A Wholehearted Sales Professional Does The Inner Work, Will You?

"The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes."

Pema Chodron

Heart in sales, it's not a dirty word.

Within the sales community, an image of the heart is often associated with weakness or being too mushy gushy. The heart is strong and powerful. It is the driving force of our life, one heartbeat at a time.

Our ability to succeed becomes crippled when there is an unbalanced connection with our heart. Embracing a heart-centered approach to sales rests with our ability to stop, look inward, and reflect upon the course of action we know is the right, rather than succumbing to external pressures and misaligned sales crapola.

Our heart is the absolute key to survival. Plain and simple, if our heart stops beating, we know what happens. Therefore, we take good care of it. We exercise, we eat healthy and we try to avoid stress; all in the name of heart-health.

How can you sell from the heart if your heart is broken?

IT ALL STARTS BY LOOKNG INWARD

The journey to becoming more heartfelt starts with understanding who you are at your core. It is becoming more in tune with your deeper self. It is the ability to recognize what fires you up, what makes you happy or sad.

• How do you deal with your emotions?
• How do you react when your sales life goes astray?
• What areas do you really excel at?
• What areas do you need to work on in your personal growth and development?

When you truly understand who you are, you can make a conscious effort to improve yourself and how you communicate better with others.

Do you have the courage to live a wholehearted sales life?

EMBRACE BEING WHOLEHEARTED

“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness,” Brené Brown writes in Daring Greatly. “It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.”

The following Brené Brown video clip reinforces why I believe the key to sales success starts at the heart level. She discusses wholehearted people as having:

• A sense of worthiness
• Courage
• Compassion
• The ability to connect with others
• Gratitude
• Leaning into joy
• Vulnerability

How many of these can you relate to?

Unfortunately, many salespeople have become results driven and commission breathing.

They have turned the page on wholeheartedness. They have turned the page and are leading with their wallet.

They're looking outward as they're being led by their brain. Their inner core values have been thrown to the waste side as money and profit have become the driving force.

“If your goals aren’t synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them won’t matter much.”

Danielle LaPorte

It is my strong belief, in order for the brain to work well we need a strong heart. When I look inside many sales organizations, I often find unhealthy hearts where values and beliefs are misaligned. Layer on top of this misaligned values in management and folks... this is a recipe for sales disaster.

ROAD TO BECOMING WHOLEHEARTED

"I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion."

Billie Jean King

SELF-AWARE

Self-awareness means you know yourself so well that you become amazingly happy which in turn allows you to live a wonderfully balanced life.

• Are you living as the real you and not some sales facade?
• Do your thoughts match your actions?
• Does your walk match your talk?

Living a lie comes out sooner or later. Living a sales lies is even worse as this will ultimately screw with your career.

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Theologian Howard Thurman

Are you aware of what makes you come alive?

Are you aware of what makes your clients come alive?

HONESTY

Honesty is a huge part of self-improvement and awareness. Get ferociously honest with yourself and ditch the delusional thinking. In chapter 2 of Selling From the Heart, I write about sales chaos.

Has turmoil set in within your sales career and yourself? Is pure chaos keeping you from seeing the truth and taking the required actions of successful sales professionals?

If you're not honest with yourself then how can you expect to learn and grow? You must be willing to recognize reality for what it is and face it head on.

Honesty helps to detect self-deception that we use as a smoke screen to mask our problems and imperfections.

Brené Brown, in her book, "The Gifts Of Imperfection" talks about self-love. 

"Practicing self-love means learning how to trust ourselves, to treat ourselves with respect and to be kind affectionate towards ourselves."

Honesty begins with you and not the people around you. If you're not honest with yourself then who can you be honest with?

BECOME COMFORTABLE WITH DISCOMFORT

Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable is what ferocious self-honesty is built upon.

I encourage you to think about this one...

How can you become ferociously self-honest if you struggle to deal with any discomfort in your sales life? You can’t and you're only fooling yourself.

In the hyper competitive world of sales, those who are willing to take risks, step out of their comfort zone and create some discomfort for themselves will be those who will reap the biggest rewards.

Let this one sink in for a moment...

If YOU, can't challenge yourself to improve then how can you challenge your clients to improve?

EMBRACE YOUR HEART AND WHO YOU ARE

Here's a little secret, you're not perfect and you never will be. Accept your scars and your flaws as something to be proud of, instead of something to hide away from. Embrace and learn to love what makes you, you.

The sales world is riddled with braggadocious, bravado filled behaviors. Armani suits, Rolex watches and fancy cars mask the insecurity. You see we all have imperfections. We all have baggage. We all have something hiding inside the sales closet of the past.

Embrace it. When we're willing to say "FU" to everyone and shout, "This is who I am" then your sales life begins.

What is powering your heart engine right now?

There is an old proverb:

“Above all things guard your heart…”