Embrace Acute Pain

Boy am I in the mix right now. A week ago I received news of a deal gone South. I’m a sales guy. Large deals don’t come along that often and this one was signed/sealed/delivered last month. All that was needed was contract signature. Then, the curveball. The deal’s still going to happen, just different terms.

I feel like I read people pretty well – essentially that’s what I’m paid to do. And, the coaching I do is all about reading people. I misread this one…

I’ve been pretty depressed thinking about it…what did I miss? Where did we fall short? Why didn’t I see this coming. Again, it’s not that the deal is dead, just was blindsided – and I hate being blindsided.

So, I thought I’d write about and hopefully help someone out there who’s dealing in the trenches with something that’s gone awry…work/life/sports – kind of all the same – things happen. Sh%t happens, as the saying goes. I used to think that I always had to put on a pretty face…that adversity happens and you just bounce back…while this is true to a large degree, I think it’s dangerous. When stuff happens, I think you have to let yourself feel it….don’t just sweep it under the rug. I haven’t slept well all week. Life is going on…work is going on. Again, this particular deal is still being salvaged…but it stings. I haven’t felt this in a while. I keep trying to force my way out of it…to still close the deal and think about other stuff. Maybe an extra glass of wine or beer on a few of the nights…I don’t think that’s the right path….we…rather, I, too many times in the past just tried to bounce back…and too many times swept “stuff” under the rug.

The truth is, I need to face it head on. I made a misjudgment….a mistake. Not the end of the world, but I need to feel the pain for a bit to learn from it. So next time, I can get ahead of it. Now, I’m fighting to still close this deal by the end of the year – my number (sales quota) depends on it.

So, if there’s one ultimate lesson here it’s to not run from stuff when it happens. If it’s painful that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As my friend Kary talks about – embrace acute pain….otherwise multiple rounds of acute pain, when pushed aside, turn into chronic pain. Been there done that.

Embrace the challenge at hand. Don’t sweep it…embrace it, face it head on…learn from it…get better. That’s all we can do.