Long-Term Focus (Half The Battle Of Success)
How large are your obstacles?
I almost ignored the best advice I ever received about success. It was delivered by a cranky, old curmudgeon that taught my sales school nearly 17 years ago. The day it was delivered, I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
It was nearly the end of the day and the class was tired. The instructor asked us to raise our hand if we wanted to be successful in the insurance business 10 years from now. Everyone’s hand went up. He asked us to raise our hand again if we wanted to know how to be successful in the insurance business 10 years from now. Again, every hand quickly sprang up. He paused, let the suspense grow, and then said in a conspiratorial tone,
“To be a success in this business 10 years from now, you have to be in this business 10 years from now.” ………DUH!!!!!! Talk about anti-climatic….. I went home to the lovely Dizzy D and told her how dumb I thought the advice was.
The longer I have been in a leadership role in the Voluntary Benefits arena, the more I realize how incredibly brilliant this advice really was. It took a while for it to sink in, but I promise you that I get it now! My first year in the Voluntary Benefits arena I quit almost every day….. I just didn’t turn in my letter of resignation. I was driven by Norman Vincent Peal’s famous quote, “It’s always too early to quit.” (Tweet That!) 
Fast-forward 17 years to today. At least once a month I get the following call from one of the leaders on my team, “Tim, if we don’t fix this (insert minor issue here), we are going to lose Andy (our new agent)!” My response is always the same, “I understand why you are so concerned. The reality is that if this issue is going to spin them out of the business, we were going to lose them anyway.” What I’m trying to communicate is this: We are always going to run into issues and challenges when we are pursuing building a business. It’s how we deal with them that separates the winners from the also-rans.
The only way to overcome the day-to-day challenges you face as a salesperson is to focus on the long-term goals and dreams you have set for yourself. King Solomon said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Simon Sinek said, “Start with Why.” 
Both are making the point that the power to drive your business forward begins and ends in the size of the goal. When goals and dreams are small, the obstacles appear MASSIVE. When the goals and dreams are big enough, those same obstacles degenerate into minor annoyances.
To truly be successful in this business you must leverage the power of long-term focus. The clearer you can get on exactly what your future will look like, the more likely you are to pop out of bed, put on your big-agent panties, and attack the day!
