INSPIRATION AND MOTIVATION |
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Salespeople
and managers who consistently perform at a higher level have certain
things in common. They are committed to their success, have a passion
for their profession, have clear goals and are uniformly more
comfortable taking risks than most. Their ability to take intelligent
risks is an important ingredient in their success and a huge determinant
in anybody's level of achievement. Sub-optimal
performers settle into their comfort zone, fall into endlessly recurring
patterns and stop challenging themselves in significant ways. By
contrast, top performers are talented and persistent risk-takers. They
are better at taking risks like cold calling, going for the close,
taking on new products and trying new ideas in recruiting and growing
their field offices. It's possible to improve a person's risk-taking
ability and hence their performance. I'm
fairly knowledgeable about risk-taking. As a Professional Exhibition
Skydiver, I've taken some extraordinary risks and prevailed. I'm among
the few who has successfully made the most challenging stadium jump in
the United States into wind-buffeted Candlestick Park. By being willing
to take some significant risks, I have been able to earn a skydiving
World Record and be among the few to ever stand at the North Pole. But
skydiving is not the only setting where I've found risk-taking to be
valuable. It has also been vitally important in my business career. I
had to take risks successfully when I was the Chief Operating Officer of
an international design firm and when I was responsible for a portfolio
of more than $140 million worth of commercial real estate. If I had not
been willing to take some significant risks, I would still be someone
else's employee instead of working for myself and pursuing the career of
my dreams. The
Lure of the Comfort Zone
The
comfort zone is seductive. We all desire comfort. It's human nature.
However, too much comfort does not serve us well. An inability to step
out of your comfort zone will profoundly limit your performance. Adaptability
Adaptability
is vital and becoming more so. Change is pervasive and accelerating.
Single-employer careers are history and single-profession careers barely
remain and will soon be gone. If you are going to thrive in a world of
rapid and accelerating change, you must be adept at adapting. The more
comfortable you are with taking risks and dealing with the resulting
fear, the better you will be at adapting. Change
can be frightening. It's the single greatest source of fear we all face.
Change confronts us with one of the most frightening of situations: the
unknown. Although it is perfectly normal to be fearful of change, such a
fear response can immobilize us. The
Critical Step - Responding Effectively to Fear
Courage
is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark
Twain Fear
is fantastically powerful. It is the primary obstacle to being a
talented risk-taker. It is also a huge limiter of sales success. The
fears of rejection, failure and success are always present in the sales
environment. Learning how to prevail in the face of fear is the single
most important step one can take toward becoming a successful risk-taker
and maximizing sales success. Our
comfort zone is partially shaped by life-preserving fears and partially
by groundless ones. To become more capable risk-takers, we must move
away from the instinctive response to fear and toward the
counterintuitive response. The constructive, though counterintuitive,
response to fear is to acknowledge and accept it. This
approach has been validated by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. Early in the space program, NASA observed that a certain
number of its astronauts were completing their missions successfully
without suffering motion and stress sickness. Another group was
consistently having these problems. Based on empirical research, NASA
determined there was one factor that differentiated the two groups. The
astronauts who were completing their mission without these physical
manifestations of fear had acknowledged in advance to themselves or
others that they were going to be afraid. They had a constructive
response to fear. The
Rewards of Risk-Taking Why
take risks anyway? Why even consider leaving your comfort zone? Isn't
risk-taking something we are supposed to grow out of? Isn't it just a
remnant of impertinent youthful behavior we should have left behind as
we matured and grew wiser? The partial answer to all these questions has
already been provided. Risk-taking yields vitality and a higher level of
achievement. But there is more! For
every reasonable risk there is at least one possible reward. This is a
direct reward. A reward that can be identified at the time the risk is
being considered. Examples of direct rewards include the qualified
prospects that will result from cold calling, the additional business
that will come from learning how to sell more products and the
additional policies that will be sold by a willingness to go for the
close. But
better yet, a consistent and thoughtful pattern of intelligent
risk-taking will yield something even more exciting: compound rewards!
Compound rewards are the surprise rewards - the rewards we cannot
anticipate at the time we are considering the risk. These rewards will
never have come our way if we are not been willing to step out of our
comfort zone at some point. Compound rewards can include knowing your
professional persistence resulted in a widow being financially secure
and able to fund the college education of your deceased client's
children. You had no way of anticipating back when you were selling the
policy that this would be the outcome. This is a compound reward - the
kind you will experience if you are willing to move out of your comfort
zone on a consistent basis and take some risks. It
occurred for me. A few years ago when I was 10,000 feet over the North
Pole and moments away from the 120 degree below zero temperature of
freefall, I had no way of knowing what compound rewards that risk would
bring. I had no way of knowing that jump would be the first step in a
most extraordinary career transition, or that I would abandon a fairly
conventional corporate career path and make my avocation of skydiving a
major part of my vocation. We
don't know the rewards we will enjoy by our willingness to take
thoughtful risks, but we do know the rewards will not occur unless we
are willing to take those risks. And wouldn't it be a shame to forgo
some wonderful, if unknown, rewards just because we can't seem to find
our way out of our comfort zone!
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