Never Enough

Play to Win

In the Summer of 2020, my brother was on an internet reality show called Play to Win.

The show, produced by a husband-and-wife entrepreneur team, is a spinoff-of-sorts of NBC’s primetime hit The Apprentice. A group of contestants compete for a “life-changing job” or a “six-figure coaching opportunity”. [1].

During one interview with the hosts, the wife called my brother out for being fake, wearing a mask. She said, “I feel like there’s something you’re hiding. …Maybe it’s because you always have a smile on your face. …You hide your true self behind the smiles and the positivity all the time.”

With teary eyes and trembling voice my brother described how, for most his life, he felt like a failure. He dropped out of college, he had a string of failed business ventures, mentors he let down… His divorce only added to his sense of personal failure. Overall, he just felt he was a disappointment to his family and his parents. All he wanted in life was to make that up. To make his parents proud. To prove he was a success.

My heart reeled as I watched the footage that Fall.

Over the next several weeks, I found myself filling up page after page in my prayer journal asking God to help my brother know he was not a failure. That he was loved.

I wanted him to know my mom and dad absolutely did not care about his success. They didn’t care about how much money was in his bank account, or his status in business, or the emblem on the front of his car, or the size of his house, or where and how often he vacationed.

I could see all of these things so clearly because God, my Heavenly Daddy, had whispered the same Truths to me over the last two years. It was revolutionary. A complete 180° to everything I had believed up till then.

God showed me He is not at all concerned with the number of books I sell, or the number of attendees at the conferences I speak, or how many followers I have on social media, or the size of my mailing list.

He wants, more than anything, to spend time with me. To be in relationship with me. He wants me contentedly at rest in him. And He wants that to be enough, without any of those other things.

I prayed so fervently. I could see how blindly my brother was deceived. I envisioned him in the midst of a dense fog, or with a shroud pulled over his head.

I wanted my brother to feel peace. To enjoy his life – really – not just pretend to enjoy it on Facebook Live. I wanted him to be able to rest. To stop all the striving for his worth, his significance, for love and acceptance, for validation. To just be with us, and to know that was enough.

I prayed against spiritual strongholds. Demonic deception. I prayed in the name of Jesus. For him to be set free. His eyes opened. Revelation to come.

I prayed it. But I never said any of these things out loud to my brother.

The regret of that stings more deeply than I can describe.

My husband and I have confessed to one another several things we regret not saying to my brother while he was still alive.

On a walk in the days after they found my brother’s body, we were talking about the show and this particular topic.

My husband wondered aloud, “Even if we had said all the things, even if we had held a family intervention to try to shake him awake, to tell him we could see through all the bullshit and to stop faking it, would he even have been able to hear it?”

We both knew the answer was ‘no’.

He would have laughed it off. Diminished or dismissed it. Possibly even turned it around on us to make us the bad guys for calling him out with the truth.

My brother had spent the previous twenty years of his life programming himself every single day, in every single way, with every piece of input he took, that a man’s worth was only as great as his financial “success”.

He could not see, what literally hundreds of people have reiterated now after he is gone, that his success was within the impact he made in others. In the fact that he showed up every single day and made a point to reach out to someone, to send an encouraging note, to send a funny text, to send a voice clip with encouragement.

That was his legacy. Those things were more than enough. But he couldn’t see that.

Stronghold, indeed.

This is one of the hardest and most exhausting parts of losing a loved one to suicide – all the wondering. The questions. The trying to get inside their head after-the-fact.

The “Why?” and “Why now?”
and “How did I not see it coming?”
and “Was it my fault somehow?”
or “What could I have done differently?”
“Was it impulsive or premeditated?”
“What pushed him over the edge?”
“What if I had done this or said that, would it have made a difference?”
“What if….what if… what if…?”

The mental merry-go-round is debilitating. Endless. And the regret that comes with all the questions is absolutely haunting.

The day after they found my brother’s body I was taking a shower and suddenly became gripped with the thought of what more I could have given my brother that would have made him stay? That would have made him feel differently?

And I realized, no matter how much more I gave, nothing would have ever been enough.

The Grand-Canyon-sized expanse of emptiness inside of him could never be filled by another human. Or by any external factor in this life.

The lyrics to The Greatest Show’s “Never Enough” lilted through my head as the water ran down my face that morning:

All the shine of a thousand spotlights
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough
Never be enough
Towers of gold are still too little
These hands could hold the world but it’ll
Never be enough
Never be enough
For me
Never enough
Never, never
Never enough
for me
For me

Just a couple weeks after my brother’s death, I sat in my OBGYN’s office for my six-week postpartum check-up. My OB asked me if I was experiencing any PPD symptoms.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I don’t know the difference between postpartum depression and regular old, my-brother-just-killed-himself depression.”

I told him the hardest part was all the mental ping-pong, all the questions. And the hardest question of all to answer was why he did what he did.

My doctor said the most helpful – and true – thing to me. He said, “There’s no use trying to make sense of what he was thinking it what he did. There is no understanding it from a rational perspective…. because rational thinking people don’t kill themselves. His brain wasn’t functioning ‘normally’ at the time.”

I found out he was speaking from experience. His own brother took his life 18 months prior to mine.

Harsh delivery aside, it gave my mind a great degree of peace and rest.

But the “what if’s?” still plagued me in time.

In October of 2022, I answered this prompt in my guided grief journal:

If I could talk to you one more time, I’d tell you…

…What’s hardest about watching this [Play to Win] video is the knowledge that I didn’t follow through on the nudge to talk to you after [the first time].

I want you to know:
It breaks our hearts to see you restlessly striving, working, producing, posturing and pretending.
We just want the real, authentic you.
We want your time & attention.
We want to laugh with you over funny movies and card games.
We want you to be present with us when we are together, not multitasking a thousand different ways.

Brother, I want nothing more than for you to wake up. To hear the voice of Your Heavenly Father say, “Look up Child.

Look up from your toiling and searching and striving and see that I love you just for who you are and where you are. No matter how many times you’ve failed. Your failures were a result of you trying to do things on your own, seeking things I don’t even want for you.

Learn to live and walk with Me. And I will give you Peace and Rest and Satisfaction. Deep and Abiding. I will show you the work I want you to do. It will be rewarding and it will make an impact. But that’s not even what matters most.

Come sit with Me for a while and I will give you a new perspective.

I made you the way you are, now let Me show you how I want you to use everything I put inside you.

Let Me reframe and redefine for you what success looks like.

I love you.”

These are the things I regret not saying to my brother four years ago.
And maybe if I had, it would have made all the difference.
Or maybe, it would have never been enough.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/rayhigdonpage/videos/883545428687674/

***

This post is part 6 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

Two Weeks Ago, I Googled Myself

When the devil whispers a lie to you, it’s not random. It’s intentional. Deliberate.
It’s the exact opposite of the Truth. The specific Truth he is trying to discredit in your life.
It gives you a little insight into his playbook.

Two weeks ago, I googled myself.

It wasn’t out of arrogance, I promise, rather shear curiosity. Barry (my husband) and I were driving around town when he told me about a DJ friend of his from college, “He moved to L.A. and is like a real life, big time DJ. You can google him!”

So naturally I thought, I wonder what happens when you google “Author Rachel Dawn”? So I did. To my surprise, the results were stacked! Google returned my bio, my author page on amazon, my tv interview, youtube clips, my website, my blog… like I was a real life, big time author!

Then it occurred to me that google results are tailored to individuals based on their search and web history, I told myself, this has to be biased. So I tried it from Barry’s phone and asked 3 or 4 of my closest friends to google me and screenshot their results. They all had virtually the same content I saw, but in a different order; some looked more impressive than others.

Later that night, in a back-and-forth text exchange with my sister I told her my results had been “crazy” and made me look “totally legit”. To which she simply replied, “You are legit.”

And then I bawled my eyes out at 1:30 in the morning as I typed out a page long reply to her.

You see, what I feel is the furthest thing from legit.

Some days, I feel like a total fraud.

There’s actually a term for this, it’s called Imposter Syndrome.

Wikipedia defines imposter syndrome as: a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments, and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

And a Fast Company article states: The phenomenon reflects a belief that you’re an inadequate and incompetent failure, despite evidence that indicates you’re skilled and quite successful.

Just two days earlier, while in for my weekly appointment, my book came up in discussion with my chiropractor for the first time. Like any genuinely interested person, he asked a few questions, and then came the one question I had been praying wouldn’t come of his mouth, “Are sales going well?”

You guys… It.got.so.weird.

All my confidence was sucked right out from inside me. Immediately my shoulders drooped and I couldn’t look him in the eye. I was so self-conscious thinking about the number of copies sold in my head. My voice trailed off as I rambled on about how reality had not lived up to my expectations for numbers blah blah blah… and I changed the subject as quickly as possible.

I was most embarrassed at my own reaction.

And when that text from my sister came in, the realization of why I felt that way hit me.

I wrote to her: I don’t know when it’s supposed to feel like you “made it” in this [book] world, this segment. But lately I’ve noticed my confidence has been lacking and I think it’s because I feel like I’m just failing. Like I should be way further along. The further away I get from my release date, the more of a failure I feel. But I don’t even know at what point I would stop feeling that. This is the first time I’ve even been able to put those thoughts together in words.

Maybe you have felt like this before? You thought with this degree or that job, you’d be making more money. At this company, you’d be further up the ranks. By this age or with all the work you’ve put in, you’d have more, be more, feel more satisfied…

Compound that with social media feeds parading in front of you the people who started at the same place at the same time, but appear further along and totally fine. Ugh.

She responded with precisely the words I needed to hear, but still struggled to believe:

You know those are lies being whispered to you. You’re successful because of the lives you’ve touched, not the number of books sold. I’m sure you would have written that book just to help a single person, but instead, you’ve helped hundreds…so far, and more to come.

Not many people can say that.

You’re one of the most confident people I know, don’t let the devil steal that God-given trait from you. Maybe the plan is to kill, steal and destroy your confidence so that you won’t keep going, so that you won’t write another book?!

You’re only 33 and you wrote and have published a book. That’s successful.

Everything I’ve ever been taught about success is to set tangible, concrete goals. It’s not enough to just want to “write a book”, you have to set a deadline, and concrete numbers for sales, so you can measure your accomplishment. But so far, that method had only served to send me on an emotional rollercoaster in this endeavor. My expectation was to have sold this many copies during launch week, not almost 2 years later.

I prayed to God that night: tell me what I should be believing for. Should I have a goal with a number attached to it? Or not? Why was this bothering me so much? I asked Him to reveal the depth of what was really going on.

At Least I’m Not Alone

Over the next few days as I marinated on the exchange, I was reminded of a story I heard at the She Speaks conference in 2016. During a workshop titled, Marketing Do-Over: Secrets I Wish I Had Known, Before My First Book Launched, Courtney DeFeo recounted a similar meltdown.

Some time after her book launched, Courtney called her mentor (Lysa Terkeurst) crying hysterically about the [lack of] number of copies she had sold. She expected it to be many more by then. She expected to be further along. And she felt like everything she had done had been wasted effort. She questioned if she really supposed to do this? She wanted to give up. Then, they had this exchange:

Lysa calmly asked her, “Did God ask you to write the book?”

“Yes.”

“Are people being impacted?”

What?

“Do you get letters/emails from people telling you how your book is impacting them?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s all that matters. Numbers are not the key indicators of your success. Changed lives are.”

I was thankful to have heard that story even before I needed it so I knew I wasn’t alone. But that still didn’t mean I knew how to stop feeling this way or what to do with these feelings.

Subterfuge

What shocked me the most about my early morning meltdown was the fact that I hadn’t realized it was happening.

“Subterfuge” was the word I kept picturing in my imagination. If our minds are the battlefield of our lives (and I believe they are), the enemy had been playing a long, slow game of Guerilla Warfare to which I had been utterly oblivious. I wondered just how long those thoughts had been planted, germinated, and able to take root?

A few days later I was retelling the 1:30-am-text-exchange-breakdown-story to my friend

When the Devil(1)

TaLarrya and in the way that only she can, she listened and then responded, “Ok, so you know that is a lie. So, what truth is the enemy trying to shake your confidence in, that God wants to affirm in you? The two are probably related.”

I’m thankful for friends I can be totally vulnerable with, who can speak Truth back to me in exactly the way I need it.

In that moment, it was like the enemy’s playbook was thrown open in front of my eyes.

When she walked away, I took out my phone and jotted a quick note for myself: What’s the opposite of failure, of “I should be further along than I am right now.”?

I believe there are still many truths God will continue to whisper to me about this, but right away what I heard was, I’m exactly where God wants me, right now.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I’m supposed to be in this exact this place, at this stage, for this moment, in this season, with this number of books sold.

I don’t know what all of His plans for my future as an author and public speaker look like, how high He will elevate me, what reach and impact He will allow me to have, but He has promised that He does:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

My job is to rest in the trusting of that truth. And to do the next thing He puts in front of me.

Resting & Trusting keep popping up as recurring themes in my life this year…looks like I still have a lot to learn about them both.

LANES, PAINS, AND PLAYDOUGH SALONS

Hi, my name is Meagan. I am a songwriter/nanny/blogger in Nashville, Tennessee. I love Jesus and I love Taco Bell gorditas. I believe the invention of Crocs initiated the American decline. I regularly tell waiters I am allergic to cilantro when really I just don’t like the taste. I have watched Gossip Girl to its seasonal entirety 4 times in the past 10 years (#TeamLonelyBoy). I absolutely adore my friendships, think my family might actually change the world, and applaud any sign of grace over judgement.

So now that we’ve become a little more acquainted, allow me to share one of my most daunting personal issues. I mean, we’re there right?

If I had to choose one thing that holds me back from accomplishing my purpose, it is that vicious little vixen we like to call “comparison.” As a woman, I have found upon confession that I am not the only one filling a seat on this struggle bus, so I hope I am not writing this post in vain.

I moved to Nashville over a year ago and, quite honestly, gained the songwriters momentum quickly. I was focused and driven, a picture perfect cliche of the American dream. I developed deep, valuable friendships within the industry, and began what I hoped to be a thriving career. I came to Nashville believing that one could either be inspired or defeated by the amount of creatives in one city. With the best of intentions, I supported my friends and loved our little songwriting world. And then my friends started succeeding. They went on world tours, got record deals, and signed to labels that set their writing schedules. They instagrammed shows and facebooked conference photos. They began to pass me in the race, versus run alongside. At least, that was my personal, emotional perspective. On the outside, I celebrated each friend, went to their shows, promoted their new albums. But on the inside, I sank and sank fast. My faith and focus faltered, slowly stripping my heart of its original intent and filling it with a fear that God skipped over me and had chosen my friends instead. You see, I struggled with staying in my own lane. I realize that phrase can be highly overused in any self-help arena, but just bear with me as we dissect.

Each of us, upon birth, are given the beautiful gift of a one lane road in the form of a “calling” or “purpose.” God gives us an identity and graces us with dreams and goals to fulfill His ultimate purpose on earth. Our simple task is to stay in our lane and run the race presented before us, to do the best we can with what He’s given.

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 3:14

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” -1 Corinthians 9:24

I was constantly glancing over at my friends and family, eyeing their race with envy and, ultimately, defeat. If I had simply kept my eyes forward and focused on God’s path versus theirs, who knows what I would’ve accomplished by this time. Comparison is crippling. Learning to stay in your lane and embrace your personal race isn’t easy, trust me, I’m still a work in progress. But there are a few things I’ve picked up along the way that might be worth a read. So how do we stay in our lane? How do we keep that focus? Lucky for you, I have a few car analogies to get things rolling. (Get it? Rolling? Like a tire? Yeah I’m awesome.)

“IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE, DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE”

Remember 5 years ago when Oprah went bat poop cray over texting and driving, creating awareness and a culture shift in her wake? We all know texting and driving is not only idiotic, it can be deadly. Too many statistics solidify that fact. And yet, how many times do we catch ourselves on an empty highway or bored in a traffic jam typing away? We check our Facebook during lunch hours, we don’t go out unless the plan is Instagram-worthy, and we get all our news updates from Twitter. Our lives revolve around connection, and social media has become the great connector. It can be a beautiful thing, a generational tool to be celebrated! It can also be fatal when viewed at the wrong time. One of the main contributors to my personal life-lane swerve was social media. I was in a habit of waking up and hitting my newsfeed before I hit snooze. Everyday I began with a solid dose of comparison. With every “like,” I developed a big fat failure feeling, all before my first cup of coffee.

I will say, it took a certain amount of self-awareness to realize that this was an unhealthy habit for me. Some seasons I can celebrate every single human on my newsfeed with adorational abandon. (No, adorational is not a word.) But I now know there are other seasons when I feel like life is moving a tad slower, or Jesus has me in a waiting period, when I have to monitor my social media intake. If I’m looking over at anothers filtered view of constant success, it’s easy for me to feel like I can never catch up. If you’re constantly checking on another lane, you will veer off your course entirely, causing a mental collision that’s hard to come back from. Satan loves these little stalls, these tiny hits of negativity. Be honest with yourself and your journey. Evaluate whether it’s a healthy season for you to be virtually present, and if it’s not, unplug. Trust me, your world will not end. People will still contact you. Your lunch will be just as good without the stand-on-chair crema filtered photo.

“CHECK YOUR BLINDSPOT, BABY”

One of the first things they teach you in drivers ed is to never change lanes without checking your blindspot. There could be someone else in the way, or a road obstruction outside of your view. When we swerve and skid into another’s lane, comparing ourself to what seems like their massive success, we rarely get the whole picture. We believe the grass is greener, however we don’t know what kind of weeds are hiding in their backyard. It’s so important to check yourself when you begin to compare because you don’t know that persons complete story. You don’t know what they went through to get to this place in their journey. You don’t know what they are currently battling to stay afloat. You don’t know who they hurt, loved, or lost along the way. You are literally comparing your entirety to their partiality and that makes no sense. Perspective is everything. Everyone has a blindspot they keep hidden or quieted, so when you compare keep in mind that you are most likely not getting the full picture.

“WE GON’ CELEBRATE AND HAVE A GOOD TIME”

Remember that feeling you got as a kid? You’d be at your best friend’s birthday party and they’d be joyfully opening presents while you were forced to stand around and watch. Part of you was just happy to be in the room, genuinely excited to be celebrating your friend. The other was absolutely downright jealous that they just opened the brand new state of the art Playdough salon you’d been secretly saving for with every lemonade stand. Can I get a witness? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that feeling never really goes away. It just transforms itself into light envy via mountaintop engagement Facebook post, or new homeowners keys. You see your friends moving on and having these amazing adulting wins, and boom, here comes that little comparison virus. I have found that a practical way of mentally battling that moment is to outwardly and sometimes embarrassingly celebrate your tribe.

My friend Stephanie is AMAZING at this, ya’ll. If her boys come home from school with even so much as a worm they found on the playground, she will fall to the floor in shrieks of joy over their accomplishment. She is my #momgoals in so many ways. When someone you love has a moment to celebrate and you find yourself comparing, immediately catch it, acknowledge it, and then defeat it by doing the exact opposite of what your feelings tell you. Take the friend to dinner, freak out on their comment section, lose your mind in their general direction. Celebrate your people, because that’s what we are called to do. We are called to laugh with those who laugh, and mourn with those who mourn. So laugh, even when you feel like less, even when you feel left out or alone. Let those closest to you know that no matter what is happening in your life, you value their dreams and goals and support them completely. This isn’t easy. Trust me, I know. There was a moment in a particularly hard season of singleness when a friend of mine announced her pregnancy. I had a choice. I could celebrate alongside her or cower in my defeat. I chose to celebrate her, shower her, and quite honestly over-honor her. I am so glad I did. God blesses that obedience, and He fills that hurt. He is glorified through your willingness to lay your life down for your friend. So ya’ll, celebrate good times, come on.

“HONEY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR”

The main thing that shocks me back into reality when I find myself comparing is one simple truth: THIS IS NOT MY LANE. Let me explain. This life, this gift of humanity you’ve been given, this lane is not yours. It belongs to God, first and foremost, no argument. When I focus on me, my failures, my insecurities, I forget the fact that this life and lane is meant to glorify Him.

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” -Galations 1:10

Yikes. That’s terrifyingly blunt. “I would not be a servant of Christ if I was trying to please man.” We are here to share the gospel and our calling in life is perfectly assigned to reflect that truth. The fact of the matter is, if you stay in your lane and keep your focus above versus beside, you’ll realize this race, this journey is not about you. It’s about Jesus. And if it’s about Jesus, then there’s nothing that compares. He is all that matters, His heart, His opinion, His work is incomparable. This life is not about us. Your lane is not really your lane. It belongs to God. When I remember this, it puts everything into perspective. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or accomplishing. My passion and focus is on Jesus, and that alone is the prize. That alone is all I need to fulfill me. That alone is all I desire.

Trust that Jesus sees you and loves you. He celebrates you and covers you. When you look from right to left, don’t compare your story. Jesus doesn’t. Like I said, I am still a work in progress when it comes to comparison. But oh how the pressure releases when I remember that this life is not my own. I’ve learned that if I keep my focus on Him, He never fails me. Stay in your lane. It might seem small right now, the road may seem windy or difficult, but know that God has gone before you. He sees every lane on that road and has made sure you are in the exact one that will fulfill the desires of your heart and bring others to His kingdom.

Celebrate your tribe, press forward, embrace God’s plan for your life. STAY IN YOUR LANE. And always honk if you love Jesus, ya’ll.

(If you’d like to read more humorously insightful posts by Meagan, you can find her blog here: www.thegracefulattempt.com )

Speaking Life

This week a professional friend/acquaintance told me “you have one of the happiest marriages I’ve ever seen on Facebook.”

While I appreciate what he said, his comment in and of itself was a can of worms. I mean, we are all guilty of using our Social Media pages to portray the “highlight reel” of our lives – I certainly wasn’t posting a status update about the little squabble Barry and I had thirty minutes after that compliment!! But later that night I thought about what he said while I was taking a shower. Then I looked up and a reminder of why this is was literally right in front of me.

You want to know why my marriage is successful? Happy? Not perfect – but (a lot) more good days than bad?

Because these words cling to our shower wall and we read them every day, most days out loud.

blog marriage.jpg

We are programming our minds with these positive thoughts and attributes DAILY. Literally, speaking life into them. Speaking each of them into manifestation in our lives.

Do you notice how they are all action phrases? Deliberate choices.

So when one of us is moody or grouchy or tired or hungry and a quarrel begins, these are the words playing louder than any other track in my mind. And it’s a lot easier to “avoid foolish and ignorant disputes” and keep my mouth shut, when I remember I already told myself I would today.

Having a happy marriage has NOTHING to do with finding “the right one” or your “soul mate”. And happy marriages don’t just fall into place effortlessly. Having a good marriage is the result of conscious, daily effort. It’s work.

It’s choosing to let the snide comment go, and ignore the annoying habit. It’s choosing to put someone else before yourself. It’s choosing not to be offended, or hold grudges, or keep a record of every misdeed. It’s choosing to see your spouse in the best light, even when that’s not really what you see at the moment. It’s choosing to interpret what they said in a positive manner – not the manner that pisses you off – because honestly, that’s probably how they meant it. It’s choosing to avoid strife.

A successful marriage, like success in almost any area of life, is really nothing more than a series of small (sometimes large, but mostly small) daily decisions. But you must decide every day.

One of those decisions is choosing what you put/program in your mind about your spouse and about your marriage. This has been a great place to start for us. You can get your own shower cling here: http://clingtoyourconfession.com/clings

(If you’re not familiar with the concept and power of Positive Confession this probably all seems really weird to you, but diving into that subject is for another day and another post. You can start with these books if you’d like to research on your own: “Hung By the Tongue: What You Say is What You Get” & “What to Say When You Talk to Yourself”)

The New Guy

road of success.jpg

They recently moved my desk at my office. I’m only there for a few hours every couple weeks, so it’s not a huge deal, I’ve been moved several times. I’ve been put in the middle of administrative assistants, and customer service, and for a long time I sat with the marketing department.

argaret Lauren This time, they moved me right in the middle of the sales floor, so I sit right behind a [brand] new guy, who has just gone out on his own. I hear him making cold calls and it’s….well, rough, and it’s awkward, and I know he’s struggling…. I have to fill in the other side of the conversation in my mind, but, I know they are telling him no, blowing him off. But he keeps asking questions and he keeps dialing. I haven’t heard anyone make cold calls since I was in that position myself when I started at TQL 6 years ago.

Last time i was in, I leaned in close while I was walking by and whispered to him “You’re doing a great job, keep it up.”

Hearing him again today, I can hear the marginal improvement and the slight increase in confidence he’s gained (not saying i had anything to do with that), but he’s still getting his footing.

I don’t know if he’ll make it at TQL, but I do know he’s learning some great lessons for his discipline .png life right now, the most of which is to not take no for an answer, and not to give up. He’s learning perseverance and persistence, he’s learning to relate to people from all walks of life, from all parts of the country, different nationalities…. he’s learning that only he can motivate himself, no one else is going to do that for him, no matter what he decides to do.
By sticking with it and pushing through, he’s earning his own self-respect, which is the most valuable asset of all. Hearing his relentlessness warms my heart.

Good luck new guy! I hope you take everything you can from this experience and remember these phone calls for the rest of your life.

I Am the Master of My Emotions

I have had this posted on my desk for years and is such a great reminder every time I see it.

I am the master of my Emotions

If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will remember past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.

Today I will be the master of my emotions!