You were winning the whole time…

Author Tommy Baker gave a speech titled, “The Journey Is The Win,” and he emphasize this point,

“Even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty the last thing you want to hear is how beautiful the journey can be…yet when you look back on your life, that’s exactly what you’ll remember…”

When you retell your personal hell, you choke up because the words are mixed with joy and pain & are difficult to get out clearly.

Images flash in your mind or thoughts trigger you wondering, “I don’t know how I even got through…”

You thought the win was the destination, only to realize, looking back, that it was in the journey, and you were winning the whole time.

You just didn’t realize it.

The journey is the win.

Often times the wins were disguised as losses and what looked like a setback was really all part of the plan, because not only did you have to learn to win, you also to endure the losses.

Former Seattle Seahawks player Cliff Avril said that one of his biggest regrets while playing in the NFL was that he never took time to enjoy the process.

He fought so hard to make it to the league…to make the roster…to earn the contract…to overcome injuries…to play another year..to get to & win the Super Bowl – all of those are huge accomplishments, yet when he looks back over his career it was over in a instant…

and he never took time to enjoy the process.

The days are long, but the years are short.

You may not enjoy the moment, but you can respect the journey, because of who you’re becoming in the process.

Becoming is not some bubblegum flavored elixir that you take and everything will be just fine..

No, becoming is bitter, distasteful, and often unsettling, but it’s necessary…

…because you have to learn from the losses and grow in the wins.

When you lose, you learn to forge grit, persistence, and resilience…

When you lose, you learn how to figure it out on your own…get outside of your comfort zone, and dig deep to unleash capabilities you didn’t even know was there.

And when you win, you grow in self-confidence, getting a little more surer so when you lose again, you know you’re capable of winning again too.

The journey is the win…

I wouldn’t call it a win if you wouldn’t call it a journey.

Keep moving…

Stay in The Sales 💪ife

-Marsh

It‘s not called First Replier

Million dollar real estate broker Ryan Serhant observed that one reason why you may not be finding success is because you are replying and not responding. In this automated, ever-growing commoditized world, your greatest asset as a sales person is differentiating yourself by responding instead of replying.

In this automated, ever-growing commoditized world, your greatest asset as a sales person is differentiating yourself by responding instead of replying.

We salespeople often reply when the customer we’re currently working with is the cherry to our crap-filled month. Nothing’s been going right & no one is buying, so it’s no surprise this one isn’t either. While everyone around you seems to be swimming in deals, you just so happened to have caught the one picky customer who has NO CLUE what they want; or the customer who seems to be 11 yrs out from buying; or the customer who you just don’t seem to jive with… In defense, we shut down mentally and lay up lame ass replies to their questions & concerns. Replies are words placed in the right order, said at the right time, yet void of any emotion.

We had a customer come in recently who was all busted up. Her life was turned upside down. She left her abusive husband while he left her with bad credit and a repo’d car. Obviously she was an emotional soup-crying, confused, & no idea what to do from here. A tuned out salesperson would’ve pulled her credit & replied with, “Sorry, your credit is too bad I can’t help you,” but a tuned-in salesperson would respond by saying, “Look, your credit has taken some hits, so which family member can we get on the phone right now, to get you back on track? Today is going to be your new birthday!” The responding salesperson aligned with her emotional state & offered a specific course of action.

Think about it…they’re not called First Repliers, they’re called First Responders because they come onto the scene, asses the situation, & work to get you to safety. Customers need that from you. They come in with a range of emotions & need you to asses and respond in a way that aligns with their emotions & the results they need to see. The one they do business with is the one who responds best.

That might as well be you. 😉

I’ll see you in the Sales Life.

⭐️ Catch The Sales Life with Marsh Buice podcast. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

They owe you nothing

Coach Nick Saban tells a story of three baby birds who fell into the ocean. The mama bird was frantic because her babies were about to drown so the daddy bird flies out and scoops the first baby bird up and sits him down on dry land and asks his son, “Now that I saved your life what are you going to do for me?” His son looks up at him and says, “Dad, when you get old I’m going to take care of you,” and with that, the dad picks up his son and drops him back into the ocean. He then scoops up the second son and brings him to dry land and asks the same question, “Now that I saved your life what are you going to do for me?” The second son says, “Dad you don’t have to worry about anything when you get old because I’m going to take care of you,” and with that the dad does the same thing he did with the first son, he drops him back into the ocean and scoops up the third son and asks the same previous question. The third son says, “Dad, I promise to do everything for my sons as you did for me.”

Your children & the people you lead– the ones who came in with bad credit and today they bought their first home; the ones who used to ride a bike or took a bus to & from work, leave today in their own vehicle; the once shy & inhibited one, who can now talk to anyone; the one who turned his life around & is married with children…those people, your people owe you nothing.

Not a damn thing…

And the best thing they can do- the only thing they should do “for you,” is to be a better parent, manager, & leader, for their kids, for their employees, for their community.

Besides what you want from them anyway? I mean when you keep throwing it up in their face when you stood in the gap, bailed them out, and turned them around…how you made sacrifices, worked two jobs, & made a way out of no way.

What really do you want from them anyway? You don’t want to thank you, you want power and the minute they resist you- the minute they push off and stand on their own by making their own mind up- the minute you feel your power slip, you try to get it back by slapping them with a reminder of all that you’ve done for them.

They don’t appreciate that, they resent it. They don’t feel all warm & fuzzy when you re-open wounds and bear their scares of weaknesses & downfalls just so that you can get the upper hand and pull their strings again.

Nothing…they owe you nothing.

The only thing they owe you is to the pay it forward- improving on what was passed down by you when they were passed up by others.

Hopefully all that you’ve done-the long talks, the sacrifices, the discipline, the love…hopefully you did all of that simply because someone did it (or didn’t do it) for you and you just wanted to improve on that.

Catch The Sales Life w Marsh Buice daily podcast. Find it on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.

3 Things I learned from “Kick the ball the same”

Side note: I read Josh’s book a couple of years ago and one part of the book always stuck with me. It was the lesson that he learned early on while attending a kicking camp. His coach told him to always, “Kick the ball the same.” It’s an analogy that Josh has taken and helped make him a million dollar real estate broker and TV personality. (He has a show on Bravo called Million Dollar Listing) Basically he uses the analogy to set his opportunities up the same way because you never know, what seems like a small opportunity today, where may lead down the road. (He tells you more in the book of how a client looking for a rental turned into a couple of mega million dollar properties.)

Here’s what I learned from today’s podcast. 

1. It seems small now. Many things you do today seem like they’re insignificant or don’t matter. You may be asking yourself, “Why in the hell am I doing this.” Lesson: It may not matter now, but will carry meaning later. Josh took a damn kicking analogy from his childhood and parlayed the concept to live damn well today.
   • What seemingly back-in-the-day bullshit lesson (think Karate Kid Wax on Wax off analogy) have you taken and used in your life today that you are so grateful for? 
2. It ain’t the ball, it’s the kicker. How do you approach your opportunity…hell do you even see it as an opportunity or do you view it as another waste of time? Well if it looks like a waste of time, it will be a waste of time because that’s how you set up your “kick.” Your customers get what you’ve gotten. If you’re having a shitty month they get shitty service by you, but it you’re having a Land of Milk & Honey kind of month, boy you’re customers won’t find a better salesperson. Lesson: Every customer, every opportunity stands on it’s on. You may have to adjust your process, but you should never adjust you’re effort. And this shit is hard to do because in sales we sell from our soul. Just keep the analogy in your mind…don’t shrink just because you’re not having a good month, set the damn situation up as if it’s the best month ever and kick that shit. Whatever happens, happens, just don’t let it be because of your 1/2 ass effort.
3. You’re not in control of the outcome….but you can heavily influence it. Riffing off #2 (& because I need a 3rd point), once your “ball” is in the air, you can’t waive or wish it to go a different direction. It’s going to go the way it goes. The question is, what do you do with the outcome…good or bad what happens from here? Do you learn from it? Do you blame others? Do you call yourself a slap-nut p.o.s? Lesson: Honestly assess what just happened and own that shit. It doesn’t matter the circumstances that surrounded the opportunity, it only matters how you approached it. Learn from it and set up your next kick and by the way, if it was a win, raise the bar and look for your next one-stop holding a victory parade for yourself.

Thought of the day: What tense are you? Managers tend to only have 1 tense; they manage only what is directly in front of them, but leaders have dual tenses; they manage both the present and future tenses. Yes they see today, but they also look toward the future. They do it not only with their business, but more importantly they do it with their people. They don’t just see people for who they are today, they see them for who they can become and set the bar accordingly.

Check out The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice podcast. 

 

The Heavy Box Mentality

Marcus Luttrell wrote a book that went on to become the movie titled Lone Survivor…& Marcus has a Heavy Box Mentality- he had to have one in order to become a Navy SEAL-the best of the best,  but he also needed to have a Heavy Box Mentality when he was recovering from his injuries and surgeries…

Even though people were urging him to join a gym, he refused… he didn’t need a gym-he had a gym right there in his mind and in that gym was his Heavy Box. Even though there were days that he could only do one push-up against the sink…even though there were times when his progress skidded back down to the bottom… that Heavy Box was right there. Luttrell pushed that Heavy Box into the corners of his mind, out of the way, but still within view- he kept it right there because he was determined to work towards picking that Heavy Box back up.

We all need a Heavy Box Mentality… a Heavy Box Mentality  is the gap of choosing between doing the easy or taking on the hard…that 5 seconds when you can make a choice to slide by with the routine or make that split second decision to yank the heavy box… you’re Heavy Box.

See, the reason why most of us don’t pick… the reason why we won’t choose the Heavy Box is because a Heavy Box Mentality is strictly voluntary… it’s not mandated… it’s not a prerequisite… it’s voluntary and most of us won’t step up and volunteer-to do what is hard in our own lives.

We pick the light box instead…

 So what are they heavy boxes in your life right now? What are the hard choices – the one staring right there at you…

The ones that trip you when you’re dark… the ones you stub when trying to find light… the ones you elect to go around instead of going through…

 I get it… going through causes you to sweat… causes you to strain… going through may cause you to admit that you can’t lift your heavy box…it means you’re defeated…

… but only temporary.

The fact that you stepped up, squared your shoulders, got a wide base, and wedged your fingers underneath…

…the fact that you yanked on your Heavy Box is a start and like Luttrell, it starts with first trying, then testing your limits, then-even if it’s at your base camp, working your way back to the Heavy Box ever so present in the rooms of your mind.

That heavy box is there, we all got ’em. That Heavy Box where you can take the easy dollar $1.69, 10 piece Burger King nuggets or you can grab that salad from Wendy’s that’s four times the price. That box that you can numb the differences through silence and alcohol or that Heavy Box where you sit him down and say, “We’re” done, this ain’t going to work.” That box when you sell just enough to cover your $3000 monthly bills or the Heavy Box where you say I need to make $3000, but I’ll make five and next month I’ll make seven..then you do the math- you break the numbers down to a daily plan and go to work on your box.

The box with no sweat, no strain, no fatigue or the Heavy Box where there’s no way out but through… 

It’s voluntary…

…and you got five seconds to decide. Always pick theHeavy Box. 

Don’t forget I have a weekday podcast The Sales Life w Marsh Buice found iTunes or any of your favorite podcast stations.

Dear World,

Dear World,

We’ve been through a lot together over the decades you and I-marriages, births, deaths, fulfillment & disappointment, war & peace, good times & hard times. There were days when you were more generous to me than I could possibly have deserved. And there were days when you cheated me out of things I felt I was entitled to. There were days when you looked so achingly beautiful that I could hardly believe you were mine, and days when you broke my heart and reduced me to tears. But with it all, I chose to love you, whether you deserve it or not. (& how does one measure that?) I love you because I like who I am better when I do. But mostly I love you because loving you makes it easier for me to be grateful for today and hopeful about tomorrow. Love does that. 

Faithfully yours, 

Harold Kushner

This beautiful letter came at the end of Kushner’s book “9 Essential Things I Learned About Life.” 

(Hear what this letter means to me on my podcast The Sales Life

Strange how Life can be a mixture of such vast emotions right?

…some days there aren’t enough words to express just how wonderful things are…other days there are no words that can adequately describe just how broken we’ve become. One day we’re on high…other days we’ve painfully discovered rock bottom has many levels.

Whatever it is…however it is…it’s your world…love it no matter what. Hard to do some days I know…but it’s the only one you’ve got…and you’ll be better when you do.

Just  remember it could always be better…but it too could be much worse.

The Two You’s

Earl Nightingale said that every person really is two persons.

“There is the one person who has achieved a level of performance adequate enough to earn his pay … and sometimes he’ll get a promotion or pay raise,  but his proficiency become‘s habitual – unconscious and he uses these habitual patterns as a benchmark of measurement for his success time and time again. This is the person his employers, family, and he himself knows…”

But Nightingale goes on to say there’s another person too… “the person that he could be – the person that if strongly motivated and equipped with the right information, could narrow the gap between his habitual performance patterns and his much higher potential.”

Imagine yourself standing inside of the chalk outline of your considerably larger self…that outline represents your highest potential & and where you stand inside of that outline – the gap between the two you’s represents your untapped, unexpressed potential.

In order to narrow that gap between who you are today and who you could be, you must do a few things.

First, you must constantly study  because what you don’t know is so much larger- why anchor your Life on what you already know?

Narrowing the gap will also take self examination – sometimes it will be painful, but if you honestly look at the loops that you continuously play back and assess who or what you allow into your life you’ll begin to compress the margins between the two you’s.

Lastly, it takes the application of your talents and abilities. You could own a whole Walgreens store of medications, but none of them will work unless they’re taken off the shelf & applied– the same is true for your Life.

If you’re willing to do those 3 things, Nightingale says that you’re in rarefied company.

Now that’s for you…

But let me tell you about others….

I think so many businesses are warped with only focusing on driving up the bottom line, but what they fail to miss is that the lowest cost method to driving the emotional and financial health of a company‘s bottom line is the development of its people.

And getting more out of someone isn’t some form of manipulation-no it’s the company benefiting because they first invested in others.  

The problem is that many leaders are fearful of sharing what they know for fear of being replaced and if that is your fear, that is an indication that you’ve stopped growing. I tell my people all the time, I want you to replace me – take this chair because if you take my chair, that means I’ve moved up. Why keep all you know to yourself anyway? Why not give it all away? If you can teach it, then it deepens your awareness of truly understanding; when you teach to others you invest in not only their future but yours as well; and if you empty yourself out, you’ll have more capacity to refill & refuel with more rapidly changing information. 

Exposing others to more will cause them to have to reach deep into the reservoirs of their ability…with your guidance, skills and abilities they never knew they were capable of are revealed and brought to the surface.

In the book It’s Not Where You Start But How You Finish, entrepreneur David Schwartz says, that at McDonald’s, “the workers’ best standard is going to be the managers’ lowest acceptable standard.

The skillful manager needs to be able to stretch his employees’ capacities by setting the high bar and encouraging better performance.” When they do, others will be able to think more confidently, independently, and produce better results, resulting in better team members & human beings in the process… and your greatest payback is knowing that you had a thumbprint in their development.

Yes, in reality every person really is two persons – the person today and the person he can be tomorrow…

…but maybe there’s a third person too…

Planting your skills and abilities into the lives of others so that they too can begin to narrow the gap between who they are vs. who they can become in the tomorrow’s that lay ahead.

Stay in The Sales Life 💪

⭐️⭐️Subscribe to my weekly podcast The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

You got next

Graham Betchart a sports psychologist & mental toughness coach to professional athletes begins coaching his players w/ 3 plays. These 3 plays set the foundation toward continuous growth that you & I can use…the good news is we don’t even have to run sprints or stadiums to be one of the best!

• Play #1: W.I.N. stands for What’s important now? Simply controlling the controllables. You can’t control the ultimate outcome but you can heavily influence it. Outcomes can be influenced by the 3 things within your control: Attitude, Effort, & Focus. If your attitude is one where you’re walking around blowing your breath in big huffs- looking like a big ass eye roll emoji then you’re going to get back what you put out- negative results. But if your attitude is that of being open minded- in his book Principles, billionaire investor Ray Dalio calls it being radically open-minded, this mindset keeps the channels of your mind open and flexible. Look, things are going to ebb & flow- some things will bounce your way, other times, even when done perfect will not, but you’ve got to keep the attitude and keep plugging knowing things will swing to & fro. If you think about the times that you’re all pissed off, you usually have a rigid, closed mind, don’t you? You’re also in control of your effort- concentrate on giving full effort to each day, customer, & encounter. I find that when your attitude trails off you tend to be more me focused– worried more about what you’re getting & less of what you’re giving. You just give it all you got- you’ll get what you deserve. You also control your focus. Ask yourself, What time zone am I in right now? We live in 1 of 3 time zones: Past, Present, or Future.The only one that’s productively real is what’s happening right now. Stay local (not loco).
• Play #2: Be present. Graham says it’s reeeeel easy to play present when you’re winning and everything’s going right- but can you play when your in the shit spin cycle of Life…can you play present even when you’re in pain? Graham has a saying that I love & use that re-centers me back to the present when I feel like I’m starting to drift into the past or future, “Play where your feet are.” It’s an instant slap back to reality- where are your feet right now? Play there…
• Play #3 Next Play Speed: Athletes don’t have time to get hung up on a blocked or missed shot- Graham coaches his players to hurry up and get into the next play. This prevents them from getting stuck in an action that has already happened. Whenever I don’t do well with a previous customer, I try not to park & bitch about what I did or didn’t have/do- no, I quickly get back in the mix by looking for the next play- the next opportunity or activity that I can possibly capitalize on.

So that’s it! 3 plays is all you have to remember & run today. W.I.N. (What’s Important Now); Play Present, & Next Play Speed.

Blow the whistle- You’re in!

I’ll see you in the Sales Life!

⭐️⭐️Subscribe to my weekly podcast The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

Not even a second

I like Daniel Coyle’s book The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips For Improving Your Skills-now he also wrote The Talent Code which is a good book about how individuals unlock their talent-a book that we’ll chop up later, but today I want to talk about something I hope that you’re doing every day…and that’s making mistakes-not only making them, but more specifically what you do after you make them. We don’t like to make mistakes-mistakes make us vulnerable to others…it exposes us to being laughed at, talked about, sneered at, pointed to, written up and even fired-and that’s just on the outside. The internal game -what’s going on the inside of us is even worse. When we make a mistakes, we begin to lose our internal mojo-our self-confidence, but self-confidence is a very strange thing: if you try and fail your self-confidence slips a notch…but if you don’t try for fear of failing, that too causes you to lose your self-confidence because you’re not producing- so it becomes one of those damned if you do..damned if you don’t scenarios. So here’s my thing, if you’re going to expose yourself to the possibility of losing your self-confidence either way, then why not lose it in the only direction that you have the possibility to not only gain it back but also inch it forward-and it sure as hell ain’t by sitting around…you’ll gain confidence and skills through making mistakes because as Coyle says in Tip #22, “Mistakes are your guideposts for improvement.” Coyle discovered brain scan studies that revealed that .25 seconds-a quarter of a second after making a mistake we do 1 of 2 things: We either ignore the mistake or we look hard at it…

…I’ll add a third to Coyle’s findings…

We justify the mistake. We justify why we did what we did, then ignore any sort of corrective coaching or measures thereafter. Some of the most intelligent people ask, “How could I have been wrong in the action that I took..” instead of justifying why they could’ve been right.

Don’t wait to look at the mistake- look at it right away. Players know this- as soon as they come to the sidelines they’re looking at their tablets trying to figure out how they threw the interception, how the ball was stripped out of their hands, or why they were called for pass interference- they don’t have time to explain away the mistake nor do they have time to deal with the mistake later- they analyze & correct immediately because the game is still going on…

So is yours…

…precious time is ticking away while you’re either standing around explaining (to those who really don’t even care) or you just flat out ignore one of the greatest teachers the Universe has to offer: Mistakes.

So do me you a favor…1) As long as they are not illegal, immoral, or unethical, make many mistakes today and right after you make them, 2)Look those mistakes right in the mouth- don’t wince or shy away from them…don’t blame anyone or anything for them. Own them- if you accepted the wins then you sure as hell have got to own the losses. Find & improve your mistakes. And as Coyle’s Law states, “Take mistakes seriously but never personally.”

I’ll see you on the Blacktop.

Subscribe and Listen to my daily podcast The Sales Life w Marsh Buice on iTunes or anchor.fm

Humps not Himalayas

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humps, roadblocks, …detours are a part of life, but they’re humps not Himalayas. Sometimes we get to a hump in Life & we turn the hump instantly into a Himalaya- the hump we face goes from waist deep in reality to a 22,338 foot mountain in our minds.

Soooo many things in Life are humps miraged as a mountain. They look that way to us for a couple of reasons: 1) It’s something that we’ve never faced before so we think that we’re no match for it. 2) We’ve faced a similar situation before & resulted in a shit sandwich- so we think we’re about to eat another. It’s all Bullshit.

Isn’t it crazy how we have a Redbox Rental state of mind sometimes?! You know the Redbox rental that’s right outside the store where you can rent a DVD for less than 2 bucks? We rent our problems much the same way- we walk our happy asses to the box covers of Life’s problems & we select a cheap B Flick negative rental and we play that negative movie, over & over in our minds. It’s impossible working for something to positively manifest while thinking something negative.

Look,you may be facing some big mountains in your life- no doubt, but I am telling you that you need to look at your problems through different lenses. First, stop calling it a “problem-” I call them challenges, Eckhart Tolle calls them situations. Whatever you call it, call it something other than a “problem” because often the mere utterance of the word problem stunts us right in our tracks- 1 minute we’re galloping through Life & the next scene we’re like Lt. Dan from Forest Gump, flailing around handicapped with our legs blown off. Try using the word challenge or situation & watch your whole perspective change. Your mind will shift to that of a solution mindset and will begin looking for ways to solve it by tinkering and poking at the situation.

The 2nd thing I want you to realize is that mountain that you’re facing is nothing more than a bunch of humps stuck together- they’re like big words…I tell my daughter all the time that big words are nothing more than small words clumped together. Break the bigness down- declump those ganged up humps…you don’t get to the summit in one leap.

So back to the beginning…

Humps, detours, & roadblocks are necessary in life-they’re needed for you to grow- I mean think about it, would you voluntarily subject yourself to pain, hardship, embarrassment, recourse, and ridicule? Hell my hands would be in my pocket and sure as hell not raised to be subjected to the harshnesses of Life, but we need the stimulation- i.e. kicked in the ass, in order to grow. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I know in retrospect I’ve liked who I’ve become and what I’ve accomplished on the other side of the bleakness. Yes it was painful…yes it was lonely & dark… no it wasn’t fair…but it was necessary. There isn’t a single one of us reading this that cannot look back at some cataclysmic event and not say yes it was hard, but I learned so much.

So I need you to do 2 things: 1rst charge the mountains in your Life one hump at a time..and (2), don’t look at every hump as a Himalaya.

You’ve got this!

I’ll see you on the Blacktop!

(HT to Deepak Chopra)