Top Producers Don't Focus on Results

Everyone inherits the conversations (aka beliefs) of his own culture.  Many of these conversations are so much taken for granted, we don’t stop to question them or even notice them.  An example is the belief, "money doesn't grow on trees."  In other words, it's common knowledge that money is scare.  In fact, it is not scarce and we never stop to question this. In America:

• We have a bank on every corner with a sign in the window advertising cheaply available cash
• We have a government that prints it continuously
• If you have a respectable credit score, you get a credit card offer every week
• We have a significant industry of angel investors and venture capitalists who fund businesses with no revenues and no products to the tune of billions of dollars (remember the dot-com bust)

So you see, money is not scarce and we simply don’t stop to question that cultural conclusion.

There is another such conversation germane to business owners and financial advisors/insurance agents in particular.   That conversation sounds something like, "I generated a lot of gross commission this week; I feel good about my results."  You and I live in a results-oriented culture and we define ourselves by our results or lack thereof.  At least, we allow our emotions to be victim to our results. I suggest that there is a better way to manage yourself that will put you on better course for a large income.

I was fortunate to be in the top 5% of the 6000 producers at Prudential Securities (now part of Wells Fargo Advisors). The regional manager asked me to comment on my consistent success and I told him that unlike my peers, I do not believe that I can control my results.  The universe delivers results each day, week and month and I have no direct control over how much I earn.  I therefore feel neither good nor bad about the measurement of my gross commissions.  The only thing I can control is my activity.

So each day, I seek fulfillment or good feeling from the knowledge that I had a high level of appropriate activity.  I need never have a bad day as I am in direct control of my actions.  Rather than allow my emotions and the potential ups and downs to be victim to uncontrollable results, I avoid that problem.  Since I control my activity and can always feel good about it, more activity naturally follows (i.e. we tend to do more of what makes us feel good).  So rather than be subject to loss of momentum over time even when activity is unacknowledged by results, one can use this pattern to be on an increasingly upward spiral of activity.

If in fact results do flow eventually from appropriate activity (and we each have proof from our own business), then not only does more activity feed on the good feeling of activity but the long-run positive results are supportive.  In other words, having the high income as evidence that your high activity pays off is eventually important.  But having freedom from this daily or even weekly short-term addictive pattern is useful:

Results Dictate Feelings and Feelings Dictate Activity

So much like the great investors like Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet obey the fundamental investing rule that market value eventually follows earnings (thereby allowing them to hold great stocks over long periods of ups and downs in market value), know that your personal market value eventually follows the high-level of right activity.  Attend to what you can control.