If at first we don't succeed...

It's the beginning of the 4th quarter for many (the 2nd quarter in my business), and as a sales leader, I spend a lot of time thinking about what the morale and sentiment is among the org. I lead.

Like for many businesses, the selling environment in the last 6 months has shifted to a much more challenging and retracted scenario - causing leaders, sellers, and prospective clients alike to all reconsider the criteria buying decisions include.

Today to kick-off the quarter, I sent the below note to my org. (and a few others):

"Win or lose, it’s how you play the game."?

"It doesn’t matter if you fall, it matters if you get back up."?

"If at first you don’t succeed, try again."?

These are anecdotes are ones we’re all likely familiar with. Little phrases we’ve probably heard throughout our lives and even said habitually to others. We just wrapped Q1 and many of us were extra-challenged to meet our goals; sales quotas, personal goals, or OKRs. Q1 was extra challenging, testing our skills of scale, the excellence of our knowledge, sales skills, relationship building skills, and daily operating skills to name a few!??

In our lives, when things are more challenging or complicated than we’re used to, the items we are pursuing can feel daunting. If we’re not winning in our conventional definition, we can feel discouraged. And when we are simply not meeting the binary definition of success (especially in the sales world that I operate in), things can feel like they aren’t going forward in the way we want.?Josh Kaufman, author of?The Personal MBA,?recently shared, that according to his research, the well-known “10,000 hours to learn anything” is untrue.?Josh shared that while it takes 10,000 hours to become an “expert in an ultra-competitive field,”?going from “knowing nothing to being pretty good”, actually takes around 20 hours. This is about 45 minutes a day for a month.?

In my personal life, two very important people in my life are learning to walk right now. One for the first time, another for the 2nd. Madison, our 1? year old daughter has been taking her first steps over the past few weeks. She’s now up to 4-6 steps at a time, and the joy in her eyes and face is unbeatable when she’s getting those sequential steps going in motion! The other person is my stepdad Doug, who is recovering from a spinal cord injury from last month due to a tumor being removed from his spine. He too beams with joy when he’s walking in his daily rehab and setting new personal bests for distance, stairs, and other “new” experiences in his 2nd?round of learning to walk in his life.??

Unfortunately, however, I’ve seen them both falter. Madison, young, unconditioned to failure, smiles and laughs when she fails and tries again. Doug on the other hand, having spent 67 years in this world being conditioned that falling means failing; must consciously pump himself (and his confidence) back up after a stumble, willing himself to erase the mistake and try again.?But they both try and again, EVERY TIME, and gain new levels of progress and success despite the downward blimp.?

As we all embark on the 2nd?quarter of H1, we have a choice to make. Do we let a challenging Q1 deter us from going all-in on Q2? Or do we reset with all the joy and eagerness of Madison? Do we consciously will ourselves back to taking those familiar steps in a new way like Doug does, knowing full and well that success is just up the road – we just need to keep trying to take steps???

I vote we channel our Madison’s and our Doug’s and take Q2 for all it’s worth!

I'd love to hear your stories of how you reset after challenge or failure! Please share in the comments section ??