Luck, Wisdom, and Humility
One of my history professors told our class that tradition held the promise that if on the first day of the month the first word that comes out of your mouth is “rabbit”, you will have good luck all month long. The first words from my mouth this first day of the month were “triple tall latte”. I wonder what kind of month that portends for me?
We are in Las Vegas for our Americas Sales Meeting and luck is on a lot of minds as we walk past the casinos in route to our full schedule of meetings. The interesting thing about being in Las Vegas is all the construction you see as you drive into town from the airport. There are so many new, swanky casino resorts, and many more are going up. When I looked at all of them, among the thoughts that ran through my mind was this one: I’m not sure if what people do in Vegas will stay in Vegas, but evidently a lot of their money does.
Would you rather be wise or lucky? When I used to shoot pool as a kid and make an obviously lucky shot, the old sharks would say, “I’d rather be lucky than good any day.” I knew this was a bit of a dig, because all of us would rather be really good. We want to make our own luck.
How does this fit in with character and selling? Proverbs 1:2-5 says, “To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to received instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice and equity; to give prudence to the naïve, to the youth knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increasing in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.”
Wisdom and understanding are key attributes of strong character, and one of the important actions we can take to develop wisdom, understanding, and learning is to “hear” and “acquire wise counsel”. Do you want these attributes? Seek them out. Open your ears and learn to ask and listen to other wise people that you respect. This is basic humility.
The more wisdom and understanding we have, the more valuable we are for our customers. So it is critical for strong character and sales. To have a sales team with strong character attributes, the first place we need to start is a desire to learn, to grow, and to mature as sales people. That takes humility. I’m not referring to milquetoast, spineless insecurity when I write about humility, but a realistic attitude that respects a need to learn and grow and that sees there are others who are wiser and can teach us some things. I like sales reps with aggressive humility. Aggressive humility will not sit still, but will seek wisdom and understanding out.
We need to constantly be on the lookout for good mentors. I have three specific mentors I go to in a professional sense and two others I go to outside the context of work.
So how do I tie this entry off? Well I missed saying "rabbit" this morning, and on the way up to the room I stopped by the roulette wheel. I lost $20 in one turn of the wheel. Bad luck. Then I walked away without feeling the need to win back what I lost. Maybe that was a little wisdom? After all, I'm still up a dollar for the week.
Posted at 09:40PM Aug 01, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]