Power of Choice

The Power of Choice: How Business Leaders Turn Adversity Into Advantage

Every business owner faces a moment when everything seems to be working against them. A deal falls apart. A key employee walks out the door. A market shifts overnight and the plan you built your quarter around suddenly feels obsolete. In those moments, it’s tempting to believe that your circumstances are in control of you. However, the truth is far more empowering than that. The power of choice is always in your hands, no matter what is happening around you.

As a keynote speaker who has spent decades studying the connection between mindset, humor, and peak performance, I can tell you something. The most successful leaders I’ve worked with aren’t the ones who avoid adversity. Instead, they’re the ones who’ve mastered the power of choice in how they respond to it. This distinction changes everything, and it’s the foundation of everything I teach on stages across the country.

Why the Power of Choice Matters More Than Talent

It’s easy to assume that success in business comes down to talent, timing, or resources. Consequently, many professionals spend their careers chasing credentials and connections. At the same time, they overlook the one factor that actually determines whether they thrive under pressure: their mindset. Talent and ability matter, but they are not the only factors that determine a successful and happy career.

Think about it this way. Every situation you face at work is, at its core, a choice. You choose how to react to a missed deadline, or how a difficult client conversation will affect your mood for the rest of the day. You choose whether a setback becomes a story of defeat or a turning point in your growth. In other words, the choices you make determine how you experience your business and your life. This is regardless of the situation itself.

When you tell yourself that you have a choice in how you deal with a problem or even a full-blown crisis, you send a powerful message to your own brain. You are in control of the situation, rather than the situation controlling you. That shift alone is often the difference between a leader who folds under pressure and one who leads their team through it.

Viktor Frankl and the Space Between Stimulus and Response

To understand just how powerful this principle is, consider one of the most extraordinary examples in human history. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, endured unimaginable suffering as a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War II. Despite conditions that stripped away nearly every form of freedom a person could have, Frankl discovered something the guards could never take from him.

As he wrote in his landmark book, Man’s Search for Meaning, everything can be taken from a person except one final freedom: the ability to choose one’s attitude in any set of circumstances. Frankl also observed that between stimulus and response there is a space, and within that space lies our power to choose. That space, he believed, is where freedom truly lives.

Frankl and a fellow prisoner made a daily practice of imagining and sharing amusing stories about life after liberation. This small act of storytelling grew into an informal cabaret that other prisoners joined, complete with songs, jokes, and satire. Remarkably, prisoners attended even when exhausted and hungry.Why? Because the practice gave them something food alone could not provide: a few moments of relief from their reality.

If a Holocaust survivor could find that space between stimulus and response in a concentration camp, then surely business owners can find it in a boardroom, a budget meeting, or a difficult negotiation. This is exactly why the power of choice deserves a permanent place in every leader’s toolkit, not just as a nice idea, but as a daily practice.

Meet the HUMOR BEING: A Story of Resilience Every Leader Needs to Hear

Nothing illustrates the power of choice better than the story of my brother, Michael John Rizzo. Michael was 100% disabled as a result of the Vietnam War. He lost twenty-one feet of his small intestine on the battlefield and in surgery, along with damage to his large intestine, kidneys, and other internal organs. According to medical experts, he is the only known person in medical history to survive that kind of wound. In fact, he didn’t just survive. He thrived.

I’ll never forget walking into his hospital room and barely recognizing him. He had gone from 168 pounds of muscle to 97 pounds of skin and bone. A doctor told our parents it would take a miracle for Michael to survive at all. Yet, as that grim prognosis was being delivered, Michael’s hand slowly rose from his side, his fist clenched, and his middle finger popped straight up. That gesture, which we now affectionately call “the finger of optimism,” was a declaration to the entire world from his HUMOR BEING that he was not giving up.

That defiant flash of humor became Michael’s signature response to every doctor who told him what he could or couldn’t do. When specialists insisted he follow a restrictive lifelong diet, he told them he’d be eating pasta and meatballs, even if he had to sit on the toilet while doing it. When a doctor scolded him for eating a sandwich, Michael calmly replied that the difference between the two of them was that the doctor kept focusing on the twenty-one feet of intestine he’d lost, while Michael kept focusing on the one foot he still had. Then he asked what was for dessert.

What Business Leaders Can Learn From Michael’s Mindset

Michael’s story isn’t just inspiring; it’s instructive. As a result of his relentless choice to shift his focus, Michael went from being told he might not survive to earning college degrees in History, Education, and Administration. He became a history teacher. Then an attendance officer. Assistant Principal. Principal. Eventually, he became Assistant Superintendent of an entire school district. Along the way, he traveled the world, went white water rafting every year, and lived a life that no one in that hospital room could have predicted for him.

So, what set Michael apart? First, he never blamed the war, the Marine Corps, or his circumstances. Instead, he trained himself to shift his focus toward what needed to be done next. Second, he refused to postpone his happiness until “someday,” when his recovery was complete. Rather than waiting for better circumstances to justify joy, he found ways to laugh and connect with others throughout the rebuilding process itself. Finally, he surrounded himself with people who reinforced optimism rather than doubt.

This is precisely the mindset that separates thriving businesses from struggling ones. Leaders who wait for perfect market conditions, ideal staffing, or a stress-free quarter before they allow themselves to feel confident are, in effect, putting their success on hold indefinitely. On the other hand, leaders who choose their attitude first and let their circumstances catch up tend to build the kind of resilient culture that survives downturns, disruption, and everything in between.

Practical Ways to Exercise the Power of Choice at Work

Understanding the power of choice is one thing. Putting it into practice inside a business is another. Here are a few ways to start applying it immediately.

Pause before you react. Frankl described the space between stimulus and response. You can build a habit of pausing before responding as well. Whether it’s bad news, difficult emails, or tense conversations. That pause is where your power of choice actually lives.

Speak empowering words, even under pressure. The language you use with your team, and with yourself, shapes the culture of your entire organization. Choosing positive, solution-focused language during a crisis sends a message that the situation is manageable rather than catastrophic.

Don’t wait to celebrate small wins. Michael found victory in getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom unassisted. In business, that might look like celebrating a single new client, a resolved complaint, or a small process improvement. Each small win builds the foundation for larger ones.

Protect your HUMOR BEING. Every one of us has a HUMOR BEING within us, whether we’ve learned to access it or not. Making a conscious choice to find laughter is not a distraction from the work. Yes, even during the toughest stretches of running a business. It’s a strategy for sustaining the energy and creativity that great work requires.

Choose your circle carefully. Michael surrounded himself with people who reinforced his optimism. Likewise, business owners should evaluate whether the people closest to them, whether team members, partners, or mentors, are helping them exercise the power of choice or reinforcing a sense of helplessness.

The Choice Is Always Yours

Ultimately, your business will not be defined by whether challenges show up. They always will. Instead, it will be defined by how consistently you exercise the power of choice when they do. You can choose to believe you are at the mercy of circumstance. Or, you can choose to believe that you always control how you think about it and how you respond.

Michael Rizzo passed away on December 15th, 2022, but not before he and I shared one final laugh together. As I held his hand and asked how he was doing, he looked at me and said, “Well Steve, I’m dying… how are you doing?” Without missing a beat, I replied that I was apparently doing a lot better than he was, and we both laughed harder than I can describe. That moment captured everything he had taught our family for fifty years: that even in life’s final moments, the power of choice, and the HUMOR BEING within us, never has to leave the room.

If you’re a business owner or professional facing your own version of a difficult season, remember this: the choice is yours, and it always has been. It’s up to you to create a belief system that allows you to see your business from a position of advantage rather than disadvantage. The power of choice is the one competitive edge that no market condition, competitor, or crisis can ever take from you.

Bring This Message to Your Team

As a keynote speaker, bestselling author, and Hall of Fame member of the National Speakers Association, I’ve spent my career helping organizations unlock exactly this kind of resilience, humor, and mindset shift in their teams. If your company is navigating change, growth, or adversity and could use a jolt of energy, laughter, and practical strategy, I’d love to bring this message to your next event. You can learn more about my keynotes and programs at steverizzo.com.

Because at the end of the day, it’s always a matter of choice.

Steve Rizzo is a Hall of Fame motivational keynote speaker, former national headline comedian, and author of the bestselling books “Get Your Shift Together” and “Motivate This!” He helps business professionals and organizations shift their mindset from failure to success through the power of humor, practical strategies, and unstoppable attitude. Learn more at steverizzo.com.