Adversity is Inevitable - Brad Howard (President, Trend Nation)

Brad Howard keeps busy. In addition to being a husband, a father, and one of my classmates in MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program, he is a serial entrepreneur, having been involved in over a dozen successful start-ups. In his capacity as founder and President of Trend Nation LLC, an incubator specializing in e-commerce, marketing, and logistics, he has garnered recognition for both his leadership and his company. One of the keys to Brad’s success can be found in his Paper Napkin Wisdom: “It’s not what happens that matters. It’s how you deal with what happens that matters in life.” He believes that, too often, people focus on what has happened to them. They get inside their heads, get heated, and blow things out of proportion. But it is Brad’s experience that those who can look past adversity, put things in perspective, and move forward will see better outcomes. Often times, in fact, he finds that horrible situations can yield some unexpected gold nuggets. This is a philosophy that rings true in Brad’s personal life, as well as his professional life, but that has not always been the case. When Brad was young, his father fell ill and he went into a “Why is the world against me?” mindset. However, as time went on and he observed the way others handled adversity, he began to see that the outcomes to situations were shaped by people’s reactions. By the time he was in college, he was applying his Paper Napkin Wisdom to his life and seeing positive results. Brad tells the story of how one such application led to unexpected gold nuggets. Three years in, Trend Nation was a half-a-million dollar company that had just moved from Ohio to Nevada. Yet, within six months of the move, they were hit with a lawsuit that left them teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Though Brad couldn’t strike a deal with the patent owner who had filed the lawsuit, he took a strategic step back, assessed the situation, and reorganized. Dropping a product from a two-product company meant a reduction of half the company’s revenue overnight but that is exactly what he did. The loss made him realize that his company needed to focus on their customer demographic and expand their product line. Today, Trend Nation LLC sees over twenty million dollars in annual revenue and has been on the Inc 500 two years straight. “That single transition was the worst and the best experience that we’ve ever had in business,” says Brad. Nevertheless, even Brad is sometimes struck with doubt, which is why he has developed tactics to keep things in perspective. He and his team rank crises on a 1-to-10 scale, with 1 representing water boiling over onto the stove and 10 being the death of a loved one. By doing this, he finds people often realize that problems are more manageable than they might initially seem. Furthermore, he tells his team to prepare for adversity – it is inevitable. That way, when a problem comes along, his team is not caught off guard and is ready to internalize it, think about it, and devise a strategy that will yield the best outcome. Like Erin Weed and Brian Brault, Brad believes that being open about vulnerability creates a bond with his team and makes them feel like they have a stake in the company. Listen to the conversation with Brad here: