Guy Reams (00:03.17)
This is day four. Buckle up, buttercup. Of all the things written and spoken regarding success, there is one truth that you cannot escape. At some point, you have to buckle up and do the work. You can talk, pontificate, romance, ponder, consider, debate, and delay all that you want. But the reality is that the thing that stands between you and success is putting in the effort. This is the one thing that is inescapable.
At some point, hopefully early in your process, you have to commit and do. Of course, there are many other things that are important for success, and you can read all of those books at your leisure. But the one thing I will remind you and myself about is that at some point, you just need to go for it. This is surprisingly the barrier that we all face, the decision and the activity that follows. This is true with everything from training to run a marathon,
to starting a new company. You have to jump in, feet first, and get busy swimming. You can think about running a marathon, talk about running a marathon, buy the shoes to run a marathon, but until you decide to wake up in the morning, walk out your front door, and run around the block, you are just not going to get there. This principle is prevalent in every ambition I have ever encountered. Are you afraid? Are you worried?
Are you scared? I'm sure you are. I have been many times. But paralysis due to fear will never get you there. You have to take action despite or perhaps because of the fear. I'm reminded of a salesperson that worked for me years ago who came to me with their worry and concern that they were not going to be able to bring in the sales numbers they wanted. The person had large ambitions of bringing in giant whales and making a high income.
They came to me with their plan, all laid out carefully with significant detail on how they would approach the clients, what types of clients and how they would handle any potential objections. They wanted me to review all these carefully crafted plans and provide feedback. I asked one simple question, tell me about the last customer engagement or call that you had. How did it go? The answer, I've not tried talking to anyone yet.
Guy Reams (02:30.592)
Sales is a contact sport. You are never going to be good at selling by thinking and planning. Those activities may help, but unless you are in contact with potential customers, you will never learn to be good. This was a hard lesson for this person to learn, and in fact, I do not think that she ever did. She ended up leaving the company a few months later, not having ever closed one opportunity or really had any meaningful customer engagement.
I felt bad as I was the one that hired her. I wanted her to be successful and I did what I could to encourage her. But the one thing I could not help her overcome was her reluctance to just jump in. I had a short stint in a call center for a nonprofit when I was younger. It was miserable calling and asking people to donate for a cause. I had thousands of hangups, some of them with a tirade of profanity included.
Rejection, rejection, rejection. I found myself trying to figure out ways to avoid the discomfort, so my call volume reduced. It was only when I finally decided to commit to the process and put my full energy in that I started seeing success in my efforts. For some reason, the combination of my new attitude, my resolve, and my commitment produced an effect that led me to more successful calls.
I often wonder if everyone should take an early job as a door-to-door salesperson, call center rep, or something similar as a first job just to learn this one valuable lesson. Success does not come until you prove to the universe that you are willing to fully commit. So Buttercup, what is stopping you from going all in? Why are you hesitating? You know what you want, and you know the course before you is the way. So what is stopping you? Fear?
You're going to let a silly primal emotion designed to protect you from predators 50,000 years ago, stop you from making a cold call, stop you from quitting the lame job that you were in, stop you from asking that person out on a date, stop you from starting that company you've dreamed about. Seriously, get over it and buckle up buttercup and just get to work.