At the end of October I was informed that my current place of employment was going under and I was to be unemployed. Two weeks later I had been hired at three places. There were jobs in collections, customer service, and sales. I was lucky enough to be in a position to choose my next step! The majority of my professional career has been in collections but I was tired of bugging people for money. Naturally the collections job was the lowest candidate. The pay was great, the perks were awesome, and the work was steady. What scared me is that this was a very professional place looking for people to embark on a career with them. Too much commitment. The customer service job was only seasonal and part time. Seeing how I'm still looking to get a place on my own, that wasn't really a smart decision. Leaving me with the sales job. I was really excited to give it a go because sales would be a challenge for me every single day. It's like playing a battle of wits on every call. So I took that job.
Training was very minimal. And the whole organization is a swim or you're fired mentality. I jumped in and managed to keep my head above water! I was feeling good about myself and then the holidays hit... Around the holidays, everyone's numbers were suffering. Management wasn't sweating it. We worked three days a week for the Christmas/New Years holiday. Coming out of that weird period, I was a little off my game and had an abysmal week. At the end of the week I was called into the conference room with the HR rep, my manager, and the big boss. They told me that I had a week to get my act together or else they'd have to send me packing...
- Things I am good at
- Things that I am not good at
I'll be completely honest right now. The things I stick with are the things I believe I'm naturally good at. I look at every time in my life that I've tried something different. I either have some mild success and naturally get better at it or I suck and never do it again. That's how I got to where I was a year+ ago. I got into the mindset that where I was in life is where I would stay. I was fat because that is what I was. There was no fighting it. There was no way to escape that lifestyle. I wasn't athletic not because I had never worked at it and built myself up, but because I just wasn't athletic. I am bad at communicating with people in public settings because I was just an awkward dude and a slight social outcast. I hated math because I never understood it the first time around and I was too lazy to make the extra effort to understand it. So I just marked it off as something I couldn't do well. All of those things I could change if I just tried. Instead I justified it in my mind as, if I failed at it once then I was just never meant to do it.
It doesn't make sense to think like that. I've been breaking free of my conditioning over time with losing weight. I thought about all of the things that take work to master that I have succeeded in.
- Riding a bike
- Controlling my bowels (Children struggle with this for many years)
- Walking
- Talking
- Being funny/telling jokes (Timing, wit, and situation are CRUCIAL!)
- Driving
- Singing karaoke ( For those of you who know me, I started out a pretty big loser. I had the vocal abilities but I didn't know how to release the energy I exude now! Picture me trying to sing like a choir boy to the song I Believe by Blessed Union of Souls.)
- Playing video games
- Reading
- Losing Weight
The list goes on and on. There are so many things in life that are very difficult to do at first, but we do them and it becomes second nature. I've acknowledged this and it helps me push on. Losing weight has always been a challenge. Rather than getting frustrated or walking away, I've learned that this is a process and that it may not seem like it, but everyday it becomes easier and I get better at it.
What I've found since I started losing weight is that my eyes are open to the different opportunities that present themselves in my life. I am open to challenges and embrace that feeling of being out of my comfort zone. I laugh at my failures and try to learn from them. So rather than feeling bad for myself about the impending doom on the horizon of being fired for the second time in my life (The first time was done by my older sister's now mother in law while I was in high school on some bullshit for real... I'll save that story for another time!) I gathered myself up and opened up my mind to what I was doing. I evaluated my situation from the front down. I looked at what I was doing and how I needed to change that. I spent my day online looking up sales techniques and rebuttals. Before I left work that day I pulled my supervisor aside and picked his brain for approaches. I took notes. I listened to calls. I took the bull by it's horns. Over the weekend I studied the materials I gathered and made an effort to understand what and why I needed to change what I was doing so that I could succeed.
The next week I went from 3 sales to 8. Last week I hit 13. 13 sales were enough to earn me third place in the department for that specific campaign. I'm STILL doing research and trying to get better. There are people pulling down 18-20 sales a week on the regular and making good money doing so. I look at myself as being halfway there. Self constructive criticism is something I welcome as well. I accept that I am doing better but I am not the best at what I do. With that mindset I don't get down on myself when I don't succeed on a call, I instead find ways to improve. So many things in life are not in our control, but with planning and practice we can still get the outcomes we want. We control our reactions to said situations.
So I am back to being energized about going to work. I don't feel like I am slinking around and avoiding conversation with people out of shame for my low numbers. I am glad that I took charge of my life when I did so that I can achieve things, rather than existing on my own level of satisfaction. I came out to Los Angeles to make a difference in the world. Through my job I am helping people achieve their dreams. To get better I need to identify quickly what is holding them back and address those issues with them to convince them that what we offer is the next step. Once I get that down then I know I'll be a consistent top performer. With that comes money. With money comes a home. Once I'm in a place of my own then I can start my plan of attack so that I can begin training at an acting school to become a successful actor! So that's the chain of action I'm looking to take, and by the end of the year I want to be actively auditioning for roles and making a name for myself!
The next entry is a real doozy. It's probably going to take me a couple days to write it all out and then shape it how I want it to be. So stay tuned because what I'm about to talk about next WILL make your jaws drop and hopefully open your eyes to the possibilities available to you if you just TRY!
That's all for now!
Until the next episode!