Hating Gravity won't allow you to fly

I was out late last night sitting in with my older brother’s rock-n-roll band. I sang a few songs by the Black Crowes, which is totally in my wheelhouse. This morning I had to ensure a brutal workout under the guidance of my personal trainer.

One of the exercises my trainer had me do was to pick up a 70-pound bag of water and hoist it over my shoulder. It is a difficult exercise because the water is moving inside the bag, and gravity is doing its job of pulling the bag of water back to the ground. And gravity is a relentless foe.

No matter how much you hate gravity, no matter how much you believe that it is unfair, and no matter how much you believe that you should not be constrained by this natural law, your feet are firmly planted on the ground. Hating gravity does not provide you with the ability to fly, and you do not need to test this proposition to know that it is true.

  • You might hate that you have to prospect and make calls to build the pipeline of opportunities that you need. However, your loathing something does not make it any less necessary. More still, it does nothing to absolve of the consequences of your actions (or lack thereof). Feeding your confirmation bias and trying to find ideas that support your hatred of say, cold calling, won’t produce a single new opportunity. If you want opportunities, you must create them. 
  • You might hate the fact that so many of your prospects want the lowest price that they do not recognize the greater value you create. You might believe deeply that they have the problem, that they are broken, and that they are not doing what is right. However, hating the fact that it is hard to create a greater perception of value does not increase the value your dream client perceives. Hate having the conversations around price all you want, they are not going away. If you want your dream clients to perceive value, you have to create that perception. 
  • You might hate that your competitors sell price, make promises they cannot keep, and bamboozle your clients into believing that they can have better, faster, and cheaper. You may hate the fact that they speak poorly about you and your company. You might hate that some of your competitors are unpolished, unprofessional, and unadulterated liars. Hate with all your heart if you want to, but you are never going to have any control over what your competitors do—or what they do not do. If you want to compete, you have to focus on what is in your control. 

You’ve learned to accept gravity. You’ve learned to live with one of the most persistent of all iron laws. You have learned to get along just fine without trying to find a way to bend or break something over which you have no control. The way that you learn to fly is to act in accordance with the laws.

  • What is it that you hate to do that is necessary regardless of how you feel about it?
  • How does manifesting negative feelings about something limit your success?
  • What do you have to do to act in accordance with the natural laws and produce better results now?

Comment to send me your thoughts, your ideas, and your stories. If you know someone who is trying to break some iron law, pass this along to them with a note suggesting how they might think about that iron law. You can also point them to www.thesalesblog.com/newsletter to sign up and receive this in their inbox.

Do good work this week, and I’ll see you back here next week.

Anthony Iannarino

www.iannarino.com

P.S. I am busy today with my little gang of six working on some new things for you. Look for an email from me later this week about an August webinar and an upcoming live event in Washington D.C.!

 

 

Contributor Anthony Lannarino is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and consultant. He writes daily at www.thesalesblog.com and you can subscribe to his newsletter at www.thesalesblog.com/newsletter.