meeting to spend seven minutes giving the speech because there was a large gathering of people. Everyone had an opinion, and I listened to them all. I placed second in the next contest and moved on to the regional finals. The final competitive speech of the season went well, even though I did not win the competition. However, I did win by gaining valuable experience and lessons. By losing, I had won. I lost to some fantastic speakers who gave me the encouragement to continue to drive myself. I was a better speaker, a better networker, and a more confident individual because of this experience. All of these lessons would prove to pay off in future competitions and within the workplace.

9. Wait Three Months...

On what I remember was one of the most frustrating days I have ever had with a boss in my career, my wife had the gall to say, "Wait three months and one of you will be hired (into another role), fired, promoted, or demoted." It was her way of giving me a lesson in patience. I had come home after another bad day with my boss. For many reasons, including differences in management styles, personalities, and personal goals, I just didn't get along with this particular boss. The thought had seriously crossed my mind to leave the company.

As I had found through my research with employee retention, most people choose to leave their manager rather than leaving the company. My wife was right. I needed to hang in there and things would change. Things did happen quickly. My hated boss was 'double' promoted into a different position. I didn't even think it was possible, but it happened. I could not have been happier for myself and for the fact that the person moved on. The new person who came in gave me a clean slate. He listened to my ideas and gave me opportunities to drive the business and grow.

We all know that promotions in companies do not always come quickly or easily. The message is not to sit around and wait for something to happen. Opportunities are few and far between before someone is tapped on the shoulder. The message of "wait three months" is also a call to action to build the relationship, even if it is damaged. Some of my most constructive conversations have come when I have directly said to someone, "I think we got off to a rough beginning. Do you mind if we start over," or "I think there is some misunderstanding between us." By making the first move in reaching out to smooth over a rough relationship, I have found that many people are receptive to at least listening. Many times, we had a good laugh together over the original situation as time went on.

The "three month" concept is a good reminder that time is always ticking forward and can work in your favor. Businesses are always changing and this concept shows that you can be part of the change. By exhibiting patience with a level head, and taking action to strengthen bonds and relationships, you will move forward to success in your overall career beyond those three months.

10. Stand Up for What's Right

Similar to communicating assertively, you have the right to show your character and integrity. There are times where you can't—and should not—accept what is going on around you. You may not always get your way, but you will know in your heart and your head that you did the right thing. If you are anything like me, you have the pull of guilt during situations in which you've said to yourself, "I should have done that differently."

One of those guilty moments that I have carried with me for years is a performance appraisal conversation I had with one of my employees. She always had been bright and creative, and exhibited great people skills in my eyes. She was likeable, but was often seen as too soft and lacking the ability to drive performance. Many of her past managers carried this perception and managed her by providing feedback to be more direct and have more forceful conversations with her subordinates.

After some of my own observations, and a significant amount of time together using open-ended questions to bring out her strengths and opportunities, we both came to a mutual agreement that there wasn't a need to drive people harder. What she needed to do was understand the reporting and analytics of the business better in order to better target performance discussions with her people. This "aha" breakthrough moment was important to building our relationship as manager and employer. We both felt good over the outcome of our intense conversations and started to see improvement.

At performance review time, my scores for her were lowered by upper management. One senior leader had clung to the older perception that she needed to have more forceful conversations to drive performance. I "tried" to persuade the senior manager to increase the scores back to where they had been. Looking back on my argument, it was more emotion based and lacked enough substance to make a difference.

The conversation to pass on the lowered score to my employee was extremely difficult, to say the least. The reason for the difficulty was my problem. First, I had not properly prepared her for the discussion, because we both felt like we were on the same page with our assessment of her performance. Second, I was telling someone else's story. I tried to communicate the corporate direction, but did not believe it myself; and she knew it. I did not want to come right out and say to her, I scored you higher and I disagree with my manager. The conversation was a mess. As I have pondered this conversation in my head many times over the years, I've realized that I had facts and figures to show her team's improvement. Not only did I have her team's results, I had action plans that she and I were working on that clearly identified her specific opportunity. My argument to increase her scores was glossed over with too much generalization and did not give me the facts to clearly make my points.

She was obviously upset. I found out later that she seriously considered leaving the company. Who could blame her? Do you want to work for a company that does not judge you on your true merits? During the conversation, she maintained more maturity and composure than I would have expected of anyone in that circumstance.

Although she constantly reminds me years later of that conversation, it is more jovial because she has seen my genuine learning and belief that she was better than she was scored. I learned to manage others differently based on that conversation, and I saw in her a confidence that she could prove people, like the senior leader, wrong. It showed me her strength—a strength I needed personally. Our personal relationship grew over the years and we became close. We have bounced ideas off of each other and became informal mentors as our professional paths grew apart.

She took the high road. I now make sure that I do as well. I have a card she sent to me a couple of years later. It appeared out of the blue. It was a simple hello card. She wrote in it that she wanted to thank me for taking the time to teach her about leadership, integrity, and attitude. She mentioned in the note that she appreciated the encouragement and challenge to grow. She even added, "For kicking me when I needed it." I wish I had beaten her to the punch. I should have thanked her for her leadership in a time when she was a subordinate, for her integrity when she knew I was having conflicting thoughts, and for her positive attitude during a trying time. She "kick" started me into understanding how to act in a tough corporate environment. When there are times I feel the pull to go back to old habits, I just turn around and re-read the card. I have done this dozens of times to put myself back on track.

In an interesting twist, the senior manager who did not believe in her at the time brought her back to his line of business several years later. He clearly saw her leadership abilities by then. He showed his ability to be open to admitting he was wrong so many years before, and he needed someone who showed heart and character. She had always been willing to learn and adapt. He finally saw that and was able to utilize her maturity to assist in leading other less experienced managers.

Previous chapters:

• Part I-Vision and Mission, Introduction-The Roots of My Transformation

• Part II-The Transformation, Chapter 1-Get a Mentor

• Part II-The Transformation, Chapter 2 - Be a Mentor, and Learn Something Yourself

• Part II, Chapters 3 and 4 - Gain trust and respect; write down your accomplishments

• Part II, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 - Stop and smell the roses; send a note to say thank-you; learn to communicate assertively