Things for Thought 2001

Failure and setbacks will never beat us if our own determination is strong enough to succeed.

Here are 13 thought-provoking items you might find helpful to both your business and personal lives.

1. The best definition of a high-performance team is: Anticipating the needs of your clients and exceeding their expectations.

2. Add to an “I will” conviction the statement from author Earl Nightingale, “We become what we think about most.”

3. In football, they call it the end-around play. In warfare, it's known as a flanking maneuver. The world's chess masters watch for the wing attack. No matter what it's called, it's about taking risks. Successful people take chances.

4. We can't steal second base by keeping our foot on first! Go for it! Take the chance!

5. “Secret Strategies From Heaven,” by Keith Butler, discusses how to obtain inner peace.

   Butler refers to a Bible verse that defines peace as having “perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts.”

   Take a few moments to think about these words. Imagine having a good feeling about yourself, doing good for mankind, feeling fulfilled spiritually, and eliminating the fears and bad things from your life.

6. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton once observed, “The longer I live, the more certain I am that the great difference between the feeble and the powerful, between the great and the insignificant, is energy — invincible determination — a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.”

7. Decisions without actions are worthless. Many reps make plans about what they intend to do. The trouble is, they never implement their plans.

8. The definition of entrepreneurship is: The pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources at hand.

9. The guy who works hard gets ahead. It's that simple. Still not convinced? If successful people work so smart, why do they make so many mistakes on their way to the top? Top athletes, entrepreneurs and brokers can recount hundreds of war stories about their blunders. They didn't make these mistakes because they were smart. They made the mistakes because they worked hard. Mistakes helped put them at the top.

10. As the saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” If everyone in this business had the strength, courage, faith and ability to overcome adversity again and again, we would not have as many people failing in this business. We should consider ourselves lucky that this business is as difficult as it is, and that relatively few have the necessary courage and faith to make it to the top.

11. Failure and setbacks will never beat us if our own determination is strong enough to succeed.

12. Benjamin Franklin said: “There are two ways to acquire wisdom. You can either buy it or borrow it.” By buying it, we pay full price in terms of cost and time to learn the lessons. However, by borrowing it, we go to those who already paid the full price and learn from them. This business is too difficult to figure out alone.

13. Here's an interesting fact: The average salesperson drives approximately 25,000 miles a year. That's about 500 hours a year. Dividing 500 into, say, a 50-hour workweek equates to 10 weeks of driving time. Imagine what we could learn in 10 weeks if all we did was listen to sales and motivational tapes. It's like attending a university one semester a year!

Harry Pappas Jr. is a senior vice president at a major firm in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., one of Registered Representative's Outstanding Brokers and the author of the manual “Selling From the Heart.”