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#1
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| The Art of Saving Life
In the last century Morihei Ueshiba founded a martial art called Aikido. He was schooled in many martial arts and Aikido contains many dimensions which fit into a system the essence of which is to honor and save life - to preserve life through peace and harmony.
Like almost everything I've taken upon myself to learn, Aikido is a study born out of personal love of the subject. From the time I began learning yoga in my teens - I'm sixty-one today - through the decades of other disciplines I've found, I've always been a self taught learner rather than one who takes classes or organized training. So I remain somewhat of an amateur or connoisseur of what I study rather than professionally tutored. How I learn has it's stengths as well as weaknesses.
My study of sales strategies, tactics, methods, concepts is extremely limited other than some general reading, a little more specific reading at times, and dabbling in a superficial way in many proponent's of this and that idea. Sales is a second life for me - what I do in sales by necessity is more than that including: advertising, marketing, promoting and prospecting, retailing and training recriuts - and with less then a dozen years of often confused and toddling experience, I feel the education has just begun.
Back to Aikido and the art of saving a life, it seems more and more to me that every important decision, every important choice in often unseen and deeply personal ways is a life and death decision - not necessarily without humor or mundane common place concerns nor necessarily with deep and serious implications every step of the way. Nevertheless, life and death.
From that perspective, the art of saving life would seem to be central to important buying decisions in a totally mutual life saving, life promoting, and life generating way. That movement could also be called the art of serving or preserving life.
I don't think this is either esoteric or off-the-wall, but it may well speak to the heart of something not typically considered in a sales environment or forum of ideas. But I may be wrong my experience being limited.
What other disciplines besides what I've just mentioned might come into personal play that could make all the difference in the world in one's sales success one can only imagine - and discover.
There's a potential discussion.
MitchM
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#2
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by MitchM
In the last century Morihei Ueshiba founded a martial art called Aikido. He was schooled in many martial arts and Aikido contains many dimensions which fit into a system the essence of which is to honor and save life - to preserve life through peace and harmony.
Like almost everything I've taken upon myself to learn, Aikido is a study born out of personal love of the subject. From the time I began learning yoga in my teens - I'm sixty-one today - through the decades of other disciplines I've found, I've always been a self taught learner rather than one who takes classes or organized training. So I remain somewhat of an amateur or connoisseur of what I study rather than professionally tutored. How I learn has it's stengths as well as weaknesses.
My study of sales strategies, tactics, methods, concepts is extremely limited other than some general reading, a little more specific reading at times, and dabbling in a superficial way in many proponent's of this and that idea. Sales is a second life for me - what I do in sales by necessity is more than that including: advertising, marketing, promoting and prospecting, retailing and training recriuts - and with less then a dozen years of often confused and toddling experience, I feel the education has just begun.
Back to Aikido and the art of saving a life, it seems more and more to me that every important decision, every important choice in often unseen and deeply personal ways is a life and death decision - not necessarily without humor or mundane common place concerns nor necessarily with deep and serious implications every step of the way. Nevertheless, life and death.
From that perspective, the art of saving life would seem to be central to important buying decisions in a totally mutual life saving, life promoting, and life generating way. That movement could also be called the art of serving or preserving life.
I don't think this is either esoteric or off-the-wall, but it may well speak to the heart of something not typically considered in a sales environment or forum of ideas. But I may be wrong my experience being limited.
What other disciplines besides what I've just mentioned might come into personal play that could make all the difference in the world in one's sales success one can only imagine - and discover.
There's a potential discussion.
MitchM
| Bruce Lee said all martial arts disciplines are artificial. I always saw a parallel to that with regard to selling systems. There is no best martial art. There is no best selling system. Too many variables in those who practice. Before I became a practicioner of both, I once asked a Karate black belt the naive question of who would win between a black belt and an accomplished street fighter. He said he would rate the odds even.
In sales, there are many diamonds in the rough who excel to the amazement of their peers.
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#3
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| Diamonds In The Rough
I've worked with a few diamonds in the rough. They've been motivated people and people who will do some introspection. Also, they are people who care about more than making a sale and will walk away from one if it's not right.
When the goal is saving, serving and preserving life and it's mutual in the genuine sense of caring about an outcome for everyone concerned, that has significant life and death qualities about it that molds the relationship as it progresses toward a natural conclusion.
MitchM
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#4
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Self-awareness.
The better I understand my feelings, actions, reactions, prejudices, fears and desires... the better I can see through them to what's really going on... The ability to listen without distortion is something I'm always working towards. 
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#5
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| Distortion - Clarity AND Saving Life
How the listener listens to him/herself and the other without distortion - with clarity - is part of the challenge - saying that or something like that in the beginning so everyone hears it can open up a dialogue beginning to work toward clarity with less distortion.
People who are very successful take each decision as a life an death decision mutually accountable - in other words, I want in the art of saving life to save, preserve and service you in a way that we have a continued relationship for the duration of our business lives. That means I take very seriously every sale and every component in a sale to have that same life/death quality.
My intent if expressed clearly should make that known and in that immediacy of expression create with it a relationship that transcends a simple want this or not decision.
The want this decision or inclination to want this then begins to have quality value when what follows is the conversation that creates trust and mutually wanting to do business together along with a description of what conditions and expectations have to be met on both sides of the table for the want to be acomplished.
Like I posted in my originial post, Sam, the life and death decision in the art of saving life is not necessarily without humor or mundane concerns nor is it necessarily with deep or dramaticlly serious implications every step of the way - though it may be. Nevertheless, it is a life and death drama in any small or large sense of the transaction.
MitchM
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