Recovering From a Major Setback

To be a true sales rock star, the term widely accepted to describe the best of the best, an extraordinary degree of endurance is required. I personally have had to pick myself up off of the proverbial canvas more times than I can count in my twenty seven years of selling. I can remember loses so painful I wanted to hang it up and do something else for a living.
This process of getting knocked on my backside took on a new meaning when I made one shift in attitude. This is the amazing thing about attitude changes: A slight shift can create monumental change over the long run. This one change has done more good for my career than any ten sales strategy books I have ever read. And I have read some great ones.
The change involved the way I perceived myself when I suffered a big loss. For as long as I can remember, the fallout of being beaten in any way, shape or form was that I always honed in on exactly what I had failed to do, or what I had done wrong and then I beat myself up mercilessly to the point that my self esteem was eroded down to the nubs. And this was not the least bit helpful because i couldn't get myself in the right attitudinal place for way too long.
To be clear: I am not saying that I don't, to this day, absolutely, unequivocally HATE to lose. What I am saying is that I was fortunate enough to read something written by my mentor
in a speech he gave about a great military genius. This personage's view on an military defeat was that, based on the lessons he derived from such an occurrence, he etched the lessons so indelibly in his mind that he had absolute confidence that the loss was the source for his future victory in similar circumstances.
When I read something from a solid mentor it is no intellectual exercise. I am absorbing what I learn for the purpose of putting it into action in my daily life. As I continued practicing this new approach, month after month, my ability to bounce back from setbacks improved monumentally.
So total was the change that I was even able to help my son adopt a similar attitude thus helping him transform this unhealthy characteristic he had most likely inherited from me.
I have shared this personal attitude shift with a number of people over the years. And once anyone takes the approach that any mistake that leads to a setback is identified and etched into their mind so that it functions as the driving force for victory in a similar circumstance in the future, they too experience a great sense of liberation from old patterns of self loathing.