Make the Sale Happen Before Lunch: 50 Cut-to-the-Chase Strategies for Getting the Business Results You Want (PAPERBACK)

RULE 50 Failure Is a State of Mind … and Success Is a State of Action

Once I began a motivational program by asking, “How many certified failures are there in this room?” To my astonishment, about a dozen hands went up (out of a total attendance of about 100 people). I remember thinking to myself as I stared at those hands, “The act of nominating yourself as a failure — and nothing else — is what keeps you from taking action.”

Failure exists, and we shouldn’t persuade ourselves that it doesn’t. But it exists solely as a state of mind. To the degree that we label ourselves failures, we are failures. On the other hand, I believe that people are aspirational animals. They are meant to commit themselves to things larger than themselves. That means, ...