From almost the beginning of my sales career, I was told to use motivators to keep going towards various goals. My early career with Combined Insurance Company used many motivators including “Do It Now,” “What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve,” and “With every adversity there is a seed of equivalent benefit.” There were many more! These were to foster what Combined founder, W. Clement Stone, called PMA or Positive Mental Attitude.Early in the year when colds and the flu were going around I developed a cough. I began to use Hall’s cough drops to lessen the cough’s effect. As I unwrapped one of the small yellow drops I noticed small print on the package. Each time I used a cough drop I noticed a different saying. By the time my cough and sore throat subsided, twelve different motivators were identified. They were all good, but five stood out to me.
“The show must go on!” No matter how much we would sometimes like to quit many others are depending upon us. Each family member makes an important contribution, and the family wouldn’t be the same without them. In the business setting, we each have others depending upon us to do our part. The show must go on; so let’s carry our share of the load.
“Be resilient!” Life has its ups and downs and we can learn from every stage that we go through. Many have stopped just short of success; so if we persist, we improve our chances. Babe Ruth struck out over 2,200 times; but because he was resilient, returned to the plate and hit 714 home runs in the dead- ball era.
“Get back in there!’ Closely related to being resilient and yet we all can relate to how hard it is to keep trying when we have failed at something. One common theme of most success stories I have read is that they all had one or many failures. The separation point is another Combined motivator, “Success is attained by those who try and keep trying.” They got back in there!!
“March forward!” The closest path between two points is a straight line towards the second point. Retreats mean ground has to be covered twice or more. Even small steps in the right direction are progress.
”It’s yours for the taking!” Most of the time we are in competition with ourselves to achieve some desired result. Indecision is the main culprit. As my old Prudential manager, Paul Hutsey, used to say, “Getting what we want is not the problem, its deciding what we want that that stops us. We just need to remember that it’s ours for the taking!!!!
