everything that I could think of, no matter how absurd it might seem, as a means to the end I was after. “Take the problem of the best material for phonograph records. We started out using wax. That was too soft. Then we tried every kind of wax with hardening substances. There was something objectionable about all of them. Then somebody said something about soap. That worked better, but it wasn’t what we wanted. I had seven men scouring India, China, Africa, everywhere for new vegetable bases for new soaps. After five years we got what we wanted, and worked out the records that are in use today.”
2. Attitude Positive attitudes precede positive results. Before we can win, we have to assume the mental attitude that it is impossible for us to fail. Losers all too often judge their efforts with pes- simistic logic rather than reinforcing them with optimistic hope. Pessimistic people always have a perfectly logical reason for their lack of success. Winners realize that a positive attitude is not the product of logic, but of belief. We can choose to be happy if we believe we can be happy. We can choose to have a great day, like we can choose to meet our sales goals. As in a saying often ascribed to Abraham Lincoln, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Another saying, often credited to Thomas Jefferson, states, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on Earth can help the man with the wrong mental at- titude.” Regardless of whether either of these men said these, their truths are self-evident.
While losers stay within their comfort zone and maintain the same level of performance, winners chal- lenge themselves to exceed their own records. Their winning attitude comes from the belief that every personal record, no matter how great, is worth improving.
Bruce Jenner, the Olympic Decath- 22 | MAY 2019 SELLING POWER
lon champion, once told a reporter, “I always wanted to do better. I had a very positive mental attitude. If I ran 100 meters in 11.2, I felt sure I could do it in 11.1. If I broad jumped 21 feet, I was positive I could do 22.” Just like milk, our attitudes are perishable. As milk will curdle when mixed with lemon juice, our attitudes can spoil when we spend too much time with negative people. Win- ners make it a habit to avoid “social lemons.” Jenner also once said, “Around Bruce Jenner you don’t ever talk about losing – and you never talk about the possibility of defeat. Talk about winning and believe it will happen.”
3. Effort “To enjoy enduring success,” wrote John McDonald, “we should travel a little in advance of the world.” Win- ners know that, without extra effort, it is impossible to win. Roger Bannister, the first athlete to run a mile under four minutes, described his historic victory, saying, “In the last 300 yards of my record run, my mind took over. It raced well ahead of my body and drew my body – compelling it forward. I felt that the moment of a lifetime had come. The world seemed to stand still. With 50 yards left, my body had long since exhausted all its energy, but it went on running just the same. The last few seconds seemed never-ending. I leaped at the tape like a man taking his last spring to save himself from the chasm that threatens to engulf him. It was only then that real pain overtook me.” Winners give all of themselves and hold nothing back. They create their own opportunities through extra ef- fort. Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca once said, “The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they’re expected to do; they always reach.” In the profession of selling, custom- ers are more eager to buy from the
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salesperson who is willing to go the extra mile for them. Napoleon Hill once wrote, “You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of go- ing the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.” Extra effort does not always mean you have to work harder than anyone else. A video analysis of a World Cup soccer game once revealed that the famous player, Pele, ran a distance during the game that was over 25 percent less than the distance logged by his opponent. Pele had learned to conserve energy during the game and always chose the shortest possible path to attack the opposing team’s goal. This winning strategy allowed Pele to deploy extra energy for reach- ing higher speeds and more accurate shots. His extra effort came from working smarter, not harder.
4. Courage Sir Winston Churchill once defined courage as “the first of human quali- ties, because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.” John F. Kennedy describes in his
book, Profiles in Courage, what it means to be courageous: “To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place, and circumstance. It is an opportunity that, sooner or later, is presented to us all. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look in his own soul.” Courage is often called the best antidote to fear and anxiety. The job of selling offers plenty of opportu- nity to overcome fear with courage.
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