Many graduate…few educate

Well the season is upon us. The cards are coming in the mail and the envelopes are slid underneath your keyboard the minute you step out of your office for coffee. Some of the kids you watched grow while others you barely even know are graduating high school or college.  A few know where they’re heading but most don’t… & 10, 15, 20 years later many still are trying to figure it out.  They don’t know, hell we didn’t either, because we graduated, but were never educated. Graduation is a way of passing, but Education is a way of Life. We graduated by memorization… we kissed up a little, pulled some all nighters, & wrote 7 paragraphs of answers on sliver of paper…we memorized which blanks to fill in, boxes to check, & chapters to read, but damn, nobody taught us about Life…

Education isn’t about what school you got into…clubs you were sworn into, or team you ended up on- that’s just resume material…that’s the shit they write about in your eulogy…

I’m talking about education…

The word educate comes from the Latin word Educo which means to draw out or develop from within. It’s got nothing to do with what’s out there… it’s what’s developed and drawn out from right in here… from within and you, my friend, are in charge of your own education… not Sally Mae, not Stafford… not Mom and Dad…not Grandma’s trust fund…it’s all on Y-O-U.  It’s free to obtain and priceless once achieved. 

Education isn’t about what’s on your business card or title you hold…that shit comes and goes-one minute you’re in and the next minute you’re bounced out.

Now you’d think education is all about memorizing and if that really is the case, then we’ve got that down to a science. Oh how we’ve mastered the art of memorizing. We took memorizing from Mr. Green &  Coach Lewis’s classes and we still memorize to this day. We’re quick memorize all of the mishaps, mistakes, upset, fights, rejections, embarrassing moments, hurtful words, and disparaging actions. We lock in and endlessly play back all of the bullshit moments in our lives decades after holding up that diploma. It’s not about what you’ve done without, it’s what you’ve developed within. There’s too much free and available  to you to just sit there and rote memorization.

You’ve got to take the spice that Life has handed you & make your own secret sauce…Life’s given you ingredients now you make your own recipe. It’s taking what’s been done to what you must do and the first thing you must do is get your ass out there & stop playing so damn limited.  Where you are in not who you are…it’s just a point on Life’s map. Utilize all of the resources available to you and push forward…get a library card. listen to podcasts, start with TED Talks on YouTube…and ask. Ask people who are where you want to be. I ask all of the time… I ask my customers the how’s, why’s, what’s of their lives. And I never feel like I’m prying-you’re not. People devote most of their lives to a certain field so why would they be bothered about sharing what they do and why they do it. Bring the gas of questions to their spark of knowledge and watch that shit blow up.

So congratulate those who are graduating, but mentor others and yourself to forever be educating…developing & drawing out the vastness from within. Graduating has a shelf life…education is your Life. 

Catch The Sales Life w Marsh Buice podcast…making an impact in less than 10 minutes each day. You can find it on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.

Opportunity in Bad

Most of us would not think of Bad being a good thing…

What the hell’s joyous about losing the one you’ve loved…where in the hell is the silver lining when the company brings you in…the same company that needed you to bail them out of a jam on weekends, holidays-once you even cut your vacation short. When they needed you most, you were always there…today they brought you in to tell you that they’re taking the company in a different direction and you’re not setting sail with them...”But thank you for everything.”

How hard is it to say Bless my soul when you lose your lease…or you only have only one month to pack up and get out of your home that you’ve amassed 2 decades worth of memories…now you have to downsize and feign the look of a fresh new start to the nosy ass neighbors pretending to be working in their yard. Sure they’re doing just fine-you’re the one who’s dying inside.

…the business that you started-first as a side hustle, then you took out a 2nd mortgage, telling your wife that everything’s going to be juuust fine because the contract you signed is huge and all of your struggles will have been worth it….after countless assurances of full speed ahead, the deal falls through and sinks to the bottom of despair. You’re deeply invested-at this point you aint worried about a return, you’re not sure if you can even survive.

We’ve all got a thumbprint on pain. We’re scarred with unfairness and share the commonality of being down and low….but no matter what “it” is…no matter how low, dark, or walled off it may seem…there’s opportunity in bad.

But first you have to look for it…

Mike Massimino, the astronaut tagged by NASA to repair the Hubble telescope-a billion dollar machine that detects other life and environments in outer space-if he doesn’t fix this part, billions of dollars could be lost forever because there is no backup Hubble…it’s one and done and now its future rests solely on his shoulders. Once in outer space, the only thing standing in the way of the repairs was a handle held in place by 4 innocent screws. The first, second, and third screws were removed as planned, but the fourth one was giving Massimino a little trouble, but with a liiiittle extra effort he thought he could….

…he stripped the final bolt.

With billions of dollars at stake…with millions more spent to send a crew to outer space, the screw was stripped…no Home Depot to run to & the supply of both oxygen and options was limited. At first Massimino did what any of us would’ve done…he beat himself up. It took you 4 tries to be an astronaut! You should’ve never made it this far! You shouldn’t have put so much force on that final screw! A mixture of negative emotions pushed to the front of his mind, but he gained his composure saying to himself, “As bad as things are, you can always make it worse.” He settled in…explored his options and fixed the almighty Hubble.

So you’re in a bad situation…remember worse has options and one of your options is opportunity. Find the opportunity in the bad. Massimino’s mantra has always been, “There’s impossible and then there’s improbable…& if it’s not all zeros…even if there’s a .0000001% chance-if there’s a 1 in there, you’re still in the fight.”

Bad can be good because it causes a shakeup..an awakening…sometimes bad cauterizes the shit that’s been lingering on for far too long in your life and now that it’s officially over, it’s time to pivot…push off & make good from the bad.

Opportunity is not found by lamenting in anguish about all of the injustice, unfairness, Why is this always happening to me! kinds of pleas…

The opportunity is found in looking for a crack, a sliver, a speck of light and building-digging you fingers in and clawing out from there.

How you got here has already happened…where you go from here is yet to be determined...you just have to find the opportunities and often they’re found in the bad.

Catch The Sales Life w Marsh Buice podcast- making an impact in less than 10 minutes each day. Find it on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.

Don’t worry about “Z” just get to “B”

When it comes to our own lives, we pay attention to only 2 letters of the alphabet…we start at A and worry about Z and we totally alienate the other 24 letters of our lives. We want to know how it’ll all pan out before we even move-it’s like we stand at A and have to know the answers to Z. We do it in all areas of our Life-we need to know if this relationship is the one…we need to know that this is a career that we can retire from…we fret in finances, spirituality, health, our day, month, year…hell our whole Life. We have to, have to, have to know how everything plays out first and if we don’t know if “it’s” going to be ok, we’ll catastrophize that too-we just blow shit out of proportion…and we haven’t even moved…we’re still standing on A.

Life’s job is A-Z, but my job is only to get to B & once I get to B get to C, D…G…T; I just have to get to the next step in my Life and once I get there, focus on the next one…that’s all that Life asks of me-to maximize each letter of my Life.

It’s human nature to want to insure our next step with certainty-to know that something’s worth taking on, holding onto, or letting go, but sometimes the answers will not be clear until you take a series of steps. Life’s not revealed, it’s unfolded…we want our answers to be behind Door #3, but instead Life nudges us to just head in that direction and along the way, she’ll whisper what to do. 

Will the next step be clear..will it be certain…will it be a win…will it be what I wished for? No..no it won’t always be. That’s why there’s more than one step…that’s why there’s C,D,E, & F’s in our lives, because along the way, we’ll hit walls..we’ll get blown back..we’ll stumble and fall. Moments that hurt..moments that seem unfair..but they’re moments of transition just the same. And when you hit moments such as divorce, demotion, death, bankruptcy, sickness, and abandonment…as much as they hurt, don’t capitalize them. Don’t give them prominence in your Life-don’t capitalize the A’s B’s, D’s, S’s; don’t let these moments be the reason why you gave up..threw up your hands and sat down. As shitty and fucked up as these moments are, they are still moments of transition that today have no reason but years from now bear deep meaning…moments that have no answer until you take the next steps. It’s hard…I know it is, but there’s healing beginning at the doorstep of next. 

…and resist saying the words, If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve NEVER…..Because you had to go through that now to discover your never…what you’ll never tolerate or put up with again…that you’ll never again not speak up instead of staying silent..that you’ll never be talked to, treated, or abused again…

Now is necessary for Never. 

So has your journey continues today, don’t worry about Z…just get to B…then C…focus on taking just one more step.

And don’t worry… Z will be waiting for you…after whY. 

Don’t miss an episode of  The Sales Life w Marsh Buice Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.