PSYCHOLOGY
about the causes of your mistakes? That’s a second, special kind of skill. It is a learnable skill most people in selling don’t have.
SP: So you are saying that, if you learn that skill, you can increase your sales further. DR. SELIGMAN: Yes.
SP: Do you feel that the skill of explaining failure ultimately determines our chances for achieving success? DR. SELIGMAN: It puts the upper limit on your talent and ability. You can have the talent of Mozart, but, if you believe you are no good at composing music, you are not going to do anything.
SP: What is the difference between positive thinking and learned optimism?
DR. SELIGMAN: There are two basic differences. When I think of your usual positive thinking or motivation speech, I think of it as a temporary pumping up. It gives you a boost, but you don’t internalize things. You have to come back for another injection. The cognitive therapy techniques involved in learning optimistic explanatory styles repre- sent a new set of skills. They stay with you all the time.
SP: Dan Oran, the president of your sales selection and training company, Foresight Inc., said that positive thinking is statement based, while cognitive therapy is question based. DR. SELIGMAN: That’s a fair assess- ment. There has been a lot of re- search to document the effectiveness of cognitive therapy. For instance, in the treatment of depression, medica- tion works about 70 to 80 percent of the time. It works pretty well as long as you keep taking it. Once you are off, you run as much risk of relapse as if you never had it. You are going to get depressed again. Cognitive therapy has about the same effect in relieving depression, but, once you learn the techniques, you acquire a
18 | AUGUST 2016 SELLING POWER © 2016 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.
skill for dealing with failure, defeat, and mistakes that you will always carry with you. So, when you get defeated again, you don’t have to run off to a doctor to get pumped up again. The basic question you need to ask yourself is, do I want a temporary or a permanent solution?
SP: Your research shows that our expectations determine our level of success. What contributes to the development of our expectations? DR. SELIGMAN: I think there are two basic constraints on our expecta- tions. The main one is reality – and reality can be either pretty grim or pretty bright. Then, on top of that, we’ve got our explanatory style. In other words, the way we explain an
event from the inside determines our expectations. Reality is what con- strains us from the outside.
SP: You are a scientist and you measure things a little bit more carefully than the average person. What is your measure of success? DR. SELIGMAN: For me there are two kinds of successes that really matter. One is the “changing the world” success; the other is finding gratifying successes in everyday life – the small challenges. I have to admit that it appeals to me that you need to be doing something to make the world a better place than the world you entered.
WHY SALES LEADERS NEED TO CREATE VALUE THE ULTIMATE SALES LIBRARY
SELLING TIP Four Easy Steps for Winning the Selling Game
1. Be a productive member of the sales team – the player who can be depended on for cooperation and support. 2. Keep your direct supervisor happy and satisfied. 3. Keep his supervisor, the sales manager, happy and satisfied. 4. Most important, keep your top overall boss – the customer, who can make or break your organization – happy and satisfied.
— RAY DREYFACK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32