Like 230 million other parents who didn’t feel like cooking tonight, I decided to grab my kids something to eat from McDonald’s. When I drove around to the speaker, I noticed the guy taking my order stuttered and immediately my heart bled for him because I used to stutter too. I stuttered so bad that my sister used to have to interpret what I’d just said, so hearing the guy brought me back to the anxiety I used to feel when having to speak…and here was a guy with the same issue I had, working the most treacherous ground one with his condition could work. The drive thru. Initially I was annoyed, “Out of alll the people who work there, why would the manager put that guy in that kind of position?” When I got around to the window to pay, the young man had to partially read my order back to me; obviously it took more of an effort on his part to focus on getting the words out. As I handed him my credit card, I admitted to him that I used to stutter and understood the challenge of having to speak-especially under pressure. When I asked him why the manager had him work the drive thru he said,“He didn’t put me in the drive thru, I asked to be put here because I figured the only way I was ever going to get better is to force myself to do the very thing that I feared most so why not have to do if for 8 hours a day.”
Can you imagine having to work 8 hours not only dealing with the timed pressure of getting a customer through the line, but also having to try to speak quickly, change an order, deal with rude customers who ridicule you, and slide on to the next order while trying not to let the previous jerk get to you? If you’ve never stuttered before, you have no idea how hard it is to deliver on something that comes easy for so many others.
“He didn’t put me in the drive thru, I asked to be put here…” That’s a true G in my book.
How many times every single day do you pick the path of least resistance-to take the easy road instead of the long, arduous one? That young man didn’t have to work the drive thru…he chose to. He clocks in and says put me in the toughest possible position for 8 hours because the only way out….is through!
Hard is a choice…and that’s on you. Do you have to work with customers today? Do you have to call them back? Do you have to offer one more angle..one more thought…try one more approach when they’ve told you no, no, no, a dozen times…yet you persistently try again?
Do you have to…nope…you choose to.
What do you choose today? What’s your Achilles heal? What do you suck at today…and what do you choose to do about it?
It’s on you….
You don’t strike oil in 3 feet of ground…you gotta dig deep…hit the bedrock of resistance, yet keep on pushing. When your mind tells you, “Wait!” When your experience tells you, “I’ve tried that before and it didn’t work!” When your ego tries preserve what little self confidence you have left by pulling you back so as to not get stung with another No….
Before you have a chance to even think about it….do it. Do the hard thing. Put yourself in the hard position..stutter…stammer…turn red…break out in a cold sweat & hives…feel like you’re about to pass out…do whatever, but know this..
You won’t die…and on the other side, you’ll find out that your career will continue to live long and strong because you chose hard over easy.
Thank you…
You’re w-w-welcome.
The Sales Life with Marsh Buice 