Before every sales meeting. Every nerve racking encounter. Every first date..I repeat one simple phrase: “I am the buoy.”
Why identify with a barnacle-crusted stack of metal bobbing in the ocean? That buoy’s got the right idea on how to live life. When other stacks of metal would sink, that buoy just bobs away. No maelstrom is strong enough to sink it.
We must be buoys in life, because life is a sea of rejection. Day in and day out. All sorts of circumstances work to bring you down. If you fail to plan ahead and make yourself unsinkable, the first sign of wake is going to hit you like a tidal wave.
Nowhere is this truer than the sales field. As a telemarketer, you can’t survive without being able to take hits constantly. After all, you might get one sale out of every 25 calls! However, that has an element of safety because you’re not face-to-face. Now, try spending hours developing a lead into a prospect and then meeting for a lengthy sales meeting. At the end, the client stands up, smiles, and says to you “None for me, thanks!”
That’s the verbal equivalent of getting kicked in the gut. You fall to the ground, lose your breath, and clutch your midsection in despair. “I’m a failure,” you think. But remember, the role-you failed, not the real-you. The real-you is a warrior. A champion. An unrelenting force. An immovable object. You stumbled a bit in your salesman character, but the body that wears your sales uniform isn’t stopping anytime soon.
In order to take rejection in stride, remember buoyancy and repeat after me: “I AM the buoy.”
BoweryJE22
What an inspiring post. Thanks for an interesting take on the buoyancy principle!!
I like this, what a great way to visualize life. Yes, life is full of rejection, but we are able to rise above it and move beyond what the world might try to tell us. Thanks for sharing this encouragement!