#2049 Che Causa de sua Male Piange lo Stesso
Once again, I have to say that if I lead a horse to water and he doesn’t drink, I kind of want to drown him.
I love the Italian expression in the title. It translates to “People cry over the trouble they cause for themselves.”
I’ve been coaching for a long time, and lest you think I have an overinflated opinion of myself, I will tell you what I bring to the table isn't my own smarts. It is science tied to time-tested wisdom. In other words, none of what I teach is my opinion. I am only a curator. I’ve read and collected wisdom and methodologies from the ancient Greeks, Romans, Stoics, and Eastern Philosophers. I’ve spent a lot of time with the works of great 19th-century thinkers like James, Thoreau, and Emerson. I’ve read and reread early 20th-century philosophers and pundits like Viktor Frankl, Earl Nightingale, Dale Carnegie, and Napoleon Hill.
I’ve listened to and read tons of great stuff from Drs. Martin Seligman and Laurie Santos, pioneers in positive psychology. I’ve studied Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, and Zig Ziglar. I’ve read and watched lots of content from some of the most successful business and thought leaders of our time, like Bob Iger, Patrick Lencioni, Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, Bob Waldinger, and Mel Robbins.
I listen to “Talking with Dr. Terri” and “Success Hotline” with Dr. Rob Gilbert every morning to start my day off right.
Personal development has been my hobby for over thirty years. What I share in my coaching sessions, and much of what I write here, is my life experience filtered through these brilliant thinkers, trying to translate the greatest life and business lessons in history into the mundanity of what most of us do daily.
So why do I want to drown so many horses?
Because the answers are there; the greatest minds the world has ever known have left behind voluminous records of their work. Do you want to overcome conflict? Imagine being guided by Gandhi or MLK. Imagine embodying the philosophy they lived and wrote about. It’s available instantly to all of us. We only need to seek it out, read it, and apply it.
And how about those of us out there in the trenches of business? Do we need to climb every mountain in front of us, or can we grab a map from one of the greats who has already climbed it and navigate an easier path?
The most important moments in my career came from meeting mentors. A mentor is someone whose hindsight can be your foresight. I was lucky to understand this early on and to seek out people who were already where I wanted to be and ask them how they got there. Then, to the best of my ability, I followed the path they laid out for me.
My godfather Tommy was my first and most influential mentor. He was my mom’s younger brother and a real-life Horatio Alger story. Uncle Tommy dropped out of high school at 16 and shortly thereafter, joined the US Marine Corps. After his tour of duty, took a job as a telegram delivery boy for Western Union Telegraph. With no further education, Uncle Tommy became a top executive at WU, went on to own several businesses, and retired with a net worth in the millions.
When my uncle led me to the water of professional selling, I drank deeply.
After him, I have been blessed with many other mentors, each leading me to a stream I’d never seen before and encouraging me to drink. Each one was crucial to my development as a man, a sales professional, speaker, writer, and business leader.
Back to horses, and my over-the-top dislike of complacency and victimhood.
I experience this far too often. I watch folks create their own troubles and then cry about them, but worse still are those who are shown “the water way” out of their troubles but are too blinded by their own tears to see or sip.
Last week I counseled several young people with tried-and-true wisdom about success, money management, sales planning, and negotiation strategies. Now I am sitting by the stream waiting to see how many step in and drink.
Own Your Sales Gene…