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November 03, 2011 at 02:24 PM
Confession time: I get a little bit annoyed when people tell me, “Marvin, you’re working too hard” or “Marvin, you’re working all the time — don’t you ever take some down time?” or “Marvin, you’re a workaholic.”
Usually these questions are coming from someone who is employed by someone else and enjoying all that “free time” on someone else’s payroll.
And this type of person is usually — no coincidence, as you’ll see shortly — classified in my mind as a non-dreamer, meaning that they are probably going nowhere in their job, their leadership role, or their sales career.
One dreamer who can teach us a lot about both leadership and sales is Thomas Edison. Consider these life and work truths.
1. Consider the source.
Is the advice you’re getting from the non-sales pros and non-leaders enough to get you where you want to go in your sales and leadership career? Probably not.
Once you consider the source, is it even worth listening to them? Again, my guess would be no.
2. The more juice you put in, the longer you burn.
Thomas Edison lived from 1847-1931. My LSU math tells me he lived to be around 84 years old. Most people don’t know that Thomas Edison was not only an inventor, he was also a great salesman. It was not unusual for Edison to work more than 40 hours straight. As in 40 hours without sleep — without a break — and without any loss of energy or enthusiasm for pursuing his goal of the moment. These bursts of creativity and accomplishment happened because he knew how to drive himself to maximum productivity and didn’t pay a bit of attention to the conventional wisdom that might have suggested putting something off until the morning!
