Our lives are the sum total of the decisions we make.
That’s it! There is really nothing more to say.
Except that many people refuse to accept the consequences of their decisions, and choose to blame someone else. Or “the system.” Or “the universe.” Claiming some other group is responsible for our problems is all the rage today. Our lives would be so much better if not for…
As the old saying goes, when we point a finger, there are three fingers pointing back at us.
That’s not to say that everything that happens to us in life is “our fault.” Some things literally happen for no reason at all. A flat tire when driving to the airport. Getting diagnosed with a debilitating illness. Losing your roof to a violent storm. (Though even in those cases, a decision may play a part, such as whether we chose to drive on the shoulder of the road and hit something; whether we chose not to take care of our bodies; whether we chose to buy a house in a region known for violent storms and take a risk.)
The point is almost everything that we experience can be tied back to a decision we made, good or bad, not one that someone else made for us. Because no one can make a decision “for us” unless we decide to accept that decision.
What does that have to do with sales and deal-making? Maybe this is too existential of an opening to land this point: this is about deal qualification.
How often have we heard a salesperson (or said ourselves) that the reason why we lost the deal was because of the customer, “management,” or the something the competition did? The reality is in a loss review, one can almost always trace a loss back to the beginning of the engagement and ask, “Why did we pursue this? We were never going to win! We didn’t have the right solution/relationships/delivery capability/model/people. We never should have wasted our time.”
In one of my favorite loss reviews, the sales lead said, “The client said we did really well. We started in last place and we finished in second.” (News alert: second place is last place in sales, so you started in last and finished in last; why did you continue if you were in last to begin with?)
Some people will say, “But this is the only deal I have!” Really? Are your prospecting skills so weak or your service so bad you don’t have a second potential customer? Did you decide not to get more training? Did you hire on to a company that has a poor sales and service record?
The point is in business (and much of our lives) we struggle to accept accountability for our decisions and actions. Here’s something exciting I have learned over the years:
Our lives are the sum total of the decisions we make.
Yes, that was the opening line, and now think of it in terms of empowerment. To know that we actually control our own destiny with the decisions we make puts control of our lives back in our hands. And when we make good decisions, we can take credit for the outcome. And when we make bad decisions (and we will) we should also take credit for the outcome and learn from it.
Yes or no? We decide for ourselves. And the path for our journey is always up to us.
