Total commitment helps you maintain a positive attitude. It's amazing how you're able to turn problems into possibilities when you eliminate the option of giving up. If you're committed to win, no matter what, you'll have a totally different outlook on your life and your business. The only recourse to dealing with negatives is to turn them into positives.
Paula Smith, one of our great national sales directors, was a college professor with tow or three degrees in Georgia. After teaching for several years, Paula was burned out and frustrated. She was in her mid-thirties and had never married, but she had an adopted son. Paula decided she wanted out of education and into the business world. It would be more exciting, a change, and she could make more money than she could as a teacher.
Paula's uncle heard that she was going to leave teaching and told her to call me before she did anything else. When he explained that AL Williams sold term life insurance and investments, she said, "Well, teaching might be bad, but it isn't that bad! There's no way I'm going to sell insurance!'
In spite of her protests, Paula agreed to see me, just to please her uncle. To make a long story short, Paula decided to take a leave of absence from teaching and go to work with us. The first eight or nine months were hard for her. At the end of ten months, she came to see me. In two months, her leave of absence would be up, and she had to go back to teaching or resign her position. She told me how much she loved the company and how badly she wanted to stay, but she just couldn't face losing her teaching job. What if something went wrong? What if she couldn't make enough money? How could she give up the security of that job for a job that paid commissions?
That was the problem. As long as Paula knew she had something to go back to, she could avoid making a total commitment to AL Williams. She wasn't really giving it all she had. She had no intensity. She liked what she was doing, but she wasn't excited about what she was doing. Paula wasn't "turned on," intense and positive like you have to be to win.
I didn't hear from Paula for four or five weeks. Then one day, she called. She said, "Art, I haven't been able to sleep. I've had that security blanket in my mind, but you know what? I can't go back and teach. That's what I wanted to leave. I'm scared to death, but I'm going to do it. I don't know where and I don't know how or why, but I know that I'm supposed to be somebody."
Paula resigned her teaching job, picked up her son, and moved to Augusta, Georgia. Three months later, she was paid more in a single month than she had ever been paid before in a year. Three months after that, she did so well that she was promoted to regional vice president. Now, Paula's one of the top leaders in the company.
Total commitment. Until Paula burned her bridges and said, "Here is where I'm going to take my stand. Here is where I'm going to do something special," she did badly. But the minute she decided to go for it, her whole life changed. She couldn't afford to "play" at AL Williams any longer. She had to make it or break it, and there was no going back. When Paula made a total commitment to what she was doing, things started to fall into place.
No comments:
Post a Comment