All of Our Victories Mean Nothing

Your victories and failures do not define you.

Unless you let them.

In sales, we experience victory and failure in roughly equal measures. It’s the nature of the beast.

All of our victories, and failures, are transitory. The joy and pain equally fleeting.

If you hit quota one month, on the first day of the next month it will have been forgotten.

In the long run no one you care about will remember, or care, if you made President’s Club. Except you.

Early in my sales career I came across the following quote from Paul Tillich, an American philosopher and theologian. Tillich wrote “The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements – as well as one’s deepest failures – is a definite symptom of maturity.”

This has been one of the most valuable pieces of life wisdom I’ve ever encountered.

Think about it. Our wins and losses have no inherent value. They only have the value we assign to them. They are not a reflection, either positively or negatively, of your worth as a human being.

That’s why these things are ambiguous.

The only things that truly are important in life are perhaps best summarized by Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble. He shared them with me on his recent appearance on my podcast, Sales Enablement with Andy Paul.

Jon calls them the Five Fs:

1. Family
2. Friends
3. Food
4. Fun
5. Fellowship

I would probably add a 6th F: Fitness (i.e. Health and well-being.)

If you’re struggling a bit, take a second to read and think about Tillich’s wisdom. I’ve always come back to it when I need to regain a little perspective about the relative unimportance of this sales work we all do.

I hope it helps you as well.

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