Being in sales is not easy, and sometimes (ok almost all the time) it is incredibly hard. But the rewards and accomplishments can be amazing. Just the habit of knocking on the next door will change your perspective on your life and what you can (and will) accomplish. This is not only in sales but in all areas of your life……keep on knocking.
P.S.– Below are two links covering the same topic: choosing experiences over things. The first link is a LIFEies I sent on November 3rd and the second is a new article I found. I thought we all could use a reminder on why this is important for our happiness.
1. Buy Experiences, Not Things: https://thefantasticlife.com/buy-experiences-not-things/
2. The Science of Why you Should Spend Your Money on Experiences, Not Things:
http://m.fastcompany.com/3043858/world-changing-ideas/the-science-of-why-you-should-spend-your-money-on-experiences-not-thing
Just Keep on Knocking
by MICHAEL JOSEPHSON on MARCH 25, 2014
In the summer of my junior year in college I took a job as a door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. My mother had just lost a long battle with cancer, and I wanted to earn enough money to have a photo of her turned into a painted portrait to give to my dad.
What I earned depended entirely on what I sold; there were no guarantees. Things went well at first, but then I hit a long bad streak. Hardly anyone was home and those who were just weren’t buying. What’s worse, some people were outright rude and literally slammed their doors in my face.
I was on the verge of quitting, but something my father used to tell me over and over stopped me: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way; where there’s not, there’s an alibi.” I had always resented this simplistic mantra, but suddenly I got it.
I realized that every meaningful opportunity in life would stay behind closed doors that would never open unless I knocked on them. Beneath this simple insight was another: If I couldn’t muster the confidence and courage to knock on more doors despite the certainty of frustrating and unpleasant experiences, I would never make it.
I earned enough to buy the portrait, and it now hangs next to another one of my dad in the lobby of the Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit organization I founded in their honor.
I’m so glad my dad taught me to persist and grateful I learned that an important part of character is to just keep knocking.