In this article I’ll discuss secret number 2 from my business partner Steve Siebold’s book, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class. This one goes all the way back to the day I decided to get into sales.
Mental Toughness Secret Number 2: World-Class Wealth Begins with World-Class Thinking
“The middle class trades time for money. The world class trades ideas that solve problems for money.” — Steve Siebold
I was a political science major in college, and part of the curriculum was an internship in government. I did mine at the town hall in my hometown, working directly for the town manager. On day one, it became crystal clear that government work was not for me. The people in that office seemed more concerned with their coffee breaks, their lunch breaks, and when they got to go home than with actually getting any work done. They were trading time for a paycheck, and with the sense of purpose and work ethic I had, that was not my gig.
I remember the moment the thought hit me: “Government work isn’t for me.” It was followed immediately by, “Shoot, what am I going to do for a career, then?” The answers came almost as fast. “I know, I’ll get into sales. Dad’s in sales. Grandpa Chapin was in sales. Okay, what kind of sales? I know, I’ll be a stockbroker. It’s a prestigious career, and I’ll make a ton of money while I help other people make money. It’s a win-win. Everyone makes money.”
I’ll be honest: money was a big motivator for me. Growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, I knew my dad made more money than any of the other dads on our street, and two of them were doctors and one was a lawyer. We were the only family with a built-in swimming pool. We had the nicest cars. We took two vacations a year, one to Florida and one to visit relatives in Wisconsin for two weeks every summer. Money was never an issue. And my dad was completely self-made. His family was dirt-poor when he was growing up, so I knew every bit of his financial success had come from sales.
Then came the hard part. I’d love to tell you that my desire to help people carried me through those first months as a stockbroker. The unvarnished truth is simpler: I persisted. I made mistake after mistake, and I didn’t quit when most people would have. I kept going until I finally made my first sale, and once I made the first one, the others came easier. Within a couple of years, I was living the life I’d pictured the day I walked out of that town hall.
Looking back, I think I know why I didn’t quit. I had grown up watching my dad, a kid from a dirt-poor family, out-earn the doctors and lawyers in our neighborhood through sales. To me, making good money in sales wasn’t a dream; it was normal. So every mistake I made was just a mistake, not proof that I didn’t belong. In my mind, I already belonged.
That’s the heart of Steve’s second secret. As he puts it, “The effect is lack of money. The cause is thinking.” Most people believe the path to wealth is formal education, and Steve points out that while the great ones are strong advocates of higher education, “they don’t believe it has much to do with acquiring money.” My dad never needed a medical degree or a law degree to out-earn the doctors and the lawyer on our street. He needed the right thinking.
Steve explains that the world class believes money flows from ideas: “Professional performers know money doesn’t care which direction it flows. They know the world will bend over backward to make them rich if it will help them solve their problems.” That’s exactly what top salespeople do. Average reps think about their commission. Top reps think about solving their client’s problem, and the commission follows. My plan at 21 was simple: if my clients made money, I would make money. That’s the whole secret in one sentence.
The flip side is just as powerful. In Steve’s words: “Give people operating at middle-class consciousness a million-dollar opportunity, and they will find a way to make it back to the middle class. It is where their limited self-image tells them they belong. The difference has nothing to do with reality. It’s all perception in the mind of the performer.”
If you lead a sales team, you’ve seen this happen. A rep has a breakout year, and the next year, somehow, they slide right back to their usual number. Nothing about the territory changed. Their self-image did what it always does and pulled them back to where they believe they belong. That’s why bigger commissions and new contests rarely create lasting change on their own. They can spark a short-term push, but they’re attacking the effect. If you want a rep’s numbers to rise and stay there, you have to raise what they believe they’re capable of earning. Ask your reps what they think a great year looks like for them. You’ll often find the ceiling isn’t in the market; it’s in their heads.
Here’s the action step Steve provides in his book. Ask this critical-thinking question: “At what level of monetary success do I feel most comfortable?”
a) poverty class
b) middle class
c) world class
“Where you feel most comfortable reflects your self-image, and most likely, your current status. If you want to become wealthier, begin to raise your self-image by upgrading the self-talk you use around money and finances. If all you do is chase more money, you are simply attacking the effect. The cause is how you think, and if you improve the cause, the effect will take care of itself.”
Steve Siebold and I are partners who, cumulatively, have 69 years in the profession of sales growth and excellence. We have mastered pragmatic techniques to create dramatic growth in sales teams, from the under-performers to the all-stars. This work has increased sales by more than $3.2 billion for companies like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch, Coca-Cola, and Toyota, among many others. If you’d like to discuss instilling this, and other mental toughness principles, in your team, go to www.completeselling.com or email me at johnchapin@completeselling.com.
John Chapin is a sales speaker, trainer, and coach with over 39 years of sales and sales management experience, a #1 sales rep in three industries, and author of the 2010 Sales Book of the Year, Sales Encyclopedia (Axiom Book Awards). You may reprint this article provided the contact information stays in place.