You've heard that haters gon' hate, right? It's actually been scientifically proven. The idea is that people are who they are; a leopard can't change its spots and all that.
I recently heard another axiom that was coined several thousand years ago, “Oxen gon' be oxen.” Actually, King Solomon said it, and he's known as the wisest man who ever lived — remember the thing with the baby and the sword?—so he didn't say it quite that way. He said it more like: “You want a great harvest, but you don't like your stables to get dirty. Problem is, you need oxen to work the field, and oxen make a mess in the stable because, well, oxen gon' be oxen.”
Zig Ziglar used to talk about “a blinding glimpse of the obvious.” Did you get that same blinding glimpse I did when you read Solomon's wisdom? Have you known agents who wanted to see their name beside the “No. 1” on the production report, but they didn't want to deal with messiness that comes with it?
How many times do we say we want that big group, but when the time comes to land it, we back off? Maybe we'll have to get licensed in other states. Maybe we'll have to use an online enrollment platform. Maybe they won't payroll deduct so we'll have to learn an alternative method. In short, it's going to get messy and we just don't think we're up for that. So we settle for… what? Don't you want to qualify for that convention trip just once in your life? Don't you want to feel what it's like to be No. 1 — just once?
I've gained so many life lessons from this career in benefits selling, but one of the most enduring has been this idea that if you want the meed (or reward) you have to take the mess. It's a fact of life, and the sooner we accept it, the fuller our careers—and lives—will be.
Have you ever avoided a relationship because you were afraid of the inevitable mess that came with it? And I don't mean the one where they drank too much or had a bad temper. I'm talking about “The One.” But still you knew things would eventually get messy because they always do. There's not enough room here to list all the messes that come with engaging with others. And yet, you didn't deprive yourself of the rewards, did you? Or if you did, you carry a bit of regret to this day.
The same is true for enterprise. Each time we engage with a prospect, we're inviting a disheveled stable. Each time we hire a new agent, we're inviting a messy feed trough. King Solomon's imagery was pretty vivid, wasn't it?
And here's another one: When you turn your oxen loose, the haters will, indeed, hate. But that's a column for next month.
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