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In a great conversation tonight with Chris Young, our Scrum Master at Integrum, we came up with the phrase “The Monsters under your bed are always scarier than what’s really there”.
People will stall, stammer, and avoid things they fear. This extends beyond the 3-year old to professionals working around you. Usually they’ll spend as much or more time making excuses and explaining why it can’t be done than it would take to just jump in and get it done.
Chris tells me that if you’re dreaming that you’re being chased, the best way to wake up peacefully is to turn around and face whatever is chasing you and let it eat you. If you can get the people around you to do the same in their waking lives, imagine how much you can get done. How many cold calls can you make if you just get over your fear of getting hung up on. How many deals can you close if you just ask for them? How many difficult problems could you solve if you just started ripping away at them?
I don’t cheat. I don’t like cheaters. If there are rules I would never suggest that you break them. I will how ever suggest and even encourage that you find any and every loophole that works to your advantage. Case in point, a service where you’re not supposed to be able to directly contact another user but that user uses their real name as their user name. There’s nothing to stop you from googling that person’s name, and finding another way to contact that person. For a double bend of the rules, you may find that person’s LinkedIn profile and use your attempt to connect message as a way to reach out to them.
Walk that line as close as you can, because if you don’t someone else will. Find your angle, and make sure that you check all of them.
“A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals. ” Larry Bird
Larry Bird wasn’t the most physically gifted basketball player ever, Michael Jordan wasn’t either, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas: None of these guys have championship rings because they were the most talented players on the floor. Sure they have talent, but what they really have is the work ethic to make the most of their talent. There are plenty of guys who clearly outworked other players of superior talent to be successful.
Sports is littered with the names of players who have wasted their god given talents through a lack of drive or discipline (see the recent case of Elijah Dukes for one example).
Am I the best closer I know? No. And the best closer I know probably is the hardest working salesman I know. Coincidence? I know I’d rather be a Larry Bird than an Elijah Dukes – how about you?
