As we get started, reflect upon this quote from A.J. McLean,
"You have to become comfortable in the uncomfortableness."
Will you allow discomfort to become your sales catalyst?
Depending on viewpoints, discomfort can lead to breakthroughs, whether in relationships, your career, or in self-awareness.
Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable is a critical skill to develop that will lead to profound growth.
When you wrap your arms around discomfort, you open the doors to new experiences, enhance your resilience, and ultimately become a more adaptable and confident individual.
You must remember, every step into the unknown is a huge step toward becoming the best version of yourself.
This then begs the question... Are you willing to change your relationship with change?
Are you willing to strive to find ease or familiarity in situations that might initially feel uncomfortable (like learning how to consistently prospect again)?
In today’s rapidly changing world, you can no longer run away from change.
Allow me to set the stage... Settling, complacency, contentment, relaxation, peacefulness; it's out there right now, and it's hiding in the closet of many sales departments.
Lurking in the dark shadows of success and camouflaged where one least expects to find it, there's a great balancing act of excuses.
Excuses... It's become the silent business killer, ambushing and striking without warning.
It can bring even the biggest and brightest salespeople (leaders, you do not get a pass at this one as well) to their knees. What's this hidden terror? Becoming comfortable.
Comfortability, it strikes with extreme precision. It happens, so please don't kid yourself.
Becoming comfortable, it's a ruthless disease. It doesn't care how long you've been in sales or what day of the week it is. It cares only of the cold, timid and weak-minded.
Truth be told, while many of you seem content on getting by and blending in with all the other empty suits, a true sales professional is not. They have meticulously rewritten the sales playbook.
Calvin Coolidge once said,
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
Think about change... Growth doesn’t happen passively; it requires taking action.
Whether in academics, personal life, or your sales career, effort is the driving force behind progress.
Consistent effort cultivates discipline. This becomes essential for achieving long-term goals and creating sales sustainability.
Let's pause for a moment... I ask you to think back to your childhood... I'm quite sure that you embraced learning, correct? You embraced change, correct? You figured out the things that allowed you to grow.
So... Why as adults do many find it difficult to embrace change?
Why do so many in sales take the road most traveled?
Why are so many in sales seeking out the "sales success magic pill", instead of just doing the work?
What many fail to realize is throughout our lives we will continue to have growing pains, whether they be emotional, mental or spiritual, there will always be forms of discomfort.
However, as we get older, this discomfort now becomes our choice. We can avoid it, endure it, or embrace it.
Let's face it, our brains are hardwired to avoid pain, we often choose to avoid discomforts rather than embrace them. This results in our personal and professional growth becoming stunted.
You can either be comfortable and stagnate or stretch yourself to become uncomfortable and grow.
Discomfort is a stimulant for growth. It forces you to change, stretch, and adapt. In an ever-changing business world, I encourage you to embrace discomfort.
Become purposeful about doing things to push yourself outside of your limits.
Difficulty helps you to grow, and this is what sales professionals do better than sales reps.
If you desire long-term success and sustainability, you must stop avoiding the hard stuff.
To become more means you must create new perspectives, acquire new skills and push the boundaries.
Learning to become comfortable with discomfort is one of the most important skills you can ever have to live a truly fulfilling personal and professional life.
Repetition fuels growth and expands your comfort boundaries.
How many things you once deemed uncomfortable, you now accept without giving it much thought?
Have you become too comfortable to be pushed or do you feel you can't be bothered to make the necessary change to improve?
I love this quote courtesy of Craig Groeschel,
"If you change your behavior but do not change your heart, the behavior will come back."
Changing your behavior without addressing your underlying beliefs may get you some temporary results. However, when faced with stress or temptation, your old habits may resurface if your heart hasn’t shifted.
What's in your heart when it comes to change? Are you willing to do the work?
THE SALES CRISIS
Vince Lombardi once said,
"If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives."
Your first mirror moment:
- What are you willing to do right now to become a better salesperson?
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Michael Easter's book, "The Comfort Crisis, Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self"
Early in the book, Michael says,
"Most people today rarely step outside their comfort zones. We are living progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged, safety-netted lives."
Let's have some fun with the above mentioned quote and tie this right back to sales...
How many salespeople are living progressively sheltered lives as they are being overfed lead after lead, being under-challenged and coddled by their managers inside their safety-netted environments?
Have managers and sales leaders become just as comfortable as salespeople? I will leave this one for your imagination.
When it comes to comfort, Michael Easter went on to say,
"Today's comfort is tomorrow's discomfort. This leads to a new level of what's consider comfortable."
The things you've accumulated up to this point in your life fit quite nicely into your comfort zone. The car you drive, the home you live in, and the income you make. You've already acquired it, so you don’t need to stretch your zone to make it a reality.
It's safe to say you'd like to make more money this year then you did last year?
If the answer is yes, then you'd also agree that you must work a bit harder and smarter to make this happen?
Would you also agree, you must acquire new skills and knowledge to make this happen?
What got you to where you're at will not keep you where you're at, plain and simple.
Before we move on, allow me to introduce you to the law of comfortability.
Comfortability implies a state where you feel at ease, both physically and mentally.
Comfortability creates a sense of security. A sense of peacefulness. A sense of "I have arrived".
However, in Selling from the Heart fashion, the law of comfortability states, when you surround yourself with empty suits, harbor average thoughts, settle for average results, and point fingers everywhere, this all leads to an ordinary, empty fueled sales life full of mediocre existence.
What are you willing to put yourself through to become a sales professional?
Are you willing to break out of your comfort zone in a world that is rapidly changing day by day by day?
HONESTY, GET COMFORTABLE WITH IT
Thomas Jefferson once said,
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
What's in your book?
Honesty encourages introspection and self-reflection. When you're honest with yourself and acknowledge the truth, your strengths and weaknesses, soon become a guide to personal growth and development.
Honesty with yourself serves as a vital foundation for trust, clarity, and self-awareness.
Cultivating honesty in your life paves the way for deeper understanding, ethical decision-making, and meaningful connections with others. Now, think of your clients.
Embrace honesty as a guiding principle, and watch how it enriches your journey toward wisdom and sales success.
Becoming honest with yourself allows you to acknowledge your limitations, confront your flaws, and seek knowledge with humility.
Your second mirror moment:
- Are you willing to commit to truthfulness?
Honesty is a huge part of embracing change. I encourage you to become radically honest with yourself. In chapter 2 of Selling from the Heart, I write about sales chaos.
Have you allowed turmoil to weave its web inside your sales career? Has chaos kept you from seeking the truth? Has chaos prevented you from increased sales growth?
If you're not honest with yourself then how can you expect to learn and grow?
When you're dishonest with yourself, you choose to see what you want to see and you brush off, ignoring what you don’t want to see. This may provide you short-term happiness but, in the end, it becomes unhealthy, destructive, and messes with your mind.
Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable is what radical self-honesty is built upon.
I encourage you to think about this one...
How can you become radically self-honest if you struggle to deal with any discomfort in your sales life? You can’t and you're only fooling yourself.
In this hyper-competitive world of sales, those who are willing to take risks, step out of their comfort zone and create some discomfort for themselves will be those who reap the biggest rewards.
Are you willing to be one of them?
PRACTICE HONESTY
From the book, Know Honesty, by Ken Bogard and Grace Gavin,
"Honesty starts from within. It starts with you and your choices to be or not to be who you are. A willingness and courage to state who you are, what you want, and how you feel. Said another way, be your authentic self."
If you want to grow your sales, you must get honest with yourself. You must get honest with how you talk to yourself. You must get honest in a business world starving for honesty inside the sales profession.
Becoming radically honest with yourself requires you to become vulnerable.
Your third mirror moment:
- Are you willing to become vulnerable and accountable to yourself?
If you’re consistently nurturing your mindset with positivity vitamins, you soon start to build up a tolerance against negative thoughts, procrastination, self-doubt, and insecurities.
This helps you to dismantle the stranglehold of comfort.
Becoming radically honest with yourself can be painful but massively rewarding.
When honesty collides with your willingness to change, there's no stopping your growth.
I encourage you to build the confidence and believability in your abilities. I challenge you to get radically honest and hold yourself accountable.
- Seek to become an expert in your field of work
- Constantly crave feedback on YOU
- Set goals and create a business plan
- Never ever stop learning
- Seek out a coach or mentor
If you want something that you've never had, then you must be willing to do something that you've never done.
SQUASH COMFORTABLENESS, GROW SALES
John C. Maxwell once said:
“People are like rubber bands, they are most effective when they are stretched.”
Rubber bands function best when stretched. People often thrive and perform at their best when they encounter challenges that push their limits. Are you one of those people who thrive when stretched?
Stretching yourself represents growth. Stretching is challenging. Stretching helps you to develop new skills, resiliency, and confidence.
Are you willing to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone?
If so, imagine how this could revolutionize your results:
- The new sales doors you could you open.
- The new sales opportunities you could you experience.
- The new relationships you could develop.
How would all of this make you feel?
Are you willing to take massive action?
SALES PROFESSIONALS ARE NEVER COMFORTABLE
A true sales professional is always sales hungry. They are life-long learners.
Sales professionals are educators. You can't become an educator without being a student first.
You must gain a thirst for new knowledge. You must stay up to date on new developments, always looking for trends and changes before they happen.
Getting uncomfortable, it's okay. Show up every day and be present. Sit with the discomfort.
To quote Craig Groeschel,
"You can make excuses or you can make progress but you can't make both."
The choice between making excuses and making progress is quite clear... If you want to achieve your goals and grow into a sales professional, then you must commit to taking massive amounts of action rather than deflecting responsibility.
Acknowledge discomfort. Shake hands with it, get used to it, and welcome it on the journey to betterment.
It's often in these moments of challenge that we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves, our limits, and our potential for growth.
Everyone's journey is unique and different. What works for one person may not work the same way for another.
It's important to approach discomfort with self-awareness, a supportive mindset, a willingness to adapt your approach if needed and a tight inner circle to guide you.
It becomes impossible to grow if you're constantly carrying your own dead sales weight of years past.
Way too many are living in yesteryear. You will consistently struggle with the mentality of "that's the way I've always done it."
As we bring our time together to a close, I ask you to think about the following questions...
- Am I reaching my sales potential?
- How do I rise up and rise to the top in sales?
- What will I commit to doing today which will enable me to grow and flourish tomorrow?
Comfort will always stunt your sales growth.
Ann Latham - Queen of Clarity is the founder and president of Uncommon Clarity, Inc., where she specializes in strategic planning, decision-making, and process improvement. With over 20 years of experience, Ann has worked with Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and government agencies, helping them enhance productivity and achieve sustainable growth. A recognized thought leader, Ann’s work has been featured in major publications. She holds a degree from Tufts University and is an expert in guiding organizations to achieve clarity and alignment in their operations.
SHOW SUMMARY
In this episode of the Selling From the Heart podcast, we're joined by Ann Latham to explore how clarity can transform both sales and organizational effectiveness. Ann shares insights from her extensive experience in strategic planning and decision-making, emphasizing the importance of clear objectives and disciplined processes. She highlights how disclarity and the lack of defined decision-making procedures can stall sales deals and derail organizational success. Ann advocates for sales professionals to embrace clarity in their approach, helping clients solve their problems and make confident decisions. Larry and Darrell also promote Ann’s book, The Power of Clarity, as a resource for anyone looking to enhance communication, productivity, and decision-making in their business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Clarity in Decision-Making: A disciplined decision-making process that includes clear objectives and defined criteria is crucial for moving forward effectively.
Enhancing Productivity: Clarity improves communication, alignment, and overall productivity within teams and organizations.
Involvement of Key Decision Makers: Engage all key stakeholders from the beginning to avoid stalls and misalignment later in the decision-making process.
Addressing Risks: Identifying potential risks upfront is an important step that is often overlooked in decision-making.
Common Sense, Uncommonly Applied: Despite the importance of clarity, it’s often not implemented effectively in organizations.
Sales Professionals' Role: Sales professionals can guide clients through a clear decision-making process to ensure smoother and faster deal progress.
Process Clarity: Clearly defining the steps in decision-making helps reduce misunderstandings and streamlines actions.
QUOTES TO REMEMBER
"The key is to focus on understanding what people’s problems are and helping them solve those problems more effectively." — Ann Latham
"Bringing a disciplined process to any decision helps get everyone on the same page." — Ann Latham
"When you think about sales, unleash true sales potential by guiding with clarity—it’s an incredible gift." — Darrell Amy
"Everyone come together and agree on what ‘good’ looks like." — Larry Levine
WHY YOU NEED TO LISTEN:
This episode is packed with practical strategies to help you incorporate clarity into both your sales approach and your organizational processes. If you’re a sales professional or leader looking to improve decision-making, enhance productivity, and ensure long-term success, Ann Latham’s insights will guide you on the path to achieving clarity and confidence in every decision.
CONNECT WITH ANN LATHAM:
LinkedIn: / annlathamuncommonclarity
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Learn more about Darrell and Larry:
➡️Darrell's LinkedIn: / darrellamy
➡️Larry's LinkedIn: / larrylevine1992
➡️Website: https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/
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