Gus and the tale of loving your job

My first phone sales job was working for the phone company.  

I could sell ok in person but I sucked at selling on the phone.  I mean come on, how interesting is Call Fowarding?  

With the help of my friend Bernard, I got good though.  Cocky even.  I liked that job about as much as I would like being Vladimir Putin’s food tester, but still… 

When I made the switch to car insurance phone sales…no problem.  I was like a fish to water.

When I switched to phone life insurance sales…  Problem.  

To help me suck less, my boss had me sit an hour with one the department’s best salesmen, Gus. 

Gus was the perfect storm of great salespeople.  He had the voice, the patience, the technical knowledge, and the charisma.  

I learned a lot from Gus that day but what I really learned was, I’m NO Gus.

I struggled selling that companies’ products because my integrity couldn’t get behind their tactics.  

As Chuck Woolery would say, there was no ‘love connection’ for me there.

When this happens there’s two ways to make the situation work.  You can CHANGE what you do, or you can CHANGE the way you FEEL about what you do.

I changed what I did and skipped off to Marvel.  

So everything was just unicorns and rainbows, right?  Nope.  It was still “work”.  There was still stress.  But the difference is…

It was worth it.

When people say, ‘do what you love’ that may sound a little airy-fairy.   And for most people that’s not entirely true.  The key is doing work that’s valuable to you.  Work that’s fulfilling.  Work that fits into your lifestyle.

And when that happens, THEN you’ll find a way to love it. 

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Adam