'Day to day' life seems to be a thing that has been oddly foreign to me, and it took me til now to realise that fact. Having a full time job is one thing, but knowing that 5 days a week you are going to do the same thing day in, day out is a disquieting idea. I mean, at university or school, or working with Dad, it was always some new thing, and no two days' schedules were the same. But don't get me wrong - it's not because of its repetitiveness, or that eternal fear of wasting my life in a cubicle, but rather there is no longer the impromptu life holding me back from certain projects that I want to embark on. In other words, having a proper 9 to 5 (or 6:30 to 3:30 in my case) empowers you with the knowledge that you can commit and, therefore, hold yourself accountable to the fulfillment of a certain project or act.
Now, I'm sure plenty of you folks out there are going 'Well duh. Now you're an adult and you can do whatever you want... so what?' And with that being said... who the hell wants to work on something outside work? Like, do proper, excruciating, hard work? I'm sure this is flagrantly obvious that not many people would sign up for that, but everyone actually DOES want to, for creating or excelling in anything, no matter what it is, takes a remarkable amount of work for no short term incentive. Of course we would love some pat on the back for our extra efforts, but that simply isn't the case. I've realised recently that this may be why so many people coast or just float on what gets them by - it takes an unfathomable amount of faith for a person to pour every ounce of spare time into any one thing and hope for recognition of any variety. Everyone wants the recognition though. and I assure you, even if you do get some recognition for the things you've done, no one will have counted the hours, and you sure as hell would be disgusted with the amount that you've counted over the years. That's really what that personal success means.
So, with a job I thought was simple and relatively horrible with good chances of experience and ascension if one stuck it out, I've found new perspective on the first and maybe most important lesson of what it takes to do anything meaningful. Mind you, I do want to reiterate that a lot of what I do at the job is particularly meaningless. I mean beyond drinking coffee and clapping wildly at the morning meetings while I can't keep my eyes open... the vast majority of the job is in no way conducive to anything, aside from fulfilling a bullet point on the job description itself. Let's put it this way: you make 200 calls a day (ideally). 3 of those people will talk to you (ideally). Most of those 197 people will never be anything that converts to profit for the company, nor will you ever be able to help them because they hung up the second they heard your name (ideally). Now, if these are the ideal statistics, imagine the actual ones. On a bad day I make close to 400 calls without a single person talking to me. Those days are really, really not fun. And remember, just because they talk to you and tell you they'd love to schedule an appointment, only around a third of them are telling the truth and will show up to let you make your case. Less than half of those that actually show think you've made a good enough point to read off a credit card. Success in this position is about cheating the numbers, otherwise you will never make quota.
Trust me, I look at those stats too, and go "Man oh man, Holt, that's a crappy job you've got right there. Seriously though. That shit is not cash." Feels bad Man. No matter what breaks you get to look at white boards, it's all just delaying the fact you gotta return to that place.
However, we don't realise that the most horrendous part of this job is that it isn't a crappy job. It's just typical to every single effort outside salary and biweekly paycheck. It is the most simple, frustrating, self-loathing and misleading manifestation of every single human effort that has ever been notable. Every person I work with demands not just professional effort but personal effort of themselves. It no longer becomes an issue of hours put in for paychecks (thankfully we are lucky enough to have that assurance), but of a self-belief that in a previous period in my life I could not at all find respectable. To continue this job, you must be blatantly and absolutely confident; you must assume you know better than the individuals you speak to, no matter where or when they come from; you must act better than every other rep on the floor, even your own teammates, and insist that they stand up to your standard; you must constantly damn yourself and find fault if only to wipe the board and adapt again; otherwise you fail. And you must do this all with a smile on your face, otherwise it renders the whole exercise pointless.
One phrase that is repeated at the job is that 'Sales is a transfer of emotion'. I know already that they aren't referring to only the emotion you project on the phone or in person or whatever. They are referring to every single moment of frustration, doubt, and hate you overcome. Every emotional obstacle overcome becomes a victory that is transferred in the sense someone perceives you, even if it just a floating voice, and suddenly, it is no longer a whisper in an ear, but an adjudicating authority. One's self perception can form a persona that changes the entire future of another individual, for no other reason aside from having no doubt about the mentality assumed. Trust me, it sounds like absolute bullshit to me too, but only 2 months in, I've already seen and lived it myself. It is an epiphany moment to find yourself taking down the key to a persons finances after an hour on the phone, after introducing yourself to that person only 2 hours prior. It becomes wisdom when you acknowledge that the moment you ring the sales bell and wrote it on the board, it did not happen all in that moment, but that sale had began the second I stepped into that building and was a sum thereof. I imagine that every other endeavor in our lives is much the same, and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - its just understanding what exactly the extent of those efforts actually are.
I think people are always hoping for that bell to reverberate clearly through their lives, and when they see, hear or read of it happening, it looks like a single event. Greatness becomes desired for the chime of the bell - but it truly consists of the foolhardy, impetuous and unending work that led up to it and follows after. Everyone wants to ring that bell, but it is so hard to fully grasp what it really is to do it. I feel that this job has brought me that much closer to understanding what is required for me to achieve what I need and want to. That's not just in action, but also belief. While it may sound commonsensical and like we all heard it before and that its an age old cliche that everyone is tired of, I assure you that most of us, perhaps myself included, will never know what exactly it demands of ourselves to truly achieve everything we want. I still find solace knowing I'm reaching to get one step closer to the answer though, no matter how roundabout the method seems.
So my primary learning vehicle these days? It's grinding. The word is only too apt... it reminds me of my impatience back in my youth with some online games. My dad used to play with us, and oddly enough, to Reed and my surprise, he certainly exceeded us. We used to always say dad played an awful lot on that MMORPG, so of course he was high level, but I never really ascertained what exactly that was. He grind-ed every day, a few hours at the time despite working all day, until he was happy with what he had done. I remember wishing my character was as good as his... but really it was never a question of making your character good. It was always about understanding what it took to be good, let alone the best. All it boils down to is the Grind.
