Mindset

It's the age old question; is the glass half empty or half full? The answer to which may give you some insight into how you see the world. It sounds too simple. Like it's a trick. There has to be something more to it. The implications are too great for it to be as simple as looking at something differently. But what if it is that simple? What if you could change the course of your business, your life, simply by looking at things differently?

One of the things I love about sales and business ownership (especially this business) is that I get to meet so many different people. I love asking questions and learning from them because everyone knows something I don't. I always love to ask how they came to be where they are? What was the path like? And pretty consistently I get answers that I wouldn't consider to be earth shattering. It's a series of decisions. Choosing to grow. Choosing to partner with someone. Choosing to leave an unfruitful partnership. A setback here and a failure there but a choice following it to learn from it, do better, and succeed in spite of that. It's a mindset. They think big. they are constantly working on improving and they surround themselves with people that do the same.

Think about it, it takes the same amount of effort to call Jimmy the pizza shop owner as it does to call Bill Gates, right? It's a phone call. Same number of digits to dial, same amount of time, etc... So why don't you call Bill Gates? It's because we've got head-trash. We're not good enough. We don't have the right offering. My pitch isn't ready. His admin will never let me through to him. Blah blah blah. Aren't we just making excuses? I mean, sometimes we don't even know that we are, but we are. 

I have an aunt that started out in sales with IBM right out of college. She knew exactly who she wanted to sell to and she wasn't wasting any time with anyone that didn't fit her profile or didn't have the budget for what she was selling. Check out this video about her in the IBM interview. She was ultimately way more successful than any of her peers because of her mindset. She was focused and didn't care if people told her no. 

The only thing standing in your way is YOU!

I spend a lot of time thinking about this subject as I work through my own head-trash. I am constantly reminded though as I look around, that the people out there making it happen, doing amazing things, the people that I look up to; they are no different from me or you. They wake up and put their pants on one leg at a time. They struggle with the same things. They encounter obstacles and suffer defeats. The difference is they think bigger. They dare to do great things.

A quick story: Two Shoe Salesmen in Africa

A shoe company is considering expanding into the African market so they send two salesmen on a trip to assess the demand. One shoe salesman goes to west Africa and one goes to east Africa. They spend some time there and compile a report to present to their superiors. The salesman that went to west Africa concludes in his report: "No one here wears shoes. There is no market for us here." The salesman that went to east Africa concludes in his report: "No one here wears any shoes. The market is completely untapped and we must go at once!"

I want to leave you with this quote as it's one of my favorites: 

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." ~ Theodore Roosevelt ~