Being a successful salesperson has had a profound effect on my personal and family life. It is wonderful to be able to say that what I learned in my professional career helped me to be a better person, husband, and father. Life is full of learning experiences, and each should help guide us in our own personal development. We apply the positive ones and learn to avoid the negative ones.
In our earlier chapter, we talked about Respect, Trust, Confidence, Honesty, and Truth. Think about how important these words are to our personal lives. As I learned about these words in my career, I noted that it was easily applicable to my personal life.
There are always twists, bends, and obstacles in our lives but respecting your spouse or partner, the children, and friends has always been rewarding. We all hope that those around us will respect us but as in my career, respect must be earned. As such, we respect those around us first before we can ask for their respect.
Trust and confidence may seem natural and automatic.
However, as we learned in selling, it is earned like respect. When I question my wife, she often responds with “Why don’t you have some confidence in me? Trust me for my instincts and abilities.” So true. Often, the questions I ask revolve around caring for her and making sure she knows where she is going and will get there safely rather than a lack of confidence. Nevertheless, to her, it may come across as a lack of confidence. GPS technology today helps to guide us with direction and build confidence in getting to our destination. How wonderful it would be if there was a GPS guiding our lives.
Honesty and truth were always a cornerstone of my life at home, so much of it learned from my sales career. Sweeping the truth under a carpet only creates a huge lump that eventually will cause us to trip and fall. Deception at home is no different than deception with a customer. Seldom does this end well. We all have opportunities in life to stray from the right path. Honesty puts us back on the right track.
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