Smart Feelings

 

There's real beauty behind Nike's powerfully simple slogan: "Just Do it"

 

Before you feel like doing it, you have to first do it. Actions first. Emotions second. Actions always go before emotions. Sadly, when you wait until you feel like doing it, you may never get it done.

 

Emotions are extremely fickle. They come and they go quickly. For example, you might feel like working out early in the morning, but, then again, on second thought, you decide to pull the covers back up and sleep-in.

 

Emotions are also fleeting. They change quickly, right?

 

Zig Ziglar used to say, "If you married the wrong girl, but treat her like the right girl, she becomes the right girl. At the same time, if you married the right girl, and treat her like the wrong girl, she becomes the wrong girl."

 

Our actions, what we do, determines our outcomes, not our emotions. If you don't like what you're getting, how you're feeling, quit giving out the wrong actions. Right actions lead to right feelings.

 

Never, not once, never ever, will wrong actions lead to right feelings or emotions.

 

If you're feeling bad, you're acting bad.

 

 

 

Let me give you a personal example: I don't always feel like writing or recording or consulting. It is work to continually be evaluating my life, the life of my clients, and the world around me for helpful advice to share with you.

 

 

Likewise, if we wait until we're emotionally ready to knock doors, make phone calls, do presentations, schedule follow-ups, or handle collections, we're going to have a hard time getting anything done.

 

Doors don't knock themselves; it takes action to knock a door. If you'll start working, you'll feel like working.

 

 

We all love it when the customer volunteers to hand us a check, but most of the time, collections take action. If you don't go get the check, they'll naturally assume you don't want the check.

 

You don't have to feel like getting the check to collect it. You just have to get it done...and then you'll feel better!

 

You Mom would love if you picked up the phone and called her for no good reason right now. You don't have to feel like calling your Mom to make your Mom happy, you just have to call your Mom.

 

If you really want to be successful, you would have a hard time arguing with Walt Disney, who said, "A man should never neglect his family for his business." Go ahead, call your Mom. She misses you.

 

Actions first. Emotions second.

 

 

Action is the best sales tool for success; failure runs a close second, but only if you're smart enough to take action on what you learn from your failure.

 

I've never learned much from those proud chest-thumpers who scream, "Hey! Look at me. I'm so great. You should be great like I am because I'm so great."

 

If you'll tell me a story about how you've failed AND what you learned from your failure, I'm all ears because I know I can take action from your failure.

 

Proud people don't impress me. Humble people, who learn from their mistakes, are my heroes.

 

Anybody can work a job where somebody else forces them to work. Millions of people are managed by somebody else because they can't (or won't) work without somebody else watching them. Leave them alone for a few minutes and they quickly find something else, anything else, to do besides work.

 

Sales is such a high-paying job because so few people can handle the best sales tool of taking action, or the second best sales tool of taking even more educated action after they've failed. In sales, you either take action or you find another job. The same is true for sales managers and company owners. Action is everything.

 

Low paying jobs are those where you get paid regardless of whether you learn from your mistakes.

 

High paying jobs are those where you get paid more because of what you learn from your mistakes.

 

However, before you can make any mistakes, you have to take action, regardless of whether you're emotionally ready or not.

 

Feelings have almost nothing to do with results.

 

Actions have almost everything to do with results. 

 

Action is the best sales tool for success, failure runs a close second.

 

✌ Mike

 

P.S. I've often wondered if Zig Ziglar initially wondered whether or not he married the wrong girl. Insight does come from experience. It doesn't really matter because the legacy of his marriage to Jean, "The Redhead," is a relationship we should all envy. I'm sure, if he ever did have his doubts, he took his own advice and everything turned out beautiful because feelings have almost nothing to do with results.