Meet Someone New Every Day!

My brother was sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane. He would be travelling overseas to study for the next six months. As his “big” brother he asked me for some ‘words of wisdom’ that can help him make the most of his time abroad.

I gave him the following challenge:

A man by the name of Steinar Skipsnes took on a New Year’s Resolution in 2016 to meet someone new every day of the year. I invite you to read about his full experience here.

Since reading about his experience I have urged my salespeople to take on the challenge – at least for 30 days.

Here’s why (and I quote from Steinar):

“At the beginning of the year, before approaching someone, my heart would start pounding and I’d have this internal dialogue of, “I don’t want to do this… this is uncomfortable… how’s this going to play out?”

But I was committed. I was determined to push through any fear to see what could happen.

Lesson learned: The fear of rejection is way overrated.

Fearing a lion makes sense. Fearing a situation that you could face rejection in doesn’t, yet so many of us do.

Why?

We care too much about our egos. We care too much about what people think of us (people we’ll never see again!). It’s ridiculous and irrational, but it’s reality.

The fear of rejection does nothing but limit us. It does nothing but put self imposed handcuffs on us that impact our decisions and limit our potential, when there is nothing but upside. It’s all about perspective.

For example, if you ask someone something and they say “no,” then great, that just gave you an experience interacting with someone that you can adjust in the future for a better outcome. It gave you an experience that, compiled with others, will help you overcome any negative feeling that you now feel from rejection. If the person says, “yes” — fantastic, a door is open to something you’d never have otherwise experienced.

After this sunk in for me, approaching people became a completely different world. The nervousness fell away, and I no longer felt a sting of rejection when someone said “no” or walked away.”

To really discover your full potential, you have to accept rejection, not fear it, but learn from it. To get comfortable with it, you have to dive in head first and experience it because like a virtuous circle, the more you experience it, the more it loses its power, and the more it loses its power, the more free you become to accomplish whatever it is you want.

If you remember nothing else from reading my blogs, please remember this. It will change your life.

Happy Tuesday & Happy Selling!

Kevin