Square the Circle…don’t Circle the Square

When I’m pressed for time, I’ll run a quick 2 miles around the road that circles my house. (4 laps = 1 mile)

Because I had to force myself to hit the road, I try to hurry & get it over with by cutting the corners instead of fully rounding them off.

At the time, it seems like I’m getting around the circle quicker, but after eight laps, mentally I’m trying to pull up, but my watch tells me to keep running…

It’s not yet 2 miles…

Come to find out, because I cut the corners, I end up having to take needless, extra steps.

An extra 100 ft doesn’t seem like much, but if I add that extra 100 ft up over the next 52 runs, I end up adding a mile’s worth of steps for the same “2 mile” run.

Sound familiar?

You’re tired…sore…frustrated…& the month’s been grueling…

Nothing seems to be going your way…

So you cut the corners…

In an effort to “save time,” you rush through customers, quickly assessing if they’re buying or not…

You take extra days off to rest from last week’s leg day at the gym…

You jump from one relationship into the next proclaiming, “this is the one…”

You “put it all on the card” or renew the loan this month and gamble on figuring out how to make the payments next month(s)…

You cut the corners…because it seems like it’s the quickest way to make your lap that day…

Hurry & get it over with seems logical…

But it’s costly…

Because this is a long race you’re running & you’re needlessly adding extra steps to achieve a decision…outcome…or goal.

Run the full mile you’re in…

Today, I know you don’t feel like it…I know it’s been rough…I know the extra weight of frustration, fatigue, & anger make your run slower & harder…

But take the steps now…

All of them…

Because you’ll take fewer in the long run.

When I’m on that hard ass, “don’t feel like it” run & feel like cutting the corners…

When the voices are banging in my head- screaming that no one will know that I’m cutting the corners…

I tell myself, “Square the circle…don’t circle the square.”

See, the road around my house is a circle, but the parameters are a square, so if I stay on that parameter, eight laps is two miles…

But if I circle the square & cut the corners, that same two miles ends up costing me extra steps..wasted energy & time.

Square the circle today….

When you cry to yourself, “ I don’t feel like doing this-I’m just going to round this thing off!!!”

Don’t, because it may feel like it’s quicker now, but remember your life isn’t a lap…it’s many, many miles…

Today’s lap may be hard…but in the end the steps will be efficiently fewer…& it’ll all be worth it.

Have an amazing day…

~Stay in The Sales 💪ife.

Be unmeasurable

You know, you can measure a man up pretty quickly if you know the point where he’ll quit…

where when it gets hard, he quits & turns back.

But what about the man who just keeps showing back up? Who keeps driving? Who keeps pulling himself back up?

🔥How do you measure the “unmeasurable?”

You know, if you think about it, when someone says, “I didn’t know you had it in you!” That’s because when you walked into the hard…when you walked into the heaviness…

they tried to measure you up…

They pulled out the tape and they thought to themselves, “THIS is the point where he’s going to quit…give up & turn back.”

And when you kept going…

…and made something out of nothing

🔥that’s the point where you became unmeasurable

Be unmeasurable every day…

Where you’re willing to keep coming back,

go another round,

& lay another brick.

Where you’re willing to hang in there another minute, another hour, another damn day.

To push beyond yesterday’s “far.”

To stretch beyond yesterday’s “hard.”

To make yesterday’s “finish line” today’s starting line.

Unbothered of the obstacles…

Unmindful of how close or how far away you are from the goal…

Just unmeasurable…

~Stay in The Sales Life 💪

What’s your percentages?

Grant Cardone said that in order for him to change his life, he had to stop listening to the other percentages.

Half of him wanted to change his life…but the other half kept dragging him down.

The other 1/2 being his mom & his past.

Sometimes the halves become the whole’s of our life.

And it’s not like his mom hoped he’d amount to nothing in life…

She was just repeating & passing down a pattern that’d been passed down to her.

A pattern of negativity…

of regret…

& of resentment.

But it wasn’t all her…

Some of his percentages were attributed to his early addictions of drugs & alcohol too.

Grant admitted he wouldn’t be where he is today had he not tuned out the other 50%.

So what’s your percentages?

40%?

50%?

60…>70%?

Whatever your percentages, it’s probably one, 2, or all of the 3 P’s:

Your Past…

Your Present (circumstances…)

&/or People.

& some of those people being your “family,” “friends,” (huge air quotes), and society.

And they’re quick to give you perfect advice.

They’re quick to bestow how it should be done (yet did not do.)

Your percentage is affecting your perspective.

So if your perspective is all jacked up, so too will your outcome.

Your future is weighted by your percentages.

So what’s yours?

How are you allocating your percentages?

Sometimes you have to treat the 3 P’s like your car radio…

Tune them out by hitting the mute button & keep it moving.

Have an amazing day.

Stay in The Sales Life.

_____________

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I’m not coming…

Evan Carmichael is somebody I watch on YouTube and I like him because his videos are short bursts that make you think.

He said when he goes on tour, people often ask him when he’s coming to their city?

He answers, “I’m not…I’m not coming to your city….”

See, that’s what we want in life…

We want the unicorns…

We want the rainbows…

We want the pot of gold…

We want good fortune to come to us & life says, “I’m not coming…If you want to see a difference in your life bad enough, then you’ve got to go to me because I’m not coming to you.”

In Life you can either settle or see.

If you settle, then you get the scraps- so don’t bitch about it.

But if you really want to see it…

& you’re willing to run, sprint, climb, crawl, limp- put your teeth back in, get back up and keep showing up….

It ain’t easy.

Sometimes it’s not even fair.

But if you’re willing to go to it, you’ll one day see it.

Have an amazing day.

Stay in The Sales Life.

——————–

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Hope is not a strategy…but it is an ingredient

I’ve often said that hope is not a strategy…

But it is a key ingredient.

Rebecca Solnit writes,

“To have hope is to embrace the unknown with the unknowable…you must acknowledge that you don’t know everything & you don’t know what’s going to happen. And that’s the only way to keep going. To be open to the possibility and allow yourself to be changed.”

Think about the times when the only thing that got you through was hope…

When you had no money & no credit…

When you had no friends to lean on or no family to turn to…

& there were no nets to catch you when you were falling…

It was just you and hope and somehow you made it…

Or better yet…

hope made you…

Stronger…

More fierce…

More determined…

More resilient…

Grittier…

Was hope the only thing you needed?

No…

Because you still had to do the work…

You still had to get back up…

You still had to feel the stings of the world judging you…

The embarrassment & the shame…

But hope is the ingredient that got you through.

You can you can have chocolate chips, milk, & eggs, but if you have no flour you have no cookie.

The flour pulls all of the ingredients together…

That’s what makes it all rise…

That’s what hope is to you…

The key ingredient…

To embrace the unknown with the unknowable….

I know you have no clue how this is going to end up…

I know, you have no clue how this is all going to turn out…

You don’t even know what the fuck you’re doing right now…

I get it…

“Is it working for me or against me,” you ask.

Will it even work?!

Will I even survive?

Will I even come through this?

I don’t know…

All you have right now is hope.

You to have hope…

& acknowledge that you don’t know everything…

You thought you were ready…

You thought you were hard enough to say, “Bring it on!”

No, no…

The only thing you know right now is that you don’t know.

Yet you go anyway…

You embrace the unknown with the unknowable, remember?

So you don’t know if you can…

You don’t know if you can stand up in the murky waters of doubt…

You can’t even see the bottom, yet you jump anyway.

How long will I have to tread?

How far is it to the other side?

I don’t know…

Hope is the only way to keep going.

Hope is what keeps you open to the possibilities…

But it’s the unknown that makes people sit…

It’s the unknown that makes people turn back…

Those are the people who fearfully use hope as a strategy instead of an ingredient.

When you have hope as an ingredient, you leap and figure more along the way.

You surrender to what is…

“I can handle it..”

No matter what…

“I can handle it.”

Hope is an ingredient in your strategy, but it is not the strategy.

Your strategy is to be a beast…

You may be beaten…

You may be battered…

You may be wobbling & don’t think you can go another inch because you’re so tired…

Hope is what gets you up…

Hope is what gets you through..

Your strategy is more…

Your strategy is there’s better.

That’s what’s in your mixing bowl.

More…

Better…

Hope is what glues it all together.

Read this or listen to the podcast when you need it most.

Put the Rocky theme song on if you have to.

Push off…

Push up…

Dust off dust off.

No matter what’s happened…

Hope is your ingredient today and the rest of your f’ing life.

Stay in The Sales 💪ife.

~Marsh

I don’t know what I’m doing

We’ve all said those words…

It’s funny that those are the exact same words that massively successful people say too..

They didn’t initially know what they were doing,

…but they knew where they were going.

They were determined to make it work…they were sure to be a success…they were adamant about changing the game.

So they headed in that mental direction & picked up lessons, skills, connections, and ultra success along the way.

---

I don’t know what to do…

I don’t know what to do, is not the same as I don’t know what I’m doing.

What to do…means to quit before you even get started. You’re waiting on Perfect….perfect time & conditions- then you’ll do.

But …what I’m doing…is just taking action. It’s being bold enough to kick along, push forward, & figure it out as you go.

Because nobody fully knows what to do...but few are bold enough to push off & say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll fucking figure it out.”

Don’t get paralyzed in what to do.

You’ll forever be standing there in a heap of regrets.

If you know where you want to go, head in that direction & start doing. Next will be there waiting for you.

Stay in The Sales Life 💪

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Stop if’ing around

Oh you don’t lack for If’s…

…if you had $ for the number of if’s you told yourself, you’d have problems, but money wouldn’t be one of them.

If I was a different race.

If I was taller.

If I was a starter.

If I was a baller.

If I was running a store.

If I was the CEO.

If I could get the loan.

If I could start my business.

If I wouldn’t have married him or had children with her.

Oh we If ourselves to death…

When what you need to do is how yourself to life.

if is all bullshit anyway.

Because you can’t, if you’re self taller.

You can’t if yourself a different skin color.

You can’t if yourself to have wealthy parents, nor be first cousins to Warren Buffett, or be Kim Kardashian’s sister.

When if kicks in, slap it down with a how…

How can I use what I have right now?

Because how is all you’ve got.

You have unique advantages, but you’re so fixated on other people’s advantages that you’re blinded with if’s.

You say, “If I could have what they have, I’d be better off.”

It’s all bullshit.

Just ask yourself how…

How can I use what I’ve got, leverage it, & then grow it.

Start with what you have.

Use it.

And then begin to leverage it.

And if you don’t know how to leverage it…if you don’t know how to position your current advantages…

Then see Step 1…

Just use what you’ve got…

& along the way, you’ll figure out how to position it…then grow it.

Compound it by developing the skills, techniques, and education that you need to grow and evolve.

Educate yourself…be a sponge…ask questions…volunteer for the grunt work…

It doesn’t have to come from a classroom.

People do that…

They stall so they don’t have to take action (& probably fail)…

They rack up the loans thinking they have to sit idly in a classroom & have someone pour information into them.

You don’t need money…you need commitment.

Stop if’ing around & start how’ing.

How can I use what I have, leverage it, and then start growing that shit.

~become your own action figure. Stop waiting for perfect or thinking it’s too late. You got to-day so get started.

Stay in The Sales Life (400+ podcast episodes like this can be found on iTunes or your favorite podcast app)

The dues are in the do

Poker players will tell you the only way to learn poker, is to play poker.

You can read all of the books…& even watch hours and hours of video…

…but you won’t learn the game until you sit at the table and play the game.

That’s the only way you can pay your dues…

…is when you push off and do.

You want to start working out?

Dues are in the do…

Lose weight?

Dues are in the do…

Start a podcast?

Dues are in the do…

Write a book?

Dues are in the do…

Start a business, become a better salesperson, have thriving relationship…

Turn your whole fucking life around?

Dues are in the do…

You gotta pay your dues.

And the only currency that is accepted is in the do.

No more books. No more Somedays, Mondays, starting next month, or January 1rst…

The rent’s due…now.

Pay yourself…

Do.

~Stay in The Sales 💪ife.

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Carry your own canteen

There’s an old saying that says, “Sometimes you have to carry your own canteen,” meaning you have to carry and handle your own situation, your own struggles… & handle your own slumps.

And it’s not that it’s you against the world, but it’s you against you…of old.

If you want a new you…

then you’ve got to stop letting others carry your burdens and give you a victim pass.

Now you have to figure it out…shoulder your own load…carry your own canteen.

And don’t be mad at others…nor yourself….

Woulda…shoulda is powerless…

Gonna is the question.

What are you gonna do?

People can help you along the way, but they can no longer do it or excuse it for you.

The only way out is through…you.

~Be your own action figure. Stay in The Sales Life.

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“Work your land”

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

Tim Storey’s advice on work ethic and success begins with a proverb…

 He who chases fantasies will lack wisdom, but he who works his land will have abundance.

When people come up to Storey, frustrated that it’s not happening fast enough…

…feel that they’re stuck in life…

or that the Too’s are kicking in…

Too old…

Too young…

Too soon…

or that it’s Too late,

Storey tells them simply,

 “Go work your land.”

Your land is what’s right in front of you.

Whether you’re in junior high, a janitor, a salesperson, or a bottom rung manager, go work your land.

You wouldn’t look out over 50 acres expecting to see corn knowing that you didn’t plant any…

You can’t expect your seeds to take root without busting up the ground…

It’s in the digging-turning what’s been packed down for years…

It’s in planting not knowing precisely when it’s going to sprout…

It’s in the watering.

Watering for you is the reps…

In his book, Arnold Schwarzenegger said the secret to his massive success is reps, reps, reps.

You won’t get any better until you first get worse.

Reps, reps, reps…

Every day you’re showing up…

Reps…watering… reps… digging…rep…plowing…planting…weeding…

Reps… working your land…

Working to become a pro…

Then one day…

You’ll see the harvest.

When is not your concern.

You’ve just got to go work your land…

Whatever land you got, go work the hell out of it.

Until…

Until you get a harvest.

And when you do, your harvest is going to be so abundant that you’re going to need more land.

Have an amazing day & life.

Stay in The Sales Life!

~Marsh

Catch 400+ episodes of The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.