Nail it out until the bitter f!@#$ing end.

When I first started selling, or really any activity which pushed my comfort zone and identity to their limits, I held onto something I learned quickly about human psychology. Your DNA, unconscious, self-perception.. whatever you want to label it.. does not want you to change. Your mind has been designed to find every excuse to give up and retreat unless you make the commitment to keep going, no matter what.

Some key ideas in selling and life I have learned over the years, which makes being tenacious much easier:

1. Have a process-orientation, do not focus on the end result.

I try to find joy in whatever I am trying to get better at, ice skating, exercise, public speaking and selling. I view them as an end of themselves, not caring too much about the result at the end of the day. This is a paradox, because of course I want competency, but you more you focus on doing things right instead of the process, I find the worst you perform.

When I was developing my skills as a salesperson, initially I focused on getting the sale or not, getting the order back or not. And most would concievably agree that this is where your focus should be, and I agree.. to an extent. Sales managers give new hires a 2 week period to prove themselves, they can either sell or they can't is the reasoning, and from a business perspective I can understand this. But instead of focusing on developing a good process for success the reps focus on the end. Sometimes it's just a fluke they got the order, only to be fired a month later for non-performance. I would see this over and over again.

My view is that as long as I am getting a little bit better every day, I am doing perfectly. Results or not. Is this delusional? Probably. But having deliberate blind spots to reality can be helpful.


2. Every attempt is a 10/10

I never brow beat myself or blame myself. Again, this is a paradox.. because I actually am monitoring myself and adjusting as I go.. but I look for evidence for why I am doing amazing at the same time. I made a mistake? Who else could get as far as that? Only me. It sounds narcissistic and delusional, but the truth is that reality itself is subjective. You can have the reality that you are a loser, reinforced by real-life experiences.. or choose to reframe those same experiences to feed into an incredible, invincible self-image and world view. It's up to you. Whatever expeirence you have in life be it negative or positive can always feed into a positive, empowering perspective on reality. And reality tends to have a tendency to bend to how you look at things, from the inside out.

I will post more in a bit.