Author: Brent Widman

Why do so many of us not enjoy our success?  We struggle with this. Always more, more, more. We want to be the best. We want to do the most. We want to be the top one, two or even top 10 in our company. We have goals, aspirations, things we want to achieve. We will work harder, try to accomplish more, go longer than anyone else to achieve those goals.

But…we don’t enjoy it.

I was talking to a client the other day. Their story is pretty fascinating. When they started in their position, they took a big leap of faith. They went out of the norm and safe way to do things and followed exactly what their heart told them to follow. Their significant other, friends, family, everyone asked them what the heck were they thinking. Even the job they left asked them!

THEY knew there was something.

The first year they made $42,000 total. Not a bad living for some, but not for them, they were just starting to build it. By the second year they were up to $97,000, third year was $138,000 and now in their 4^th full year they are on pace to hit into that $150,000 plus range. Why do I tell you this? Because they are still not satisfied.  When is it enough? More. More. More.

That’s the beauty of it, for the grinders, this is normal.

You must learn to enjoy it though. Be happy when your name is up on the board in the three or four slot.  Take time off to enjoy it with your family.  Know it’s okay. Be able to take a step back, take a break or just let loose.   Many of us just don’t have that mentality. We don’t have the ability to do this.  This is actually harder than working hard.

1. Plan a vacation. Take the time to make this happen. Put it on your calendar.  It’s not negotiable
2. Let go of the anxiety, nervousness, and scarcity that your business will fall apart if you don’t. It’s okay.  Consistency pays off.
3. Enjoy what you’ve accomplished. Take a break, take a breath, take a step back. Enjoy it. Set aside time to know you are doing well. It’s okay.
4. Work ON the business, not IN. What does this mean? Hire a coach, take a morning, an afternoon, take time to reflect on what you do well, and what you can get better at.
5. Hire an assistant. This can take some of that off your plate. It’s okay. Don’t live in the scarcity mentality. Make sure your business is a well-oiled machine.

These are just a few of the things you can do to make it easier.  We  need to be happy with what we have. We shouldn’t take it for granted. Life is short, and we only live once  So many times we hear that, but when someone else that you truly care about, that you truly love says it, it’s time to think about why you do what you do, and who you do it for.

Enjoy Life. It’s worth it.  Give yourself permission.

We all have stuff.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you have probably gone through something. What do I mean by something? It can be any number of things.  Let me name a few…

Divorce. Someone passing away. Someone getting sick. Car accident. Allowing yourself to be negative. Family. Running yourself ragged. Not feeling like it. Not having the right tools. Not happy in your job. These are just a few…..

For all of us, it’s different. It’s how we handle things like these that set us apart from others.  I will never, ever sit here and say don’t let it bother you. It’s inevitable, it will have an impact on our life, who we are as a person and what we think about.

Just don’t let it take away from your ultimate goal. Don’t let it get you sidetracked.

There are things you can do to allow yourself to get past it….

A smart man once said, “We all go through seasons, this is yours.”

1. Give yourself permission. What does that mean? Give yourself permission to wallow in it for a time. It can be 5 minutes, 10 minutes. It can be 2 days, 7 days. Whatever it is, give yourself time to get past it. Then, get back to who you are and what you do.
2. Ask for help: None of us can do it alone. NONE OF US. I don’t care how strong you are. How much you think you know. How big your ego is. We can’t do it alone. You need someone there to talk to. Ask for help. You have more people that care about you than you know.
3. Own it. You have a part in this. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be part of it. Either you allowed it. You were in it. You were present or you didn’t do the things to get away from it.  Own it and know you can do something about it. You’ve got this.
4. Leave it at the door. When you walk in to work. When you punch in. You punch in. No one can take that away from you. You control that. I can’t control that, THEY can’t control that. Only YOU can control what your attitude will be. When you walk in, leave it all at the door. You can pick it up on the coat rack when you walk out.  If it affects your work, it affects everyone around you.
5. Know WHY you do it. Kids, providing, life, goals, achievements or anything else that is your WHY. It can be big. It can be small. It doesn’t matter. It’s what’s important to YOU. Not me, not anyone around you. But come back to it 10, 100, 1000 times a day if necessary.

I’m here to tell you this too shall pass. No matter what it is. Whether it’s something that is going great, or something you may be struggling with. It’s never, ever as great as it seems or as bad as it seems.  I promise you that. You can always find a way.

Always.

Brent Widman
Partner
Southwestern Consulting

Have you ever given up?

Is it a work out? On the job? On that minute, that hour, that day, that week? That goal? That person? That relationship? And worse…. YOURSELF?

There’s a reason why so many of us give up. We may not know what it is, which is exactly why I hope you read this, and more importantly, why I hope it hits home.

We give up when our Vision isn’t strong enough. The Vision has to overcome the reason you are quitting. Ask yourself in this moment, this very moment, why are you here? It may be for your family, your kids, to change the lives of others, to pour into people. It may be because you want someone, someday to remember you. Who you are. What you gave back.

Whatever your reason is, will that Vision pull you to do the things you need to do?

This is how we begin. The habit of losing no longer happens, it’s not an option. Take the time to think about these questions. Write them down. Give yourself this favor. Most people won’t do this, but those of you that do, and continue to read it, you will see a change, a shift start to happen.

Create the Reality you want to live into

1. Career Reality
2. Family Reality
3. Friends Reality
4. Life Reality

Slow down, breath and write down what you want your reality to be. What does it look like 1 year from now? What in your life can you start working towards every day? What if you just started? WHAT IF you said today is the day you are going to start doing it? Whatever that “What” is for you. You. Just. Start. Now, let’s look out 5 years. 10 years, even 20. Do you want to be that person that looks back and says “I should have started that?”

Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Create this for yourself. Because it doesn’t happen until YOU see it first.

1. Map it out
2. Break it down into daily things you can start doing – always adding to it
3. Review it. Might be end of week, month, year. You will be astonished at how life changes

Don’t let losing become something you are just used to. “That’s just the way it is” should not be in your vocabulary. Whatever you want your winning to be. You have the ability to start doing something about it.

This is on you. Only you have the ability to change it. Stop accepting it.

Life is going to hit you. The minutes and hours will pass. You might as well do something with them.

Brent Widman

Sales Coach

Southwesternconsulting.com

Brentwidman.com

Are you searching for that huge change? Searching for it in life, in business, in your current role, in your leadership roles, in everything you are doing?

Life is okay, you’ve had a few jobs that you really enjoy. The thing is, there is always this empty feeling. Maybe you are asking yourself: Is this me? Is this all I was meant to be? Is this all I’m capable of? You start job hopping. Or the flip side, you stayed in something that was comfortable. It’s not that we want to. No one really loves to look for the next “thing” or be complacent, let’s not kid ourselves. No one wants to be one foot out, always looking, always wanting something else. Do we? So why did I keep doing it?

You have the opportunity to do something about it.

Stop jumping. Stop looking. Stop just being okay. Commit.

I was right there with you. I never committed to the little things I needed to do. You see, I’m in sales. I always thought that someone out there had to pay me. I was a hard worker, right?  Maybe. At least I thought I was. It wasn’t until I dug my heels in and said no more. That’s when things started to change. It wasn’t about working more hours than everyone else. It wasn’t about telling everyone else how hard I was working. It was about actually doing the work. Actually. Doing. The. Work.

It was about me. Is it about you?

At some point you have to make a commitment. Not to the job, not to others, but to yourself. You are not promised anything. No one owes it to you. I don’t care where you are in your career. You are capable of more.

Don’t just show up. This isn’t working. Show up, punch in and make it happen. Drive it. Move your business, your career, your life forward. The question is, are you doing the LITTLE THINGS that are going to get you there?

In sales, this is 5 -10 more calls. If the standard in a week is 100, do 150. If standard meetings for you is 15, do 18-20. If it means talking to 5 people a day, talk to 8. If it means you have 30 minutes to make calls, you do it. If it means you listen to a book while driving, then do it. If it means you have the ability to listen to those that sell more than you, do it. If it means you come in a bit earlier to plan you day, do it. If it means getting your mind right, do it. If it means finding a coach to help you, do it. If it means some of these are hitting you, or you are thinking of other things you “should do”, stop thinking, do it.

There are so many things that we can do. It’s the consistency, the habits that we create.

Do me a favor, take a step back and look at what you are doing. Would you do the same things all day if I was sitting beside you? If not. It’s time.

Brent Widman

Sales Coach

Southwesternconsulting.com

Brentwidman.com

Why do we need to have them?

I’ve done roughly 250+ workshops all across the country. Each and every time I ask how many people in that room have their goals written down. Note that these are mostly sales people. I would say when I ask that question, there’s truly about 25% of the room that actually writes them down. You may have them, but they aren’t going to do much good in your head. Let’s get them down on paper, on a word doc, spreadsheet, I don’t care where you put them. But get them down.

This is why….

Clarification

This will help you know exactly what you want to go after. What you want to accomplish. There’s things we all want to do with our lives. Maybe it’s with work, family, kids, life in general. We all have goals. Something we want to achieve. Don’t just think it.

Overcomes Resistance

At times, it’s going to be hard. That’s okay. That’s why we write them down. It will stare you in the face, and the goals, they will win that stare down. I promise you that. This is going to help you know when you accomplish or get close to it.

Motivates you to Take Action

They will talk to you. They will motivate you. They will help you get over the hump. They will help you get to what you want to get. Most importantly, they will help you take action. There’s this thing that happens in your mind when you write them down. It just clicks. There’s something powerful about it.

It Filters Opportunities

You stay focused. Why do we need to do that? So we don’t chase the shiny object or the squirrel. The Goal will help you stay focused and true to exactly what you need to accomplish. Many of us move on when it isn’t going perfect. Worse yet, we don’t do everything we possibly can to hit it. We check out.

Enables you to Celebrate

You hit something. Many times something you never thought you could because you put the time, work, effort into it. These things don’t just happen. Celebrate that. It’s a big deal.

Brent Widman

Sales Coach

Southwesternconsulting.com

Brentwidman.com

I’m going to fail my way to success.

Who does this?

When we are in the thick of it. How do you handle it? Do you give up and just stop? Do you feel sorry for yourself? How do you handle it?

We become what we think about. I know this is hard to understand, or believe, but it does happen. The more we say it out loud, the more we tell others, the more we start to believe it.

Good…. or BAD

Whether you think you can or think you can’t. You are right. – Henry Ford

We believe what we say out loud. If you are telling others you can’t do something. You can’t hit that goal, can’t get that job, can’t make that sale, can’t work out, can’t make that much, don’t have time. Stop. The more you say it, the more you start believing it. There’s a power in believing and saying out loud what you CAN accomplish. It doesn’t just happen. And it certainly won’t if you don’t believe it.

You can change this. That’s the power of it. I know it’s not easy. I get that. You truly can change the way you think. I will. I’m going to. I can. It’s going to be a great day. I love what I do. I’m going to make it happen. I am. I did. Fill in YOUR phrases. Fill in how you want it to be.

Don’t just read this, be different, take action on it. Many of you will read this and say “I should do that.” Those that do something about it are those that will change. Don’t be a “should head”.

Do you feel you are doing everything right? For those in sales… You are making your phone calls. Working just as hard as you ever have. You are setting your meetings. Setting your appointments. Getting in front of just as many people. Maybe more. Things just aren’t falling into place. For some reason you aren’t selling as much. You aren’t that person that you were 3 months, 6 months or even 9 months ago. Do you crawl into your hole or do you do something about it? Do you start believing that’s who you are? It’s not. It will pay off. If you believe, it will happen.

The hard part is, what do you do about it? You feel like you are doing everything you possibly can. Is it your language? Is it your goals? Maybe your focus has waned. You are worried about your team. Maybe your boss was let go. Maybe it’s a personal thing. Could be a marriage, divorce, someone passing. There’s so many things that can go on during the course of your year.

We can always get distracted.

We can also be focused.

The question is again, do you give up or do you keep at it?

This is your story. Others will thrive off it. Whether you think so or not, you are helping those around you when you struggle, when you fail. Don’t give up.

Brent Widman

Sales Coach

Southwestern Consulting

I was having a conversation with an advisor the other day. He’s been doing it for a long time and has a good thing going. Puts WAY too much pressure on himself. So many of us do. We live in this scarcity mentality. We NEED it. We HAVE to have it. So we press, we push and we end up having commission breath.

I know this because I’ve been there. It’s hard, and we know it’s hard. That’s why people quit. We quit when it gets tough. We quit when we don’t feel like it. We quit when we let the head trash in. We quit when we can’t get people to say yes, when we can’t make the money we want, when others are putting pressure on us, or worse yet, we put too much on ourselves.

Every person, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. who is in sales has had to go through this at one point or another. The thing is, the successful people didn’t quit. They didn’t do anything different than anyone else, they weren’t broken from some magic mold, they just did not quit.

They found the motivation. They found the drive. They found the way to get past it when they thought they couldn’t. When it was hard, when it didn’t go the way they wanted. They didn’t talk themselves out of it.

This is your magic pill. Go out and do more than others. Put your all into it. Put one foot in front of the other. Stop thinking “is this for me?” Commit. There is no plan B.

Set yourself a goal every day. Doesn’t matter if it’s how many appointments you’ll set, how many people you’ll talk to, how many calls you’ll make or how long you work. Set yourself a goal. Win the day. The next day, do it again. And again. And again.

Remember why you do it. It may be kids, it may be money, it may be that you truly want to help people, it may be that you have goals that you want to hit. Whatever it is, drive for it. Know it and think about it each time you go after that dream. Each time you don’t want to do something. Remember why you do it.

Stop thinking what you don’t have. You are further than you were yesterday.

There’s a power and a momentum when you start. When you say today, in this moment, I’m going to do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s hard, if I struggle, if I look stupid, if someone says no. I know that when I keep doing it, it will pay off. There’s your magic pill, people. The power of sticking with it.

You’ve got this.

Brent Widman
Brentwidman.com